“My family's safe!” said Paul with immense relief. “They've been taken to an air base, sixty metres above sea level. My wife, both my children and their families.”
“That is very good news,” said Jayesh, smiling his pleasure. “My own family live in Jabalpur, nearly two hundred metres above sea level. It is also pretty much the least earthquake prone region of India. It may well be the safest place in the world now.”
Paul smiled back. “Maybe I’ll move there when this is all over,” he said. “Me and the whole family. A place of stability, where we can watch the moon passing overhead every twenty nine days and just laugh at it.”
“You would be very welcome. The last time I was there half the city was empty. I expect that’s changed by now.”
“And if it hasn't yet, it very soon will.” He paused, a thoughtful look on his face. “It's going to be a strange world we end up living in. At the moment, more than half the human race lives on the coast. In the future, coastal cities are going to be empty half the time, with everyone retreating to higher ground every time the moon comes sweeping in, then returning to handle sea trade and fishing as it moves away again. They’re going to be like oil rigs and the Antarctic stations, inhabited only by the people working there. They won't be places where anyone actually lives any more. They'll be soulless workplaces. No parks, no football fields. No plant life of any kind. Not even salt loving shore plants, because they won't be able to handle the dryness for the four weeks between perigees. Just bare mud and concrete.”
“In Bangladesh, they build cities on stilts to avoid the flooding. Perhaps, in time, the coastal cities will be like that, with parks and football fields high above even the highest high tide.”
“That’d be one hell of a project! Two cities, one above the other. Above, trees and grass and pretty houses with gardens while, below, the ships come in to dock whenever the tide's neither too high nor too low. Imagine cutting the grass in your garden while knowing that, twenty metres below your feet, no, more like fifty, there's a massive container ship being unloaded. Damn, I'd like to live long enough to see that!”
“First, though, we must attend to more pressing matters,” said the Indian, looking out through the small round porthole. “The Chinese rocket is making its final approach.”
He moved aside to let the other man see, and Paul gasped at the sight of it. The Long March 22 had used its first stage and a cluster of huge booster rockets to get into space, but the rest of it, all sixty five metres of it, was still all in one piece making it by far the largest object ever to approach the space station. It was a huge cylinder, gleaming new, the sun reflecting brilliantly from the attitude control jets and various fixtures and fittings. Colourful markings and insignia stood out brightly on its curving hull. It all looked magnificent, a glorious tribute to the modern age, or it would have if the effect hadn't been spoiled by the dark, grubby capsule attached to its front end, looking like some kind of cancerous growth.
It was approaching the station with alarming speed. The Chinese were apparently in a hurry to get to work as fast as possible. “Harmony space station," said the voice from the intercom. "This is Lunar Rescue One. Do you read me?”
“Lunar Rescue One, this is Harmony space Station,” they heard Susan reply from the command module. “How you doing, guys?”
“We are doing very well. We request permission to approach and park alongside.”
There was a pause while Susan spoke to the ground controllers. “Permission granted, Lunar Rescue One.” she said at last. “We will deploy the mooring arm.”
“Thank you, Harmony. Making final approach now.”
There was no apparent change to the approaching rocket, though. It had already been approaching and it continued to do so, aimed so that it would pass on the side of the station opposite the solar panels and making a closest approach of twenty metres or so. Then the attitude control rockets lit up, though, in a continuous burn to slow down the vast spaceship and bring it to a halt. It reduced speed slowly and gracefully, taking a full ten minutes to come to a complete stop, and then it rotated along its axis to bring its mooring point to face the space station. In the command module, Susan then told the mooring arm to reach out and lock onto the mooring point, forming a link between the two structure and holding it steady, although since the rocket was nearly half the length of the space station and had more than double its mass it was more a case of the rocket holding the space station steady.
“If that thing lights up now...”
“The arm would just snap off,” said Jayesh. “It’s got a deliberate weak point just in case that very thing happens.”
“That's reassuring.”
Susan’s voice came over the intercom again. “Would you like to come over and rest for a few hours before you get to work? Perhaps get something to eat?”
“Thank you but no,” said a female voice. “We would like to get to work as quickly as possible. May we use the equipment aboard your space station?”
“Of course. Everything you need is in the Heineman module, Paul and Jayesh are already there, waiting to assist you. Please use airlock two.”
“Thank you, Harmony. We'll be right over.”
A few moments later a hatch opened in the ancient Shenzou capsule, the ugly lump on the front of the rocket, and two figures carefully squeezed their way out of it, both wearing wings similar in design to the ones Susan had used but more ornamental. Deliberately beautiful. Chinese, thought Paul in amusement. They couldn't make an ugly piece of equipment if they tried.
One of the Chinese astronauts was holding a reel of cable in his hands and he, or she, attached one end of it to an attachment point on the side of the rocket. He then deployed his wings and used them to fly across space towards the space station, letting the cable play out behind him. The other suited figure, meanwhile, was doing something to the rocket near where the cable was attached. He appeared to be pulling and turning a series of latches, as if getting ready to open another hatch.
The first suited figure, meanwhile, had reached the space station and Paul, looking through the small window, saw him attaching the other end of the cable to an attachment point beside the airlock door to form a cable ‘bridge’ that would make it easier to travel to and from the rocket. Then, after returning his wings to their storage positions, he entered the airlock and closed the outer door behind him. Paul and Jayesh waited for it to cycle and for the inner door to open, and then the figure pulled himself through and removed his helmet.
The figure was revealed to be a middle aged Chinese woman with short, dark hair held down by a tight fitting hair net. “My name is Yu Han,” she said in a stiff, clumsy accent. “Please forgive the unseemly haste but time is short. We would like permission to leave both doors of the airlock open, to make it easier to come and go quickly.”
Paul and Jayesh stared at each other in astonishment. “You can't do that, I'm afraid,” said Paul. “There are safety features built in to make that impossible.”
“We know how to override the safety features. It will only take a moment and we will put it back to its proper state when we are finished. It will greatly increase the speed with which we can work.”
“It would mean leaving this whole module in vacuum!”
“Ground control has already okayed it, guys,” said Susan’s voice over the intercom. “They say the urgency of the situation justifies the risk.”
Paul and Jayesh stared at each other again. “Well, if they say it’s okay...” said Paul.
Yu smiled with pleasure. It made dimples appear at the corners of her mouth. “If you gentlemen would mind leaving, then, I will get to work. Will you be able to use the ROMIS to help us? It is only a matter of bolting components together. Nothing complicated.”
“I'd be glad to,” said Paul. “Just tell me what you want me to do.”
Yu nodded. “I understand a member of your crew is qualified to work in space.”
“Yes,” said Jayesh. “Susan Kendall.”
“It would help us a great deal if she would also assist us in the assembly. The more hands we have, the faster the work will go.”
“I'm sure she'll be delighted,” said Paul, who was sure she’d be anything but. “I'll go help her get suited up.”
“Thank you very much. Please leave me now, to begin work.”
She replaced her helmet and then turned to the tool racks attached to the walls of the module. She found what she was looking for straight away, a ratchet spanner, and turned back to the airlock door. She seemed to know where everything was supposed to be already, and so the two men left her to it, closing the hatch behind them.
☆☆☆
Susan's reaction was exactly what Paul had expected it to be. She swore and cursed, and there was a look of genuine fear on her face, as if it wasn't just the discomfort and unpleasantness that was putting her off. She was genuinely afraid of going back out there. “Look, you don’t have to if you don't want to,” said Paul. "If you've got a genuine phobia, that could put your life at risk. You could be risking the others... “
“It's not an actual phobia,” Susan replied, though. “I can do it. I was just hoping I'd never have to again.”
Paul looked around to make sure there were no active microphones listening in on them. “You could say you're feeling unwell. People have genuine medical reactions to a space environment...”
“I've been up here for months and I've never had the slightest health problem. They won’t believe me if I suddenly have one now.”
“You could say you've been feeling a bit off for days and just didn't want to mention it. Look, if you genuinely don't like it out there you might hurry the work, to get back in faster. You might make a mistake...”
“I won't make a mistake. I’m going to get suited up. Come help me in a little while, okay?”
“If you’re sure...”
“Let's just get it done. I'll let you know when I'm ready.”
She swam through the hatch towards the Rotterdam module, one of the places where there were spacesuits stored. Arriving there, she got undressed, put a catheter into herself and put on the sanitary garment, something she was well practised with and got done in just a couple of minutes. Then she began pulling on the cooling jumpsuit. She got it up to her hips, which was as much as she could do by herself, and called on Paul to help her. He arrived a couple of minutes later and helped her pull the suit the rest of the way up.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“You really sure you’re up to this?” he asked.
“I'm okay,” she said, making a effort to sound calm and composed. She smiled back at him. “I've done this loads of times before. I'll be fine.”
“If you’re not fine, come back immediately. Understand?”
“Promise. How do I look?”
“I think you're okay. Still can't get rid of that fold around your collar bone.”
“We never can,” she said, pulling the hood up over her head. A few stray strands of hair were still falling around her face, she tucked them back under the tight fabric. “It’s never been a problem. Help me with the lower torso unit.”
Twenty minutes later she was fully dressed in the spacesuit except for the helmet, which she held in one hand. She turned on the intercom. “What was her name again?” she asked Paul in a low voice.”
“Yu Han,” said a female voice from the speaker in her helmet.
“Yes, sorry,” said Susan, turning red with embarrassment. Paul put a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing. “I'm pretty much ready to come out now,” she said. “Paul, help me with the wings.”
Paul helped her strap the compact unit around her shoulders. She read the fuel gauge, checking that it was full, and pressed the test button on the strap crossing her chest to run a diagnostic program. The green ‘ready’ button lit up. She took the handheld control unit from its storage position beside her shoulder, held it in her fist and moved the small joystick with her thumb. An image projected onto the inside of her visor told her that the unit was responding correctly. “Okay,” she said. “I'm ready.”
“Good,” said Yu. “You'll need an eighteen millimetre spanner, nothing else. Please come to the rocket’s payload bay.”
“On my way,” said Susan.
“And I'll go get the robot fired up,” said Paul. “See you out there.”
“See you out there,” replied Susan. She put the helmet on and swam into the airlock.
☆☆☆
Koshing Goushi had removed the Shenzou re-entry module from the rocket and fitted a small rocket engine to its flat side. It now floated beside the Long March, the three metre diameter hemisphere dwarfed by the ten metre diameter cylinder. “Ready to de-orbit the Shenzou,” he said.
“Do it,” said Yu.
“Acknowledged. Commencing de-orbit burn.” The small rocket lit up and the module drifted away from the space station, beginning its last journey that would culminate in its burning up in the Earth’s atmosphere.
“Is there any chance it could survive re-entry?” asked Paul, watching on a screen in the space station's command module. “It was designed to do that, after all.”
“It is on a trajectory that will guarantee that it burns up,” replied the engineer. “No part of it will reach the ground, I guarantee it.”
“Okay. I see you’ve started the assembly without us.” Paul moved the ROMIS closer to get a better look.
“No time to waste if we want to meet our launch window.”
Koshing had removed the outer casing from the forward end of the rocket, the end that had been just behind the Shenzou capsule. Inside was tightly packed machinery that the engineer had removed and that now floated all around it, attached by fine strands of cable to stop it drifting away and getting lost. Inside, still attached to the rocket, was a metal cage containing a jumble of machinery that looked as though it had never been meant to go together.
“Is that it?” asked Paul. “That's the machine that’s going to remove the mass from the moon?”
“No,” replied Koshing, and Paul heard amusement in his voice. “That is mainly transformers and processing units. This is the device that will remove the mass from the moon.”
He moved in close and reached out a gloved hand to indicate something in the centre of it all. Susan moved closer to see better, and Paul moved the ROMIS closer as well. Right in the centre of the untidy assemblage of machinery was something small and round. About three centimetres across, dull white in colour but streaked with red and with cables protruding from one side. It looked disturbingly like an eyeball that had been ripped from someone's head.
“That?” said Paul in disbelief. “That tiny thing?”
“The whole space station is a tiny thing compared to the moon,” pointed out the engineer. “We have been assured that it will do the job, though.”
“How does it work?”
“I do not know, I am not a scientist.”
“If we may get to work?” said Yu, floating in alongside. “Koshing and I will assemble the apparatus. We have been thoroughly coached on the procedure and know what to do. Paul and Sarah will assemble the solar panels. This merely involves moving them into position and bolting them together, then attaching the power cables. There will be four main struts reaching out from the rocket, with the panels attached to either side of each strut. A diagram has been etched into the inside of casing element one.” She indicated a curved sheet of steel floating nearby, attached to a thin tether. It looked a little like a beetle’s wing case. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” said Sarah, floating over to look at it. Then she used her wings to take her over to the nearest solar panel. “These look like they came from someone's roof.”
“They did come from someone's roof, or they would have if we hadn't taken them from the factory first. We had to use what we could get.”
“Okay,” said Sarah. “Let's make a start, then. We'll have to do the strut first. Grab that length there, Paul.”
Paul reached out with the ROMIS’s robot hand and took hold of the three metre long strut section. It consisted of three aluminium bars running parallel in a triangular arrangement and held together with diagonal cross members. He carefully moved it into position, with one end touching its attachment point on the rocket. Then Sarah fitted bolts through the holes that had been drilled for them and began tightening them up.
☆☆☆
It took them about twenty four hours to complete the assembly, with the astronauts returning to the space station every few hours to rest, eat and have a short nap. The two Chinese engineers begrudged every delay and urged them to return to work as soon as possible, but Jayesh was adamant that they be fully rested before returning to the construction. As the doctor he had the final word, but the two engineers were so insistent that he relented a little and agreed to allow Susan to go back to work sooner than he ideally would have wanted, so long as she thought she was up to it. Susan just wanted it to be over as soon as possible and so agreed to make do with nothing more than the odd catnap, during which she remained in her spacesuit. Paul, of course, could take turns with Benny to operate the ROMIS and so had no such problems, but he watched Susan carefully, looking for the first sign that she was beginning to suffer from fatigue or stress.
Finally, though, the construction was complete and the astronauts drew back to look at it. The Long March rocket now looked a little like a dragonfly, with four wings made of solar panels reaching out diagonally from the front of the rocket. The machine at the front, which would actually reduce the moon's mass, was too small to see at this distance.
They removed the cable linking the space station to the rocket and Paul unfastened the mooring arm, leaving the rocket floating freely in space. “Now all that remains is to wait for the launch window,” said Koshing as they all returned to the space station. “Fifteen minutes from now.” He sounded pleased. If they'd missed the window, they would have had to wait ninety minutes for the space station to make another orbit around the earth. As Benny returned the ROMIS to its storage bay, Paul looked out the window and saw that the Long March had already fired its small manoeuvring rockets to take it a safe distance from the space station. Then it turned, slowly and gracefully, to point its great engines in the right direction.
Back in the space station, the men each took a spacesuited astronaut and helped them to undress. Paul found himself with Yu, who chatted amicably about life in her home village as he helped her out of her cooling jumpsuit. As she pulled the hair net from her head, Paul found himself growing rather aroused by the smell of stale sweat that rose from her black hair where it was plastered to her scalp. She then unfastened the front of the cooling jumpsuit and pulled it open, releasing more stale sweat smell. She wasn't wearing a bra, Paul noticed, and seemed to have no self consciousness as she peeled the jumpsuit from her chest.
Yu noticed the Englishman trying to avert his eyes and laughed. “I wore a brassiere when I was young and shy,” she said, “But it was uncomfortable. It would get soaked with sweat and chafe my skin and I thought why am I doing this to myself when we are all sensible adults?"
She laughed again and Paul relaxed in relief but then, to his alarm, she began to remove her sanitary garment. “Don’t you want to go somewhere private to do that?” he asked, but she just smiled at him without pausing so he and Benny left the two women to it.
They wanted to watch the rocket make its departure, and so they decided to leave the ‘showers’ until afterwards. Susan and their Chinese visitors dressed themselves in towels, therefore, Yu merely putting hers around her waist. Paul, joining them in the Rotterdam module, which was positioned to give the best view, looked up at the camera mounted on the wall and wondered what the ground controllers were making of this, but no comment came from the speaker.
He hated himself for the way his eyes were constantly drawn to the Chinese woman's small breasts. You’re married, you idiot! he scolded himself, but his brain didn't care and kept trying to turn his eyes in her direction. At least Susan was fully covered, with her towel covering everything between her shoulders and her bare feet. He made himself look out the window at the rocket, which had shrunk to a much smaller size with the distance.
A voice speaking Chinese came from the speaker. “Engine ignition in sixty seconds,” said one of the Canberra ground controllers, translating. There was no need for anyone in the space station or Australia to do anything. The Long March was being controlled from Jiuchan in China.
“No spacecraft has ever flown a trajectory like this before,” said Koshing, adjusting the towel around his waist. “It will fly almost directly towards the moon, go past it and then turn almost one hundred and eighty degrees to catch up with it from behind.”
“Very wasteful of fuel,” said Benny.
“Yes, but it is the only way to match velocities with the moon fast enough. It will enter orbit around the moon, and then the device will activate.”
“And you really think it’ll work?” asked Susan. “You think it’s actually possible?”
“I guess we’ll see in a day or so,” said Paul.
“But it can't work!” protested Susan. “It's just not possible!”
“Like I said, we’ll see before long.”
Susan stared at him, sheer disbelief on her face, but then she shrugged and turned back to the window. The voices from the speaker were counting down the last few seconds. “We're getting good power from the solar panels,” the Australian voice translated. “Everything's green. We're good to go.” A different Chinese voice spoke, but the same Australian voice translated. “Departure is approved. Prepare for ignition. Ignition in five seconds. Four, three...”
There was already a blue glow coming from the fifteen nozzles at the rear of the rocket, though. The voice from Canberra was delayed by the speed of light. Gradually the huge rocket began to move, picking up speed. The beams holding the solar panels bent a little as they gained weight, but the Chinese engineers had done their calculations correctly and they stood up to the strain. “Spacecraft is nominal,” the speaker said. “Trajectory is good. Engine shutdown in ten minutes twenty seconds.”
“Guess we didn't make any mistakes then,” said Susan, giving Paul a look.
He smiled apologetically back at her. “You okay?” he asked.
“Fine,” she said. She looked tired, but there was relief there as well. She really did hate spacewalking, and this unexpected task had come as a shock to her, but it was done now and there surely wouldn't be another reason for her to go out there. She was done spacewalking, for ever, and she had never been more glad of anything in her life. “Nothing to do now but go home.”
“We can't go now until the moon’s gone past,” said Jayesh. “If this Chinese miracle device does somehow work, free falling trajectories will be impossible to calculate. We might think we’re at the right angle of attack and then the Chinese will turn their device on or turn it off and the new gravitational force will throw us off. Like it or not, we've got to wait until after perigee.”
“The effect won't be too bad, surely,” said Benny, though. “And the moon’s still a couple of days away. There's no reason why we can't go now. I was hoping to be back with my family when the moon goes past.”
“Best we wait,” said Koshing. “After all these months, another few days will make no difference.”
“You're guests here. You don’t make the decisions.”
“Neither do you. We wait.”
Benny shared a glance with Jayesh, then with Paul. He's still thinking of taking the shuttle, against the instructions of the ground controllers, Paul realised with shock. It would mean stranding anyone who refused to come with him, but maybe he'd be prepared to do that. It wouldn't be as if he was sentencing them to death, after all. They'd still have the Jinlong, which could be refuelled by the Mule. What would he say if the Swede asked him to come with him? he wondered. How much trouble would he be in when he was back on the ground? Did he want to be back with his family badly enough to be willing to face the consequences?
They watched the rocket as it shrank in the distance, eventually becoming just one more star, and then Yu gave a great sigh of relief. “Well, I am going to get myself cleaned up,” she said. “I am sure you will all be very relieved when I smell sweet again. Come, Susan. We will talk about men while we wash.”
Susan smiled and followed the Chinese woman as she swam through the air towards the hatch.
“We have two sanitary areas,” said Paul to Koshing. “One in each of the habitation modules...”
“I know,” the engineer replied, smiling. “I helped assemble this place. I will see you gentlemen later.”
He swam after the women, but turned left rather than right while trying to keep the blanket from drifting out of place. Paul, Benny and Jayesh then looked out the small window one last time before returning to their normal duties.