This channel— I pointed at AUX27. It runs through an antenna on the underside of the explorer. I looked it up. It was installed for a waveform communication experiment, and is right next to the urine processor’s vent.
If they were alive NSP would know it. They would have figured it out.
It’s not impossible they missed this.
Or they do know it, he said slowly. And haven’t said anything because there’s nothing they can do about it.
A fan near my right ear began to whir; cold air filled the module. Don’t say that.
They want to forget them June.
Something in the fan began to flap—a cargo tag stuck in its filter—and I unstrapped myself and swam to pull it out.
Simon’s hands floated. I told Anu she shouldn’t go, he said. I said the explorer wasn’t ready. The fuel cell needed more testing, a longer study. She said that if NSP did all those tests she might be too old to go by the time they were done.
She was probably right.
I said there was more to life than one mission. There was me. Her friends. Her family—
You couldn’t convince her, I said.
She convinced me. There are risks in every mission. If something does go wrong, who should NSP trust to make it right? Who would I trust? Anu.
That’s true.
But that stupid speech I gave got in her head, he said. The day of the launch I stood at the bottom of the elevator and waited to wave goodbye. When Anu walked toward us in her jumpsuit she looked so capable and strong. But when she got closer I saw doubt in her expression. Maybe fear.
I folded the cargo tag in my hands. What would she say if she were here right now?
She’d say— Oh I don’t know. She’d say we have to replicate it, Simon said. The static. But we don’t have an antenna anywhere near that vent.
You and Amelia could install one during your spacewalk. It would take ten minutes. Fifteen tops.
He didn’t say anything. He unstrapped himself from his seat. Amelia won’t do it, he said.
Why?
She wants to forget too.
I waited until the next day when Amelia was in the gym, strapped into the stationary bike and pedaling hard. I hung on to a handrail and told her what I’d discovered and what I thought it meant. I spoke over the circular whine of the bike.
As I talked she didn’t react. Her feet didn’t slow; she stared straight ahead out the porthole, sweat darkening her T-shirt.
I got to the part about the antenna before she said anything.
You think the Inquiry crew are alive. Despite her physical exertion, her tone was even. Unemotional.
Yes.
And you want us to install an antenna during our spacewalk so you can prove it.
It won’t take long—
Dimitri, Lee, Missy, and Anu are dead.
That’s what everyone thinks.
They’re right. Because the alternative is— Her pace slowed by a little, and she shook her head slightly. Unthinkable.
She sped up again.
I kicked my body forward in the air and put my hand over the porthole in front of her. If they’re alive we can save them.
She looked at me. She was so thin. Sweat had pooled in the sharp notch of her clavicle.
Did you talk to Simon about this?
My feet waved in the air below me. Yes.
She sat back in her seat and the pedals of the bike drifted slowly forward. That was a cruel thing to do.
Can we install the antenna or not?
It’s a waste of time.
You’re wrong.
I waited for her to round on me then, to tell me off. She’d done it before, when we disagreed about the fastest method to unload a shipment or the best way to fix a piece of equipment.
But she didn’t. She turned back to the porthole, gripped the handlebars of the bike tighter, and sped up. The only fuel cells that could carry an explorer that far failed, she said. And we don’t know why.
We could find out—
We tried. We were all on the Pink Planet for months—me, Simon, James, and Theresa. Taking the fuel cell apart and putting it back together, hoping the rescue mission could be salvaged. James and Theresa are still there. It’s driven them half mad and they still don’t have an answer.
My stomach pressed against my skin. I didn’t know that.
There’s no way to reach the Inquiry crew. If they’re alive—a little shudder moved through her body—all we can hope for is that they figure out how to save themselves.
30
Amelia wouldn’t talk to me about it anymore that day. But I didn’t care. They were alive. I couldn’t know that and do nothing; I couldn’t know that and sit still. The sound—the rush of air, the high pops—was always with me now, which meant the Inquiry crew were always with me too. When the question of how we would get to them—and whether we could do it in time—came into my mind, I told myself, One thing at a time.
Then Simon discovered a leak in his suit, and the plan for the spacewalk changed. We couldn’t wait to repair the gyroscope because it was essential to keeping the station from slipping out of orbit. Rachel had to operate the robotic arm to deliver the new rotor for the failing gyroscope. So the spacewalk would have to be performed by Amelia and me.
In the airlock Amelia and I got into our suits. It had been weeks since I’d been in a suit and I struggled to push my limbs inside. My body was different inside its white layers, had expanded in some places and shrunk in others. My torso felt wobbly, but that was nerves. I’d already stowed an antenna in an outer compartment of my suit. I planned to install it next to the urine processing vent if given the opportunity. I hadn’t told anyone; I had hidden it that morning when I was doing systems checks alone.
I locked my helmet. Amelia tested the seals on our suits by raising the pressure inside the airlock, and we checked and rechecked our oxygen tanks. Together we opened the egress hatch and sparkling dust burst from the station. Small bolts and screws and a pencil bumped along the lock’s walls and wafted away. We blinked in the blinding sunlight.
Amelia pulled out a platform with foot restraints attached to it, and we transferred our tether cord clips from inside to outside and secured our boots. Then we let go and our arms floated and our tethers waved behind us like long tails. It felt as if we weren’t moving, as if the station stood still, even though we were speeding at eighteen thousand miles per hour around the Earth. There was complete silence. No wind. No vibration, despite everything going on inside the station’s walls, all its fans and pipes and wires.
Amelia talked into her radio, We’re proceeding aftward to the gyroscope panel.
Rachel’s voice sounded in our helmets, Roger that.
We pulled ourselves along on the handrails and navigated over and around jutting trusses, equipment, and antennae to the gyroscope compartment at the stern side of the station. When we reached the gray box we strapped our feet to the restraints below it. The Earth was gigantic ahead of us and its blues and greens and whites pressed hard against my eyes.
Amelia retrieved a screwdriver from her tool belt and began to slowly unscrew the compartment’s outer panel, and then its inner panel. Each screw she carefully placed inside her belt. We’re going to rotate the interior tray to access the R3 gyroscope, she told Rachel.
Okay. I’m going to start moving the arm into position.
Amelia positioned herself on one side of the tray, and I did on the other. The sun was behind us now and the station shined brilliantly like sun on water. Through my gloves I felt the heat of my handrail, like the handle of a pot left on the stove too long. We turned the tray, and then pulled it halfway out of its compartment. I pushed my body inside, opened the R3 gyroscope, and began to unscrew the malfunctioning rotor. Above Amelia’s head the arm inched toward us.