“Lance? Nah. He the only one didn’ get sick on the Vomit Comet,” Freddy said. Nearly everybody had upchucked during the long series of parabolic maneuvers aboard the KC-135. The plane would dive and then nose up, giving the collection of fledgling space workers a few gut-wrenching moments of weightlessness before it dove again toward the lush green mat of central Florida.
Freddy craned his neck to take a look at Muncie. “Hey, man, you okay?”
“No. Terrible.”
“Tha’s crazy, man. You got the strongest stomach I know, except for my cousin Felix. And tha’s because his wife can’t cook.”
“Maybe it’s the excitement of being here for real,” O’Donnell suggested.
Muncie started to shake his head. His face turned greenish.
“Tha’s it,” Freddy agreed cheerfully. “Okay, Lance, I leave you alone.”
O’Donnell didn’t feel so well himself. He attempted a few deep breaths, but found it impossible to fill his lungs. Loosening his harness did not help. He merely bobbed against the straps without any effect on his ability to breathe. Microgravity allowed his internal organs to shift upward, which seemed to restrict his lung capacity. He settled for concentrating on the clock, its LED digits moving in increasing speed from minutes to seconds to tenths of seconds to hundredths of seconds. In front of him, two Japanese technicians jabbered noisily. Behind him, an American technician and a Swedish scientist compared microgravity symptoms. The American complained of a severe headache and the Swede stated that she had trouble focusing on nearby objects.
Just after the forty-five-minute mark, the commander announced: “We are now about twelve miles in front and slightly above Trikon Station. You’ll feel a few bumps and nudges as we use the RCS thrusters to kill off the drift rates and close in on the station. Then we’ll make a low-z translation for berthing.”
O’Donnell remembered that the RCS engines were the reaction control system jets that were used to make small maneuvering corrections. But what a low-z translation might be was a mystery to him.
The shuttle flew through night. The passengers ooohed and aaahed at the star-like patterns of city lights displayed on the portside monitor. Then came the real show—sunrise. It began with a faint rosy glow throwing the rim of the Earth into silhouette. Like a film run at fast speed, the glow boiled over the horizon, then separated into bands of brilliant colors—blues, reds, yellows, oranges. Finally came the golden bloom of the sun.
“Approaching Trikon Station,” said Williams.
“There it is,” said Freddy. “Looks like a giant silver diamond.”
“Trikon Station,” Williams called. “This is Constellation. Preparing for berthing.”
“Roger, Constellation,” spoke a voice from the station. “Damn happy to see you, too. That old bird never looked so beautiful.”
The minutes inched by. The middeck passengers could hear Williams talking with the station, but it was all the clipped, incomprehensible jargon of professionals.
Finally Williams said, “Okay, folks. We are now station-keeping—hanging just outside Trikon’s main docking port. They’re cranking up their RMS to latch onto us and pull us up to the port. We’ll be berthed in a couple of minutes.”
O’Donnell pictured the spindly robot arm of the remote manipulator system reaching out to take the shuttle in its metal grip and slowly, gently bring it into contact with the airlock.
He felt a small thump.
“Bull’s-eye,” said the station voice.
Duncan, the second pilot of the shuttle, floated down from the flight deck and squeezed past the passengers to enter the airlock and complete the mating of the two ports.
Williams announced, “There will be a slight delay as we pressurize the connecting tunnel, check for leaks, and equalize pressure with Trikon. Might as well unstow your gear.”
The passengers released themselves from their seat harnesses. In the cramped quarters of the middeck there was much bumping and banging, but eventually everyone managed to pull their flight bags out of the lockers. The shoulder straps were useless and wriggled like snakes until Freddy suggested wrapping them around the bag and holding the bag under the arm. The slight delay was much longer than Williams had predicted.
“Like deplaning at LAX,” grumbled O’Donnell. He noticed that Muncie was still in his chair. Their eyes met momentarily. Muncie looked frightened, like a kid who had lost his mother in a crowded shopping mall. He closed his eyes tightly for a moment, as if trying to summon up whatever inner reserves of courage he had. Then Muncie unhooked his harness and eased himself afloat. He groped toward the lockers and did not seem to remember which one held his flight bag. When he finally located the locker, he fumbled with the latch until Freddy reached over to help.
“Was stuck, eh?” said Freddy.
“Yeah. Thanks.” Muncie pulled out the flight bag and wrapped the strap as the others had done.
“Airlock is open,” said Freddy. He placed his hands on Muncie’s shoulders. “Man, you don’t look so good.”
“I still feel lousy.”
“Happens to the best of us.”
“But this is happening to me.”
“You’ll shake it.”
O’Donnell followed as Freddy guided Muncie through the ribbed plastic tunnel connecting the shuttle’s docking adapter to the station’s airlock hatch. Floating awkwardly, bumping into one another, they entered the instrument-crammed command module, where a Trikon crewman hustled them through and out into the station’s connecting passageway. O’Donnell felt the amused attitude of the Trikon technicians on duty in the command module, the typical knowing smirk of veterans eyeing newly arrived rookies.
The passageway was a confusion of greens, browns, blues, and whites, bathed in intense light. O’Donnell shaded his eyes. The blues gradually emerged from the background as three figures dressed in flight suits. The middle figure was a stocky man with a broken nose and a red face. O’Donnell recognized him from his pictures as Commander Dan Tighe. The other two were a woman and a black man.
The last of the shuttle passengers floated into the passageway. Then the twelve newcomers bunched up around Tighe and the two others. O’Donnell noticed that all three of them had their stockinged feet firmly attached to loops set into the flooring.
“I want to welcome all of you aboard Trikon Station,” said Tighe. “I’m Dan Tighe, station commander. To my right is Dr. Lorraine Renoir. She’s the station medical officer, so I’m sure all of you will get to know her.”
Freddy nudged Lance in the shoulder. Lance choked back a belch.
“To my left is Crewman William Jeffries. You probably won’t get to know him because, unfortunately, he is due to leave with the shuttle. Unless you want to stay, Jeff.”
Jeffries smiled benignly.
“You will all be assigned sleeping compartments in Habitation Module Two. Hab Two is aft, behind me, through hatch H-Two, second hatch on the port side. That’s your right side as yon move aft, if your head is toward the ceiling. If you get confused about orientation there are big arrows on the walls of the tunnels at five-meter intervals. The red arrows point forward and the blue arrows point to the ceiling. And they glow in the dark.”
Tighe hesitated a moment. When he saw that there were no questions, he went on, “I want you to stow your personal articles in the rumpus room until the departing people finish packing. The rumpus room is located at the far end of the connecting tunnel. You can secure your flight bags to the walls with clips or bungee cords. You may see some funny-looking plants floating around in there at the ends of tethers. They are bonsai plants. Anyone who touches them will be summarily executed.”
Tighe smiled crookedly. A titter coursed through the new arrivals. Muncie did not laugh. Beads of sweat oozed across his brow. He struggled to loosen the collar of his flight suit.