A chill prickled Sally’s skin. It didn’t take much thinking to realise where Romanenko had gone. ‘UV One,’ she breathed.
‘What’s that?’ Chris said, drifting closer to her, head cocked to one side.
‘UV One.’
Chris heard her this time, and recoiled at the words. ‘But — why? Why would it take him? And how?’ He looked over his shoulder into Soyuz, as if expecting to see something he didn’t want to. Pushing Sally away, he heaved the airlock shut again and sealed it.
‘Can this take us home?’ Sally asked.
‘Uh, yeah,’ Chris said, pulling the locking lever tight. ‘Seems in good condition to me.’
‘Do you think the communication system still works? I wonder if Romanenko got to that as well?’
‘I don’t know,’ Chris said, floating by to reopen the module hatches. ‘I’ll run what we’ve found by Novitskiy before I do anything else.’
Sally could see it in his face and hear it in his voice: he was scared. Not just scared, terrified. The silent ghost ship had returned, the man he blamed himself for killing, gone. Worst of all, obvious physical evidence that UV One was not just in his mind, or any of their minds, had turned up right at their front door. The cage was open for him to leave, but just outside its safety lurked something he didn’t want to see.
‘How long do you think it’ll take before we can go home?’ Sally asked as Chris opened the final hatch, the one down into the MLM.
He stopped, flushed pink, the exertion of opening all the hatches painting a sheen of sweat on his face. ‘Couple of days or so at the most. Got to make sure the hull is structurally sound and all the systems are operating as they should.’ His eyes were big and white, an expression that looked out of place on a man like him. He gave Sally a curt nod, then retreated from the module, leaving Sally by herself.
A couple of days, she thought. A couple of days and we can go home.
Later that day they all reconvened for the evening meal. Eating together was an unspoken tradition that brought Sally comfort, even if the atmosphere at the table was tainted with nerves. They shared a joke or two between them, cursed Novitskiy’s cooking and recounted amusing anecdotes about their individual lives back on Earth. It wasn’t until they’d finished eating that the subject of the craft docked right above their heads came up, and only because Sally forced it to.
‘So I hear it’s just a few days until we can pack our things and leave,’ she said, broaching the topic like it was no big deal.
Chris looked at Novitskiy. Novitskiy looked at his lap.
‘What?’ Sally said, picking some food from between her teeth. ‘Will it be more?’ She looked between Chris and Novitskiy, their silence turning her nonchalance into concern, then worry. ‘What’s wrong?’
Novitskiy sighed deep and slow. ‘I’m sorry, Sally,’ he said, not looking up at her. ‘I should have mentioned it sooner, but I didn’t. I didn’t want you to worry.’
Sally’s mouth went dry. She tried to speak, but couldn’t.
‘Soyuz should be fine,’ Novitskiy said, ‘and it’ll only take a few days to check it over. But we have a problem.’ He looked up, straight into Sally’s eyes, and she could almost feel his weariness weighing her down. ‘There are four of us, and only space for three on board Soyuz.’
‘There’s enough space to squeeze a fourth person in, surely?’ Sally said. ‘It looked like there was — I checked.’
Novitskiy looked more and more broken up. ‘I’m afraid not. The extra mass would likely kill all of us on re-entry.’
The silence after Novitskiy had finished speaking echoed in Sally’s ears. ‘So who’s going to stay?’ she whispered.
‘I don’t know,’ Novitskiy said, looking down again.
Chris shuffled on the spot. ‘Why don’t we leave Gardner?’ he said in a low voice, almost as if he didn’t want Gardner’s frozen body at the other end of the station to hear.
Novitskiy looked at Chris, then at Sally, his face expectant.
‘We’re not leaving him here,’ Sally said. ‘I can’t believe you’d even think that.’ She folded her arms, appalled by the suggestion.
Chris shuffled again. ‘But he’s in a coma—’
‘No!’ Sally snapped, and Chris stopped talking. Silence resumed.
‘We don’t have to leave him like this,’ Novitskiy said. ‘We can — you know — help him…’
Sally stared at him. ‘Are you serious? You want to kill Gardner?’ She leaned back, shaking her head. ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this.’
Novitskiy didn’t respond. He just floated at the table, frail and exhausted-looking, his neck so thin his coveralls looked several sizes too big. As her anger washed away, a sympathy grew — for both of them. It was easy to forget how long they’d been up here and what had happened to them, the fragile wrecks they’d become. She suspected that if she met their former selves before they’d left Earth, she wouldn’t recognise them. ‘Okay then,’ she said. ‘In that case, I’ll stay.’
Novitskiy and Chris exchanged glances, then looked at her, expressions cautious.
‘You mean it?’ Chris said.
Sally nodded.
‘No, Sally,’ Novitskiy said. ‘I’m not going to let you do this.’ His tone was flat, as if he were fighting an urge to stay quiet.
‘I want to. You’ve both been through way more than I have. I can hang on a bit longer.’
‘But you don’t know how to look after the station—’
‘You can show me,’ Sally interrupted. ‘I’ve seen you doing it. It doesn’t look like too much work.’
Novitskiy’s eyes had gone distant and he was shaking his head. ‘I won’t have it,’ he said. ‘I’m staying. Me. Not you.’
‘You’re not staying —’ Sally began, but Novitskiy slammed his fist down onto the table, shocking her into silence.
‘I outrank you, and I’m telling you that you will be going, on Soyuz, back to Earth. And I won’t hear another word of it.’
With that, he left the module, leaving Sally and Chris by themselves. Sally didn’t know what to think: on the one hand, she was mortified at the thought of leaving Novitskiy up here on his own with nothing to keep him company but UV One, and on the other, she could already feel an elation fizzing like electricity in her chest at the thought of returning to Earth. She couldn’t believe it — she was going home.
‘Someone get Bales, quick — I’m getting a signal.’
Scott Thomas, the NASA scientist appointed as CAPCOM in Aleks’ absence, watched as a junior-level staff member scooted from his post and out the door. ‘Can you get me noise clean-up, please?’ he said. ‘And put this on the main speakers.’
His Russian counterpart leaned across the desk and tweaked the controls. Scott listened to his headset again.
‘TsUP, do you read?’ an American voice said over the speaker. ‘Come back, TsUP.’
Scott pressed his broadcast button. ‘This is TsUP, reading you five by five. Is this RS0ISS?’ He waited for the response, his breath caught in his throat.
‘Copy, TsUP, this is RS0ISS.’
A cheer rose up from Mission Control.
‘Quiet please, people,’ Scott said, and the murmur faded. ‘RS0ISS, what is your present situation?’
‘We’re comin’ home!’
A long whoop followed the message, and it was met by another cheer from Mission Control. Behind Scott, the double doors swung open and he turned to see Bales march through.
‘What’ve we got?’ he said. He seemed distracted.
‘RS0ISS, Flight,’ Scott said pulling off his headset. ‘They’re back online.’
‘Sitrep?’
‘Uh, I don’t know yet, we’ve just made contact this minute.’