Sawyer, Robert J - SS - Above It All.pdf - Robert J Sawyer - przemosta

Above It All

byRobert J. Sawyer

First published in the anthology Dante's Disciples, edited by Peter Crowther

and Edward E. Kramer (White Wolf, February 1996).

Winner of the CompuServe Science Fiction and Fantasy Forum's Sixth Annual

HOMerAward for Best Short Story of the Year.

Rhymes with fear.

Page 1

The words echoed in Colonel Paul Rackham's head as he floated in

Discovery's airlock, the bulky Manned Maneuvering Unit clamped to his back. Air

was being pumped out; cold vacuum was forming around him.

Rhymes with fear.

He should have said no, should have let McGovern or one of the

otherstake the spacewalk instead. But Houston had suggested that Rackham do it,

and to demure he'd have needed to state a reason.

Just a dead body, he told himself. Nothing to be afraid of.

There was a time when a military man couldn't have avoided seeing

death -- but Rackham had just been finishing high school during Desert Storm.

Sure, as a test pilot, he'd watched colleagues die in crashes, but he'd never

actuallyseen the bodies. And when his mother passed on, she'd had a closed

casket. Hischoice, that, made without hesitation the moment the funeral

directorhad asked him -- his father, still in a nursing home, had been in no

condition to make the arrangements.

Rackhamwas wearing liquid-cooling long johns beneath his spacesuit,

tubescirculating water around him to remove excess body heat. He shuddered, and

the tubes moved in unison, like a hundred serpents writhing.

He checked the barometer, saw that the lock's pressure had dropped

below0.2 psi -- just a trace of atmosphere left. He closed his eyes for a

moment, trying to calm himself, then reached out a gloved hand and turned the

actuatorthat opened the outer circular hatch. "I'm leaving the airlock," he

said. He was wearing the standard "Snoopy Ears" communications carrier, which

coveredmost of his head beneath the space helmet. Two thin microphones

protruded in front of his mouth.

"Copy that, Paul," said McGovern, up in the shuttle's cockpit. "Good

Page 2

luck."

Rackhampushed the left MMU armrest control forward. Puffs of

nitrogenpropelled him out into the cargo bay. The long space doors that

normallyformed the bay's roof were already open, and overhead he saw Earth in

allits blue-and-white glory. He adjusted his pitch with his right hand control,

thenbegan rising up. As soon as he'd cleared the top of the cargo bay, the

Russian space station Mir was visible, hanging a hundred meters away, a giant

metalcrucifix. Rackham brought his hand up to cross himself.

"I have Mir in sight," he said, fighting to keep his voice calm.

"I'm going over."

Rackhamremembered when the station had gone up, twenty years ago in

1986. He first saw its name in his hometown newspaper, the Omaha World Herald.

Mir, the Russian word for peace -- as if peace had had anything to do with its

beingbuilt. Reagan had been hemorrhaging money into the Strategic Defense

Initiative back then.If the Cold War turned hot, the high ground would be in

orbit.

Even then, even in grade eight, Rackham had been dying to go into

space. No price was too much. "Whatever it takes," he'd told Dave -- his

sometimesfriend, sometimes rival -- over lunch. "One of these days, I'll be

floatingright by that damned Mir. Give the Russians the finger." He'd

pronounced Mir as if it rhymed with sir.

Dave had looked at him for a moment, as if he were crazy. Then,

dismissingall of it except the way Paul had spoken, he smiled a patronizing

smileand said, "It's meer , actually.Rhymes with fear."

Rhymes with fear.

Page 3

Paul's gaze was still fixed on the giant cross, spikes of sunlight

glintingoff it. He shut his eyes and let the nitrogen exhaust push against the

small of his back, propelling him into the darkness.

"I've got a scalpel," said the voice over the speaker at mission

controlin Kaliningrad. "I'm going to do it."

Flight controller Dimitri Kovalevsky leaned into his mike. "You're

makinga mistake, Yuri. You don't want to go through with this." He glanced at

thetwo large wall monitors. The one showing Mir's orbital plot was normal; the

other, which usually showed the view inside the space station, was black. "Why

don'tyou turn on your cameras and let us see you?"

The speaker crackled with static. "You know as well as I do that the

camerascan't be turned off. That's our way, isn't it? Still -- even after the

reforms-- cameras with no off switches."

"He's probably put bags or gloves over the lenses," said

Metchnikoff, the engineer seated at the console next to Kovalevsky's .

"It's not worth it, Yuri," said Kovalevsky into the mike, while

noddingacknowledgement at Metchnikoff . "You want to come on home? Climb into

theSoyuz and come on down. I've got a team here working on the re-entry

parameters."

" Nyet," said Yuri. "It won't let me leave."

"What won't let you leave?"

"I've got a knife," repeated Yuri, ignoring Kovalevsky's question.

"I'm going to do it."

Page 4

Kovalevskyslammed themike's off switch. " Dammit, I'm no expert on

this. Where's that bloody psychologist?"

"She's on her way," said Pasternak, the scrawny orbital-dynamics

officer. "Another fifteen minutes, tops."

Kovalevskyopened the mike again. "Yuri, are you still there?"

No response.

"Yuri?"

"They took the food," said the voice over the radio, sounding even

farther away than he really was, "right out of my mouth."

Kovalevskyexhaled noisily. It had been an international

embarrassmentthe first time it had happened. Back in 1994, an unmanned Progress

rocket had been launched to bring food up to the two cosmonauts then aboard Mir.

But when it docked with the station, those cosmonauts had found its cargo hold

empty-- looted by ground-support technicians desperate to feed their own

starvingfamilies. The same thing had happened again just a few weeks ago. This

timethe thieves had been even more clever -- they'd replaced the stolen food

withsacks full of dirt to avoid any difference in the rocket's pre-launch

weight.

"We got food to you eventually," said Kovalevsky .

"Oh, yes," said Yuri. "We reached in, grabbed the food back -- just

likewe always do."

"I know things haven't been going well," said Kovalevsky , "but --"

"I'm all alone up here," said Yuri. He was quiet for a time, but

thenhe lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Except I discover I'm not alone."

Kovalevskytried to dissuade the cosmonaut from his delusion.

Page 5

Sawyer, Robert J - SS - Above It All.pdf

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