J. Wheeler - The Krone Experiment

“Major, are you out of the line of fire?”

“Yes, sir—”

“Then make sure your eyes are goddamned covered!”

The laser! Jupp had not been watching the clock in his fascination with the laborious climb up the face of the Cosmos. He barely had time to throw his arms up over his faceplate. The laser port was between the protuberance Newman stood on and the one that followed in the sense of rotation. The timing was immaculate. The laser flared as the rotation swept it in the direction of the shuttle, the vast surge of energy passing several hundred feet above the shuttle. Jupp slowly lowered his arms and looked at the clock. About twenty-four minutes between shots, just as before. The remaining thrusters flared on the Cosmos, and it slowed and slewed again, a little erratically Jupp thought, the effect of the destroyed thruster pair. Hurriedly, Jupp eased the shuttle into a new safe position.

“Everything all right?” Wahlquist wanted to know.

“Yeah,” replied Jupp, “we were out of the line of fire, but I shouldn’t have lost track of the time. He’s torched the upper pair of thrusters. Now he’s leaning over and cutting a hole in the top edge of the wing projection. Another one in the hull just above the wing. Oh, man! He’s using those holds to lower himself down toward the next wing, dropping back against the rotation from our point of view. It’s not working! The centrifugal force throws him out. It’s a little too far; he ca’’t get a foot straight down!

“He’s hauled himself back up and is lying prone on the wing, reaching way down to cut another hole in the hull.”

Jupp was silent for a few moments.

“It’s a foothold! He’s hanging down again and has a foot in that new hole. He’s down; he’s got a foot on the other wing. He’s got a hand in the foothold, both feet down. He made it! Damnation! That clown is good!”

Newman applied the torch to the thruster pair near him and then began to cut holds and work his way toward the pair of thrusters to his right at the bottom end of the long cylinder. Midway along he came to the large ominous port that housed the laser. It spanned the distance from his belt to his throat as he paused before it and reached for the torch.

The satellite had rotated the port away from them and Jupp felt more than saw a brief glow. Over the radio they heard what might have been the start of a scream, but the lungs that were attempting to drive it vanished, and the sound came out a choked sigh.

Jupp watched in horror as the satellite rotated, now in seemingly infinitely slow motion. Before the laser port came into view he saw the legs, thrown off by the centrifugal force. Legs, ending at the waist of the suit, twisting slowly off into oblivion, followed by a piece of the backpack with the torch still dangling from it. The next stubby wing swept by and he could see the remaining ghastly tableau. The left hand was still wedged into one of the freshly cut hand holds. The arm led to shoulders, another arm, the head above, but nothing below, the torso blasted cleanly away. The truncated assemblage, flung centrifugally out from the side of the satellite, rotated slowly out of view.

Jupp felt an intense nauseous sweat break out on his forehead and sweep down through his body. He breathed deeply to keep his stomach. Finally he realized Wahlquist was screaming at him.

“Ed! Ed! For god’s sake what happened?! Ed? Answer me!”

“The laser,” he finally croaked. “It went off when he was right in front of it. He’s gone.”

“What do you mean went off? It couldn’t have been time.

“No. No, you’re right,” Jupp looked at the clock. “It could only have been about twelve minutes.” He lay back in his seat. “Maybe it was triggered prematurely somehow. A trip device, some signal from the ground. Not full power, but enough to kill a man. I don’t know. But it sure happened. God!” he exclaimed as the laser port and the remains of its victim swung into view again.

“We’ve got to get out of here!” exploded Wahlquist, near hysteria.

Jupp thought for a moment, his head spinning, rationality almost out of grasp. Then order settled in, years of training asserting its influence.

“Larry! Listen to me!” He spoke sternly, commanding his copilot to calm down. “We can’t go down.”

“We’ve got to!”

“Listen to me! We can’t take a shot from that laser. A direct hit and we’ve bought it. I can’t fly and position the mirror at the same time. You can’t see where to put the mirror, and it probably won’t give us much protection anyway, damaged as it is. Besides we came up here to do a job. A damn good man just got killed for this mission. We’ve got to see it through.”

“I’m blind, goddamn it. I’m no good. Are you going to take that thing on single-handed?”

Jupp was silent a moment, then answered.

“Yes. But you can help. I’ll get into it and disable the power. Then I’ll tell you where to guide the boom so we can grab on and tuck it into the bay.”

“You’re out of your gourd!” protested Wahlquist. “What happens when you’re out there and it takes aim and blows the shuttle away? And the damn thing is spinning; that’s a tough job with the boom, even if I could see!”

“Three of the eight thruster pairs are out of commission. It probably can’t maneuver well. That gives us a margin. I’ll have to kill the rest. And if you can’t maneuver the boom, then you’ll have to pick me up, and I’ll do it. Hey, I know this is no picnic, but we can do it! We’ve got to do it. What we can’t do is waste time talking. I’ve got to get us in position under the Cosmos, and then you’ve got to come down and help me with my backpack.”

Jupp knew it was necessary to get Wahlquist moving, give him something to do so he wouldn’t work himself closer to panic. He had to remember that, desperate as he felt, he could at least still see. Wahlquist would be just that much closer to cracking up. These thoughts spun through his mind as he worked the thrusters and brought the shuttle up under the Cosmos, scarcely conscious of his actions.

He unbuckled and floated back to where Wahlquist stood. Ignoring his protestations, Jupp guided Wahlquist to the hatch in the floor and watched him drop through. Then he floated down himself. The two of them squeezed into the airlock and then out into the cargo bay. Jupp made sure Wahlquist was on a short tether. He detached a second backpack from its rack and gave it to Wahlquist. It took them several minutes of fumbling to get it attached, but Jupp could sense Wahlquist growing more assured as he let his training take over and worked the familiar catches, buckles, and straps by feel. Jupp helped him into the airlock, then detached the tether and watched him disappear through.

In their orbital minuet, they had tipped so that now they were not aligned with the Earth beneath them. The fierce blue line of the Earth’s horizon made a cockeyed angle over one of the bay doors. Jupp looked up at the menacing hulk of the Cosmos spinning its grisly cargo a hundred feet over his head. His body felt encased in electric ice. He stared at the Cosmos, and then decided on a plan. He had to move before he thought about it too deeply. He selected and attached a tether. He reached for the thruster controls that extended forward on an arm from the backpack, gently fired the bottom thruster and rose up out of the bay.

The tether stopped him opposite the middle of the Cosmos. He watched the spinning craft carefully, calculating how long it would take him at full thrust to cross the void. He used the tether and his thrusters to line up precisely with the laser port, the easiest point to grab hold. Then he pointed himself headfirst at the Cosmos. He got himself as steady as he could and then detached the precious tether. The movement rotated him slightly. He resisted the impulse to grab for the security of the tether and used the thrusters to realign himself. He thought it would take about ten seconds, half a rotation time.