Jerry Oltion - Unfinished Business

We were in vacuum, so I supposed that made sense, but since he apparently didn’t need to breathe anymore I hadn’t been sure about air for hearing. I wasn’t sure about much where Tilbey was concerned. There were so many things I wanted to ask him, including the Big Question, but if we couldn’t come up with some way to light the engine I’d know the answer to that first hand in about twenty minutes. So I typed, We needd to majke a spark generattor on a timer. In my p-suit, I was as bad a typist as Tilbey.

no time, he typed, would taake hours.

What, then? I asked.

let me do it. i can short thingss out—give mee a battery and a stopwatch and i’ll make plenty of sparrk for you.

I supposed he could at that. And one spark was all we needed; once the engine was lit, the reaction was self-sustaining. But could Tilbey face the same blast of flame that had already killed him once? It seemed more than anyone had a right to ask, even of a ghost.

You’ll be blown aaway from the shjip, probably forever, I typed.

He shrugged i’ll probly juzt disappear anywayy. besiddes, i alwayss wanted to go oout in a blasze of glory.

Well, you’ll certainly do that, I typed. You’re sure about this?

what otherr choice? i’ll fall freee if you gett the drive lit annyway.

That was true enough. So I left Tilbey with my notepad, which had its own stopwatch built in and plenty of battery power to make a great spark when he passed his hands all the way through it. I wanted to slap him on the back or shake his hand or something, but all I could do was type, Thanks, Tilbey, on the notepad before I turned to leave him in the engine.

He waved his hand in front of my face, then typed one final message: close the hatch.

Right. The ignitor coil access hatch. If I’d left that open, the drive flame would have burned through and destroyed the rest of the engine within the first few seconds of thrust. I looked at Tilbey, amazed that he’d remembered, and equally amazed that I’d forgotten. He shrugged. It happens, he seemed to be saying, though he didn’t bother to type it out.

I closed the hatch and left Tilbey there in the engine nozzle, climbed back inside the ship, and waited nervously for the deceleration bum. If it didn’t work….

But it did. Tilbey did his final job without a hitch, as far as we could tell.The drive lit right on time, and the Intrepid shuddered its way into Mars orbit on schedule, where Captain Hoxworth demanded a complete overhaul before he or anyone else in the crew would fly it again.

And that would have been that, except for one thing I found while I was going through Tilbey’s personal effects to send to his next of kin. It might take him a while to catch up with us, but I can’t shake the feeling that we haven’t seen the last of him. I hope we haven’t. After all, he left his mystery project running in his quarters, and try as I might, I can’t find a switch to shut it off.