William Forstchen: Article 23

The computer screen showed that they were clearing the thirty-five-thousand-meter mark and Justin, glad that he wasn't climbing, looked back out the window. The sky was a deep indigo and he could now begin to make out the curvature of the Earth. Down below the entire Amazon basin was visible. The replanted jungle, which had been saved and regrown throughout the 21st century, spread out before him, its dark green glowing warmly beneath the midday sun.

"I'll miss the green of Earth," Matt said wistfully.

"If we get home for Christmas I'll take you to a pine forest. After it snows it's wonderful, the pine boughs covered with white, everything so silent and smelling just wonderful."

Matt pressed his nose against the window for another look.

"Good-bye, Earth," he said almost sadly.

"Hey, we're heading back to the Academy, don't be so glum," Justin said.

"Yeah, I know. But it was my first time down there. I've been living out in space all my life going down to Earth was about as exciting for me as going into space is for you."

"No frontiers down there," Justin replied. "Space is where it's happening now, and we're part of it."

"If you survive the Academy," a threatening voice behind them commented.

Justin froze as he slowly looked over his shoulder.

It was Brian Seay, their senior cadet instructor from the summer session. Seay towered over them, looking like a shark contemplating his prey.

"How you doing, scrubs?" he asked.

"Glad to be going back, sir," Justin replied, trying to keep a knot from forming in his stomach at the sight of the dreaded senior cadet.

Brian grinned slightly.

"Relax, you two, scrub summer is past. Glad the two of you made it. As of tomorrow you're plebes. Plebes third class but still plebes, and that's a start at least. Congratulations!"

He leaned forward and extended his hand. The threatening look was gone and there was almost an air of comradeship to his gesture. Hesitating a bit, Justin shook it.

"Look, there aren't any other cadets aboard this shuttle car so lets just relax for awhile, OK?"

Seay settled down into an empty chair across from Justin and Matt and strapped in.

"We'll be playing the saluting game again once we get back out there. And besides, the word is you two guys are hot shots, regular heroes for risking your lives to save those two girls. I was proud to have you in my company this summer. You even made me look good!"

Matt blushed at the mention of saving Tanya and Sue. It had even made the news nets back on Earth and resulted in the two of them being interviewed by the local holo station in Lafayette, Indiana while they were there on leave. Matt, who was normally good for a long yarn, simply went tongue-tied when the camera was turned on him, so Justin wound up doing ninety-nine percent of the talking.

He looked down shyly at the red and gold stripe above his left pocket, the life-saving award given to any member of the United Space Military Command who risked his life to save another. He noticed for the first time that Brian was wearing one as well. Brian saw him looking at the decoration and smiled.

"It was nothing much, just a little depressuri-zation accident down on the Moon. I breathed vacuum for a couple seconds when I went out to pull my roommate back in, and they made a big fuss about it later. Hell, the guy owed me twenty bucks on a falcon flying game I didn't want to lose the money!"

Brian laughed quietly and Justin looked at him with renewed respect.

"You joined the Vacuum Breathers' club?"

Brian nodded, a bit embarrassed.

The Vacuum Breathers' club was a mythical club open to anyone who had ever been exposed, without benefit of pressurized suit, to the vacuum of space. Quite a few were qualified to join it, the only problem was that the vast majority of people eligible for membership received their qualification by dying.

"What happened?" Justin asked.

"I really didn't have time to think," Brian said. "I heard the depressurizing alarm go off in my room right after I stepped out and closed the door. They figured out later that an old gasket seal on the window had let go. I looked through the door porthole and saw my roommate Abdul flopping around inside."

He hesitated for an instant as if the memory were alive and floating before him. "You know that once the pressure goes you can't open the door from the inside."

Justin nodded. It was a grim part of standard procedure better to lose the people inside rather than a whole station.

"There were no emergency suits in there and I figured that by the time I got one on he'd be finished. So I secured the door down the corridor behind me, called Base Central Control to release the safety on the door into the room, and went in after him.

"When I popped the door, we didn't have time to drop the pressure in the corridor. Luckily the door opened in rather than out. The moment I opened the door it just exploded inward; I went in and dragged Abdul out. I got a mild case of the bends from it and my eyes hurt for a couple of days, but that was it."

"But what did it feel like?" Justin pressed.

"Sort of strange. I did like they told you to do in training, exhaled and kept my mouth open. If you try and hold the air in you might burst your lungs or eardrums. I couldn't close my eyes because I had to see what I was doing. I guess what got me the most was just how silent it was. The moment the door blew in and I went through, all sound just disappeared, I could see my breath rushing out and turning into a frozen fog, and I could feel the moisture on my eyes and in my nose and mouth just vaporizing. It sort of felt like stepping out into a subzero day. Just real cold."

"That's from the skin moisture boiling off when the atmospheric pressure drops to zero," Matt interjected. "Felt it myself a couple of times."

"Yeah," Brian said with a chuckle. "It was all over with so fast, though. They told me later I got in and out of there, carrying Abdul, in just under ten seconds and once I closed the door the corridor was repres-surized in another ten seconds."

Justin wondered how he would have reacted. Brian made his decision sound so matter-of-fact. In reality, no one would have blamed him for following standard rescue procedure getting a suit on and calling for backup before going in. But that would have taken several minutes and Abdul would have been dead. Brian had not hesitated to make a split-second decision that was a wager with death.

Justin was silent. He looked over at Matt, who appeared ready to start into a story of his own, but his friend simply smiled, knowing it was best not to play one-upmanship with a senior.

"It was no big deal," Brian said quietly. "It kills me how they still have those stupid holo movies where somebody gets caught in a vacuum and their eyeballs or sometimes their whole body just explode. Actually, I think dying in a vacuum isn't too bad a way to go. You just pass out after thirty seconds or so and it's all over."

Justin said nothing in reply. His father had been killed in space; so had Matt's parents he pushed the thought away.

Brian fell silent for a moment and looked out the window.

"Space has a lot of ways of getting you if you aren't on your toes."

Justin turned and looked back out the window, In the short time they had been talking the car had climbed through the four hundred thousand-meter level. The sky was shifting into black, and stars were visible. He could see clear across the Amazon Basin all the way to the snowcapped peaks of the Andes, the surface of the Earth curving away beneath him.

The seatbelt light clicked off.

"Let's go to the top observation deck," Brian said. "It's the best view in the house."

Surprised at how friendly their old nemesis was, Justin and Matt followed along. They crowded into the small elevator that connected the three floors of the car. As they stepped out onto the top floor Justin looked up with a gasp.