Jerry Oltion - Anywhere but Here

The tire came free on its own, and he made a grab for the slot in the wheel before it could get away, then he pulled himself around by the bumper until he could shove the tire into the camper. He closed the door on it so it couldn’t get away, then worked his way back around to the cab to untie his rope.

Donna was wrestling with her tire, tugging it around a few inches at a time as if she could roll it farther into the cab and make room for him. “It’s not going to go, babe,” he said softly, and a moment later he was glad she couldn’t hear him, because he figured out what she was doing. She was trying to bring the valve stem around to a point where she could reach it.

He grabbed the steering wheel with one hand and helped her rotate the tire until the stem was on top, then he got the can opener out of the seat pocket—careful not to let it slip out of his hand—and passed it over to her.

“How much time left?” he asked, tapping his wrist in case she couldn’t read his lips.

She checked the computer, then held up three fingers. He had to move.

“I’ll see you on the ground. I love you, baby.” He reached forward with his free hand. She reached around the tire and grasped his hand in hers, and they just looked at one another for a moment through their foggy, condensation-streaked bubble helmets. He never wanted to let go, but he had to, and they both knew it. Without a word, they gave each other one final squeeze, then he backed up and untied the rope from the steering wheel.

He kept a death grip on the door frame until he looped the rope around the roll bar, then he wrapped the end around his hand a couple of times. If he slipped, at least he could reel himself back to the roll bar.

He grabbed the door in his left hand and the roll bar in his right and slammed the door, nearly knocking himself loose in the process. The pickup wobbled like crazy, but he held on and watched Donna reach over and snap the latches from inside.

He felt a moment of unreasoning panic at the sight. Locked out of his pickup in deep space! He knew this was their only hope of survival, but still.

He probably had less than two minutes before the computer took them back to the other side of the planet. With a final wave to Donna, he pulled himself hand over hand around the side of the pickup to the camper, opened the door, and pulled himself inside. The tire took up most of the space, but he had room enough to slide in below it. Wedging his feet against the sides of the cabinets so he couldn’t slip back outside, he let go of the free end of the rope and pulled on the end tied to his waist, pulling it free of the roll bar and piling it all up in a writhing wad behind him.

He swung the door closed before anything could fly back out. It was pitch black inside now. He almost turned on the light, but stopped himself when he remembered that the camper drew its power from the same batteries that the hyperdrive did. Lights didn’t draw much juice, but the batteries were down to so little that he was afraid even a minute’s worth of light would put them below the critical level for their last jump. He felt around the door frame to make sure it was closed tight and the rope wasn’t in the way of the seals, then turned to the tire and felt for the valve stem, took the cap off, and realized he didn’t have anything ready to hold the valve open with.

There were a million pointy objects in the camper. Forks, toothpicks, paring knives, even can openers if he could just find them in the dark. He felt for the sink, finally found it up by his shoulders and realized he was upside down, then he patted his way along the cabinets until he found the silverware drawer, unlatched it, and reached in for a fork. Everything was jumbled up, and he couldn’t tell a fork from a spoon in his pressure suit.

He had to have some light. The drawer below the silverware had a flashlight in it, if he could recognize that by feel.

Actually, he was already seeing light, and not the good kind. He reached to his waist and opened the air tank, and it hissed for another few seconds before falling silent. Empty. Okay, he had about two minutes left now.

Flashlight first. He opened the drawer, felt for anything cylindrical, found it next to something soft, and slid his hand up the side until he hit the switch. Light!

Three pot holders, a roll of duct tape, and a pair of scissors tumbled into the air, bouncing off the counters and ricocheting across the camper. There were already half a dozen forks and spoons and butter knives floating free, too, from the other drawer. Plus the lug nuts he had tossed in on the ground, and the parachute, drifting like a jellyfish behind the tire. The flashlight cast stark shadows as he waved it around. It was eerie; everything looked alive the way it moved so smoothly, yet none of it made a sound in the vacuum.

To hell with a fork. He let the flashlight go and grabbed the scissors, then turned to the tire, found the valve, and jabbed the pointed end of the blades against the tiny button, smiling at the jet of fog that rushed out around his hand.

There was no pressure gauge in the camper. He wondered how he would know when there was enough air to breathe, but then he slowly became aware of a faint hissing noise, and the soft tink of silverware and lug nuts bouncing off the cabinets. Yeah. The thicker the air was, the more sound it transmitted. There was more than one way to skin a cat.

He kept letting air out of the tire, occasionally slapping his hand against the sidewall and listening to the whack . When it sounded about as loud as he remembered similar sounds before with his suit sealed, he reached up to the top of his helmet and opened it.

There was a little puff of air out of the suit. He took a cautious breath. The air in the camper stank just as bad as the air from the spare, maybe even worse, but he could breathe it.

Or could he? He felt a moment of disorientation, almost as if he were going to pass out, but it was gone just as quickly. He took another couple of breaths, waiting for the swirling vision that would mean he was out of oxygen, but it didn’t come. What had happened?

Then he realized what it was: the hyperdrive jump back over their landing site. He had maybe thirty seconds before Donna opened the parachute, and the air was full of utensils.

He could never gather it all up in time. The only thing he could do was grab the tire and hold it to the floor so he wouldn’t wind up under it when the jolt came, and try to hold himself down against the floor as well.

The seconds seemed to take forever. A hundred heartbeats, anyway, but that probably didn’t mean much. He was probably thumping away at two hundred or so a minute. He couldn’t remember it ever beating this hard. It’d be just his luck to have a heart attack now that he’d saved his ass again for. what, the third or fourth time today.

He heard the faint hiss of the air jets in the bumper, transmitted through the frame of the pickup. That would be Donna leveling out their approach into the atmosphere. Then he heard the bang of the parachute pod opening. He risked a glance upward. No knives overhead, but the flashlight was right there, ready to klonk him. No time to grab it; he just tucked his head down and made sure his butt was tight against the floor.

The jolt felt like a giant kicking the pickup upward, hard. Silverware rained down all around him, the lug wrench hit beside him with a loud clang , and the flashlight bounced off his head to skitter across to the door, throwing wild shadows everywhere as it spun. The camper floor had no give to it at all, but the tire did: it bounced up and smashed into the ceiling, broke off a couple of drawer handles on the way back down, and would have crushed Trent’s knees if it hadn’t flipped sideways off the drawers and smashed the table instead.