Гарри Гаррисон - Skyfall

Patrick undipped the safety line and passed the bulky form of the machine to Ely. “I have the big blade in it. Set for extract, minimum speed. Ready to trigger.”

“Right.”

Ely swung about, braced against the clip he had fastened to the hull and put the blade into the slot of the first fastener. When he pressed the trigger it whined rapidly, the flywheel inside spinning against the torque of the head, turning swiftly.

“What is the. .” Ely started to say just as the blade dug into the aluminum and was torn from his hand. “Too fast!”

The power screwdriver floated away from them, a mote of light in darkness.

“I'll get it — hold on,” Patrick shouted, kicking the AMU about and levering the gas for forward flight. He soared out after the power driver, grabbing it to him as he passed, then braked to a stop. His return flight was much slower.

“You had it on high,” Ely called out angrily. “It pulled right out of my hand when it dug in.”

“I'm sorry, a mistake, but you should have attached the safety line. If you did this wouldn't have happened…”

“Ely, Patrick, the time on the GET is 17:34,” Nadya said, her quiet words cutting through their angry ones. “How is the work proceeding?”

Patrick took a deep shuddering breath. “Proceeding as planned. Thanks Nadya.”

“Would you like me to relieve one of you?”

“A very good idea. As soon as we get this plate off I'm sending Ely in. If he transfers to the flight cabin umbilical you can take his place out here.”

“I'm all right, “Ely said.

“No, you're not. Neither am I. As soon as you feel better you can take my place. If we work in turns like this it should help us all. Now get on with the plate.”

“Right.”

The plate was finally free, disclosing a maze of pipes and cables below.

“Can you see a black cable with a green tracer?”

“It looks like a lot of spaghetti,” Ely said, moving his head closer. “This looks like it, yes, green markings.”

“You are going to have to cut it. You'll find if you pull up there is some give and you can work a loop of it up high enough.”

“It's… not easy…”

“Let me set if I can get a hand on it,” Patrick said, drawing himself close.

Each pulling, they managed to get a black arch of the cable up from the others below, two, three inches high.

“It'll be a bitch to cut,” Patrick said. “Too thick for any of the tack we have. We'll have to burn it through.”

“Isn't that dangerous, with the other wires just behind?”

“Our only choice. Fire up the torch and pass it down to me.”

Ely pulled himself back to the engine support to which they had clipped the tools. He detached the oxyacetylene torch and fastened it to a loop of his own umbilicals. Then he turned on the automatic gas regulator and thumbed the spark switch. The shining exhaust of frozen gas particles turned to a lance of flame.

“Here it is — “

“WATCH OUT!”

Patrick shouted the words — too late.

As he turned with the flaming torch Ely did not see the top of his own umbilicals floating up before him. The umbilicals seemed to have a life of their own as the slightest motion started them moving, the motion passed along their length like some half-sentient serpent.

The loop reared up and the flame burned into it.

Patrick grabbed the torch, turned it off — and they both looked in frozen horror at the blackened oxygen hose. It had been half burnt through, the wire-wound outer casing penetrated, the flexible inner rubber lining swelling out in a great blister. Only for an instant did it stay like that for even as they reached to contain it, it burst.

Ely screamed as his air bubbled out in a torrent of crystals, the sound of his voice getting weaker and weaker as the air that carried the sound ebbed away.

“Hold your breath!” Patrick shouted. “Hold your breath, I'll get you inside.” He grabbed the burst hose in his glove but could not contain the gas which bubbled out between his fingers. “Inside! Nadya, start pressurizing now, we need every second.”

He seized Ely with his free hand and worked the jets on the AMU, a short hard blast, then a course correction, full on. It was a crawling pace, a drift towards the distant safety of the open hatch, floating forward with the loops of the umbilical trailing out behind. Patrick had his faceplate close to Ely's and could see his mouth shut, then his eyes, slowly, with ice crystals already beginning to form on them.

The open hatch. Brake, grab the edge. Then shove the unconscious man through it, pushing the loops of trailing umbilicals after him.

“Get him near the air inlet,” he called out, fumbling with the belt that held him to the AMU, disentangling himself from it and forcing himself to take the time to clip it to a ring in the hull before diving through the hatch. The very last thing he did was to close the valves and disconnect himself from the air supply of the AMU. Holding his breath, not taking the time to reattach inside, closing the hatch.

The white snow of the air turned to invisible gas as the atmosphere was pumped into the flight cabin. Nadya was bending over the still form on the floor. Patrick jumped to the pressure gauge. Quarter atmospheric, good enough. Then he was rotating the wheel of the hatch to the crew compartment — was blown back as the air rushed into the only partially pressurized cabin.

Nadya was turning Ely's helmet, removing it. Patrick realized that he was still holding his breath so took off his own helmet as well, gasping in welcome lungfuls of air.

“Coretta, in here at once,” Patrick shouted.

“The air, what happened to the pressure?” she said, coming out through the hatch.

“It's Ely, his hose was cut.”

“Let me see him. Someone bring the big green metal case from my locker.”

“Prometheus, you have an emergency with Dr. Bron,” Mission Control's voice rattled from the wall speaker. “Medical monitoring reports no pulmonary activity, heart functions weakening.”

“Give me running reports on respiration, pulse and heart,” Coretta called out as she put the oxygen mask over Ely's face and triggered the valve. “Get this suit off him so we can use artificial respiration.”

She let the oxygen tank drift away and bent her lips to his, sealing his nose with her hand, giving him the kiss of life. Aware of the crystals of frozen perspiration on his icy skin.

“We have treatment suggestions from the medical team, Prometheus, are you ready to copy?”

“Copying,” Nadya said, taking the notepad from the pocket on her leg. Patrick slumped, he would have fallen if there had been gravity, totally exhausted by the last spurt of effort. Coretta bent over the unconscious man while Gregor looked on in shocked silence.

“What. . will happen to him?” Gregor asked. No one dared to answer.

GET 17:45

“Mister, it's gone a quarter to eleven at night. The old Smithsonian been closed maybe five hours now. Ain't no one there.”

The cab driver was fiftyish, amiable, black, and didn't want to strand this nice little old man in the middle of the Washington night. Not with the muggers and such around.

“I have a friend that works there,” Professor Weisman explained patiently, holding tight to his briefcase.

“ 'Fraid she's gone home now.”

“I'm sure she has, but someone there must know her address or her phone number.”

“Tried the phone book?”

“Unlisted.”

“Better get in. We'll drive around and maybe find the night watchman. But I don't want to just leave you there, not this hour of the night.”

At this hour of the night it was a short drive from Union Station to the Smithsonian Institute. It loomed up ahead, redbrick and Victorian, a castellated fortress appearing very much out of place among its ultramodern, Greek-templed neighbors. The cab driver stopped before the entrance and looked carefully into the shadows before he opened the back door.