Tess Gerritsen - Gravity

"Stand by." Seconds later, Todd came back on comm. "We're not sure where the Russians stow their kit. But NASA's are in Node One, in the storage rack. Check the labels on the Nomex bags. The contents are specified." Jack shot out of the service module, once again colliding with walls and hatchways as he clumsily barreled his way into Node I. hands were shaking as he opened the storage rack. He pulled out three Nomex bags before he found the one labeled

"Power drill/bits/adapters." He grabbed a second bag containing screwdrivers and a hammer, and shot back out of the node. He'd been away from her only a moment, yet the fear that he would return to find her dead sent him flying through Zarya and back into the service module.

She was still breathing. Still alive.

He anchored the Nomex bags to the table and removed the power tool. It was meant for space station repair and construction, not neurosurgery.

Now that he actually held the drill in his hand and considered what he was about to do, panic seized him. He was operating in unsterile conditions, with a tool meant for steel bolts, not flesh and bone. He looked at Emma, lying flaccid on the table, and thought of what lay beneath that cranial vault, thought of her gray matter, where a lifetime of memories and dreams and emotions were stored. Everything that made her uniquely Emma. All of it dying now.

He reached into the medical kit and took scissors and a shaving razor.

Grasping a handful of her hair, he began to snip it away, shaved the stubble, clearing an incision site over her left bone. Your beautiful hair. I have always loved your hair. I have always loved you.

The rest of her hair he bound up and tucked out of the way, so it would not contaminate the site. With a strip of adhesive tape, restrained her head to the board. Moving more quickly now, he prepared his tools. The suction catheter. The scalpel. The gauze.

He swished the drill bits in disinfectant, then wiped them off alcohol.

He pulled on sterile gloves and picked up the scalpel.

His skin was clammy inside the latex gloves as he made his incision.

Blood oozed from the scalp, welling into a gently globule. He dabbed it with gauze and sliced deeper, until his scraped bone.

To breach the skull is to expose the brain to a hostile universe of microbial invaders. Yet the human body is resilient, it can survive the most brutal of insults. He kept reminding himself of he tapped a nick into the temporal bone, as he positioned the tip the drill bit. The ancient Egyptians and the Incas had performed skull trephinations, opening holes in the cranium with only the crudest of tools and no thought of sterile technique. It could be done.

His hands were steady, his concentration fierce as he drilled into the bone. A few millimeters too deep, and he could hit brain matter.

A thousand precious memories would be destroyed in a second. Or a nick of the middle meningeal artery, and he could unleash an unstoppable fountain of blood. He kept pausing to take a breath, probe the depth of the hole. Go slow. Go slow.

Suddenly he felt the last filigree of bone give way, and the drill broke through. Heart slamming in his throat, he gently withdrew the bit.

A bubble of blood immediately began to form, slowly ballooning out from the breach. It was dark red -- venous. He gave a sigh of relief. Not arterial. Even now the pressure on Emma's brain slowly easing, the intracranial bleed escaping through this new opening. He suctioned the bubble, then used gauze to absorb the continuing ooze as he drilled the next hole, and the next, a one-inch-diameter ring of perforations in the skull. By the time the last hole was drilled, and the circle was complete, his hands were cramping, his face beaded with sweat. He could not pause to rest, every second counted.

He reached for a screwdriver and ball peen hammer.

Let this work. Let this save her.

Using the screwdriver as a chisel, he gently dug the tip into the skull.

Then, teeth gritted, he pried off the circular cap of bone.

Blood billowed out. The larger opening at last allowed it to escape, and it gradually spilled out of the cranium.

So did something else. Eggs. A clump of them gushed out and floated, quivering, into the air. He caught them with the catheter, trapping them in the vacuum jar. Throughout history, mankind's most dangerous enemies have been the smallest lifeforms. viruses. Bacteria. Parasites. And now you, thought Jack, staring into the jar. But we can defeat you.

The blood was barely oozing out the cranial hole. With that initial gush, the pressure on her brain had been relieved.

He looked at Emma's left eye. The pupil was still dilated. But when he shone a light into it, he thought -- or was he imagining it? -- that the edges quivered just the slightest bit, like black rippling toward the center.

You will live, he thought.

He dressed the wound with gauze and started a new IV infusion containing steroids and phenobarbital to temporarily deepen her coma and protect her brain from further damage. He attached EKG leads to her chest. Only after all these tasks had been done did he finally tie a tourniquet around his own arm and inject himself with a dose of Ranavirus. It would either kill them both them both. He would know soon enough.

On the EKG monitor, Emma's heart traced a steady sinus rhythm. He took her hand in his, and waited for a sign.

August 27.

Gordon Obie walked into Special Vehicle Operations and gazed around the room at the men and women working at their consoles.

On the front screen, the space station traced its sinuous path across the global map. At this moment, in the deserts of Algeria, villagers who chanced to glance up at the night sky would marvel at the strange star, brilliant as Venus, soaring across the heavens.

A star unique in all the firmament because it was created not by an all-powerful god, nor by any force of nature, but by the fragile hand of man.

And in this room, halfway around the world from that Algerian desert, were the guardians of that star.

Flight Director Woody Ellis turned and greeted Gordon with a sad nod.

"No word. It's been silent up there."

"How long since the last transmission?"

"Jack signed off five hours ago to get some sleep. It's been almost three days since he got much rest. We're trying not to disturb him."

Three days, and still no change in Emma's status. Gordon sighed and headed along the back row to the flight surgeon's console. Todd Cutler, unshaven and haggard, was watching Emma's biotelemetry readings on his monitor. And when had Todd last slept? Gordon wondered. Every one looked exhausted, but no one was ready to admit defeat.

"She's still hanging in there," Todd said softly. "We've withdrawn the phenobarb."

"But she hasn't come out of the coma?"

"No." Sighing, Todd slumped back and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't know what else to do. I've never dealt with before. Neurosurgery in space." It was a phrase many of them had uttered over the last few weeks. I've never dealt with this before. This is new. This is something we've never seen. Yet wasn't that the essence of exploration? That no crisis could be predicted, that every new problem required its own solution. That every triumph was built on sacrifice.

And there had been triumphs, even in the midst of all this tragedy.

Apogee II had landed safely in the Arizona desert, and Casper Mulholland was now negotiating his company's first contract with the Air Force.

Jack was still healthy, even three days being aboard ISS -- an indication that Ranavirus was both a cure and a preventive against Chimera. And the very fact that Emma was alive counted as a triumph as well.

Though perhaps only a temporary one.

Gordon felt a profound sense of sadness as he watched her EKG blip across the screen. How long can the heart go on beating when the brain is gone? he wondered. How long can a body survive a coma? To watch this slow fading away of a once-vibrant woman was more painful than to witness her sudden and catastrophic death.