Charles Sheffield - Between the Strokes of Night

Judith Niles looked thoughtful. “I’m not so sure of that. Vacuum is vacuum — you don’t play games with it. Tell them to prep him. I’m on my way over.” When she arrived the final lab preparation was complete. Emergency resuscitation equipment stood in banks along the walls. In the middle, seated on a long table in a sealed chamber, Wolfgang Gibbs was adjusting the gloves of the space suit. Charlene Bloom was by his side, obsessively checking the helmet. She straightened up as Judith Niles entered the room.

“Are you sure this is the same design as they’re using now on Salter Station?” she said. “I think I see small differences in the seals.”

Niles nodded. “The schematics we had were not quite right. We checked. According to Hans Gibbs this is the one in use now. All hooked up?”

Wolfgang turned and stared at her. His face was pale through the faceplate. “Ready when you are,” he said over the suit radio.

Charlene placed her head close to the helmet. “Scared?” she said, in a low voice.

“Give you one guess.” He smiled at her through the narrow faceplate. “Jelly in my guts. Now I know what the test animals must feel like. Let’s get on with it. You get out of here and let’s take the pressure down.”

As he spoke the overhead lights flickered, faded, then slowly came back up to full power.

“Jesus!” said Charlene. “That’s three brownouts in two hours.” She looked at the other woman. “Should we go ahead, JN? It looks as though there’s something horribly wrong with the grid.”

“Blow-outs in the China link,” said Judith Niles. “Cameron checked this afternoon, and he says it will get worse. They expect China may drop out completely in a week or so — they’re above capacity, and their equipment is old. So there’s no point in delaying. We have our own standby system, and that’s in good shape.”

“So let’s get on with it,” said Gibbs. To Charlene Bloom’s horror he reached and gave a sly rub along her thigh with one gloved hand, on the side hidden from Judith Niles.

She jerked away from him and shook her head fiercely. She had told Wolfgang over and over — private life must never get tangled up with their work.

“So you’re telling me you want to stop?” he had said.

She had paused, turning her head to look at his bare, tanned shoulder. “You know I don’t. But don’t you be horrible, either. I know you have a reputation at the Institute, and I’m not asking about that. But remember this is the first time for me for… well, for anything like this.”

He had turned to look down at her face, with an expression in his eyes that made her shiver all over. “For me, too.”

Liar, she had been about to say. Then she looked at him again. He appeared completely serious. She had very much wanted to believe him — still wanted to believe him; but not now, for Heaven’s sake, not when JN was watching, even if he was staring at her so intently through the suit’s faceplate.… Charlene turned away briskly and stepped out of the chamber. “Sealed, and reducing,” she said. She tried to keep her eyes on the gauges and away from Wolfgang.

The pressure was calibrated in kilos per square centimeter, and also as barometric altitude. The two women watched in silence as the green readouts flickered down through their first reduction.

“Three kilometers equivalent height,” said Charlene. “Are you feeling all right, Wolfgang?”

He grunted. “No problem.” His voice sounded much more relaxed than she felt. “According to my readings we have a balance of internal and external pressure. Correct?”

“Right. You’re on pure oxygen now. Any tightness at the suit’s joints, or any dizziness? Move your arms, legs, and neck, and see how it feels.” He lifted his left arm and waggled the fingers in the suit. “Morituri te salutamus. I’m feeling fine.”

“Very good. Who’s been teaching you Latin?” As soon as she said it, Charlene felt a blush starting to rise from the back of her neck. What would JN think? — Charlene was the only one at the Institute who liked to spice up her reports with Latin tags. “Five kilometers,” she said hurriedly. “We’re getting a change of scale.”

The readouts automatically adjusted to a finer gradation, moving from kilograms to grams per square centimeter. The pressure was reducing very slowly now, at a rate controlled by Charlene. It was another twenty minutes before the chamber value was quivering down at zero. The barometric altitude, after rising steadily to a hundred kilometers, now refused to go any higher.

“Anything new?” Judith Niles had moved to stand with her face close to the chamber window.

“Nothing bad.” Gibbs moved his head slowly from side to side. “You were right about the neck seals — I can feel a bit of pressure now, as though the suit bulges in a little bit there.”

“That’s the new design, they introduced it about a year ago. It’s a better seal, but not so comfortable. The bulge is caused by the outside pressure drop, making an inward wrinkle in the seal. You’ll get used to it. Any feelings of drowsiness?”

“Not a bit.”

“Right. Start moving the blocks, and talk while you do it. Set your own pace.” Wolfgang, clumsy because of the unfamiliar gloves, began to move a heap of colored plastic blocks from one chest-high stand to another. “Haven’t done anything like this since I was eighteen months old. Used to seem harder then. Get them all moved correctly, and I get a handful of raisins, right?” Neither woman spoke as he carefully moved blocks. He was finished in less than a minute.

“Still feeling all right?” said Judith Niles when the task was done. “Perfectly fine. No aches and pains, no sleepiness. Still have that bit of pressure in my neck, but all the other joints are very comfortable. Shall I switch to the cameras?”

“Whenever you’re ready.”

Gibbs nodded. The faceplate of the suit slowly darkened. His face became a dark gray and slowly faded from view as the plate achieved total opacity. The watchers heard a grumble through the suit radio. “Lousy color in here. If my TV didn’t perform better than this I’d turn it in for service.”

The suited figure turned slowly to point its forward viewing camera to look through the chamber window. “Charlene, you’ve turned green.”

“I feel it. We’ll worry about camera color balance later. Can you move the blocks again? And keep talking as you do it, just the way you did last time.” “Piece of cake.” The bulky figure began to move the blocks slowly back to their original stand. “Reminds me of the work that they used to give you in the army when you were doing basic training. Supposed to tire us out and keep us out of trouble. First you move the pile of dirt over here, then when you were finished somebody else would move it back. Then you would move — “

It happened with startling suddenness. There was no drowsy trailing-off of speech. At one moment the suited figure was working efficiently, his matter-of-fact tones clear over the suit radio. Then they were looking in at a silent, motionless statue, frozen with a red block stretched out in one gloved hand.

Charlene Bloom gave a cry of alarm, while Judith Niles took a long, shivering breath. “That’s it. No cause for panic, Charlene, it’s what we were expecting. Start bringing the pressure up — slowly. We don’t want a problem there. I’ll make sure the bed is ready. My guess is that he’ll be out for at least half an hour.” She moved over to the phone. Behind her, Charlene stared wide-eyed at Wolfgang Gibbs’ unconscious figure. She had to fight the temptation to bring the pressure instantly to sea level, and rush into the chamber herself.

Jan de Vries was waiting in her office, calmly reading a file marked Confidential — Director Only. He looked up as she came in.