Skyfall

“You're going to have to keep your cool, Gregor. For your sake as well as for ours…” The radio contact signal beeped and he turned towards the hatch.

“I will take that,” Nadya said, and pushed by him and was at the hatch before he could respond. She was right, his place was here.

“It is tough on all of us, Gregor,” Patrick said. “I know how you feel, shut in here with nothing to do. But we may get through yet and if we do you're the indispensable man. Don't forget that. All this effort is to get you up there, not us, into orbit with the generator. You are the guy who has to do the job.”

Nadya came floating back into the group and they turned to her.

“Mission Control says there is a good possibility that the faulty engine can be isolated and the others fired. It will have to be done from outside the ship.”

“I knew it,” Ely said, and sighed. “Back to the salt mine.”

“They think it will all work out well,” Nadya told them. “They're sure that the eccentric thrust can be compensated for. And that there will be enough thrust to lift us out of this orbit. But firing must begin as soon as possible.”

“You can bet your sweet bippy on that,” Ely said, warmly.

“Mission Control has worked out a program of step-by-step procedures that are to be done, and they'll relay it one item at a time. They ask if two people can space walk at the same time. They know we only have one operational umbilical.”

“The answer is yes,” Patrick said. “I'm going to break out one of the Astronaut Maneuvering Units from the cargo hold. Ely, suit up and stay on the flight cabin umbilical until I get back. Then you can use the long umbilicals and I'll fly the AMU. It's going to work.”

“It better,” Ely said. “Let's get suited up. Coretta darling, let me have some of those pills before we tackle this last one.”

“Of course. How about you, Nadya?”

She started to shake her head no, then stopped. “Normally, I do not like stimulants, but I feel this situation is very different.”

“About as different as they come, dooshenka,” Ely said. “Join the junky brigade.”

“You will seal the hatch again?” Gregor asked. “Seal us in once more?”

“I'm sorry,” Patrick said, hearing the fear in the man's voice, but unable to help him any more. “This should be our last space walk. So let's get it over with.”

“I could wear my suit as well,” Gregor said. “I could help.”

“He could do something, couldn't he?” Coretta asked, trying with her tones to tell Patrick how she felt. As a doctor she was well aware of Gregor's borderline state. Patrick shook his head no.

“Sorry. I don't want to have to evacuate the entire ship — and there is just no room for anyone else in the flight cabin. And really no need for anyone. Nadya will relay instructions to Ely and me — and we'll do the work. We'll be as quick as we can.”

Then they were suited up and out of the hatch. Coretta and Gregor looked up as the hatch closed and the wheel spun and locked it. Soon after the red light came on beside it showing that the air was gone on the other side.

Coretta turned around to find that Gregor was sitting, hunched over, his arms clasped before him and his head bent. Of course he couldn't sit, but was floating a few feet above his couch.

“Would you like something to eat, Gregor?” she asked, but received no answer. “There are some nice things here. I must say you Russians do things with your space food that we would never consider. Look at this — caviar! This little jar is easily twenty-five dollars on Earth, and here we are with a dozen or more. It's worth going into space for this.”

“Nothing is worth it. It is too terrible.” You did not need to be a doctor to hear the terror in his voice.

“Well, it hasn't really been exactly a pleasure trip so far. But do have some of this, I've opened it.”

“No, nothing. I shall never eat again, for life is at an end.”

He was raising his voice to shout above the sound from the wall speaker, hooked into the radio circuit and repeating the instructions from Mission Control about the spacewalk. She turned it off, it was too distracting and too much of a reminder of their plight. On impulse Coretta turned to the music bands, flipping through them until she found a pleasant piano concerto, Rachmaninoff it sounded like. In one of the cabinets a microminiaturized tape player ran continuously, producing six channels of music that could be tapped at will. The clear piano notes and the warm sound of the strings filled the compartment.

“It should not have ended like this,” Gregor said. “Too many mistakes have been made, too much was rushed. We were pushed into space too quickly, more care should have been taken.”

“Can't cry over spilt milk, Gregor,” Coretta said. “This caviar is delicious. Too bad there's no champagne to go with it. Hey, wait a minute. I have some two-hundred proof surgical alcohol in there. Cut that in half with water and you have one-hundred proof vodka. How about that, tovarich, does a shot of vodka sound interesting?”