“According to the instrument readings, Discovery is still on its designated flight path. The explosion took place in an air lock. For a reason we don't know, the bolts blew.”
“The air lock… Where was Reed at the time?”
“On the flight deck. But Landon can't be sure about the extent of the damage or even if Reed's still alive. No one's answering up there, Jon.”
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
The last thing Megan had heard over her headset was the exchange between Reed and Harry Landon, seconds before the bolts on the air-lock doors had blown. After she got up to the mid-deck, she realized that Reed would come down to investigate. He had to make sure that she was dead or injured ? either would suit his purpose. When he didn't find her in the air lock or the lower deck, he would start looking elsewhere.
Megan knew she couldn't hide from him for long. The orbiter was simply too small. There was only one escape. Making her way to the mid-deck, she floated to the door that opened up on the tunnel to the Spacelab. She gripped the arms of the wheel on the door and began turning.
But Megan never forgot that she had her back to the ladder that connected the three levels. She would never hear Reed if he spotted her and came up behind her. The small mirror she had placed at the foot of the tunnel door would now save her life.
In the reflection, she had seen Reed descend the ladder, hesitate, then spot her and start floating to her. She watched him stop by a tool kit, retrieve a type of keyhole saw, then keep on coming.
Megan had the wheel on the door turned as far as it would go, but she kept her hands on the grips and pretended that the wheel was stuck. Looking down, she saw Reed drift closer, his right arm stretched out to her. In his hand, the saw looked like the pointed nose of a marlin.
Megan let her left hand slip from the wheel. Set into the door was a release button that pulled the door open once the wheel had been fully turned. Her eyes riveted on the mirror, she judged the distance between her and Reed. Her timing would have to be perfect.
Reed watched Megan jerk as she tried to force the wheel. Raising the saw, he floated closer. Since she was standing, he chose a spot between her neck and her shoulder. The teeth of the saw would slice through her plastic suit. The result would be instant depressurization. The air inside the suit would rush out… and the contaminated air around her would stream into the rent. Two, three breaths and the variola would be in her lungs.
In microgravity, it is impossible to move with any real speed. When Reed started his downward swing, he appeared to be moving in slow motion. But Megan pushed off, propelling herself sideways from the door. As she did, she jabbed the release button. With a nearly inaudible pneumatic hiss, the door swung open as Reed drifted into the space Megan had occupied just a second ago. The heavy door caught him square on the helmet, whipping back his neck, then dragging him as it opened fully. His fingers lost their grip on the saw, which floated away.
Stunned and reeling, Reed made a feeble grab for Megan as she floated around him into the tunnel. Inside, she found another button, punched it, and watched the door begin to close.
Come on, come on!
The door seemed to inch its way toward her. As soon as Megan could reach the grips on the wheel, she began pulling.
She saw the flash of the saw as it sliced through the opening, only inches from her suit sleeve. As Reed drew back for another strike, she managed to close the door and spin the wheel. The locks set and Megan pulled the emergency lever to freeze them in place.
His rasping voice made her heart jump into her throat. “What a clever girl you are, Megan. Can you hear me? Did you fix your intercom too?”
Megan pressed a button on her unit and heard a faint crackle.
“I can hear you breathing,” Reed said. “Or more accurately, hyperventilating.”
“And I can hear you, but not too well,” she said. “You'll have to speak up.”
“I'm glad you haven't lost your sense of humor,” Reed said. “Very slippery, what you did back there. You were playing possum, weren't you? Waiting for me…”
“Dylan…” She didn't know where to begin.
“You think you're safe, don't you?” he said. “As long as the emergency locks are set, I can't get in. But if you think about it, Megan, put aside your panic and really think, that's not true.”
Megan struggled to understand what he was referring to but nothing came to mind.
“No matter what you think you can do, you'll never leave this craft alive,” Reed continued.
Suppressing a shudder, she replied: “You won't win either, Dylan. I'm going to destroy the horror you made here.”
“Really? You have no idea what I did in there.”
Oh, yes, I do! “I'll find it!”
“With less than sixty minutes from touchdown? I don't think so. It'll be all you can do to stay alive when we go through the last stages of reentry. And Megan? Even if you found it, what would you do ? dispose of it through the waste portals? Not a bad idea ? if we were still in space. But since you have no idea what I was working on, how can you be sure that it would die once we're in the earth's atmosphere? To jettison it would mean running the risk of possibly spreading it.”
He paused. “You didn't see the bodies, did you? Just as well, really. But if you had, you wouldn't even think of dispersing a virus.”
Reed chuckled. “Now you're asking yourself, where would I have put it? How would it be disguised? So many questions, and no time to find the answers. Because we've just about reached our next bumpy ride. If I were you, I'd find something to hang on to ? fast.”
Megan heard the click of the microphone as Reed signed off. Then she felt a tremor race through the ship as the orbiter cut through another layer of the earth's atmosphere. Without looking back, she began pulling herself down the tunnel toward the Spacelab.
Reed climbed back up to the flight deck and managed to strap himself into the commander's chair as waves of turbulence hit the shuttle. The orbiter shuddered, then yawed. Checking the instrument panel, Reed noted that the orbital maneuvering system engine had fired, slowing the craft just enough so that gravity could take effect. If all went well, gravity would pull Discovery out of orbit and into a gentle glide to earth.
The shudders became a series of vibrations as the craft's speed dropped from twenty-five times to two times the speed of sound. Then the buffeting ceased altogether and Discovery turned into its glide path. The communications blackout had ended and Reed heard Landon's urgent voice.
“Discovery, do you read? Dylan, can you hear me?” After a pause: “Our instruments registered an onboard explosion. Can you confirm? Are you all right?”
I don't have time for this right now, Harry.
Reed closed the communications channel and glanced over the instrument panel until he found what he was looking for. He'd told Megan that she was mistaken in thinking that he couldn't get past the locks on the door to the tunnel. He wondered if she'd figured out how. Probably not. As bright and as capable as Megan was, she was still a novice. She couldn't have known that a switch on the flight deck could override the locks on the tunnel door.
There wasn't much to hang on to inside the Spacelab, so Megan improvised. In the center of the lab was a metallic object that looked like something between a modern-day torture rack and a high-tech recliner. Its technical name was a Space Physiology Experiment. The crew called it the sled chair. There, crew members, lying on their backs and strapped in securely, underwent tests on joints and muscles, the effects of gravity on the inner ear and on the eyeball, and various other experiments.
Having strapped herself into the sled chair, Megan managed to ride out the turbulence. Now she undid the straps and, with substantial effort, got to her feet. Light-headedness, caused by decreased blood volume, hit her immediately. Megan knew it would take at least a few minutes for the volume to increase as the orbiter approached earth. The process would have been faster if she'd had some water and salt tablets.
