Back to the Moon-ARC

Be an engineer.”

Zhi looked up from the floor and gazed directly into Hui’s eyes. Like two dogs trying to decide which was alpha, they stared at each other long and hard. Finally, Zhi averted his gaze.

“I’ll help. First I need to open this access panel.” Zhi pointed to Hui’s right at one of the instrumentation panels that ran along the wall of the lander. He rose from the floor, picked up a screwdriver from where he’d left it after a previous power-scavenging activity, and moved toward the panel.

“And one of you will have to give me access to the batteries in your backpack. There isn’t much time, and whichever battery I use will have even less power remaining—perhaps none.”

“I understand.” Hui didn’t hesitate. “You will, of course, use mine.”

“Of course.”

Hui at that moment realized what she was committing to. Without power, not only would the temperature in the suit start to drop, but also the air would stop circulating. Unlike deep-water suits, spacesuits didn’t just let compressed air from the tanks in the backpack diffuse into the suit. That would have been too wasteful and would severely limit how long astronauts could remain in them. Spacesuits had fans and carbon-dioxide scrubbers that required continuous airflow—and power. Without power, the air in her suit would slowly become poisoned by carbon monoxide, and she would suffocate. That is, if she didn’t freeze to death first.

“Dr. Xu, get Ming ready to travel. We will need to move quickly.”

Zhi was good. In less than ten minutes he had the access panel open, some insulation removed from the wires providing power to the pump that would vent the cabin’s air, and had found the connectors and wires he would need to send power from Captain Hui’s spacesuit battery to the pump.

“Captain Hui. Step over here and face away from me. I need to connect your batteries to the pump.”

“Understood.” She complied, and he continued his work.

“I’m first going to shut off the power to the rest of your suit. Once I’ve done that, I’ll connect the pump, and we’ll see if it works. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

The next thing Hui heard was the sound of silence. She’d been hearing the spacesuit fans since sealing herself in as the Harmony’s cabin began to freeze, and she’d gotten quite used to their reassuring white noise. Now there was silence. The suit was well insulated, so she did not yet feel any colder. It was too soon for that.

Behind her was the rustling of the engineer as he scrambled to make the necessary connections. When he was on a technical task, it was easy to forget that he was also the ship’s political officer. All signs of his previous defeatist demeanor were now absent.

“Here goes,” the engineer said. The next thing they all heard was the whirring sound of the vent pump. As the air pressure began to drop, the crew could see some of the lighter objects in the cabin flutter in the ensuing wind. After just a few moments, the sound began to drop in frequency as the pump slowed and the air pressure dropped to the point that sounds would no longer propagate. The cabin pressure was now essentially the same as that of the lunar surface—zero.

Hui felt the engineer fiddling with something in her backpack. Then he tapped her on the shoulder and said something she could not hear.

“I can’t hear you! The air is gone, and we’ll have to use our suit radios.” She tried to turn on her radio, the one she’d used to speak with Tony Chow, and nothing happened. She was completely out of power. Her heart sank. Her life had only tens of minutes remaining unless she could either get more power or out of her spacesuit.

Hui moved quickly to the door and once again tried the emergency exit handle. This time it moved, and after just a few seconds the door was open. Standing on the other side was an American astronaut wearing a grin that only an American could possibly have conjured up under the circumstances.

He said something she could not hear. He then said it again, emphatically.

Not knowing the specifics, but understanding what he was probably saying, she turned and pointed toward Dr. Xu and the wounded pilot. She then made the universal hand motion indicating that they should leave first.

Not waiting for additional prompting, Stetson moved toward the doctor and the wounded pilot. He reached down and helped Dr. Xu lift Ming so that they could carry him out the door. With some effort, and guidance from Captain Hui, they were able to get him outside the cabin for the first time since they landed.

Captain Hui looked out and down at the remains of her beautiful lander and sighed. We will be back, she thought. But for now, we will get home! She shivered, and then she realized that her fingers and toes were starting to get cold.

She followed Stetson out and around the side of the lander and down what remained of the stairs to the lunar surface. This was the path she and Zhi had taken when they had built the makeshift furnace. This time it was much more difficult because Dr. Xu and the American astronaut were burdened by the limp mass of Ming Feng. Taking care to not drag Ming’s deadweight across anything sharp enough to puncture his suit, they finally reached the ground.

Hui’s feet were getting very, very cold, and she could no longer feel her fingers. Her head was also noticeably colder. She realized that her entire body was cooling rapidly, but the relatively poorly insulated extremities were the first things she noticed. In her mind, the pace was on one hand too slow—she would surely freeze to death or suffocate before getting to the American lander at this rate. On the other hand, if they were to rush and injure someone, then it could be a death sentence. She would have to be patient.

It was then that she noticed that Zhi was not with them. He was still in the lander. She ran up and tapped Dr. Xu on the shoulder to get his attention. He looked back at her as she pointed up to the lander’s now-open door and waved her arms. Xu looked back at her and grimaced. She could tell that he understood. There was nothing they could do. He could not go back because of his need to help carry Ming. If she went back, it would be a death sentence—she simply did not have time to spare.

“If he wishes to remain here and die, then that is his choice,” she said aloud to herself.

The group of four made their way around the boulders that separated them from the Altair and began their march across the lunar desert toward it.