Luther had already removed Nicolai's helmet and was frantically trying to pull him out of the upper torso shell. Working together, they wriggled a struggling Nicolai out of the rest of EVA suit. Emma and Griggs dragged him through the station and into the RSM, where there was full power and light. He was screaming all the way, clawing at the left side of his comm-assembly cap.
Both eyes were swollen shut, the lids ballooned out. She touched cheeks and felt crepitus -- air trapped in the subcutaneous tissues from the decompression. A line of spittle glistened on his jaw.
'Nicolai, calm down!' said Emma. 'You're all right, do you hear me? You'll be all right!' He shrieked and yanked off the comm cap. It went flying away.
'Help me get him onto the board!' said Emma.
It took all hands to set up the medical restraint board, strip off Nicolai's ventilation long johns, and strap him down. They had fully restrained now. Even as Emma checked his heart and lungs and examined his abdomen, he continued to whimper and rock his head from side to side.
'It's his ear,' said Luther. He had shed his bulky EVA suit and was staring wide-eyed at the tormented Nicolai. 'He said there was something in his ear.'
Emma looked closer at Nicolai's face. At the line of spittle that traced from his chin, up the curve of his left jaw. To his ear.
She turned on the battery-powered otoscope and inserted the earpiece into Nicolai's canal.
The first thing she saw was blood. A bright drop of it, glistening in the otoscope's light. Then she focused on the eardrum.
It was perforated. Instead of the gleam of the tympanic membrane, she saw a black and gaping hole. Barotrauma was her first thought. Had the sudden decompression blown out his eardrum?
She checked the other eardrum, but it was intact.
'I'm puzzled,' she turned off the otoscope and looked at Luther.
'What happened out there?'
'I don't know. We were both taking a breather. Resting up before we brought the tools back in. One minute he's fine, the minute he's panicking.'
'I need to look at his helmet.' She left the RSM and headed back to the equipment lock. She swung open the hatch and gazed in, at the two EVA suits, which Luther had remounted on the wall.
'What are you doing, Watson?' said Griggs, who'd followed her.
'I want to see how big the crack was. How fast he was decompressing.' She went to the smaller EVA suit, labeled 'Rudenko,' and removed the helmet. Peering inside, she saw a dab of moisture adhering to the cracked faceplate. She took out a cotton swab from one of her patch pockets and touched the tip to the fluid. It was thick and gelatinous.
Blue-green.
A chill slithered up her spine.
Kenichi was in here, she suddenly remembered. The night he died, we found him in this air lock. He has somehow contaminated it.
At once she was backing out in panic, colliding with Griggs in the hatchway. 'Out!' she cried. 'Get out now!'
'What is it?'
'I think we've got a biohazard! Close the hatch! Close it!' They both scrambled out of the air lock, into the node.
Together they slammed the hatch shut and sealed it tight. They exchanged tense glances.
'You think anything leaked out?' Griggs said.
Emma scanned the node, searching for any droplets spinning through the air. At first glance she saw nothing. Then a flash of movement, a telltale sparkle, seemed to dance at the furthest periphery of her vision.
She turned to stare at it. And it was gone.
Jack sat at the surgeon's console in Special Vehicle Operations, tension growing with every passing minute as he watched the clock on the front screen. The voices coming over his headset were speaking with new urgency, the chatter fast and staccato, as reports flew back and forth between the controllers and ISS flight director Woody Ellis. Similar in layout to the shuttle Flight Room and housed in the same building, the SVO room was a smaller, more specialized version, manned by a team dedicated only to space station operations. Over the last thirty-six hours, since Discovery had collided with ISS, this room had been the scene of relentlessly mounting anxiety, laced with intermittent panic.
With so many people in the room, so many hours of unrelieved stress, the air itself smelled of crisis, the mingled sweat and stale coffee.
Nicolai Rudenko was suffering from decompression injuries and clearly needed to be evacuated. Because there was only one lifeboat -- the Crew Return Vehicle -- the entire crew was coming home. This would be a controlled evacuation. No shortcuts, no mistakes. No panic. NASA had run through this simulation many times before, but a CRV evac had never actually been done, not with five living, breathing human beings aboard.
Not with someone I love aboard.
Jack was sweating, almost sick with dread.
He kept glancing at the clock, cross-checking it with his watch.
They had waited for ISS's orbital path to reach the right position before vehicle separation could proceed. The goal was to bring the CRV down in the most direct approach possible to a landing site immediately accessible to medical personnel. The entire crew would need assistance.
After weeks of living in space, they would be weak as kittens, their muscles unable to support them.
The time for separation was approaching. It would take them twenty-five minutes to coast away from ISS and acquire GPS guidance, fifteen minutes for the deorbit burn setup. An hour to land.
In less than two hours, Emma would be back on earth. One way or another.
The thought came before he could suppress it.
Before he could stop himself from remembering the terrible sight of Jill Hewitt's flayed body on the autopsy table.
He clenched his hands into fists, forcing himself to concentrate on Nicolai Rudenko's biotelemetry readings. The heart rate was fast but regular, blood pressure holding steady. Come on, come on.
Let's bring them home now.
He heard Griggs, on board ISS, report, 'Capcom, my crew is all aboard the CRV and the hatch is closed. It's a little cozy in here, we're ready when you are.'
'Stand by to power up,' said Capcom.
'Standing by.'
'How is the patient doing?' Jack's heart gave a leap as he heard Emma's voice join the loop.
'His vitals remain stable, but he's disoriented times three. The crepitus has migrated to his neck and upper torso, and it's given him some discomfort. I've given him another dose of morphine.' The sudden decompression had caused air bubbles to form in his soft tissues. The condition was harmless, but painful. What Emma worried about were air bubbles in the nervous system. Could that be the reason Nicolai was confused?
Woody Ellis said, 'Go for power up. Remove ECCLES seals.'
'ISS,' said Capcom, 'you are now go for -- '
'Belay that!' a voice cut in.
Jack looked at Flight Director Ellis in confusion. Ellis looked just as confused. He turned to face JSC director Ken Blankenship, who'd just walked into the room, accompanied by a dark-haired man in a suit and a half dozen Air Force officers.
'I'm sorry, Woody,' said Blankenship. 'Believe me, this is not my decision.'
'What decision?' said Ellis.
'The evacuation is off.'
'We have a sick man up there! The CRV's ready to go -- '
'He can't come home.'
'Whose decision is that?'
