Solutions: The Dilemma of Hopelessness - James Gerard (novel books to read txt) 📗

was on the flight to the ISS, but that was the least of his concern.

 

The shuttle lurched again.  Charles turned his attention to the port window, watched the ship sidle towards the mooring clamps.  Images of beacons pulsing as a guide to the path, of a rover crawling towards the ship reflected in his eyes.

 

“Okay,” he softly whispered, “time to find out what’s going on.”

 

“Welcome to the International Space Station,” the crackling voice announced.  “At this time, all visiting personnel please proceed to the exit.”

 

Charles fumbled his hands about the myriad of buckles, threw off the restraints, and wasted no time as he darted to the exit.

 

The door swished open as he planted his hands to the wall, halting the momentum.

 

“Charles?”

 

He turned to see a man floating before him.  “Yes.”

 

“Hi.  I’m Justin.”

 

Charles smiled and warmly accepted the gesture of an extended hand.  “Are you the lead engineer?”

 

“No.  If you’ll come with me please.”

 

Charles turned his attention back to the cabin, to the stranger yawning and stretching his limbs.  “What about him?”

 

“He’ll be exiting straight to a rover.”

 

Charles thought that peculiar.  He assumed Justin was escorting him to the maintenance bay where a rover awaited, yet the other passenger had been allowed to exit directly to one.  He resisted the temptation to ask how the stranger attained preferential treatment in the fear that such an inquiry could point to his awareness of suspicious intentions of those who might have conspired against him.

 

“Let’s go,” said Justin.

 

Justin led the way.  Charles followed him to a lone door at the end of the tube.  He recognized its dimensions as the same configuration as that of the habitat modules used at the Lunar Observatory.  The only difference was that the station’s tubes were colored with horizontal stripes of red and blue running the sides of its glowing white surface—both a sign of territorial control and certainly added color for the comfort of the self-important who often toured the station, thought Charles.

 

They glided effortlessly through swishing doors, veering left and right, up and down through the maze of corridors, all the time moving towards the maintenance bay that gripped the ship in place.

 

Along the way Charles jerked his head from side to side to focus on sounds of crackling static, clangs from metallic tools striking metal plates, and murmurs echoing between the circular walls of conjoined modules.  He had been told that the station would be nearly abandoned within seventy-two hours of the launch, but the din of activity throughout indicated otherwise.

 

The last of the doors swished open as they finally reached and glided into the tube of their destination.  There, visible through a window, was the immense rear of the vehicle held secure in a spread of clamps; the full view of its body obscured by the window.

 

“I thought it would be bigger,” said Charles.

 

Justin slipped a crumpled suit from the hold of a closet, and then glided over to Charles.  “If you’re comparing it to the future spacecraft that had been under design,” he said, “forget it.  Their engines would have dwarfed these ones.  Robert will explain everything.”

 

“Who is Robert?”

 

“The team leader.”

 

“I thought Doctor Montgomery was in charge here?”

 

“Who?”

 

“Never mind,” said Charles with a shrug of the shoulders.  Of course, he realized that if he didn’t know Doctor Montgomery then he too is not one of the selected few.

 

Charles grabbed hold of the suit offered by Justin and maneuvered it under his shoes.  The motion sent him spinning out of control, uncoordinated in his effort to slip the suit under and over his body.

 

“Here, let me help,” said Justin.  He first laughed as Charles spun out of control, and then stopped the chuckling while he settled the motion to an upright position.  “Grab hold of the supports above you.”

 

Charles saw what appeared to be a smirk on Justin’s face.  “Did you ever need help getting this thing on?”

 

“Nope,” Justin answered.  “I mastered the feat immediately.”  He slipped his boots under the suit, suspended it below Charles.  “Kick your legs.”

 

“Ah!  So that is how it is done.  Will Timothy have a suit like this?”

 

“Who?”

 

Charles smiled.  "Timothy; the mission's rep?"

 

“Uh, no.  A full self-contained suit will be included for his use,” answered Justin.

 

He doesn’t need to have a full suit, reasoned Charles.  She has something planned all right.

 

“I take it his training went well?” he asked while restraining an angry tongue ready to snap at Justin.

 

“Robert will explain all that.  Now slip your arms in.”

 

Charles punched his arms into the sleeves, jiggled the fingers a bit into the attached gloves.  With an awkward touch of gloved fingers, he managed to raise the zipper, and struggled to snap the buttons to secure the safety within the pouch.

 

Justin extended a helmet covered with remnants of encounters with many a hazard.  “Do you need help getting it on?”

 

“I was thinking,” responded Charles, “if I could see Timothy first?”

 

“He’s busy.  And besides, Robert is waiting for you.”

 

Though Charles really did not care for a tour of the ship’s exterior—it could just be an empty shell—he did not insist that his request be obliged.  He figured sooner or later they would have to relent to the request.

 

In the meantime Charles tucked his suspicions to the back of the mind and took hold of the helmet.  “How will I breathe?”

 

“Put in on,” said Justin.  “I’ll activate the oxygen system.”

 

As soon as Charles twisted the helmet to the suit’s collar, he detected the faint sound of air whistling into the suit, inflating it with sustainable atmosphere.”

 

His nose crinkled as it whiffed the air.  “Phew,” he exclaimed in reaction to the fumes of stench lingering within.

 

Suddenly the airlock door flung open.  He pushed off a wall in order to dodge the jolt from its swing.  Thanks for the warning, he thought.

 

Through teary eyes he looked to Justin pointing a finger to the chamber, to a button pulsing with red on an inner panel.  Justin then flung his arm in an upward motion.

 

Charles signaled understanding of the egress procedure with a thumb and secured his position in the airlock.

 

With a stab of a gloved finger, he silenced the flashing button.  Hanging suspended, the eyes closed to concentrate on air wheezing as it was sucked out of the chamber, but the sound went undetected within the impregnable shell of the suit.  But the sensation of pressure pulling the shell signaled the vacuum was indeed at work.  The sucking action puffed out the suit and replaced the wrinkly appearance with one that was smooth.

 

Without warning, beams of light flooded the chamber.  The sting from already irritated eyes caused Charles to fling a gloved hand to the top of the helmet and slide down the shaded visor.

 

He stared up through the portal and wondered why the silhouette was tapping his own helmet.  “Oh, activate communication,” whispered Charles.  His hands fumbled about the sides of the helmet to find and flip the switch.  “Can you hear me?”

 

“That’s better,” a voice announced.

 

Charles carefully glided up through the hatch to avoid deafening rings from head butting the walls and ceiling in the rover’s cramped confines.

 

“Like an old pro,” noted Robert as he observed Charles’ ascent.

 

“How about luck.”

 

Charles flipped up the visor.  He observed as Robert slipped in the addition nozzles of hoses to the suit.  Instantly the hoses provided a flow of fresh oxygen and warmth to the coldness contained within.

 

“Any nausea, headache, fatigue, or dizziness?” asked Robert.

 

“Not at all.”

 

“Then watch your feet.”  That bottom hatch slid closed and was sealed tight.

 

The thrusters fired.  Charles was fascinated as gloved fingers tapped and flipped a rapidly paced sequence of commands on a control pad.  He believed it was the command to transfer the rover’s control from the station’s global network to its operator.  He wanted to ask right there and then if that was indeed the command sequence, but figured since he had made a fuss about the manual control at the solution’s meeting, and if Senator Richards really did have devious intentions, his inquiry would prove highly suspicious.

 

“Hang on,” said Robert.

 

The rover lurched forward in the direction of the void of space.

 

“Where are we going?”

 

“Giving you an overview of the ship.”

 

As the rover reached the intended vantage point, Robert slowly glided the control stick back bringing the momentum to a crawl.  With a smooth glide to the left, the body of the ship stretched below them.  Charles focused his sights on the rear of the ship.  “Only two aft segments?”

 

“We had to reduce mass.  With some ingenuity we were able to fit some of the oxygen and nitrogen tanks under the floorboards of one of the retired shuttle’s existing cargo bay.  By doing that we were able to house the power plant and the hydrogen fuel tanks for the retro-maneuver in one section, and all remaining tanks in the other.”

 

“Did you experience any problems with the exterior components?”

 

“Not at all.”

 

“How much fuel were you able to store inside the aft section?”

 

“Along with the need of the retro-maneuvers, enough to accelerate and decelerated four times”

 

“Does that include fuel for the steering jets?”

 

“There’s a separate supply.”

 

“Will Timothy be able to manipulate any of the propulsion or thruster systems?”

 

Charles’ gloved hands squeezed the grips of supports in anticipation to Robert’s response.

 

“It’s entirely automated.  All Timothy has to do is sit back and enjoy the ride.”

 

“Good,” said Charles.

 

Somewhat impressed by its crude form, he stared at the ship which basically looked the same as he envisioned, though not as long.  He peered over the tube-like thermal nuclear engines and their hydrogen tanks embracing the exterior.  They bloated the girth of the section.  His eyes then trailed the path of the enormous aft section as it tapered into what was once a full functioning space shuttle.

 

Reduced to a component module, the former museum appeared odd without the wings and elevons, fins and rudders.  The tail assembly that once jutted prominently above its command module and bay doors now was a bare end slipped into the cavity of a tapered cone.

 

The exterior proved to be a curious sight and a somewhat stimulating view; however, it did little to stir up his true interests.  “Robert, sorry to put you through the bother of bringing me out here, but I’m really interested in a tour of the interior if you don’t mind.”

 

“Any more questions?”

 

“Nah, I’m satisfied with what I see.”

 

“Okay then, the interior it is.”

 

Robert slowly guided the control stick forward.  The rover lurched and glided towards the gap of a grid of beams that sided the expansive maintenance bay.

 

While the rover drifted out of the bay, Charles eased the clenching grip off the supports then beamed a smile after hearing that the propulsion systems were all automated.  That news, coupled with the utterance of Timothy’s name, certainly indicated that he was aboard the station.  The facts somewhat comforted his mind—though Robert could just be a more convincing actor than Justin, he pondered.  At the moment, however, the issue of the rover surfaced to the forethoughts.  “By the way, is this the same type of rover Timothy will have access to?”

 

“No.  He’ll have a maintenance rover.”  Robert turned his torso around and pointed to an object as the steering jets maneuvered the rover through the gap of support grids.  “See,” he said, “the small vehicle just behind the command module.  That’s the same type we’ve included for the mission.”

 

As the rover turned to the left the aft section came into full view.  Charles grimaced at the sight of the rover, which had the appearance of a small pickup truck with its bed enclosed in a wrapping of metal.  Observing its robotic arm probing and prodding the skin of the ship, he asked, “What is the worker doing?”

 

“She’s testing the extra current flow at various points of the exterior.”

 

“I thought the ship already had enough protection from accumulating excess heat?”

 

“There are unforeseen risks we have to account for.”

 

“I understand that,” said Charles, “but ships have been subjected to the space environment for long periods without any problems.”

 

“I know,” said Robert.  “But like I said, we’re just trying to make sure everything will be handled during the mission.”

 

“But all