Gwendy’s Final Task

They float their way into the airlock, helmets under their arms, and sit on the two benches. The space is tight—all spaces are tight on Heavy—and their knees touch. Gwendy starts to put her helmet on, but Kathy shakes her head. “Not yet. Sixty inhales and exhales first. Prebreathing, remember?”

Gwendy nods. “To purge the nitrogen.”

“Right. Gwendy … are you sure?”

“Yes.” She answers with no hesitation. Everything is in place, the story they will tell later set and agreed to by all hands. Gwendy and Winston weren’t at breakfast, but no one thought that was unusual because they are passengers, supercargo, and have the luxury of sleeping in. No one will start to worry until at least 1000 hours, and by then Kathy will be back onboard the MF. There will be a search. It will be at least 1400 before Sam Drinkwater calls the down-below to tell them the VIPs are missing and may have drifted away while attempting a spacewalk. Terrible accident, God knows why they would have done something so foolish, blah-blah-blah.

Gwendy gets a little woozy from the fast respiration. Kathy tells her that’s normal and will pass by the time they egress Eagle Heavy. After two minutes of breathing, Kathy tells Gwendy it’s time to put on her bucket. “And remember, helmet-to-helmet comm only. No one hears but just us girls. Let me hear your roger.”

“Roger that,” Gwendy says, and dons her bucket. Kathy moves to help her secure it, but Gwendy waves her off, does it herself, and looks for the green light on the little control panel at mouth level. When she sees it, she dons her gloves, secures them, and waits for a second green light. She makes a thumb-and-finger circle to Kathy, who returns the gesture.

Kathy closes the door to Eagle Heavy and the two of them sit waiting for the airlock to depressurize.

“Reading me, Gwendy?”

“Loud and clear.”

“Set your suit temp to maximum hot, then adjust it down.”

“How long will the heat last?”

“In theory as long as your breathable air, just shy of six hours. The heat may actually last longer, but …” Her shrug says the rest: But you won’t feel it

.

There’s a belt around Gwendy’s waist with two ordinary high-altitude carabiners attached. She knots the drawstring bag with the button box around one of them. Kathy attaches the buddy cable to the other. They are now tethered together like scuba divers: the instructor and the pupil.

“Ready to EVA?” Kathy asks.

Gwendy makes another thumb-and-forefinger circle. She thinks, Oh yes, very ready. Been waiting for this ever since I first looked through my telescope, over fifty years ago. I just didn’t know it.

“Don’t wait too long to lower your outer visor. Night pass ends in just about seven minutes.”

“Roger.”

Kathy turns the red lever in the center of the airlock’s outer door, then pulls it.

0748.

The airlock opens on the stars.

52

THEY FLOAT INTO SPACE, tethered. Gwendy can hear her own breathing and, through the helmet-to-helmet comm, Kathy’s. Beside them is Eagle Heavy, and she can see where someone from the ground crew has printed GOOD LUCK YOU GUYS on the fuselage in Sharpie. Below them is Earth, blue and cloud-streaked, with a golden nimbus growing on one gorgeous shoulder. Here comes the sun, Gwendy thinks.

Kathy leads them slowly downward, using indented handholds on Heavy’s flank. Near the bottom, these handholds are smudged from the blast of the last rocket bursts, as Kathy lined them up for docking.

On the way down they pass hatches labeled A through E. The last one, Hatch F, is just above the rocket boosters. It’s the only one with a keypad; the others can be opened with a simple socket wrench. Kathy has to duck under a solar panel to get at it. She raises the little plexi-shield over the pad and punches the combination Gwendy has given her. It’s the same one that opened the CLASSIFIED case.

The thing Kathy floats out makes Gwendy smile. The Pocket Rocket is four feet long, or maybe a bit less. To Gwendy it looks almost exactly like the craft that brought Kal-El, aka Superbaby, to Earth. Her father gave away most of his old comic books (or lost them), but Gwendy found a box of old Supermans in the attic and read them eagerly, again and again.

Kathy floats the Pocket Rocket up between them. There’s a hatch on top, held by simple latches that look about as high-tech as the ones on the Scooby Doo lunchbox Gwendy carried to elementary school. Kathy flips them, reaches inside, and brings out a controller that looks like the one Gwendy used to release Boris in Adesh’s lab. Except this one is smaller, and there are only two buttons.

Another button box, Gwendy thinks. Those damn things are my destiny.