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Sasha could see her pulse fluttering in her carotid above the collar of her T-shirt. Phillipa winced, almost flinching with every beat of her heart.
He tried to breathe slow and steady. He clutched Sergey’s ring in one hand, holding his fist against his heart.
Rafael glared at the far bulkhead. “Phillipa, let me run the ultrasound over them,” he said softly, not looking at her. “Let me see what I can find. There might be something.”
Phillipa’s breath shook. She squeezed her eyes closed.
“We need to know,” Mark added. “We need something, or we’re all just waiting to die.”
Silently, Phillipa pivoted and launched down the stack, heading forHarmonyand the Japanese lab. Joey was in her way, and he pulled himself againstDestiny’sbulkhead, flattening himself as far away from her as he could get. Rafael followed behind, nodding once to Mark.
Mark, Sarah, and Sasha floated with Michaela’s body in silence. Michaela Fairclough, NASA’s most formidable astronaut, seemed smaller restrained to the backboard, as if all of her passion, the spark and spirit that had quickened her temper, made her eyes flash, that had propelled her through her life and into space, had already died and all that was left was a papier-mâché shell. What had made Michaela so larger than life had already slipped out of the station, whispering away on the solar winds.
The station hummed around them, the buzz of the fans and the oxygen tanks recirculating the air through the modules. Michaela’s personal oxygen tank hissed, pushing air down her intubation line and into her lungs.
Sasha watched the restraint board spin.She’s already gone. She’s already dead.
No. They weren’t giving up, not yet.
Down the stack, someone shrieked.
* * *
“Getthe fuck out of there, Rafael!” Phillipa shouted. “Get out of the fucking lab!”
Rafael pushed away from the sealed airlock, backing into the Japanese lab. On either side of him, black body bags, Jim’s and the long-dead Soviet’s shrouds, floated free, bumping against the offline consoles and display panels. He tapped his headset, transmitting what he said to the entire station. “I’m not coming out of here.”
“Get the fuck out!” Phillipa screamed again. She banged her palm on the plexiglass window, pounding as hard as she could. “They’re both infected!”
“And so am I,” Rafael said. “Face it. I took a faceful of Jim’s vomit. His blood is inside me. Whatever he had, I have. And I’m feeling it. What we need now are answers. We need to know what’s killing us.” He turned to Jim’s shroud, steadying himself against the bulging black rubber. “I’m going to autopsy them both and find out what this thing is. Find something that can help us.”
“You said you were just going to ultrasound their bodies!”
“Ultrasound can’t go through this kind of bone, Phillipa. What we need to know is in their brains. The terminal event is linked to the ICP. Is it a cerebral edema? How is it connected to the hemorrhage? We need answers. If it were me, I’d want you to do everything you could, including carving me up to save you all. Jim would want us to do this for Michaela. We’ve got to save ourselves up here now.”
“If you cut into those bodies, you’re going to die.”
“I’m going to die either way. But maybe I can help the rest of you live. This is my choice.”
Sasha and Mark crowded around the hatch behind Phillipa. “Rafael!” Mark shouted. “What are you doing?”
“Hopefully, saving you all.” Rafael slipped his feet into the canvas straps and secured Jim’s shroud to the bulkhead. Overhead, a bag of tools floated free, spilling from a storage drawer he’d pulled loose. A cordless drill floated toward Rafael’s hand.
“Mark, help me override this!” Phillipa frantically worked the controls, screaming through clenched teeth. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she almost doubled over, squinting as she tried to make out the panel before her.
“What’s your plan, Rafael?” Mark gently pulled Phillipa away from the panel. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders in a loose hold.
“I need to see what’s happening inside their bodies. Inside their brains. You have a good theory, Mark. You need to release the pressure building up inside the skull.” Rafael reached for the zipper on Jim’s body bag and grabbed the floating drill. “I think that’s the key. I think we need to open up a drain.”
“Jesus Christ,” Mark muttered.
Rafael drew the zipper down slowly, the sound transmitting over the radio to every corner of the station. Phillipa bucked in Mark’s hold, a plaintive sob ripping from her.
Blood bubbled out of the body bag like a mushroom cloud. It was dark and viscous, jellylike, and filled with clots of crimson-and-black sludge. The bubble rose out of what was left of Jim’s chest, a slimy, putrefied, congealed mess of skin and melted organs. It broke off from Jim’s body with a shiver and rose, floating slowly away.
Rafael stared at the bubble. It was larger than his head, and it pulsed, almost throbbed, like it had its own heartbeat. “I wish Houston could see this.”
“We’re recording everything,” Mark said softly. “When we put comms back up, they’ll get copies of all this.”
