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Roxanne cut Mark off. “We know what the president said. But we’re not leaving you up there to die. Let’s talk options. What’s your situation?”
“We’re in a free drift, tumbling into a death spiral. We’re out of power. The temperature is plunging, and oxygen is nearly out.”
“Can you get to the Soyuz? The Roscosmos engineers believe they can walk you through overriding the guidance computer. You can manually pilot her once you disengage from the station.”
Sasha met Mark’s grim gaze. Phillipa’s shrieks, her hungry wails, her desperate clawing at the airlock, continued… though they were starting to lessen. Her body was weakening as the virus ran out of its fuel—her life—to support its frenzy.
“We can’t get to the Soyuz,” Mark said. “We’re trapped inDestiny.”
“Was there a structural compromise? Decompression?”
Mark hesitated. “Phillipa is locked in there. And she’s infected.”
“Blyad…” Sergey’s voice, soft and faint and almost hidden in a radio pop, floated into Sasha’s ear. They weren’t keeping to NASA’s practice of only one person communicating directly with the astronauts.
Dr. Worrell came on the line. “What is your current status? Are either of you feeling symptoms of the virus? Any fever, body aches? Vision problems? Subconjunctival hemorrhage? Headache?”
“We’ve both got headaches, but that’s from the O2depletion,” Mark said. “We’re on fumes up here. Nothing else.”
“Are you sure?”
“We’re good. We’re not infected. Neither of us was bitten. We weren’t at that autopsy, either.”
“We don’t know yet how the infection spreads,” Dr. Worrell cautioned. “We can’t say with any certainty those are the only ways someone could be infected.”
“We’renotsick, Doc.”
Shouting in the background over the radio made Sasha jerk. He tried to listen, tried to parse out the noise, the confusion, the frantic screaming. Then—
“Let me talk to him! God, please, let me talk to him!”
“Lindsey!” Mark shouted. “Put her on—”
“She’s right here,” Roxanne said. “We’re giving her a headset now. She was resting, but we woke her up to talk to you.”
And then Lindsey was on the line, at first gasping, sobbing, repeating Mark’s name over and over as he told her he loved her. “How are you in Russia?” Mark asked.
She gathered herself quickly, deep breaths in and out. “I texted Sergey,” she said, a burst of relieved laughter erupting from her. “NASA cut off all contact with Russia after the takeover. If it weren’t for that damn weekend at the lake…”
The radio whined, a rise and fall in the gain as her voice faded away.
“We’re coming home, sweetie,” Mark said. For the first time since Jim had crashed and bled out, had died in their arms, he sounded like himself again. “We’re going to figure out a way to get home, okay?”
“You better. Remember, the girls have their play next week.”
Mark smiled. His eyes closed. Tears froze on his eyelashes, turning to drops of ice that danced inside his helmet. “I wouldn’t miss it for anything,” he whispered. “We’ll watch it together. I love you.”
Sasha’s heart squeezed. Suddenly he wanted that, craved that: the open, easy love Mark and Lindsey had, how their worlds were seamlessly connected, one life lived together for everyone to see. “Seryozha,” he said, before he could stop himself.
“I’m here,Sashunya.” Sergey’s voice was thick, choked like a stream clogged with frozen ice. “I’m here.”
He breathed into the mic. His lips moved, all the things he wanted to say. Was this even a secure channel? How many people around the world were listening in?
“Do you still have what I gave you?”
“Da. Of course.”
Static washed out Sergey’s words, and Sasha only picked up the end, warbling off the tail of a solar flare. “—come home,Sashunya.”
