Lights in the Deep by Brad R. Torgersen Page A

orifice on Raisa’s suit and frantically began to wind duct tape around the connection. Her face was bright red and her head shook as I worked. Cursing, I ducked down into the Gemini and valved the feed. Vic’s hose rippled like a snake come to life, and for a moment I thought the rigged connection would burst free. But the duct tape held, and Raisa’s eyes popped open, her gasps audible over the radio.
    “Da…Da! I breathe!”
    “No time to waste,” I said, beginning to guide her floating body down into the right-hand seat. She let me do most of the work, as the cramped interior of the Gemini was unforgiving. Twice we stopped and I wrapped extra tape around the connection between her hose and suit—which was clearly leaking heavily—before she was finally down tight and we could try to close the hatch.
    The door thumped onto the top of her helmet, inches from a solid seal.
    We tried again, and again.
    She screamed and pried at the CCCP-stenciled visor cowling that covered the top of her helmet, eventually ripping it free and spinning it into space.
    The hatch closed.
    I clambered down into my own seat as quickly as I could, listening to the hyperventilating going on next to me through the radio, then slammed my hatch shut and started the re-pressurization cycle.
    To her credit, Cosmonaut Zaslavskaya waited until I gave her a thumbs-up before breaking the seal on her helmet and lifting the face bowl. Her cheeks were coated with sweat and there was evidence of hemorrhaging below the skin. But she gave me the first smile I’d seen her make since we first met, and this brought a smile to my face as well.
    I set to work guiding the near-depleted Gemini into docking alignment with GCBV-7004. Two of the Chiron’s fuel cells had been exhausted, but the third worked, and now it provided power to the Chiron’s onboard systems as I nosed the Gemini into dock. If ever I had resented all the hundreds of times I’d practiced the maneuver in simulation, I was grateful now for the effort. The talkbacks barber-poled for a few agonizing seconds, then snapped to normal as the Gemini and Chiron linked up.
    I relaxed in my seat and flipped open my own face bowl, exhaling loudly and closing my eyes in relief.
    “Washington,” my new co-pilot said.
    “Malachi,” I interrupted. “My name is Malachi.”
    “Malachi. Da. All is good?”
    “Yes,” I said, feeling it for the first time in many days. “All is good.”
    • • •
    The GCBV-7004 was in surprisingly good shape for having been stranded in lunar orbit for almost nine months. Most importantly, the main engine responded to control input, though the main radio antennae was dead—a problem which had apparently been related to more than just the bozo package, and afflicted my original craft too? I made a mental note to have them inspect the radios on all the other Chirons when I got back. Until then, we’d be out of long-range radio contact.
    I turned to inform the Russian woman, and found Raisa was already using Vic’s flight manual and mechanical pencil, furiously scribbling notes across the blank pages, some of them in Cyrillic and some in identifiable numerals. Her mouth made silent words as she worked, and for a few minutes she seemed utterly unaware of my existence. Eventually she put her pencil in her lap and pursed her lips.
    “No radio. Without assistance from ground, it will be very difficult to return.”
    “That much is certain,” I said, frowning.
    “I am unfamiliar with this design, so I will not be much help.”
    “I could teach you,” I said.
    “Your government would allow this?”
    “My government isn’t exactly in a position to stop me,” I said.
    She seemed bewildered. “In my country, is serious mistake to give away technology secrets.”
    “In mine too, but right now, I am guessing they’ll be willing to make an exception.”
    “Mine would not be so willing,” she said, chewing a lip.
    “Then it’s a good thing we’ll be picked up by