Ten Little Astronauts by Damon L. Wakes

Author:Damon L. Wakes [Wakes, Damon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Unbound

Two

Blair and Lambert worked in silence, reconnecting the severed cables. There was no telling what kind of damage had been done to the computing hub, but Blair was confident that the mainframe in the central section of the ship would merely need to be reset. Perhaps Clements had been counting on that. Perhaps she hadn’t thought that far ahead.

‘Done.’ Blair extinguished the welding torch. ‘Owen should be able to diagnose any problems with the equipment in here, so the next step is to head out to the mainframe.’ He remained staring at the patched-up cables, and their rough covering of heat-shrink tubing. He tried to avoid looking at the scene behind him, the bodies still lying where they had fallen. This time around, venturing outside the ship almost seemed preferable to remaining inside.

‘Right.’ Lambert too seemed utterly absorbed by their work on the cables. ‘No time like the present.’

They walked to life support and shut down the centrifuge, so that Blair would not have to fight gravity on his way to the centre of the ship. Then, weightless once more, they made their way back to the airlock. Blair forced his head into the helmet and repressurised his suit, Lambert double-checking the connections.

Blair worked the airlock in a stupor. After the events of the last few hours, the danger of decompression, of stepping outside the mechanically maintained world of the ship, hardly fazed him. Even the crawl to the main section, with the infinite expanse of space yawning apparently below him, passed by in a daze. Now that he had Aldrin’s still-functioning magnetic anchor, there was little chance of becoming separated from the ship. It was over. Just this one final task, and he was done.

There were no buttons at the other end of the ladder. No lights or switches. Blair closed a gloved hand over the simple release wheel of the hatch. He felt the metal squeal as he turned it, but he heard no sound. There was only his own breathing, and the regular snap of the air regulator.

‘I’m in,’ he said over the helmet’s radio.

‘Good luck,’ replied Lambert, from the console by the airlock door.

Blair pulled himself through the hatch, then tugged it closed. Immediately inside was the machinery to turn the centrifuge: the motors that lent the bays at the end of each spoke the illusion of gravity. Further along the ship’s vast fuselage was the mainframe that controlled all the equipment on board. Blair pulled himself over to it. The small monitor, the status lights, the racks and racks of circuit boards were all dead. The machine responsible for the lives of all the frozen passengers was itself utterly helpless.

Blair opened an electrical cabinet and reset a line of breakers. A small button at the end of the line came to life, illuminated by a single blinking LED. Blair pressed it.

Immediately, the ship shuddered into action. Lights flickered. Coolant pumps began to rumble. The small screen bolted to the racks of circuit boards flashed through

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