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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 90: Cooper 102
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Kondor 285
Having secured the hatch behind him, Cooper moved toward the breach. He realized that gravity--or really, the feeling of acceleration that substituted for it in space--was decreasing. They were reducing the engine thrust during the emergency, and it wasn’t quite off, but probably they were attempting to attain a stable orbit in case the situation worsened and they lost power. He was now bouncing across the room with his patching equipment. Fortunately he had been learning how to move in microgravity; this was easier than that.
Reaching the breach, he examined the crack in the wall--over two feet long, but not wider than an inch at the widest point, although the crack wasn’t entirely straight. He was going to have align his patch to keep the crack as centered as possible, and use a single piece.
Taking the roll of thick white patching material, he eyeballed about thirty inches and unrolled it. He then unfolded the arms of the bracer, set one end of the patch to the clamps at one end, adjusted the other to the length of his patch and clipped the other end to it, then lined it up a few inches from the wall. The patch fluttered in the reduced breeze feeding out the breach, and he realized the next part would be tricky. He backed the bracer away from the wall, reducing the amount of flutter, and got the primer. When this had been shown to him he had wondered why this wasn’t in an aerosol or even pump spray, but now that he was working with it he realized that the depressurization of the cabin would cause either of those to burst, and the exhausting air would carry the droplets away from the work. He opened the jar of primer and grabbed the brush, and beginning with the edges painted the entire surface that would go against the wall.
He had to do this quickly. The primer would soften the patch so it would stick, but then harden it so it would stay, and so it had to be pressed against the wall as soon as possible. Shifting around in the still decreasing gravity, he moved the bracer until it was once again aligned with the breach, and pressed it against the wall.
The pressure in the cabin pressed the patch against the breach and against the wall generally. He grabbed the roller to flatten the patch as well as he could, undoing the clamps and clips on the bracer as he worked so he could flatten it as smoothly as possible. He waited, staring at his work. How does one determine whether it works?
Repressurize the cabin, of course, he thought. The chaff had by now settled to the floor, air pressure in the cabin insufficient to support it. He moved back to the hatch, and tried to remember how to open a bulkhead. First you had to shift the whistler--so-called because it was a very small tube through the bulkhead, and once opened the air rushed through it so rapidly that it made a shrieking noise. There was then a secondary tube with a larger diameter that let the pressure equalize more quickly with less racket, and finally the locks on the bulkhead could be released. It was impossible to open the bulkhead before equalization was completed--well, maybe some of the larger aliens had the strength to do it, but you would be pushing against the atmospheric pressure of the rest of the ship.
He checked the pressure gauges. Air outside the cabin was at about zero-point-eight normal, which was survivable but thin, about the same as mountain air at two thousand feet above sea level. The pressure in the cabin had dropped to zero-point-two, twenty percent of normal, which he was quite certain was not survivable. He opened the whistler.
Even with his helmeted suit and the thin atmosphere he could hear the sound of air rushing into the room. The room pressure gauge was slowly creeping upward. There was a magic number--what was it? He couldn’t remember. However, if the system was working properly an indicator light should appear when it was safe to open the secondary tube. He had asked why it wasn’t specifically a green indicator, but his alien teacher asked him what he meant by “green”, which reminded him that the eyes of many of his crewmates saw different spectra than he did, and their brains interpreted it differently. Light on, light off, was the best the system could do.
It seemed to take forever, but gradually the pressure reading rose. When it reached forty percent--half of the outside pressure--the light ignited, and he opened the secondary tube. Air came rushing in rapidly, and now the reading was visibly rising. As it hit zero-point-seven-five he heard the latches disengage. He pushed against the door--but in the now nearly non-existent gravity he could not get sufficient traction to shift it against the pressure. His patience had nearly come to an end, but there was nothing else he could do so he waited for complete equalization, at which point the bulkhead opened not exactly easily but freely.
He removed his helmet and an activated the intercom on the wall to contact the bridge. There was a responding voice asking who he was.
“This is Sailor Cooper. I am in room,” he checked the markings over the hatch and read them off, “Dee Twenty-seven, and I have patched a breach. I appear to have normalized pressure, but someone from engineering should probably check my work, as it’s the first time I’ve ever done this.”
The intercom was silent for long enough that Cooper wasn’t sure it was still working, but then the voice returned. “Stay where you are, Cooper. Someone will relieve you in Dee Twenty-seven shortly.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, not entirely certain whom he was addressing but thinking that the appropriate response. He looked for a place to sit, although with the current level of gravity he almost could have floated in the air.
That reminded him--wasn’t he in bed when this happened? No wonder he was tired.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #531: Versers Roam. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
