“Happy birthday Dad!” said Richard and Hazel together. “Happy forty fifth!” added Richard. “Hope you’re having a good time up there! We're having a great time down here.” To prove it, he produced a bottle of wine and poured himself a glassful, then took a deep swallow.
“I can see that,” said Paul Lewis, laughing. “I hope you’re not driving home.”
There was a speed of light delay of about two seconds as his words were bounced to a newly re-positioned satellite and down to the house in Lincolnshire before Hazel answered. “I'm designated driver for the occasion,” she said. “Don't worry. Me, Len and Cathy'll roll him home when we think he’s had enough party spirit.”
“And I'll make sure he doesn't have too much,” said Cathy, coming into view from the edge of the monitor screen to gently but insistently pluck the glass from her husband’s hand. Richard took a swig directly from the bottle instead before she took that from him as well.
“When are you coming home, Dad?” she asked, taking a three month old baby from her sister’s husband and holding him in the crook of her arm. “This little chap’s never seen his grand daddy except on a screen.”
“It's going to be a while yet, I'm afraid,” replied Paul. “They're using all the available launch windows to replace the satellites that couldn't be saved. It might be months before they can get a replacement crew up here. So long as we're all in good health they've asked us to stay up here a bit longer.”
“Couldn't you fake an illness?” said Richard, grinning. “Say you’re coming down with space lurgy. Just fake a few symptoms. Double vision, headaches, excessive flatulence...”
“You know they monitor all communications, right?”
After the brief speed of light delay Richard slapped a hand to his head. “Guess I'm not cut out to be a criminal mastermind,” he said. Someone chuckled off screen.
“Who else is there?” asked Paul.
“Apart from mum? Just a few friends...” The sound of cheering came from off screen and a few heads popped into view, some holding drinks, some with party hats on their head. Hands were waved and a chorus of voices wished him a happy birthday. “Thought we'd make a day of it. Any excuse for a party.”
Paul laughed and waved back. “Thank you everyone. Have one on me.” The cheering intensified, then turned into laughter. “I'd like to talk to Mags now, before we lose the slot.”
“Yes, of course. She's in the spare room, so you can talk in private. Well, except for, you know. Anyway, I'll pass you over.”
He leaned forward to fill the screen, pressed a button and his face was replaced with that of his wife, Margaret. Sitting in a chair in front of the spare room computer. “Mags! How you doing?”
She smiled and leaned forward in the chair. “Paul! Happy birthday!”
“Thanks. Everything okay down there?”
“Everything's fine. The kids are fine, they’re both doing well in their jobs. The only thing not fine is you still being up there.”
“Yes, I know I promised I'd be back by now. It's the satellites, They’re using all the launch windows to...”
“I know about the satellites!” She tossed her head angrily to throw her glossy chestnut hair back out of her eyes. “You could come back down if you wanted to. They can’t keep you up there.”
“It'll probably be months before they can get a replacement crew up here. They've asked me to stay a little longer...”
“There are eight of you up there! I watch the telly, I know your operations have all been put on hold until they get everything back to normal. An expert was saying he was surprised you weren't operating on a skeleton crew until then. He said it only takes two people to do the basic housekeeping. The rest of you could come back down. You could just take one of the shuttles and come back down.”
“It's not that simple. We used most of our fuel just keeping the station up in orbit. The engines of the second shuttle are the only way we have of making a course correction if we see a big piece of space debris in our path. They're hoping to get us refuelled as soon as possible, but no-one seems to know when that will be.”
“You have the escape pods.” There was no delay, which told Paul she’d spoken before he'd finished speaking. “You could come down in the escape pods.”
“They're only for emergencies, we can't just take one. I'm sorry. I know I made you a promise, but...”He took a deep breath to calm himself. He hated seeing his wife becoming upset. “I’m afraid I'm stuck up here for a while. A few months at least.”
He looked at the timer at the bottom of the screen. Only a few seconds left. Until they got more satellites back into position there was a limit to how long they could keep the connection open. To conserve the satellites’ limited reserves of fuel, they were putting them into minimal fuel trajectories that would take weeks to get them back to where they were supposed to be. “I have to go now,” he said therefore. “I'm sorry. If there were any way to get back to you, I would, but there's just no way, not yet. I love you.”
She nodded unhappily. “I love you too. Take care up there. Don't do anything dangerous.”
“I won't. I promise...”
The picture broke up, then vanished and Paul found himself staring at his reflection in the dark screen. Then George Jefferson’s face appeared in it. “That's the best we can do, I'm afraid,” the ground controller said. “You'll be over her house in a couple of orbits. You can talk to her directly.”
“No, thanks, tomorrow will do. There's things I have to do. Thanks, George.”
“No worries mate.”
The screen went black again and Paul unstrapped himself from the chair. “I'm going to check the air filters,” he told Zhang Yong, on duty in the control module while Lauren was sleeping. The Chinese shuttle pilot nodded distractedly, then turned his attention back to the systems overview monitor.
In space, the dust never settled. Without gravity to pull it down it just floated around in the air and if it got too thick it could cause breathing problems for the astronauts. All the air was filtered, therefore. Each module had its own filter, sucking the air in and spinning it to centrifuge out the particles of lint, flakes of skin and grains of metal, compacting it into a cylindrical brick that could be removed and packed into a refuse bag for return to earth. Paul had heard that a university student was analysing the stuff as part of his graduate course, but what insights he expected to get was beyond him.
He went to the Colibri shuttle to get the dust canister, then checked the filter in the Vulcan module since that was the closest. Bao was there, doing some routine maintenance work on number two furnace, and he looked up as the assistant commander flipped open the filter’s casing, eased the compact brick of detritus out and opened the dust canister to allow the brick to drift into it. Then he closed both of the plastic boxes with a click of the fasteners, nodded to the scientist and kicked his way into the next module.
He made his way from one to the next, offering friendly greetings to each member of the space station crew as he passed them. He did them in the same order as he always did, that being the best way to make sure he didn't miss one, and that brought him back to the command module last where he found that Susan Kendall had entered since he'd left. She was staring through the small, round porthole in what Paul tended to think of as the floor, even though there were no floors or ceilings in the weightless habitat. The chairs were all oriented the same way, though, and the pothole was in that part of the hull that was below them when they were sitting in them.
YOU ARE READING
Angry Moon
Science FictionImagine that some great cosmic force pushed the moon into a different orbit. An orbit that brought it to within seventy thousand miles of the Earth every fifteen days. What would be the result? What would it do to our planet, to our civilisation? Co...
