Albatross: Scene Treatment

 “Look, lithium perchlorate canisters.”

Osric’s voice was subdued, his English accent barely more authoritative than a whisper. What little force  he put behind it was only intended to carry the sound out of the plastic oxygen mask pressed over his nose and mouth, and into the headset microphone along his jaw.  The sound muffled out and died  before reaching its destination. Osric rotated a compact video camera to point at the cat-food-like canister floating adrift, and repeated himself a little louder. He halted to examine it, taking mental note of its condition and location inside the capsule. They were not trained to perform a forensic investigation, neither were they intending to, but like any scientist approaching the suspicion of a discovery he moved with an expected glacial patience and caution. Patience was mostly ulterior though, because  every observation he made and took time to note was also a postponement  of what he already knew waited inside the next module.

“Could that be responsible?” The authoritative and American baritone of Commander Riley came over the radio, violating the silence.

“Not likely,” Osric responded, just audible, “I don’t see any evidence of fire damage in the interior. The canister itself is still intact, it hasn’t been ignited, and the trigger looks untouched.”

Riley was unconvinced, “If the Cosmonauts had opened a supply of canisters, that’s indicative of an O₂ problem. “

“Agreed,” Osric replied, quickly appreciating the Commander’s concern. Any issue which sent a crew to open a reserve oxygen supply could suggest serious implications on the integrity of the craft. Osric quickly glanced at the digital barometer fixed to his forearm, “700 mm and holding.”

The relay did nothing to dissuade the Commander. It was an appropriately funereal tone as the  loose artifact floated off near the immediate bulkhead.

 “We’re coming up on the start of a day cycle in 5 minutes, I want regular readings. If the pressure is still holding after 15mins I’ll let the photographer join you and we’ll cycle the air”

“Understood.”

The sun would fall across  both craft soon. If they had planned correctly this capsule would remain in the shadow of the space station during the bulk of the daylight pass and the shadow of an extended solar array for the remainder. Any holes in that umbrella and sunlight would begin to heat the capsule unevenly. It was likely going to get rather warm, and the delicate Englishman only hoped the heat was drier than those summer days in Houston.

Osric pulled the headphones away from his ears and listened to the silence. The craft was powerless, there were no whirring fans, buzzing electronics, the massive batteries likely drained long ago. He had forgotten how noisy the background of a space station is. The only noises he consciously noted were the motors of solar arrays orienting to the sun, or the little vibrations of ceramic gyros reorienting the station. The latching of a spacecraft door though was always unmistakable, and practically violent to the white noise aboard.

…thump…

The Englishman’s eyes grew large.

….thump… thump-thump…

The noise was definitely onboard. Frantically his head bobbed on an owl-like swivel searching for signs of debris moving in the interior. He was floating in the stark chiaroscuro of a portable work light. Shadows appeared with volume and mass in the freefalling ship, they moved as he moved, responding like animals backing away from a fire. The visual trigger sent his primitive brain into an adrenaline dive.

…thump-thump…

It was on the hull. Probably sunlight forcing parts of the structure to expand. His pituitary gland didn’t care though, the feeling was unmistakable and he could only bite his lip, close his eyes, and wait for the adrenaline surge to pass.  Floating alone in the dark of a dead capsule, Osric fought off the adrenaline by attempting to think of anything accept the environment around him. Not the -250 degrees below zero it was outside, not the +250 degrees above it was going to be anywhere sunlight fell. Not the shifting structure of the craft. Not the unknown history of the ship. Not  the O₂ the cosmonauts scrambled for apparently. Or why. Did their supply dwindle? Did the tank rupture? Did a micrometeorite hole pierce the hull?

…thump-thump…

Perhaps there was a hole, and it had been covered by some small bit of trash waiting for Osric’s clumsy hand to dislodge so he can personally relive the deaths of the men in the next room! Muscles started to tense across his body as his primeval urges hijacked his thoughts into paranoia. The only thing floating with him was an image of what the dead cosmonauts looked like. Their skin taught from desiccation, slack jaws frozen into silent screams, eyes rolled up…  Osric clutched at his mask, his chest was heavy, not enough air. His fingers scrambled to adjust flow rates and squeeze the mask.

“Osric!”

Osric’s blood pressure and heart rate had spiked a warning on the flight deck in front of Riley.

The baritone came over the radio berating, “breath for me. Count it out.”

Osric only froze, he could feel his own heartbeat racing, a bitter taste in his mouth, and sweat beading on his skin.

“Osric!”

“One,” he started between abbreviated clusters of breath, “Two,” another cluster, “Three. Four…” the heartbeat fell slowly. A thump sounded off below his feet, and the blood pressure went up again. ‘Just sunlight,’ he reassured himself, ‘ warming a patch of hull.’  …again, “One. Two. Three. Four.”

“Good. Now tell me where the millimeters are…”

“Still at 700”

“What’s the badge color?”

Osric looked at a piece of paper taped clumsily next to the barometer, “Pink.”

“I’m going to go ahead and let the photographer join you.”

“Okay,” Osric was relieved for company. Taking point alone into the derelict craft was not something he enjoyed being volunteered for.

Of particular concern to Riley before allowing multiple people into the craft was the possibility of off-gassing from the insulation. Earlier American insulations tended to break down well within the temperature range this ship likely experienced. If exposed to prolonged heat from solar radiation, the insulation would let off fumes of deadly toxins and rapid carcinogens. The design of the ship was definitely Russian, or more accurately Soviet, but that was all Riley knew when he captured it four days earlier, no other design information could be found. They filled, vented, and tested the atmosphere four times before deciding it was safe to enter.  The paper on Osric’s arm would rapidly turn black if exposed to certain specific toxins, which were unfortunately only a few on a long list of the strange things used to build spaceships. It would resourcefully also turn black after only an hour of being exposed to oxygen.

The mechanism of the station airlock could be heard cranking away. Light poured in with August’s profile as he floated across the divide, an oxygen mask adorned his face as well, and a second work light brought added color into the room pushing the animalistic shadows  further away.

Click. Click-Click. The mechanical shutter of one of the three cameras ornamenting August oscillated between his eye and the image of Osric’s silhouette in the light. It was an antique among digital cameras, but reliable. August grew up with mechanical film cameras and found the sounds they made comforting. Most of his equipment had evolved passed pentaprisms  and curtain-shutters into digital equivalents which made no sound.  There was a kind of flat-paper camera set to hit the consumer market next quarter which did not even have a lens. It was a clever parlor-trick of fiber optics, the photo-electric effect, and computer interpreted rendering.  Not ‘real’ photography. Not that anyone cared.

Click. Click-Click. August spotted a pantry of canned food. Many cans had ruptured, their contents splattered within the pantry and collected like bird crap on the opposite wall. It was getting warm and spa-like inside.

“Did heat do that?”

“Most likely,” Osric responded,  evenly recovered,

There was no rank smell, or foul odor. The food had rotted only so far as the natural enzymes had broken down on their own, and all the water had likely evaporated away into more absorbent materials aboard or out into arid space.  The cans would have been irradiated, and anything biological inside the capsule would have been sterilized long before the heat burst their seams. No fungus. No salmonella. It was the cleanest pile of rotting garbage August had ever seen.

August reached for another pantry door, and tugged at it. A green globule grapefruit-sized drifted out, dragging and breaking up across the face of the door.

“August! Don’t touch that!” Osric scolded urgently “Quick! Towel it up, but don’t let any of it touch you.”

“Why? What the hell is it?” He asked reaching into a supply bag around his waist..

“Probably ethylene-glycol. You don’t want any of it on your skin or eyes,” August must have only looked confused by this as Osric clarified, “It’s antifreeze.”

Obediently and sheepishly the photographer gathered some towels and puddled up what he could, a few drops scattering off into the shadows. The towels were sealed into Ziploc bags and conservative pieces of duct tape adhered them to the pantry bulkhead. Another towel and some water from his drinking pouch quickly cleaned his hands. Riley would be ready with a scolding when they got back.

 “Ethylene-glycol is pumped through the coolant system as a slurry. A seal must have deteriorated and its leaking out now. Maybe faster after we evacuated the atmosphere repeatedly.” Osric frowned and beat back some more muscle tension, “ Try not to touch anything else. There could be more pooled into corners of the ship.”

Thumping could still be heard in several scattered places along the hull. The panels were yawning in the fresh sunlight. Joints and old structural members were repositioning as the ship heated asymmetrically, the solar side stretching to outgrow the colder parts still in shadow. It was growing less frequent, like distant thunder moving away, but Osric kept thinking back to that hole in the hull. Any panel could flex and whatever was plugging it closed might pop out.

“Let’s get to the cosmonauts and back out before the night cycle,” the Englishman pressed on, eager for more familiar surroundings.  Each orbit held 45 minutes of daylight, 45 minutes of night. There was no desire to linger for another round of thumps, or the freezing temperatures.

Opposite the hatch was the entry portal for the cabin and what would have served as the descent module. It was cluttered with debris. A few electrical lines connected the batteries and command systems for each half of the ship. It all looked make-shift, whether that was by Russian design, or the desperate actions to create a lifeboat was unclear.

On the instrument panel above the portal was their explanation for the lithium perchlorate canisters. The device was a gray cylinder with an opening just the correct shape and size to load a canister into. Once locked in place a heating element would ignite and burn the lithium perchlorate, releasing oxygen. Similar devices were kept on board the space station. This device, presumably the only one aboard, had clearly been dismantled, the protective casing removed and the heating element torn out. The cosmonauts had sabotaged their own backup supply for air. There was no hole in the hull, they had committed suicide.

Osric floated his body toward the portal and squeezed past the detritus in an uncomfortably claustrophobic way. August snapped a few quick pictures of the broad-shouldered and tall astronaut moving into the metallic womb of the ship. Osric had positioned himself on the curved interior opposite the hatch. It was cramped and even from his perch, his face was only a couple of feet away from the mummified remains of a soviet pilot in full flight gear.

Г. Михайлов;  M. Громова; 

The script was stitched into the suits, just under the visor lock.

           "G. Mikhailov and M. Gromova," Osric read aloud reverntly."
          August could only fit his head and shoulders into the capsule without consuming all of what little space was left.

“ What went wrong?” Osric asked the dead Soviets, his passing fears totally subdued. The visor was still locked-down on one of the cosmonauts. A possible animal instinct for protection hoping to breath a few seconds more of air from the suit as an alternative to the hypoxia his crewmember suffered.

“Perhaps they were stranded,” August offered weakly, “If the motor wouldn’t fire, or fired incorrectly and stranded them… it could explain the sabotage.”

“Perhaps,” he agreed, “In orbit, no way home, and a slow death as resources diminish,” Osric paused, “Yeah, I’d want to die to.”

August snapped a few more pictures before retorting in gallows humor, “Just where do you think you are?”

Click-click.