burned up in the atmosphere. Only the passengers in the reentry module could even theoretically make it back alive.
The vitamin bagging proceeded through the hatch into the reentry module and went viral as faces and arms were freed. In the three couches, where humans were supposed to ride, were the two other scheduled cosmonauts, Yuri and Vyacheslav, and the Brit, who was named Rhys.
Bolor-Erdene, Yuri, and Vyacheslav took their first chance to unstrap and move up through the orbital module into the Hub. Rhys requested that he be given a moment.
Dinah went into the Hub to greet the other four. In normal timesthese moments were at least a little bit ceremonious, with the new arrivals being greeted with hugs, or at least high fives, as they glided through the hatch, and photographs taken. The impending deaths of everyone on Earth cast a bit of a pall over this occasion, but Dinah felt she should at least say a few words to each of them.
Bolor-Erdene urged Dinah to address her as Bo. She was obviously of Far Eastern stock, and yet there was something in her eyes and cheekbones that did not look precisely Chinese. Dinah’s preliminary googling had already told her that Bo was Mongolian.
Yuri and Maxim were coming to ISS for their third and fourth times, respectively. Vyacheslav seemed to be a last-minute substitution for a younger cosmonaut who would have been making his first trip to the ISS. Vyacheslav had done two previous stints. So, all the Russians except for Bo were old hands at this, and once they had exchanged brief greetings with Dinah they glided through the middle of the Hub, looking about curiously since some of them hadn’t seen it before, and then through the hatch into the Zvezda module, which was like home to them. They exchanged clipped remarks in Russian of which Dinah understood about 50 percent. Everyone who worked on Izzy had to have at least working knowledge of Russian.
Rhys Aitken was an engineer who had made a career of building strange new constructs, usually for wealthy clients. Until seventeen days ago, his mission had been to lay groundwork for the addition of a second, larger torus, built around a newer Hub aft of the existing one and intended for space tourists. This was part of a public-private partnership between NASA and Rhys’s employer, a British billionaire who had been one of the early movers in the space tourism industry. Rhys had a new mission now, but he was still a perfect fit for the job.
Dinah went back through the orbital module and peered through the hatch at him, lying there patiently motionless in his couch.
“First time in space?” Dinah asked him, though she already knew the answer.
“Don’t you have Google up here?” he responded. From an American it would have been simply obnoxious, but Dinah had spent enough time around Brits to take it as intended.
“You just don’t seem very eager to explore your new home.”
“I’m stretching it out. The process of discovery. Besides, I was warned not to move my head.”
“To avoid nausea. Yeah, that’s good advice,” Dinah said. “But you have to move it eventually.” A loose packet of cucumber seeds, stenciled in Cyrillic, floated past her head. She plucked it carefully out of the air. Finding herself in range, she stuck out her hand. “Dinah,” she said.
“Rhys.” He extended his hand while gazing rigidly ahead, as he’d been instructed. But in the time-honored manner of most human males, he allowed his eyeballs to swivel her way so that he could check her out, then turned his head so that he could check her out better.
“You’re going to regret that,” she said.
“Oh, my goodness,” he exclaimed.
“You have a few minutes before it all comes up. Come on out, I’ll get you a bag.”
DURING ONE OF MANY RECENT SLEEPLESS “NIGHTS,” DINAH HAD found herself worrying about transistors. Modern semiconductor technology had found a way to make them very small. So small that they could be destroyed by
The vitamin bagging proceeded through the hatch into the reentry module and went viral as faces and arms were freed. In the three couches, where humans were supposed to ride, were the two other scheduled cosmonauts, Yuri and Vyacheslav, and the Brit, who was named Rhys.
Bolor-Erdene, Yuri, and Vyacheslav took their first chance to unstrap and move up through the orbital module into the Hub. Rhys requested that he be given a moment.
Dinah went into the Hub to greet the other four. In normal timesthese moments were at least a little bit ceremonious, with the new arrivals being greeted with hugs, or at least high fives, as they glided through the hatch, and photographs taken. The impending deaths of everyone on Earth cast a bit of a pall over this occasion, but Dinah felt she should at least say a few words to each of them.
Bolor-Erdene urged Dinah to address her as Bo. She was obviously of Far Eastern stock, and yet there was something in her eyes and cheekbones that did not look precisely Chinese. Dinah’s preliminary googling had already told her that Bo was Mongolian.
Yuri and Maxim were coming to ISS for their third and fourth times, respectively. Vyacheslav seemed to be a last-minute substitution for a younger cosmonaut who would have been making his first trip to the ISS. Vyacheslav had done two previous stints. So, all the Russians except for Bo were old hands at this, and once they had exchanged brief greetings with Dinah they glided through the middle of the Hub, looking about curiously since some of them hadn’t seen it before, and then through the hatch into the Zvezda module, which was like home to them. They exchanged clipped remarks in Russian of which Dinah understood about 50 percent. Everyone who worked on Izzy had to have at least working knowledge of Russian.
Rhys Aitken was an engineer who had made a career of building strange new constructs, usually for wealthy clients. Until seventeen days ago, his mission had been to lay groundwork for the addition of a second, larger torus, built around a newer Hub aft of the existing one and intended for space tourists. This was part of a public-private partnership between NASA and Rhys’s employer, a British billionaire who had been one of the early movers in the space tourism industry. Rhys had a new mission now, but he was still a perfect fit for the job.
Dinah went back through the orbital module and peered through the hatch at him, lying there patiently motionless in his couch.
“First time in space?” Dinah asked him, though she already knew the answer.
“Don’t you have Google up here?” he responded. From an American it would have been simply obnoxious, but Dinah had spent enough time around Brits to take it as intended.
“You just don’t seem very eager to explore your new home.”
“I’m stretching it out. The process of discovery. Besides, I was warned not to move my head.”
“To avoid nausea. Yeah, that’s good advice,” Dinah said. “But you have to move it eventually.” A loose packet of cucumber seeds, stenciled in Cyrillic, floated past her head. She plucked it carefully out of the air. Finding herself in range, she stuck out her hand. “Dinah,” she said.
“Rhys.” He extended his hand while gazing rigidly ahead, as he’d been instructed. But in the time-honored manner of most human males, he allowed his eyeballs to swivel her way so that he could check her out, then turned his head so that he could check her out better.
“You’re going to regret that,” she said.
“Oh, my goodness,” he exclaimed.
“You have a few minutes before it all comes up. Come on out, I’ll get you a bag.”
DURING ONE OF MANY RECENT SLEEPLESS “NIGHTS,” DINAH HAD found herself worrying about transistors. Modern semiconductor technology had found a way to make them very small. So small that they could be destroyed by
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