Skyfall

“Hold your breath!” Patrick shouted. “Hold your breath, I'll get you inside.” He grabbed the burst hose in his glove but could not contain the gas which bubbled out between his fingers. “Inside! Nadya, start pressurizing now, we need every second.”

He seized Ely with his free hand and worked the jets on the AMU, a short hard blast, then a course correction, full on. It was a crawling pace, a drift towards the distant safety of the open hatch, floating forward with the loops of the umbilical trailing out behind. Patrick had his faceplate close to Ely's and could see his mouth shut, then his eyes, slowly, with ice crystals already beginning to form on them.

The open hatch. Brake, grab the edge. Then shove the unconscious man through it, pushing the loops of trailing umbilicals after him.

“Get him near the air inlet,” he called out, fumbling with the belt that held him to the AMU, disentangling himself from it and forcing himself to take the time to clip it to a ring in the hull before diving through the hatch. The very last thing he did was to close the valves and disconnect himself from the air supply of the AMU. Holding his breath, not taking the time to reattach inside, closing the hatch.

The white snow of the air turned to invisible gas as the atmosphere was pumped into the flight cabin. Nadya was bending over the still form on the floor. Patrick jumped to the pressure gauge. Quarter atmospheric, good enough. Then he was rotating the wheel of the hatch to the crew compartment — was blown back as the air rushed into the only partially pressurized cabin.

Nadya was turning Ely's helmet, removing it. Patrick realized that he was still holding his breath so took off his own helmet as well, gasping in welcome lungfuls of air.

“Coretta, in here at once,” Patrick shouted.

“The air, what happened to the pressure?” she said, coming out through the hatch.

“It's Ely, his hose was cut.”

“Let me see him. Someone bring the big green metal case from my locker.”

“Prometheus, you have an emergency with Dr. Bron,” Mission Control's voice rattled from the wall speaker. “Medical monitoring reports no pulmonary activity, heart functions weakening.”

“Give me running reports on respiration, pulse and heart,” Coretta called out as she put the oxygen mask over Ely's face and triggered the valve. “Get this suit off him so we can use artificial respiration.”

She let the oxygen tank drift away and bent her lips to his, sealing his nose with her hand, giving him the kiss of life. Aware of the crystals of frozen perspiration on his icy skin.

“We have treatment suggestions from the medical team, Prometheus, are you ready to copy?”

“Copying,” Nadya said, taking the notepad from the pocket on her leg. Patrick slumped, he would have fallen if there had been gravity, totally exhausted by the last spurt of effort. Coretta bent over the unconscious man while Gregor looked on in shocked silence.

“What. . will happen to him?” Gregor asked. No one dared to answer.

31

GET 17:45

“Mister, it's gone a quarter to eleven at night. The old Smithsonian been closed maybe five hours now. Ain't no one there.”

The cab driver was fiftyish, amiable, black, and didn't want to strand this nice little old man in the middle of the Washington night. Not with the muggers and such around.

“I have a friend that works there,” Professor Weisman explained patiently, holding tight to his briefcase.

“ 'Fraid she's gone home now.”

“I'm sure she has, but someone there must know her address or her phone number.”

“Tried the phone book?”

“Unlisted.”

“Better get in. We'll drive around and maybe find the night watchman. But I don't want to just leave you there, not this hour of the night.”

At this hour of the night it was a short drive from Union Station to the Smithsonian Institute. It loomed up ahead, redbrick and Victorian, a castellated fortress appearing very much out of place among its ultramodern, Greek-templed neighbors. The cab driver stopped before the entrance and looked carefully into the shadows before he opened the back door.

“There's a night bell under that light there, street looks okay now,” he said.

“Thank you, I wouldn't worry too much,” Weisman said, climbing out of the cab.

“I got reason. A girl mugged and killed last night just a block from the White House. This ain't Funsville.”

“Oh dear! Thank you.” Weisman moved faster than he usually did and arrived, panting, at the door. He leaned on the bell which he could hear ringing dimly deep inside the building. It took a minute before the watchman appeared. His large belly pushed out the blue of his uniform shirt; he kept his hand on the butt of his revolver as he came slowly towards the door.

“Whaddya want?” he shouted through the glass, making no attempt to open it. “We're closed.”

“It is Dr. Tribe I want to see.”

“She's gone home, come back in the morning.”

“I need to contact her now. Do you have her address or her home phone number?”