โIleap from the stool, but I donโt have a plan.โ
โOkay, donโt panic,โย I tell myself.ย โThink clearly. Then act.โ
The BOCOA is still hot. That means thereโs a lot of living Astrophage still in there. I caught it early. Thatโs good. Not because of the BOCOAโitโs toast. Iโll never be able to sort out the Taumoeba from the Astrophage in there. But it means that however the heck the Taumoeba got in there, this is very recent and hopefully hasnโt reached the shipโs fuel.
Yes. Thatโs priority number one. Donโt let Taumoeba into the fuel bays. Last time they got in was because of various microscopic leaks in the system. But it had to have gotten there from the crew compartments where I had brought it aboard. There isnโt much overlap between the fuel system and the crew compartment. Thereโs just one place thatโs the likely culprit for transfer.
Life support.
If the ship is too cold, it runs air across coilsย ๏ฌlled with Astrophage to warm it up. A breach in one of those coils would do it. Lucky for me Iโve had a big pile of 96ยฐC Astrophage in the lab keeping the crew compartment so warm the ship has to use the air-conditioning system.
Okay, now I have a plan.
I scamper up the ladder to the control room. I bring up the Life Support panel and look at the logs. As I suspected, the heater hasnโt been turned on in over a month. I deactivate the heater entirely. It shows as disabled, but I donโt trust it.
I go to the primary breaker box. Itโs under the pilotโs seat. Iย ๏ฌnd the breaker for the heating system andย ๏ฌick it o๏ฌ.
โOkay,โย I say.
I get back in the seat and check the Fuel panel. The fuel bays all seem to be in good shape. The temperature is correct. It wouldnโt take long for Taumoeba to run wild and eat everything in a fuel bayโI know that for darn certain. If they were a๏ฌected, theyโd be colder than that.
I bring up the spin-drive controls and shut the engines o๏ฌ. Theย ๏ฌoor drops out from under me as I return to weightlessness. I probably donโt need to shut them o๏ฌ, but for now I donโt want the fuel doingย anything. If thereโs Taumoeba in a fuel line, I want it to stay there, not get pumped all over the ship.
โOkayโฆโย I say again.ย โOkayโฆโย More thinking.
How did it get loose? Iย sterilizedย every part of this ship with nitrogen before getting a gram of Astrophage from Rocky. The only Taumoeba aboard are in the sealed mini-farms on the beetles and the sealed,ย xenoniteย breeder tanks.
No. No time for science questions. I can speculate on the cause later. Right now I have an engineering problem. I wish Rocky were here.
I always wish Rocky were here.ย โNitrogen,โย I say.
I donโt know how the Taumoeba got out, but I need them dead. Taumoeba-
82.5 can handle 8.25 percent nitrogen at 0.02 atmospheres. Maybe a little higher. But it de๏ฌnitely canโt handle 100 percent nitrogen at the crew compartmentโs 0.33 atmospheres. That works out to beย two hundred timesย its lethal dose of nitrogen.
Iย ๏ฌoat to the breaker box and shut o๏ฌย everything related to life support. Immediately, the emergency alarm sounds and red lights turn on. I kick across the control room to the emergency systemโs breaker box and shut those all o๏ฌย as well.
The master alarm is annoying, so I silence it on the main interface panel.
Iย ๏ฌy down to the lab and throw open my gas cylinder supply cupboard. I have about 10 kilograms of nitrogen gas in a single canister. Again, I owe my life to DuBoisโs preferred method of suicide.
I donโt remember all the details about the life-support system, but I know it has manual overpressure valves. The ship simply will not allow more than
0.33 atmospheres. If all else fails (which it will, because I shut the emergency systems down), itโll vent excess pressure into space.
I canโt just release the nitrogen and hope for the best. I want to get rid of the existing oxygenย ๏ฌrst. Iโm through messing around with this stu๏ฌ. I want 100 percent nitrogen in here. I want to make this ship so utterly toxic to Taumoeba that it has no chance of survival. Even if itโs hiding under some goop somewhereโI want the nitrogen to su๏ฌuse through it. Nitrogen everywhere. Everywhere!
I grab the nitrogen cylinder, kick o๏ฌย theย ๏ฌoor, andย ๏ฌoat back up to the control room. I throw open the airlock inner door and get into the Orlan suit faster than I ever have in the past. I boot everything up and donโt even bother with the self-check. No time.
I leave the inner airlock door open and turn the manual emergency valve on the outer door. The shipโs air hisses away into space. The primary and emergency life-support systems are powered down. They are unable to replace the lost gas.
Now I wait.
โ
It takes a surprisingly long time for a ship to lose all its air. In movies, if thereโs a little breach everyone dies immediately. Or the muscular hero guy plugs the hole with his biceps or something. But in real life, air just doesnโt move that fast.
The emergency valve on the airlock is 4 centimeters across. Seems like a pretty big hole to have in your spaceship, right?
It took twenty minutes for the shipโs air pressure to drop to 10 percent of its original value. And itโs dropping very slowly now. I think itโs a logarithmic function. So in the middle of this emergency, I just have to stand here with my tank in my hand.
โOkay. Ten percent is close enough,โย I say. I close the airlock emergency valve to reseal the ship. Then I open the nitrogen tank.
So now, instead of listening to a hiss from the airlock, I listen to a hiss from the nitrogen tank.
Not much di๏ฌerence there.
Again. Itโs a bit of a wait. But not as long this time. Probably because the pressure inside that nitrogen tank was a lot higher than the pressure in the ship. Whatever. Point is, in short order the ship is back to 0.33 atmospheres of pressure. But itโs almost entirely nitrogen.
Funny thingโIโd be perfectly comfortable if I took this EVA suit o๏ฌ. Iโd breathe without any problems. Right up until I died. Thereโs nowhere near enough oxygen for me to survive.
I want that nitrogen to permeate everything it can. I want it to get into every crevice. Wherever Taumoeba are lurking, I want them found and killed. Go forth, my N2ย minions, and cause destruction!
I head down to the lab and check out the BOCOA. I left in such a hurry I forgot to seal the vat. Fortunately, Astrophage is gunky stu๏ฌ. Surface tension and inertia kept it inside. I close the lid and bring it up to the airlock. I jettison the whole thing.
I probably could have saved the surviving Astrophage in the vat. I could have bubbled nitrogen through the sludge to make sure it gets at all the little Taumoeba lurking inside. But why take the chance? I have over 2 million kilograms of Astrophage. Thereโs no point in risking the whole mission just to save a few hundred.
I wait three hours. Then Iย ๏ฌick the breakers back on. After a period of initial panic, the life-support system gets the air back to normal thanks to the shipโs copious oxygen reserves.
I have to isolate every source of Taumoeba on this ship. Preferably before the life-support systemย ๏ฌnishes pumping out the nitrogen. Why not do it before getting back to normal air? Because itโll be a lot easier and faster without wearing the EVA suit. I need my hands to do this, not my hands inside bulky gloves.
I climb out of the Orlan andย ๏ฌy down to the lab, the nitrogen cylinder in hand.
First up: the breeder farms.
I put each of the ten farms in large plastic bins. I install a little valve on each bin (epoxy can do anything), and pump in nitrogen. If any of the farms
have a leak, the nitrogen will get in and kill everything. Any farm thatโs behaving properlyโkeeping airtightโwonโt have any problems.
The bins are airtight to begin with, but I seal them with duct tape anyway, and I deliberately overpressurize them by just a little bit. The sides and tops bulge out. Now if any of the farms leak, itโll be visually apparent because the bulging will disappear.
Next up: the beetles and their mini-farms.
John and Paul already have their mini-farms installed. I put them in isolation bins just like I did with the breeder farms. I was working on Ringo when the poop hit the fan, so that mini-farm and the one intended for George are still uninstalled. I put the pair together in another isolation bin.
I tape everything to the walls. I donโt want any of the bins toย ๏ฌoat around.
They might bump into something sharp.
The lab is a shambles. I was halfway through disassembling Ringo when I shut o๏ฌย the spin drives. Tools, beetle parts, and all manner of other junkย ๏ฌoats around the room. Iโll have to clean all that up without the aid of gravity before I can even take a break.
โWell, this sucks,โย I mumble.
