August 9

Jill Hewitt woke up gasping. Her first conscious thought was that she was drowning, that with every breath, she was inhaling water.

She opened her eyes, and with her first panicked glance saw what looked like a swarm of jellyfish drifting around her. She coughed, at last managed to draw in a deep breath, and coughed again. The sharply expelled air sent all the jellyfish tumbling away.

She scrambled out of her restraint bag and turned up the cabin lights.

In amazement she stared at the shimmering air.

“Bob!” she yelled. “We’ve got a spill!” She heard O’Leary say, up on flight deck, “Jesus, what the hell is this?”

“Get out the masks!” ordered Kittredge. “Until we know this isn’t toxic.” Jill opened the emergency locker, pulled out the contaminant-protection kit, and tossed masks and goggles to Kittredge, O’Leary, and Mercer as they came diving down the access opening into middeck. There’d been no time to get dressed, everyone was still their underwear, still shaking off sleep.

Now, with their masks on, they stared at the blue-green globules drifting around them.

Mercer reached out and captured one in his hand. “Weird,” he said, rubbing it between his fingers. “It feels thick. Slimy. some sort of mucus.” Now O’Leary, the medical officer, caught one and held it up to his goggles for a closer look. “It’s not even liquid.”

“Looks to me like a liquid,” said Jill. “It behaves like one.”

“But it’s more gelatinous. Almost like—” They all gave a start as loud music abruptly blared out. It was Elvis Presley’s velvet voice singing “Blue Suede Shoes.” Their morning wake-up call from Mission Control.

“And a good mornin’ to you, Discovery,” came Capcom’s cheery voice.

“Time to rise and shine, folks!” Kittredge responded, “Capcom, we’re already awake. We’ve, uh, got ourselves a strange situation up here.”

“Situation?”

“We have some sort of spill in the cabin. We’re trying to identify it. It’s a viscous substance. Sort of a milky blue-green. It looks like little opals floating around. It’s already spread to decks.”

“You guys wearing your masks?”

“Affirmative.”

“You know where it’s coming from?”

“Not a clue.”

“Okay, we’re consulting ECLSS right now. They may have an idea what it is.”

“Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem to be toxic. We’ve all been asleep with this stuff hanging in the air. None of us seems to be sick.” Kittredge glanced around at his masked crew, and they all shook their heads.

“Is there any odor to the spill?” asked Capcom. “ECLSS wants to know if it could be from the waste collection system.” Suddenly Jill felt queasy. Was this stuff they’d been breathing in, swimming in, leaked toilet waste?

“Uh—I guess one of us has to take a sniff,” said Kittredge. He looked around at his crew, who merely stared back. “Gee, guys, don’t all volunteer at once,” he muttered, and finally lifted his mask. He smeared a globule between his fingers and took a whiff.

“I don’t think this is sewage. It doesn’t smell chemical, either. At least, not petroleum-based.”

“What does it smell like?” asked Capcom.

“Sort of … fishy. Like the slime off a trout. Something the galley, maybe?”

“Or it could be leakage from one of the life-science payloads. You’re carrying a few experiments back from ISS. Aren’t there aquarium enclosures onboard?”

“This stuff does sort of remind me of frog eggs. We’ll inspect the enclosures,” said Kittredge. He looked around the cabin, at glistening clumps adhering to the walls. “It’s landing on now. We’re gonna be cleaning up the splatters for a while. It’ll set back our reentry.”

“Uh, Discovery, I hate to break the news,” said Capcom. “But reentry’s going to be delayed in any event. You’ll have to sit tight.”

“What’s the problem?”

“We’ve got some weather down here. Kennedy’s looking at crosswinds of up to forty knots, with thunderstorm anvils in the vicinity. Tropical storm’s moving in from the southeast. She’s already made a mess of the Dominican Republic, and she’s headed for the Keys.”

“What about Edwards?”

“They’re currently reporting a seven-thousand-foot cloud ceiling. It should clear up in the next two days. So unless you guys are anxious to land at White Sands, we’re looking at a delay of at thirty-six hours. We may have you reopen the hatches and join the crew on ISS again.” Kittredge eyed the globules drifting by. “Negative on that, Capcom. We’d contaminate the station with this spill. We’ve gotta things cleaned up.”

“Roger that. Surgeon is standing by here, wants to confirm that your crew is experiencing no adverse effects. Is that correct?”

“The spill appears harmless. No one’s showing any signs of illness.” He batted away a clump of globules, and they went off like scattered pearls. “They’re really kind of pretty. But I hate to think of them gunking up our electronics, so we’d better get cracking on cleanup detail.”

“We’ll update you on the weather as it changes, Discovery. Now get out those mops and buckets.”

“Yeah,” laughed Kittredge. “Just call us the sky-high cleaning service. We even do windows.” He pulled off his mask. “I guess it’s safe to take ‘em off.” Jill took off her mask and goggles and glided across to the emergency locker. She had just stowed the equipment when she found Mercer staring at her.

“What?” she said.

“Your eye—what happened to it?”

“What’s wrong with my eye?”

“You’d better take a look.” She floated across to the hygiene station.

Her first glimpse in the mirror was shocking. The sclera of one of her eyes was bloodred. Not merely streaked, but a solid crimson.

“Jesus,” she murmured, horrified by her own reflection. I’m a pilot. I need my eyes. And one of them looks like a bag of blood.

O’Leary turned her around by the shoulders and examined her eye. “It’s nothing to worry about, okay?” he said. “It’s just hemorrhage.”

“Just?”

“A small bleed into the white of your eye. It looks more serious than it is. It’ll clear up without any effect on your vision.”

“How did I get it?”

“Sudden changes in intracranial pressure can do it. Sometimes a violent cough or heavy vomiting is all it takes to pop a tiny vessel.”

She gave a relieved sigh. “That must be it. I woke up coughing on one of those floating goombahs.”

“See? Nothing to worry about.” He gave her a pat. “That’ll be fifty bucks. Next patient!”

Reassured, Jill turned back to the mirror. It’s merely a small bleed, she thought. Nothing to worry about. But the image back horrified her. One normal eye, one eye an evil and brilliant red.

Something alien. Satanic.

August 10

“They’re the houseguests from hell,” said Luther. “We shut the door on ‘em and they still refuse to leave.” Every one in the galley laughed, even Emma. In the last few days there had not been much in the way of humor aboard ISS, and it was a relief to hear people joking again. Since they’d transferred Kenichi’s corpse to Discovery, everyone’s mood seemed brighter.

His shrouded body had been a grim and constant reminder of death, and Emma was relieved she no longer had to confront the evidence of her own failure. She could focus, once again, on her work.

She could even laugh at Luther’s crack, although the subject of his humor—the orbiter’s failure to depart—was not, in fact, funny. It complicated their day. They had expected Discovery to undock early yesterday morning. Now it was a day later, and she was still mated and could not leave for at least the next twelve hours. Her uncertain departure time threw the station’s work schedule into uncertainty as well. Undocking was more than just a simple matter of the orbiter detaching itself and flying away. It a delicate dance between two massive objects hurtling at 17,500 miles per hour, and it required the cooperation of both the Discovery and ISS crews. During undocking, the space station’s control software had to be temporarily reconfigured for proximity operations, and its crew suspended many of its research activities. Every one had to be focused on the orbiter’s departure.