For the last two years he had loved her. For two years, whenever he had lain beside his sleeping wife, he had yearned for Diana and plotted out the ways they might be together. Someday, they would be together, even if they had to resign from NASA. That was the dream that had sustained him through all those unhappy nights. Even after these two months with her in close quarters, even after their occasional flares of temper, he had not stopped loving her. He had not surrendered the dream. Until now.

“What day is this?” she murmured.

“It’s Friday.” He began to stroke her hair again. “In Houston, it’s five-thirty in the afternoon. Happy hour.”

She smiled. “TGIF.”

“They’re sitting at the bar now. Chips and margaritas. God, I could do with a stiff drink. A nice sunset. You and me, on the lake…” The tears glistening on her lashes almost broke his heart. He no longer gave a damn about biocontamination, about the dangers of infecting himself.

With his bare hand he wiped away the tears.

“Are you in pain?” he said. “Do you need more morphine?”

“No. Save it.” Someone else will need it soon, was what she didn’t say.

“Tell me what you want. What I can do for you.”

“Thirsty,” she said. “All that talk of margaritas.” He gave a laugh.

“I’ll mix one up for you. The nonalcoholic version.”

“Please.” He floated across to the galley and opened the food locker. It was stocked with Russian supplies, not the same items as in the U.S. hab. He saw vacuum-packed pickled fish. Sausages. An of unappetizing Russian staples. And vodka—a small bottle of it, sent by the Russians, ostensibly for medicinal purposes.

This may be the last drink we’ll ever have together.

He shook some vodka into two drink bags and restowed the bottle. Then he added water to the bags, diluting hers so that it was barely alcoholic. Just a taste, he thought, to bring back happy memories. To remind her of the evenings they had spent together, watching sunsets from her patio. He gave the bags a few good shakes to mix the water and vodka. Then he turned to look at her.

A bright red balloon of blood was oozing from her mouth.

She was convulsing. Her eyes were rolled back, her teeth clamped down on her tongue. One raw and ragged slice of it was still hanging on by a thread of tissue.

“Diana!” he screamed.

The balloon of blood broke off and the satiny globule drifted away. At once another began to form, fed by the blood pouring out of the torn flesh.

He grabbed a plastic bite block, already taped to the restraint board, and tried to force it between her teeth, to protect her tissues from any more trauma. He could not pry the teeth apart.

The human jaw has one of the strongest muscles in the body, and hers was clamped tight. He grabbed the syringe of Valium, premeasured and ready to inject, and shoved the tip into the IV stopcock. Even as he pressed the plunger, her seizure was starting to fade. He gave her the whole dose.

Her face relaxed. Her jaw fell limp.

“Diana?” he said. She didn’t respond.

The new bubble of blood was growing, spilling from her mouth. He had to apply pressure, to stop it.

He opened the medical kit, found the sterile gauze, and ripped open the package, sending a few squares flying away. He placed himself behind her head and gently opened her mouth to expose the torn tongue.

She coughed and tried to turn her face away. She was choking on her own blood. Aspirating it into her lungs.

“Don’t move, Diana.” With his right wrist pressing down on her lower teeth, to keep her jaw open, he wadded up a bundle of gauze in his left hand and began to dab away the blood. Her neck suddenly jerked taut in a new convulsion, and her jaw snapped shut.

He screamed, the meaty part of his hand caught between her teeth, the pain at once so terrible his vision began to blacken. He felt warm blood splash against his face, saw a bright globule fountaining up. His blood, mingled with hers. He tried to pull free, her teeth had sunk in too deeply. The blood was pouring out, the globule inflating to the size of a basketball. Severed artery! He could not pry her jaw open, the seizure had caused her muscle to contract with superhuman strength.

Blackness was closing in on his vision.

In desperation, he rammed his free fist against her teeth. The jaw did not relax.

He hit her again. The basketball of blood flew apart in a dozen smaller globules, splashing his face, his eyes. Still he could her jaw. There was so much blood now it was as though he were swimming in a lake of it, unable to draw in a breath of clean air.

Blindly he swung his fist against her face and felt bones crack, yet he could not pull free. The pain was crushing, unbearable.

Panic seized him, blinding him to anything but making the agony stop. He was scarcely aware of what he was doing as he hit her again. And again.

With a scream he finally yanked his hand free and went flying backward, clutching his wrist, releasing swirls of blood in ribbons all around him. It took him a moment to stop caroming off walls, to shake his vision clear. He focused on Diana’s face, on the bloodied stumps of her teeth. The damage done by his own fist.

His howl of despair echoed off the walls, filling his ears with the sound of his own anguish. What have I done? What have I done?

He floated to her side, held her shattered face in his hands. He no longer felt the pain of his own wound, it receded to nothing, overshadowed by the greater horror of his own actions.

He gave another howl, this time of rage. He battered his fist against the module wall. Ripped the plastic sheeting that covered the hatchway.

We’re all dying anyway! Then he focused on the medical kit.

He reached in and grabbed a scalpel.

Flight Surgeon Todd Cutler stared at his console and felt a stab of panic. On his screen were the biotelemetry readings for Diana Estes. Her EKG tracing had just burst into a sawtooth pattern of rapid spikes. To his relief, it was not sustained. Just as abruptly, the tracing reverted back to a rapid sinus rhythm.

“Flight,” he said, “I’m seeing a problem with my patient’s heart rhythm. Her EKG just showed a five-second run of ventricular tachyvardia.”

“Significance?” Woody Ellis responded briskly.

“It’s a potentially fatal rhythm if it’s prolonged. Right now she’s back in sinus, around one thirty. That’s faster than she’s been running. Not dangerous, but it worries me.”

“Your advice, Surgeon?”

“I’d give her antiarrhythmics. She needs IV lidocaine or amiodarone. They’ve got both drugs in their ALS pack.”

“Ames and Watson are still out on EVA. Griggs’ll have to give it.”

“I’ll talk him through it.”

“Okay. Capcom, let’s get Griggs on comm.” As they waited for Griggs to respond, Todd kept a close eye on the monitor. What he saw worried him.

Diana’s pulse rate was increasing, 135, 140. Now a brief burst of 160, the spikes in a flutter of patient movement or electrical interference. What was happening up there?

Capcom said, “Commander Griggs is not responding.”

“She needs that lidocaine,” said Todd.

“We can’t get him on comm.” Either he can’t hear us or he’s refusing to answer, thought Todd.

They’d been worried about Griggs’s emotional health. Had he withdrawn so completely he’d ignore an urgent communication?

Todd’s gaze suddenly froze on his console screen. Diana Estes was going in and out of V tach. Her ventricles were contracting so rapidly, they could not pump with any efficiency. They could not maintain her blood pressure.

“She needs that drug now!” he snapped.

“Griggs is not responding,” said Capcom.

“Then get the EVA crew inside!”

“No,” Flight cut in. “They’re at a delicate point in repairs. We can’t interrupt them.”

“She’s turning critical.”