Autopsy, p.17
Autopsy, page 17
Such a selfish, cowardly act. His only concern was himself and the trouble that might be in store for him. But someone who steals and spies with impunity doesn’t care about anybody else, can’t possibly suffer from empathy, and I’m beyond disgusted.
“You can see what the cameras are picking up as the crew hand flies the Dream Chaser without the assistance of the disabled orbiting laboratory’s ground control.” General Gunner gives us the blow-by-blow. “We don’t know what’s going on with the remaining two crew members inside,” he reiterates. “Or what may have become of the critically important projects they’ve been working on.”
Billions of dollars in top secret biomedical research and development have been going on for years, unbeknownst to the public, he says.
“Thor’s research and technologies include the three-D printing of human organs and skin,” the vice president says, her keen eyes peering up from her notes. “I don’t need to tell you the implications for the military, for space travel, for the health of world leaders, for humanity overall.”
Chapter 22
“We have contact, docking latches engaged.” General Gunner announces that the Dream Chaser has reached its destination.
On the live video feed, astronauts Anni Girard and Chip Ortiz are unfastening their five-point harnesses. Holding themselves in place with foot loops, they begin taking off their launch-entry suits. Stowing them in overhead netting, they go through their expedited pressure checks.
They’re making sure they’re safely docked, everything a challenge in weightlessness. Out the nearby porthole, sunlight flares off the orbiter’s retracted robotic arm, perched over the research platform like a silver praying mantis.
“Let’s get our astronauts up and talking to us.” General Gunner reaches for the remote control.
As I stare at live video of the blue Earth veiled in clouds, I can’t tell what the orbiter is flying over at the moment. A glimpse of white mountains, possibly the Himalayas, the topography changes constantly as the combination laboratory-habitat speeds around the planet as fast as a bullet.
“They’ll be entering the disabled TO-One momentarily.” The commander of Space Force keeps us updated on what’s happening. “Anni, Chip, how are you reading us?”
“Loud and clear, Chief,” both of them answer on the Dream Chaser’s cockpit cameras, the video live-streaming as big as life on the data walls around us.
“How was your ride?”
“Couldn’t be better, Chief.” Chip gives the commander a thumbs-up.
“We’re going to expedite the usual procedures, to go with a rapid leak check and pressurization protocol.” Anni is busy on her computer display, scrolling through menus.
“We need to get in there quickly,” Chip says, and no doubt they’re holding on to the hope that the crewmates aren’t dead.
“As you were coming in and docking did you notice any damage to the outside of the orbiter?” General Gunner then asks. “Because we didn’t.”
“Negative.” Chip tucks his gloves into the netting.
“Nothing is off-nominal except for the Soyuz not being there.” Anni’s tone has grim shadings as video of the missing crew capsule landing in Kazakhstan replays nonstop on the data walls. “If the solar arrays were torn as claimed,” she adds, “there’s no obvious sign of it.”
“And we have a good visual of the experiment platform, the robotic arm. They appear undamaged, as well,” Chip confirms.
“Based on what your cameras showed us during your approach, I would agree,” the president says. “Suggesting there may not be any damage at all, contrary to what we’ve been told.”
“We know from sensor readings that TO-One hasn’t lost pressurization. The oxygen levels, the life-support systems are nominal, and contrary to what Horton claimed, the solar arrays are generating power,” NASA confirms. “It would seem it’s only the comms, the video cameras and on-board experiment chambers that are offline.”
The good news is that Chip and Anni are able to enter the orbiter without portable life-support systems, which they don’t have with them. The Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU), the spacesuits worn during spacewalks, are far too bulky inside a confined area. All one would do is bang into things, damaging sensitive equipment.
The EMUs were left behind at the Space Station since there was no indication they’d be needed. Otherwise the harsh reality is that if the orbiting laboratory’s hull had been penetrated and overtaken by the extreme temperatures and vacuum of space, there would be no point in rescuers showing up.
The orbiter, the bodies inside and the research would be abandoned. Likely, gravity eventually would drag them down into the atmosphere to incinerate like space trash, hardly anyone knowing the whole truth. But the expectation is that the life-support system is up and running fine as the sensors indicate.
Anni and Chip should find the conditions inside the same as onboard the ISS, and they’re dressed accordingly. We watch as they pull on protective clothing over their typical uniforms of khaki pants, polo shirts with mission patches, and socks.
“You’re going to want to double glove.” I begin instructing them without being asked. “And do you have N-ninety-five face masks? Also face shields? Eye protection, masks are a must since we have no idea what might be in the air,” I explain, and mostly I’m concerned about biological hazards.
“Affirmative,” they answer, and it can’t be easy putting on Tyvek in microgravity, the slippery coverall legs and arms floating and flailing. “We’ve also got chest cameras we’re strapping on.”
“I’m going to assume the orbiter has the same basic medical supplies the Space Station does,” I inquire, looking at them on the data walls as if they’re right in front of me.
One would think so, they reply. But they’re bringing a soft-sided medical bag with the basics just in case. They float single file through the hatch leading into the commercial orbiter, their chest cameras showing the ghastly sight awaiting us. The two crewmates are dressed in the diapers and cooling garments worn under spacesuits, the white cotton long johns tinted a dirty dark red.
Their bodies drift facedown, arms and legs gently bent, and fans running 24/7 have created a true forensic nightmare. Flecks of dried blood have blown everywhere, dusting exposed skin a blackish red that has discolored the whites of the dead eyes blearily staring. Their longish hair floats whichever way the air moves, seeming to stand on end.
Shiny steel surfaces and fire-retardant white Nomex look spray-painted as if a paperweight filled with gory snowflakes has been shaken up, the wet blood sticking to whatever it hits. Then much of it flaking off, drifting, never settling when drying, and I can imagine what the air filters are like. Ruined, comes to mind.
“It would appear that both crewmates are deceased.” Anni states what couldn’t be more obvious, and she and Chip look braver than they must feel.
“Try not to bump into them.” I address the live feed on the data wall.
The inside of the orbiter lab is cramped quarters with plenty of hard objects and sharp corners.
“We don’t want to send them banging into you or anything else,” I explain.
The dead bodies may be weightless but they still have mass, and crashing into people and metal objects can do some real damage.
“We’ll move really slowly, trying not to disturb them,” Chip says, and there’s no scientific procedure or instrument that can help me reconstruct what happened.
“I’m afraid we’re going to have to resort to rather primitive technology,” I warn the Situation Room.
No one is talking now, transfixed by the horror on the data walls.
Most important is knowing how and when they were injured, I tell my hushed audience around the table.
That’s going to be next to impossible under the circumstances. We’re able to do but so much without video or audio recordings. We have no real data to tell us where the crewmates were, and what they were doing when they were injured.
“There’s no point of origin, no bloodstain patterns that make sense,” I continue to explain. “Meaning I can’t retrace their steps so to speak, and I don’t see anything that’s telling me much so far, including where they died.”
Possibly it was inside the airlock they’d managed to reenter after their spacewalk, assuming it ever occurred, and there’s no evidence of it. Over time their bodies may have been displaced by currents of air. Ending up in the lab section, they drifted about, bumping into bundles of cables that run along a ceiling and walls crammed with computer racks and other hardware.
On countertops are refrigerator and freezer compartments, also 3-D laser bioprinters I recognize as the type used to create human tissue. It could be skin, bone, blood vessels, organs or limbs that have been seeded with human stem cells. The three-dimensional structures can be built without scaffolds in the absence of gravity, and to date there’s no way to escape it on Earth.
The best we can do is brief intervals aboard a Zero-G jet flying extreme parabolic profiles with astronauts, researchers and other scientists like me onboard. I know what it feels like to float, and what happens to fluids and other evidence in such conditions. Microgravity is disastrous for crime scenes but ideal for producing complicated organs and other soft tissue.
There could be other top secret orbiters besides Thor’s, a new kind of body farm where we create life instead of studying what death does to us. I’ve been aware of the technologies for a while. But I didn’t know the work was being done in space already, and it would seem Jared Horton didn’t make his getaway without raiding the store.
Every plexiglass container we’re seeing is empty, and there’s no telling what he absconded with while leaving a weightless trail. As Anni and Chip move around, we get glimpses of a human-made heart drifting along the ceiling like an escaped party balloon. The 3-D printed organ looks real enough although I doubt it’s fully functioning yet. The same with the kidney, the ear, and possibly a bladder wafting on loud blowing air, the fans never stopping in microgravity.
Otherwise, gases like everything else will float in place, carbon dioxide forming a deadly bubble around one’s head. That’s not what killed the crewmates. They didn’t asphyxiate as they exsanguinated, slipping into unconsciousness. They may have aspirated their own blood as it followed skin surface tension, creeping over the neck, the mouth, the nose like ectoplasm.
“I’m going to need you to check a few things for me,” I let Anni and Chip know, starting with the usual postmortem changes.
I tell them what to look for, and moving close to the female’s long-johns-clad body, Anni tries an unwilling arm. Rigor mortis is fully set, weightlessness having no effect on that. But there won’t be the telltale dusky discoloration caused by livor mortis, the settling of noncirculating blood due to gravity.
That would tell you if a body was moved after death, and in this case the answer is yes. In fact, the bodies haven’t stopped moving on the blowing air, and I haven’t a clue what position they were in originally.
“I need one of you to turn them very slowly so I can take a good look from every angle,” I explain.
“Wilco,” Anni says.
“While she’s doing that,” I tell Chip, “I’d like you to find the spacesuits they were wearing on their spacewalk.”
“They should be in the airlock.” He looks around to get his bearings. “Going there now, will tell you what I find.”
“I’d like to see for myself, please,” I reply.
“Copy. I’ll show you the suits on camera.” Changing his trajectory with the gentlest touch, he follows the lights along the blood-tinged ceiling.
Floating upright through a gory haze of particulate, he’s literally walking on air, passing through the galley with its Nomex bags of space food Velcroed and bungee-corded in place. He slings a left, gliding past exercise equipment that prevents muscle and bone from atrophying during long missions.
Snaking through another open hatch, he enters the airlock where two sets of disassembled white spacesuits eerily float about. It’s obvious that the Thor scientists hurried out of them, the torsos, pants, helmets and boots stirred by fans blowing.
“I’m wondering how long it might have taken them to return to the airlock, repressurize and then take off their suits?” I look around the Situation Room. “Because it can’t be an easy feat even under optimal conditions.”
“If they went out the hatch, turned around and came right back?” NASA says. “At least thirty minutes and more like forty, and that’s doing an extremely expedited suit doffing.”
Grabbing a spacesuit torso size small, Chip looks it over carefully, announcing there are two holes in the upper right side of it. He maneuvers himself so his body-mounted camera shows us what he’s talking about, and we can see the images on the data walls.
The holes in the heavy fire-retardant fabric are perfectly round and about the diameter of a dime. They correspond with the location of the two holes in the female’s upper right side and shoulder, and she and her crewmate bled out considerably based on the amount of blood I’m seeing.
I suspect that whatever hit the female crewmate nicked a major blood vessel, and she hemorrhaged, the blood drying quickly, most of it carried away by the fan-stirred air. I’m noticing right away that the two perforations in the torso of the spacesuit seem identical, as if made by the same hole puncher.
I wouldn’t expect that necessarily if we’re dealing with space debris that likely varies considerably in size and shape. Rather much like shrapnel from a pipe bomb, and rarely are the entrance wounds perfectly round when caused by that.
“Chip, what about exit holes or tears?” I ask as suspicions gather. “If you look at other areas of her spacesuit, are there any defects that might be from the projectiles exiting?”
“Negative, not seeing them,” he reports from inside the airlock. “But it was just their luck that whatever hit them somehow managed to miss the integrated impact shielding,” he adds as I doubt that luck had anything to do with it.
Next, he inspects the male crewmate’s spacesuit, size extra-large, first the torso, then the pants. There are two similar perforations in the right shoulder and arm, and one in the right thigh. They correspond with what Anni looks at in the lab as she levitates near the bodies, and the picture I’m getting is an awful one.
Chapter 23
The crewmates must have taken off their suits before making their way to the lab section where the medical supplies are kept. Perhaps they lived long enough to help themselves or at least try before they couldn’t anymore, and the implication is unforgivable.
“Their suits, the EMUs have holes in them, indicating they were wearing them when they were injured,” I summarize to the Situation Room. “That much is a fact.”
“Would they have survived long?” the president asks.
“I can say this much at this point,” I answer. “They weren’t disabled instantly. But I won’t know until I have a better sense of their internal injuries, as much as that’s possible under the circumstances.”
“What did Horton do to help them?” asks the secretary of state.
“What I can tell you is the victims bled extensively, based on what we’re seeing.” I look around at the grim faces staring up at morbid images. “You don’t continue bleeding unless you have a blood pressure. The longer they bled, the longer they were alive.”
“Are there any signs that first aid was attempted?” the vice president asks me.
“Nothing I’m seeing,” I reply.
“But who turned off all the cameras, the radios?” More questions and comments erupt around the table.
“Horton. Who else?”
“Why?”
“So that he could make his getaway undetected until it was too late to stop him.”
“The cameras were turned off hours before he made his getaway,” Benton reminds everyone.
“How is it possible his crewmates didn’t realize that was happening? That suddenly they were disconnected from Houston?” the secret service asks.
“We may never know the answers to some things,” Benton says.
“Horton has a lot to answer for,” the FBI decides. “But good luck making much sense of the disaster up there,” addressing this to me. “I’m not sure what else we can do beyond taking care of the bodies. It’s not like we can bring them back down here for autopsies.”
There are no good options for how to handle the Thor crewmates’ bodies. They couldn’t be stored or returned to Earth. We don’t have morgue coolers in orbit, and forget loading the bodies onto a spaceplane and carrying them to the ISS. Then what? They can’t be left at room temperature inside the trash room.
It’s also out of the question leaving them inside the Thor orbiter to decompose, abandoning the laboratory-habitat. That would be a multibillion-dollar loss, not to mention the years of research and development. The only real solution at this time and under the circumstances is to litter in space, which no one is supposed to do.
The director of the FBI doesn’t elaborate on the protocol for handling human remains in space, and he may not know. But I certainly do. Outlining plans for such unpleasantries, and finding shortcuts to determine what killed someone, is my responsibility on the Doomsday Commission.
“Returning to the lab,” Chip says.
With a flick of a finger, he propels himself that way while I ask Anni if she can locate the emergency medical hardware locker.
“It’s right here.” She directs her chest camera at the large panel with the red cross symbol in the metal decking.
“Okay, very good,” I reply. “We’re going to want to try ultrasound, and I need you to power up the rack.”
“Powering HRF One.” In good astronaut fashion, she echoes back what I tell her, and NASA explains to the Situation Room what’s going on.
