Time to Breathe

The tension of her desire and the potent energy of his masculinity cascaded through her body and her brain like a bursting levee. As her torrential orgasm ebbed, she was left spent and limp and shuddering in his grip.

Jones felt her body spasm in his hands as she cried out his name. It was too much.

"Ahh, God Tamana!"

His fortitude collapsed and his will broke and for a moment his body was not his own. His fingers dug into Tamana's flesh and he clutched her securely to his loins. Deep within her, he erupted. The tumultuous sensation of euphoric release was so overwhelming, he was certain she would be launched across the cabin.

He panted, gasping for air as the delirium abated. His hands went slack and his shoulders relaxed. Tamana fell away from him and his flagging erection sprang free of her, flinging away droplets of their mingled emissions.

She caught the armrest and turned to face him with a satiated smile, and he reached for her and pulled her towards him. Her lips found his and they embraced with languid passion. He held her and he stroked her skin and she caressed him affectionately as they caught their breath.

"Thank you, Tamana," Jones sighed, at last breaking the post-coital silence.

Tamana winced.

"Jones..." she admonished, "never say 'thank you'. It makes it seem... transactional."

"Oh, really? I'm sorry, I... I didn't know."

"It's ok," she assured him, patting his chest. "Every guy makes that mistake at some point."

"...Is it ok to say it was worth dying for?"

"Good," she laughed, "because we just used up a hell of a lot of oxygen."

"I'm finding it really hard to care right now."

"Me too," Tamana admitted, nuzzling her head against his shoulder as he stroked her hair.

Jones glanced over at the O2 cylinder, but her shirt had gotten caught on it and covered the gauge. He couldn't see the computer screen from this angle either. But he really didn't care. At the moment, holding her was more important.

They recuperated in each others arms for a while longer when an electronic chime sounded from the command screen. Tamana pushed away from Jones and he gave her an extra nudge towards the computer, and enjoyed the view of her naked form as he watched her float away.

"That's it," she announced, looking at the display and silencing the alarm. "We're out of oxygen. Whatever is left in the cabin is all we have. At least we made it past eighty-six hours."

Jones sighed, uncertain what he was supposed to feel right now. Nothing felt different. He was still breathing just fine. Was he supposed to be scared or angry or sad? He wasn't any of those things. He just felt... thirsty.

"You want some water?" he called, pulling his way towards the potable tank.

"Sure," she answered, untangling her shirt from the empty O2 cylinder and looking around for her pants. "You know, your Kim Gardner really missed out, Jones. That was... That was pretty amazing."

Jones almost said 'thank you' but caught himself. Instead, he just smiled as he locked a drinking pouch onto the water valve and tried to remember Kim Gardner's face.

And then his eyes went wide.

"The water!" he exclaimed, turning towards Tamana and awkwardly over rotating in his excitement. "We can electrolyze the water and make oxygen!"

"What!? Do you know how to do that?"

"Grade eleven chemistry class... We did it as a lab experiment. All we need is water and electricity and we have plenty of both!"

"And you're only just remembering this now!?"

"It was a one hour lab, almost four years ago," he tried to explain. "And the experiment was about making hydrogen—the oxygen was just a by-product we didn't care about—but Kim Gardner was my lab partner. When you said--"

"I don't care, Jones. Get dressed," Patel ordered. "We don't have much time and we're not doing this naked."

"Yes ma'am!" he grinned, reaching out towards his pants.

The potable water tank held one hundred twenty-five liters of drinking water. The radial graduations on the transparent side of the tank showed about one hundred ten liters remaining.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Patel asked, feeling a bit useless as Jones worked to remove an access panel to expose the tank's plumbing fixtures.

"If I shut off the valve to the nitrogen cylinder, can you fill all the drinking pouches? That should relieve the pressure on the tank."

Without gravity, water doesn't flow; it has no pressure of its own. And so the water tank was pressurized by the same nitrogen cylinder that maintained air pressure in the cabin. Patel filled five of the eight pouches before the water stopped flowing.

"We're going to have to use the heating circuits," Jones explained, flipping through the electrical schematic in the manual. "They draw more current than any other system."

"All four of them?"

"We'll start with one. If it works, we'll add two more and keep one for heat. It might get cold in here."

"We have blankets," Patel assured him as she cut an access hole through the plastic tank with a scalpel from the medical kit and a pair of heavy-duty shears from the tool box. "And besides, I'll keep you warm."

Jones stripped the insulation from the end of both wires of a scavenged heater cable. Careful not to unsettle the surface tension, he inserted both the hot and neutral leads through the hole in the tank into the undulating mass of water.

"Ok Commander, turn on heater one," he instructed.

She entered the command into the API, trying to ignore the flashing environmental readout that showed the oxygen level in the cabin at "20.08%" instead of the normal twenty-one. "Done. How long until we know if it works?"

Jones was expecting to see bubbles form on both wires as soon as the electricity was turned on. He couldn't recall if the oxygen would form on the positive wire or the negative, but it should be easy to tell. There would be twice as much hydrogen coming off its wire.

"Dammit!" he scowled. "It should be immediate, but nothing's happening. Something's wrong, turn it off."

Patel entered the command and then pushed herself over to where Jones hung from a hand-hold, head bowed, eyes closed.

"There must have been more to it," he muttered as her hands caught his shoulders.

"You'll remember," she told him.

"I don't remember!"

"Shhh... You will. Calm down. Take a deep breath."

"We don't have many of those to spare," he snapped.

"Don't be a smart ass."

"...Sorry."

"Relax," she encouraged, "Close your eyes. Think back. Grade eleven. Who was your chemistry teacher? What did the classroom look like?"

Ms. Andersen taught all of the science classes for all six grades. He could picture her classroom—the black resin-topped desks, the periodic table on the wall. There were sinks along one wall and cabinets above them. Patel's soft inflection insinuated itself into his memories.

"You were making hydrogen. Did everyone make their own? Or was it a demonstration?"

There was a small fish tank filled with tap water on his desk, and Kim Gardner read instructions off of her tablet.

"Where did the electricity come from? Did you plug something into the wall? Or use a battery?"

There was a nine-volt battery with a snap connector and alligator clips. There were two graduated cylinders and a measuring spoon for a bottle of--

"Salt! Our water is too pure to conduct electricity. We need salt."

Of course there was no salt shaker in the pod's supplies. In microgravity it would have made a mess. And there were no salt tablets in the medical kit. The kind of physical exertion that would necessitate them was unlikely in the cramped life pod.

The food supply consisted solely of pre-packaged, nutrient-rich protein bars. There was actually quite a lot of salt in them, but Patel only knew of one way to get it out.

"You're kidding."

"No, urine contains sodium, potassium, and other electrolytes."

"We're going to ruin our drinking water," he scowled.

"If you had had this idea three days ago, I might be concerned," Patel sighed. "But as it is now, we'll die of hypoxia before we die of dehydration. If we fill all of the drinking pouches we'll have a four liter reserve. But go ahead and drink your fill now. We need room in the tank to add the urine."

They siphoned urine out of the waste disposal tank with an irrigation syringe from the medical kit. Fortunately, the waste disposal system separated liquids from solids. It was still a particularly unpleasant task.

"We can't just put bare aluminum wire directly in the water either," Jones added. "We need electrodes to conduct the current."

"Do we have electrodes?" Patel asked.

"In class we used graphite rods. The lead from my mechanical pencil should do, but it's really delicate," Jones explained. "We have to attach wire leads to two pieces of graphite without breaking them. The bigger the electrode, the better. We can probably use patch tape, but we need a solid connection."

"Ok, where are the wire strippers? I'll attach the wire to your pencil lead while you siphon the urine."

"I guess rank has its privileges," Jones smirked.

"Damn right."

***

The O2 sensor read "19.16%" by the time they were ready to try again. Their oxygen concentration was dropping by about one percent every hour. The ELS system had started pumping extra nitrogen into the cabin to maintain one atmosphere of pressure.

"Ok Commander, I'm all set here," Jones reported once he had the electrodes secured in the water tank. "Whenever you're ready."

"Turning on heater one... now."

As Jones watched, tiny bubbles boiled on each of the submerged pencil leads.

"It's working!" he cheered.

The bubbles popped into one another and combined again to form larger bubbles that all subsumed each other into one. The bubble on the negative wire grew twice as fast as the other, and quickly engulfed the electrode, breaking contact with the water, ending the reaction.

It took Jones a moment to realize what had happened.

"Dammit! Shut it down."

"What's wrong?" Patel asked, even as she typed in the command to turn off heater one.

"There's no gravity," Jones explained. "The bubbles can't float up to the surface because there is no 'up'. So the gasses just collect on the electrodes until the electrodes lose contact with the water."

"We need some way to get the oxygen out of the water," Patel concluded.

"And the hydrogen."

They scavenged a hose from the depleted oxygen tank before they realized that the gasses couldn't travel 'up' the hose any easier than they could bubble 'up' in the water.

Using the syringe to syphon the bubbles out of the water and into the air seemed to work, but it left a lot of water droplets floating around in the cabin. It was also manually intensive. They had to be quick to keep up with the accumulating gasses, and if they were clumsy, they would risk snapping a pencil lead electrode. With the oxygen warning flashing "18.24%", they knew it wasn't sustainable.

"We have about seven hours to figure this out before there's not enough oxygen in the air to keep us awake," Patel pointed out.

"Water is so damn weird without gravity," Jones grumbled, massaging his neck. "I can't get my head around it."

"Maybe if we agitate the tank somehow?" Patel suggested. "Do we have any kind of motor on board?"

"There's a vacuum pump in the disposal tank," Jones winced. "Before we pull that out let's see if there's anything... less gross."

He flipped through the interface screens on the computer looking for the inventory tree that broke down every object on board into its smallest constituent parts. As he passed the navigation interface something caught his eye.

"Hey Tamana, what's this 'Centrifugal Maneuver' on the nav screen?"

Floating beside him, Patel expanded the command break-out and read through it.

"It uses opposing lateral thrusters to spin the pod in place. I think it's for medical emergencies... If you thought sex in microgravity was tricky, you should try surgery."

"Hmm, hard pass. So we can simulate gravity with this, right?" he smiled but then hesitated. "We might get tangled in the parachute, but I guess that's a risk worth taking... And how are we going to dock with Lewis if we're spinning like a top?"

"We'll let Lewis figure that out. Our problem is breathing," Patel decided, activating the centrifuge command without waiting for further discussion.

They felt the short thruster burn more than they heard it. At first the only indication of a change was the shifting star field outside the viewport. But then tools and other items left in contact with the pod started to tip and fall over as their center of gravity was pulled towards the outer walls.

Jones watched as the water receded down the sides of the tank away from the hole in the 'top', and a large bubble of nitrogen blorped out. With his hand on the tank, he felt it pull him forward and 'down' towards the wall.

As the air was dragged around by the pod walls, free floating paraphernalia was also eventually pulled towards the walls by the slight air friction. Once they made contact, they stuck.

It wasn't exactly like gravity—more like a carnival ride. The diameter of the pod was too small and the spin too fast. Everything felt like it was being pushed out instead of pulled down. But as the pod prevented anything from flying away, the net effect was the same. Everything was pushed against the walls; objects with more mass were pushed with more force.

The computer console now seemed like it was on the floor now as Patel knelt in front of it to restart heater one yet again. "Is it working?" she asked.

"It's working!" Jones replied. "The bubbles are light enough that they're breaking free of the electrodes and floating to the surface. We're making oxygen!"

Walking proved difficult. Perhaps it was the not-quite-right pull of the centrifuge, the odd sideways orientation, or the fact that she hadn't done it for three days. Perhaps it was the eighteen percent oxygen in the air. Whatever the cause, walking proved difficult, so Patel crawled over to the water tank to see the miracle for herself.

Sure enough, a steady stream of tiny bubbles was percolating off of each pencil lead.

"We did it, Jones! We did it!" Patel cheered, hugging Jones. She kissed him on the cheek.

"You said 'giddiness' and 'impaired judgement', right?" he asked, turning towards her and taking her face in his hands.

"So we have an excuse..." Patel confirmed, leaning forward and kissing him. It didn't last long before they collapsed to the wall, side by side. "I mentioned 'fatigue' and 'exhaustion' too, right?"

"You did," Jones panted. "We still have to figure out what to do about the hydrogen. There's twice as much hydrogen as there is oxygen."

"It's alright," Patel assured him. "Hydrogen is non-toxic. We can breathe all we want."

"Not the point," Jones persisted. "Hydrogen likes to go 'Boom'. Once it builds up, any spark could set it off. A switch in the ELS. The heater turning on. Even static electricity... If there's a spark when they open the airlock, we could destroy Lewis."

"Shit."

"Yeah."

"Ok, this is easy," Patel told him, rolling over and pushing herself back up to her knees. "Use that hose from the O2 tank. Run it from the water tank over to that breach in the hull that you patched. Vent the hydrogen right out into space."

"...That's brilliant."

"There's been enough brilliant to go around. It was just my turn."

It wasn't difficult, but it took time. Without the adrenaline rush of desperation, hypoxia had started to set in. Both Jones and Patel found it tiring to move. A pin hole in the patch tape reopened the fracture, but a healthy bead of resin sealed the silicone hose around it.

Patel pinched the tubing closed, while Jones inserted the negative electrode into the other end under the water, ensuring that all of the hydrogen was channeled towards the breach in the hull.

When Patel unkinked the tube, the vacuum of space began to suck the water out of the tank like a straw. She quickly folded the tube closed again.

Using a pair of vice grips from the tool box to constrict the tube, and with some trial and error, they eventually found the sweet-spot where the hydrogen was evacuated as quickly as it was produced.

***

"It's getting chilly already," Patel shivered as Jones spliced the wires from heaters three and four into the electrode leads. She wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.

"The O2 is down to seventeen and a half percent," Jones explained. "We're not making it nearly as fast as we're breathing it. More electric current should speed up the reaction."

They sat together in front of the last heater, huddled under blankets, watching the O2 sensor readout flash on the screen and stifling little noises of disappointment every time it ticked down another hundredth of a percent. Jones made note of the progress on the clock and calculated that the oxygen level was dropping by a percentage point roughly every four and half hours.

"Call it twenty-five more hours until we pass out," he figured. "Or fifty-five until we don't wake up again."

"Plenty of time, Jones" Patel assured him, resting her head on his shoulder. "Plenty of time."

***

Ninety-six hours was an imaginary number. It was a number conjured from guess-work, assumptions, and probabilities. But it was the number Jones and Patel had psychologically nailed their hopes and prayers to; the number they had waited for with growing anticipation as the clock ticked ever closer. If they could just make it to ninety-six hours, they told themselves, everything would be alright.

At the ninety-six hour mark, their air was still over sixteen percent oxygen. Patel broadcast another situation report.

"If they haven't received our transmissions, they might not get here in time," she cautioned, a quaver in her voice. "They may think they have a whole week to reach us... If they've figured out there are only two of us, they may think they have four weeks."

"They got the transmissions," Jones assured her. "They'll be here soon."

As the clock ticked past ninety-six, with every passing hour Jones and Patel grew more apprehensive, more despondent.

It was easy to be angry at the Lewis. The two of them had done their part. They had survived long enough to be rescued, despite the odds. All Lewis had to do was show up on time. They took turns ranting at the incompetent crew of the Lewis; at the negligent command officers of the Clark; at the corrupt officials of STAR Alliance. The anger felt good.

They also took turns comforting each other—assuring each other that the Lewis was close now, just another hour away. Just another hour. The assurance felt hollow.

***

"Think there will be a memorial service for us back on Earth?" Jones asked as he shuffled the deck of cards they found packed in one of the comfort kits.

"Probably. Military folks love a good funeral."

The clock was ticking up towards one hundred and eighteen hours. They had both napped occasionally, but each worried now that the next time they closed their eyes would be their last.

This finally felt like dying to Jones. Huddled in the cold, watching their life tick away on a counter like a video game. Too weak and unstable to walk or even stand.

It was growing hard to concentrate. They had started out teaching each other various card games they knew. Then they tried making up their own. Now with the oxygen down around eleven percent, they found "Go Fish" challenging enough.

"Think your brothers will come?" Patel asked.

"I dunno... maybe. What about your family?"

"My parents probably. Some of my brothers and sisters... I suppose it depends on where they hold it... And if STAR Alliance pays their air fare."