We begin this part of our journey in space. One quality of space, we've been told, is that in it, no one can hear you scream. In a future episode, we'll see how false this is. For now, there is no one available to test that hypothosis, so I'll speak no more of it.
What is true is this: in space, everything that matters is either way bigger than you, or way smaller.
Major Paprovich knew this. It was undeniable, during a space walk. At this moment, he was confronted with both extremes. His oxygen was leaking. Atoms of life. Small. And he was drifting toward Earth. 12,756 kilometers in diameter. Big.
An atom has a diameter of approximately 1x10-8 cm. Ten billion, set next to each other, would be about a meter long. How many atoms--Angstrom units--in diameter is the Earth? You do the math. Major Paprovich had done it, once, and his girl friend said that this piece of knowledge caused the twinkle in his eye that had attracted her to him in the first place. For his part, the Major was attracted to her lips.
It was a freak thing. Something, probably a meteoroid (which, by definition, can be as tiny as a speck of dust--small) had penetrated his suit and the resulting quick blast of air had pushed him away from the capsule. This wasn't supposed to happen, but in space no one can hear you complain about physics.
The next coincidence was that his tether broke. Again, this wasn't supposed to happen, even if he tugged on it hard. Still in space, no one heard Paprovich say various curse words. He also--and this tells you how strangely the brain works--recalled how he'd taken a pair of pliers when he was seven and pulled out his left lateral incisor. It was loose; it wasn't, however, loose enough. His mother rushed him to the hospital, and his father gave him a stern talking to, primarily letting his hand speak against the boy's bare butt.
Normally, the vacuum of space is good for one thing: it lets radio signals transmit without deflection, except by gravitational bodies. Remember that many things come in threes. Good things, occasionally, such as the three nights in Vegas that Paprovich and his girlfriend had enjoyed primarily in their hotel room. They had no interest in gambling, and quite an interest in room service. At the moment, though, the third thing wasn't so good, and this was the fact that the Major's helmet radio had failed.
A dozen engineers would later try to understand this string of accidents during the two and a half weeks prior to them being fired in an attempt to assure the public that the agency was doing everything it could to fix these problems. The fact that firing qualified engineers who were thoroughly knowledgeable about the equipment and were, thus, the best people to figure out what happened wasn't discussed in the press, except by a woman named Betty Humble--she defied her name--who let an NBC reporter know exactly what she thought of the agency, the public, the administration, the press, and, for that matter, the cameraman who had better keep that damn light out of her eyes.
If you're wondering which would kill Paprovich first, asphyxiation or friction, the answer was asphyxiation. He'd done the calculation in his head, and figured out his body would hit the atmosphere about fifteen minutes after he lost all his air. However romantic it might seem to Hollywood, becoming a human meteor would be awful, painful, and in no way dignified. Suffocation wouldn't be dignified, either, but he'd pretty much go to sleep. With good fortune, he'd dream of Vegas. So, Paprovich resolved to release most of his air if he wasn't somehow rescued.
If you're also wondering, at this point, why he didn't turn his body so that he could release the above-mentioned oxygen and steer himself back toward the capsule, you're forgetting one thing: people don't think clearly when they're going to die. They think about bloody teeth and naked thighs.
But, the Major wasn't doomed to either fate. His companions in the capsule weren't in the habit of sleeping at the wheel, so to speak. They got the craft in motion. They maneuvered between the astronaut and his home planet that, right now, seemed patiently malevolent, like a single ant that eats a rabbit caught and unconcious in a trap. The astonished Paprovich watched that white behemoth nose toward him and execute a brilliant, slow motion arabesque, tipping down (relatively speaking) and showing the opening airlock chamber, into which he entered. If you think this can only happen in a movie, you're wrong. But only because it worked this time.
Major Paprovich later told his girlfriend that he'd thought of her in those minutes, facing death. She didn't believe him, but it was such a sweet thing to say that she rewarded him with complex sex for the next week.
Things would have been fine for both of them if they hadn't met the nine fingered man who smoked a filterless thin cigar. It was this man, whom they only knew as Eduardo, who convinced them they could make lots of money doing a one-time favor. All they needed to do was help transport a bird during their next trip to America. Since they were visiting Cincinnati, Ohio soon, for baseball's traditional opening day, they agreed. The money would pay for lots of in-room breakfasts.
Why didn't they ask what kind of bird?
Eduardo chuckled as he saw the jet lift off. He knew how unhappy the couple were. He knew how much the flightless bird was worth. He knew this thing would work, and that no one would figure out his plan. In fact, Eduardo knew, intuitively, that in the spaces of his mind, no one could hear him scheme.