Throwback Thursday: ‘Above it All’ by Robert J Sawyer

The Word for Peace Rhymes with Fear

For our 40th issue, which marked ten years of Pulp Literature at the end of 2023, we chose a throwback feature story: ‘Above it All’ by Robert J Sawyer, originally published in 1996. We found it fascinating to look at 1990s problems from a 21st century perspective. Two and a half years on, with the world even closer to midnight on the Doomsday clock, the story is no less chilling. Take a peek here, and read the rest in Pulp Literature Issue 40, Autumn 2023, on sale now for the throwback price of $8 till the end of May!

Above it All

Robert J Sawyer

Rhymes with fear.

The words echoed in Colonel Paul Rackham’s head as he floated in Discovery’s airlock, the bulky Manned Maneuvering Unit clamped to his back. Air was being pumped out; cold vacuum was forming around him.

Rhymes with fear.

He should have said no, should have let McGovern or one of the others take the spacewalk instead. But Houston had suggested that Rackham do it, and to demur he’d have needed to state a reason.

Just a dead body, he told himself. Nothing to be afraid of.

There was a time when a military man couldn’t have avoided seeing death — but Rackham had just been finishing high school during Desert Storm. Sure, as a test pilot, he’d watched colleagues die in crashes, but he’d never actually seen the bodies. And when his mother passed on, she’d had a closed casket. His choice, that, made without hesitation the moment the funeral director had asked him — his father, still in a nursing home, had been in no condition to make the arrangements.

Rackham was wearing liquid-cooling long johns beneath his spacesuit, tubes circulating water around him to remove excess body heat. He shuddered, and the tubes moved in unison, like a hundred serpents writhing.

He checked the barometer, saw that the lock’s pressure had dropped below 0.2 psi — just a trace of atmosphere left. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to calm himself, then reached out a gloved hand and turned the actuator that opened the outer circular hatch. “I’m leaving the airlock,” he said. He was wearing the standard ‘Snoopy Ears’ communications carrier, which covered most of his head beneath the space helmet. Two thin microphones protruded in front of his mouth.

“Copy that, Paul,” said McGovern, up in the shuttle’s cockpit. “Good luck.”

Rackham pushed the left MMU armrest control forward. Puffs of nitrogen propelled him out into the cargo bay. The long space doors that normally formed the bay’s roof were already open, and overhead he saw Earth in all its blue-and-white glory. He adjusted his pitch with his right hand control, then began rising up. As soon as he’d cleared the top of the cargo bay, the Russian space station Mir was visible, hanging a hundred metres away, a giant metal crucifix. Rackham brought his hand up to cross himself.

“I have Mir in sight,” he said, fighting to keep his voice calm. “I’m going over.”

Rackham remembered when the station had gone up, twenty years ago in 1986. He first saw its name in his hometown newspaper, the Omaha World Herald. Mir, the Russian word for peace — as if peace had had anything to do with its being built. Reagan had been haemorrhaging money into the Strategic Defense Initiative back then. If the Cold War turned hot, the high ground would be in orbit.

Even then, even in grade eight, Rackham had been dying to go into space. No price was too much. “Whatever it takes,” he’d told Dave — his sometimes friend, sometimes rival — over lunch. “One of these days, I’ll be floating right by that damned Mir. Give the Russians the finger.” He’d pronounced Mir as if it rhymed with sir.

Dave had looked at him for a moment as if he were crazy. Then, dismissing all of it except the way Paul had spoken, he smiled a patronizing smile and said, “It’s meer, actually. Rhymes with fear.”

Rhymes with fear.

Paul’s gaze was still fixed on the giant cross, spikes of sunlight glinting off it. He shut his eyes and let the nitrogen exhaust push against the small of his back, propelling him into the darkness.

Find out what happens next in Issue 40, Autumn 2023 …

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