Interstellar: The Official Movie Novelization (21 page)

“Auto-docking sequence withheld,” the computer said.

Mann blinked at the screen. Why on earth would the docking sequence be withheld?

“Override,” he told the machine.

“Unauthorized,” the computer answered.

Well, that was a problem. He didn’t know the sequence himself—he hadn’t been trained for this. But with the Ranger coming up behind, it didn’t look like he had a choice.

He had to do it manually.

* * *

As they climbed into orbit, Cooper could see Mann was in position to dock, but that wasn’t as easy as it might appear. The ring ship wasn’t spinning, but it was still moving in orbit, and Mann had to match that. Getting a general velocity match wasn’t a problem, but it couldn’t just be in the ball park.

He tried the transmitter again.

“Dr. Mann, do
not
attempt docking,” he said. “Dr. Mann?”

Static was his only reply.

* * *

Mann knew he had the closest thing he was going to get to a synchronic orbit, so he left the controls and went quickly to the airlock, which was fast lining up with a hatch on the
Endurance
. He began working the mechanical grapple, seeking to grip the other ship and keep the two airlocks aligned so they could be coupled.

It was working. The ships bumped together. He was starting a sigh of relief when the computer spoke up again.

“Imperfect contact,” it said. “Hatch lockout.”

Mann paused, thinking furiously.

How perfect does the latch need to be?
he wondered.
All it has to do is hold together for a few seconds.
That was all the time it would take for him to cross. Then he could seal up from the other side. If he had to cut the Ranger loose—well, there was a spare, and another lander, as well. He might lose a little air in the process, sure, yet there would still be plenty, and he would be the only person on board.

He needed to get on board
now
. The lead he had built was quickly diminishing.

“Override,” he commanded.

“Hatch lockout disengaged,” the computer informed him.

Thank God.
He was starting to think he was locked out of everything.

He drifted toward the airlock controls.

* * *

So close…

Cooper stared at the joined ships.

Looks like the sonofabitch did it
, he thought.

“Is he locked on?” Cooper demanded, knowing Case had a running telemetry feed from the
Endurance
.

“Imperfectly,” Case replied.

Cooper grabbed the transmitter.

“Dr. Mann!” he yelped desperately. “Dr. Mann! Do not, repeat, do
not
open the hatch. If you—”

* * *

Mann looked at the grapples. They were opening and closing, trying to complete the seal, but he knew he didn’t have time to get it perfect. The lander was almost there, and if he lost the partial lock he already had, he might drift off and have to start over again, which would be a disaster. Cooper doubtless knew the docking sequence, and he had both robots at his disposal. He would dock easily, and then he would be in control.

That was
not
going to happen.

* * *

“What happens if he blows the hatch?” Cooper asked Case.

“Nothing good,” Case replied.

He considered the tableau. Would Mann go through with it?

Crap—of course he will
, Cooper knew. Mann wasn’t really a pilot—Kipp had taken care of that. But whatever flight training the scientist had been through, it wouldn’t have included the skills needed for manual docking. There wouldn’t have been any call for it at any point during the Lazarus mission.

Cooper, on the other hand, had it drilled into him—over and over—that you never,
ever
open the locks without a perfect seal. Whatever his merits, Mann was—like the rest of them—a theory man. If he thought through the physics of opening the hatch, he probably wouldn’t take the chance—but he wasn’t thinking about that now. His only goal was to get onto the
Endurance
, and fast.

“Pull us back!” Cooper ordered.

Case hit the thrusters, and the
Endurance
began to dwindle in their windscreen.

Then there was silence. Cooper realized he was hardly breathing.

“Case,” Brand said, snapping out of it. “Relay my transmission to his onboard computer, and have it rebroadcast as emergency P.A.”

Finally
, Cooper thought. Brand was back in the game. That was good, because he sure as hell needed her.

“Dr. Mann,” Brand said. “Do not open the in—”

* * *

Mann was reaching for the lever to release the inner hatch when Brand’s voice suddenly burst from the computer.

“—peat,”
she said.
“Do not open inner hatch!”

Startled, he moved over to the transmitter and switched it on.

“Brand,” he said, “I don’t know what Cooper’s told you, but I’m taking control of the
Endurance
, then we’ll talk about continuing the mission. This is not your survival, or Cooper’s—this is about mankind’s.”

He turned back and pulled the lever.

THIRTY-ONE

It all happened in silence, of course, and at distance, so to Cooper it seemed unreal. It was as if he was watching some of his model spaceships, suspended on fishing line in front of a star field.

First he saw a flare of flame and then a cloud puff from the spot where the two ships were joined, followed by a steady stream of white vapor. He didn’t need to ask what it was—it was air gushing out from both the Ranger and
Endurance
, crystallizing almost instantly in the vacuum of space.

The loss of air was a problem, but the secondary affect was a disaster. The air in both ships was pressurized at around twelve pounds per square inch, so it was jetting out with enough velocity to act like a steering rocket. As Cooper watched, aghast, the angle of the air stream began turning the wheel that was
Endurance
—ponderously at first, but with gathering speed, like a pinwheel firework on the Fourth of July. He watched the partially joined airlocks twist and shatter, and then the Ranger was ripped away, tearing itself apart in the process and rupturing one of the
Endurance
’s modules as it went. Venting more air to freeze in the void, adding more thrust to the ship’s spin.

As it spun, the ghostly hand of planetary gravity took over and the great ship began dropping ponderously toward the frozen planet below.

“Oh, my God,” Brand said.

Cooper got behind the controls and took the sticks, firing the thrusters. He dove beneath the crippled starship, dodging the debris from the Ranger.

“Cooper,” Case said, “there’s no point in using our fuel to—”

“Just analyze the
Endurance
’s spin,” he said, cutting Case short.

“What are you doing?” Brand asked.

“Docking,” Cooper replied.

He pushed the thrusters, trying to match the larger ship’s rotation.

“
Endurance
rotation sixty-seven, sixty-eight rotations per minute,” Case informed him.

“Get ready to match it on the retro thrusters,” Cooper said.

“It’s not possible,” Case argued.

“No,” Cooper said, grimly. “It’s
necessary.
”

He noticed that the
Endurance
was shedding bits of itself, sending them spinning off into the void..

“
Endurance
is hitting atmosphere,” Case remarked.

“She’s got no heat shield!” Brand said.

Cooper maneuvered beneath the spinning wheel, only feet from the starship. The airlock was there, and relative to the downward fall of the
Endurance
, the lander was more-or-less motionless.

But that wasn’t even halfway where they needed to be. The dock was whirling around at incredible speed. Speed they were going to have to match.

“Case, you ready?” he asked.

“Ready.” Case replied.

Cooper looked again at
Endurance
, and felt a blink coming on. Maybe Case was right. They still had the lander. With it, they might manage to limp home. Probably not, but maybe. Yet if this failed, it was all over. They were all dead.

“Cooper,” Case said, “this is no time for caution.”

Cooper felt a smile on his face.

Right.

“If I black out,” he said, “Take the stick. Tars, get ready to engage the docking mechanism. Brand—hold tight.”

“
Endurance
is starting to heat—” Case said.

“Hit it!” Cooper told him.

He felt the retros fire, and the lander started to spin, picking up speed quickly as both ships streaked toward the waiting ice below. The g-forces increased, as well, pushing them against their restraints, trying to crush them. Cooper felt the blood rushing away from his head, and struggled to remain conscious.

They weren’t falling cleanly anymore. The atmosphere was pushing back, and hard, bouncing and yawing the tiny ship. Mann’s planet seemed to be everywhere, and the curve of its horizon was fast straightening out.

He saw Tars open the airlock. The
Endurance
was still spinning relative to them, but slowly, as they neared matching the rpm. After several heart-stopping moments they lined up, and Tars fired the grapple—but they hit an air pocket—the hatches went out of line and the grapple caught nothing.

He glanced over, saw Brand had passed out, and knew he wasn’t far behind her. He fastened his eyes on his instruments rather than the wild whirling vista of Mann’s planet that was moving into and out of view. He tried to hold on.

“Come on Tars,” he said. “Come on…”

Cooper heard the grapple fire again, and the ship suddenly lurched, violently.

“Got it!” Tars announced.

Immediately Case reversed the direction of the thrust and their rotation began to slow.

“Gen—gentle, Case,” Cooper muttered, half out of it.

Mann’s planet began rotating into view less frequently, just once every few seconds, until finally they were barely turning at all.

“Getting ready to pull us up,” Cooper said.

But it might already be too late. They were still falling, and
Endurance
was starting to burn in earnest, parts melting and sloughing off of her, becoming meteorites that streaked into the atmosphere.

Cooper eased on the main thrusters, fearful of breaking her up.

“Come on,” he said. “You can do it…”

The powerful engine began to slow their fall, but they were so close, so deep in the atmosphere…

The moments stretched, as if they were once again in the grip of the black hole—as if hours or days were dragging by, rather than just a handful of crucial seconds. Cooper felt their fall slow almost glacially, then stop.

And then—finally, painfully, they started back up out of the gravity well that was Mann’s world. The horizon dropped away behind them. Only then daring to breathe, Cooper pulled back on the sticks and allowed himself a silent moment of triumph.

Brand stirred. Cooper turned to Case, allowing himself a real smile.

“Right.” he said. “And now for our next trick…”

“It’ll have to be good,” Case informed him. “We’re heading into Gargantua’s pull.”

Dammit!
Cooper thought. Some days there just weren’t enough doors to slam. He unbuckled his harness.

“Take her,” he told Case.

* * *

The
Endurance
was a mess inside. Everything that could tear loose had done so, along with a few things that supposedly couldn’t. Without gravity, the debris swirled around crazily, kicked everywhere by jets of steam and air from as-yet unpatched ruptures in the ship’s hull and fluid circulatory systems.

Case and Tars went to deal with the worst of those, while he and Brand took inventory of the rest of the ship.

So far as Cooper could tell, the population bomb was still intact and functional. Brand would do a more thorough analysis later. Personally, he found he hated the sight of the thing. It might mean life for the human race, but it represented the death of his children. In fact, it was more than that. The human race was more than a collection of solitary biological organisms. It was the end result of a million years of existence as a species—a million years of stories, myths, relationships, ideas both important and nonsensical, poetry, philosophy, engineering—science.

Being human was to inherit from a parent, a sibling, a family, a community, a town, a culture, a civilization. Humans hadn’t just been biological objects since before they became human.

Sure, he and Brand could bring a few thousand biologically human entities into existence with this thing, but could the two of them really substitute for the immense web of heritage, affiliation—love? Was that really saving the human race? Salvaging a single seed from a forest before it was burnt to the ground didn’t mean you had saved the forest. You could never replicate its baroque, unique ecosystem. Unfreezing human embryos was not going to “save” the human race.

The human race as he knew it was going to die. Whatever came out of this machine, it would be something different. Maybe better, maybe worse—but not the same.

Case was flagging for his attention.

“We’re slipping towards Gargantua,” the mechanical informed him. “Shall I use the main engines?”

“No!” Cooper said, firmly. “Let her slide as long as we can.” He had been thinking about this. He couldn’t be sure of everything until he had a fine-tuned sense of their status, but he knew already that fighting Gargantua wasn’t going to get them anywhere.

He pushed off and flew to where Tars was welding a bulkhead.

“Give it to me,” he said.

“There’s good news and bad news,” Tars began.

“I’ve heard that, Tars,” he replied. “Just give it to me straight.”

* * *

Amelia felt a shiver of dread as Cooper came in. It seemed as if they were trapped in a loop of disasters, one after another. Whatever news he might have, the odds were it couldn’t be good.

She had been trying to stay occupied with the particulars of her duties—primarily making certain that they could still implement plan B. The population bomb had been roughed up enough that she’d needed to overhaul the cryonics, which she had managed to accomplish with a little help from Case. It was a makeshift fix that required cannibalizing Romilly’s cryo-bed, but then again, he wasn’t going to need it. Once they made planetfall, she could use some parts of the
Endurance
they still needed to rig a more reliable system. They couldn’t thaw all of the embryos at once—the bomb would need to continue working for decades, at least.