It's already been changed, he thought. We're off the weapons-in-space kick, and we're going to stay off it. "Sure. Okay," he said aloud. "You're here to get a story. Murdock wants as much publicity for us as NASA gets. And the Pentagon wants to show the world that we're not testing death rays in orbit. We may be military, but we're nice military."
"And you?" Linda asked, seriously. "What do you want? How does an Air Force captain get into the space cadets?"
"By dint of personal valor. I thought it would be fun—until my first orbital flight. Now it's a way of life."
"Really? You like it that much? Why?"
With an honest grin he answered, "Wait until we go outside. Then you'll see."
Jill came back into the cabin precisely on schedule, and it was Kinsman's turn to sleep. He seldom had difficulty sleep- ing on Earth, never in orbit. But he wondered about Linda's reaction to going EVA as he zippered himself into his mesh sleeping bag and adjusted the band across his forehead that kept his head from bobbing weightlessly under the pressure of the blood pumping through his carotid arteries.
Worming his arms inside the nylon mesh, snug and secure, he closed his eyes and sank into sleep. His last conscious thought was a nagging worry that Linda would be terrified of EVA.
When he awoke and Linda took her sleep shift, he talked it over with Jill.
"I think she'll be all right. Chet. Don't hold those first few minutes against her."
"I don't know. There's only two kinds of people up here: you either love it or you're scared shitless. And you can't fake it. If she goes ape out there ..."
"She won't," Jill said. "Anyway, you'll be out there to help her. She won't be going outside until you're finished with the mating task. She wanted to get pictures of you actually at work, but I told her she'll have to settle for some posed shots."
Kinsman nodded. But the worry persisted. I wonder if Cy Calder's nurse was scared of flying?
He was pulling on his boots, wedging his free foot against an equipment rack to keep from floating off, when Linda returned from her sleep.
"Ready for a walk around the block?" he asked her.
She smiled and nodded without the slightest hesitation. "I'm looking forward to it. Can I get a few shots of you getting into your suit?"
Maybe she'll be okay, he hoped.
Finally he was sealed into the space suit. Linda and Jill stood back as Kinsman floated to the EVA airlock hatch. It was set into the floor, directly beneath the hatch that the Manta was linked to. Kinsman opened the massive hatch, slid himself down into the airlock, and closed the hatch securely. He always felt a little like a blimp in the bulky, pressurized space suit. The metal airlock chamber was roughly the size of a coffin; he had to worm his arm up to reach the control panel. He leaned against the stud and heard the whine and clatter of the pump sucking the air out of the cramped chamber.
The red light came on, indicating vacuum. He touched the stud that opened the outer hatch. It was beneath his feet, but as it slid open to reveal blackness flecked with stars, Kinsman's weightless orientation flip-flopped and he suddenly felt that he was standing on his head.
"Going out now," he said into his helmet mike.
"Roger," Jill's professional voice responded.
Carefully he eased himself through the open hatch, gripping its rim with one gloved hand as he slid fully outside, the way a swimmer holds the rail for a moment before kicking 83 free into the deep water. Outside. Swinging his body around slowly he took in the immense beauty of Earth, overwhelm- ingly bright even through his tinted visor. Beyond its curving limb was the darkness of infinity, with the beckoning stars watching gravely.
Alone now. He worked his way along the handgrips to where the MMUs were stored and backed himself into the nearest one, then fastened the harness across his chest. He pushed away from the station, eyes still on the endless panorama of Earth. Inside his own tight, self-contained universe. Independent of everything and everybody. How easy it would be to jet away from the station and float away by himself forever. And be dead in six hours. Ay, there's the rub.
Instead, he used the thrusters to nudge him over to the power pod. It was riding silently behind the station, a squat truncated cone, one edge brilliantly lit by the sun, the rest bathed in the softer light reflected from the dayside of Earth.
Kinsman's job was to inspect the power pod, check the status of its systems, and then mate it to the electrical system of the station. It was a nuclear power generator, capable of providing the electricity to run a multimegawatt laser. Every- thing necessary for the task of mating it to the station —checkout instruments, connectors, tools—had been built into the pod, waiting for an astronaut to use them.
It would have been simple work on Earth. In zero gee it was complicated. The slightest motion of any part of your body started you drifting. You had to fight against all the built-in instincts of a lifetime; had to work hard constantly to remain in one place. It was easy to become exhausted in zero gee, especially when your suit began to overheat.
