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.
Kinsman accepted all this with hardly a conscious thought. He worked slowly, methodically, like a sleepwalker, using as little motion as possible, letting himself drift slightly until a more-or-less natural motion counteracted and pulled him back in the opposite direction. Ride the waves, he told himself, slow and easy. There was rhythm to his work, the natural dreamlike rhythm of weightlessness.
His earphones were silent. He said nothing. All he heard was the purring of the suit's air blowers and his own steady breathing. All he saw was his work. 84
Finally he inserted the last thick power cable to the receptacle waiting on the sidewall of the station. I pronounce you station and power source, he said silently. Inspecting the checkout lights alongside the connectors, he saw that they were all green. May you produce many kilowatts.
"Okay, it's finished," he announced, pushing slightly away from the station. "How's Linda doing?"
Jill answered at once, "She's all set."
"Send her out."
She came out of the hatch slowly, uncertainly, wavering feet sliding out first from the bulbous airlock. It reminded Kinsman of a film he had seen of a whale giving birth.
"Welcome to the real world," he said once her helmet cleared the airlock hatch.
She turned to answer him and he heard her gasp and he knew that now he liked her.
"It's . . . it's . . ."
