Orbital

Thirty-Six Lifeguard

As Samantha Turco inspects my suit before we shut the airlock, I keep thinking to myself that this is someone that might want me dead. Behind those green eyes and high cheekbones is a calculating person. And now I’m going to step outside into the vacuum of space with her and a pair of shoes that I assembled myself.

Jessup had been clear to me that my mission was just fact-finding. I was only up here on the Sagan to figure out how the Silver Glass material could have been stolen from the lab and given to the Chinese, not to gather everyone in the drawing room and use my deductive reasoning powers to finger the culprit.

But that doesn’t mean that whoever did it knows that. Hell, given my record of space kills, they could think I was some kind of government assassin with a license to kill sent to the Sagan to eliminate the leak.

I can only imagine their level of paranoia, given my own. Although, Jessup said in a briefing that someone capable of committing this crime may be a high degree sociopath. In that case, they may feel nothing and only be looking for an opportunity to off me.

“So what happens if your little bootie breaks and starts leaking oxygen?” asks Turco.

“One, you use that roll of tape on your hip to seal the leak as quickly as possible. Two, don’t call it a ‘bootie.’ That doesn’t sound very space-worthy.”

“Sorry. What happens if the tape slips from my hand? Hypothetically?” There’s a gleam in her eye that could be either playful or sadistic, depending on whether or not you’re about to put your life in her hands.

“You get me back to the airlock as fast as you can.”

“Got it. But let’s say the boot breaks apart completely and you go shooting off into space because all the air in your suit is propelling you like a balloon?”

“You pull me back on the tether.”

“What if it breaks?”

“It shouldn’t.”

“What if you go flying off, crack your head, get a concussion and go unconscious and I get tangled in the tether and have to cut my way free?”

“Have you been thinking of these scenarios since you volunteered, or are they something that comes to you on the spot?”

“A little bit of both.”

“Radio check.”

“Loud and clear,” she replies.

I clamp my tether next to hers on the inside of the lock and press the red button that sucks all the air out of the chamber. A minute later the outer doors slide open.

“What if…” Samantha starts to say.

“Enough.” I’m about to ask her if she can’t already tell how nervous I am, but realize that’s the point. She knows. “Remind me why you volunteered?”

“I was bored?”

“Fair enough.”

“How do your toes feel?”

I wriggle them inside the boot and flex the arch. “Not bad. It’s a little tighter in vacuum, but not that much. Let’s see how the smart cilia work in space.”

I gently push myself from the airlock and glide over the lower module at an angle until my feet touch the metal cylinder below.

They immediately grab hold of the surface. It’s not the clanking sensation of magnetic boots, but more subtle.

I’d say it feels like walking on flypaper, but these shoes give way and let me raise a foot without too much struggle. There’s a bit of a delay, but that can probably be compensated for in the software.

Samantha floats out of the lock and drifts overhead. She’s got a rocket gun that propels her wherever she points it. It’s really just a cylinder of compressed air that feeds to two tubes spread about a foot apart; it’s not that much different than what the Gemini astronauts used over fifty years ago.

Sometimes when something works, there’s not point to trying to mess with it. My space boots on the other hand, they could be a useful improvement if they work.

I start walking across the module, moving carefully. Trying to stride is difficult. The boots want you to take perfect heel toe steps.

But for standing still, they’re quite good. And considering that I just wore them inside the gravity section of the station, they’re a great first attempt for a prototype.

“What’s the verdict?” asks Samantha.

I take the magnetometer from my waist and nod to the secure module ahead of me. “I want to see how they work on different surfaces.”

“I think that’s all metal.”

“There should be some plastic panelling on part of my lab.”

“Just don’t go stomping on Ling’s lab. He’ll have a fit over his vibration compensator.”

Interesting. While that piece of equipment isn’t a secret by itself, the cavalier way Samantha mentioned it raises my suspicions a little.

Has Ling given all of the available women a private tour of his laser lab against DARPA procedures?

“I’ll be careful.”

I take measured steps and scan the outside of the station for anything that looks like it might be a transmitter capable of messing with the keypad signal.

While the jammer wouldn’t have to be very big, it’d either need a large battery pack or be plugged into a station power source.

As I walk along, I compare the hull with a wire-frame station blueprint projected on the inside of my helmet.

The number of things sticking to the outside is overwhelming. The map shows me objects like; “airlock piston release valve,” “photovoltaic temperature conduit sensor line” and “modular docking thread stress indicator jack.”

It’s like a human body with all the guts on the outside.

Nothing stands out, so I start walking over the side of the module. There’s a large array of radiator fins two feet from where they’re supposed to be according to my plans.

That’s a mistake, although that isn’t all that surprising, modifications are always to be expected. You just hope that it’s because the engineers who assembled this thing had a better idea and not an incomplete one.

Still, it’s worth inspecting.