takes me almost fifteen minutes to put on the suit by myself. While Iâm doing that, I scan the airlock again, to confirm that itâs not connected to any external monitoring system.
I can feel my heart beating faster. Iâm scared, but also excited. I feel like a kid riding his bicycle without training wheels for the first timeâand preparing to ride the bike off a ski jump ramp, over a cliff, and into the ocean. Maybe not a great idea, but itâs sure going to be fun.
The airlock cycles open. I hope nobodyâs passing by the corridor outside, but the locker room, lounge, and office should provide decent sound insulation. I step inside the airlock and close the inner door. It seems to take an eternity for the atmosphere to vent and the status light to turn green. The outer door opens onto a black infinity. I step out onto the excursion platform, walk to the railing on the Sunward side, and start looking for handholds on the hull. A big ship like this needs plenty of maintenance grips and niches to allow in-flight repairs.
Dejah Thoris âs constant acceleration simulates gravity. Ascending fifteen decks until Iâm past the cargo section is going to be like climbing up the side of a skyscraper. Except if I fall, there wonât even be ground to hitâeither my tether will hold, and Iâll get yanked back into the side of the ship, or the tether will break, and Iâll float through interplanetary space until I get close enough to a relay buoy to send a distress signal with my puny shoulder-phone. Thatâs if I donât get fried by the main engines as I tumble past the bottom of the ship.
Did I mention this is going to be fun? Yeah. Fun.
Iâve connected several tether cables together to make a run long enough to get me past the cargo section. I attach the carabiner at one end of my mega-cable to the bank of rings above the airlock, wrapping the cable around twice just to be safe. Then I engage the magnets in my boots and start climbing.
Itâs slow going only because I have to avoid windows. Walking up the side of a building turns out to be surprisingly easy. This is fun. I try a few experimental hops, just to see how far off the hull I can get. The gravity makes things tricky; once Iâm not attached to the ship, it accelerates past me and I fall backward. But maybe if I rig the cable â¦
My helmetâs faceplate dims automatically as I come over the horizon into sunlight. Iâm at the edge of the cargo section, where the rectilinear containers have been lashed together on the outside of the ship and covered with solar panels. Just like Ellie described. I take a moment to admire the structure, multicolored bricks beneath a gleaming blue mirror.
Then I switch my left eye into telescope mode and find the Earth: azimuth negative forty degrees, elevation plus five. This side of the ship always faces Sunward. That allows Dejah Thoris to maintain communications with Earth, and itâll do the same for my equipment.
I think of a fish-covered pizza and open the pocketâwithout the barrier, since Iâm already in a vacuum. That makes it much easier to pull out the Echo Delta.
The full name is âemergency communications dish,â but I guess âEcho Deltaâ sounds snappier. The bulky military case falls out of the pocket and nearly yanks my arm out of its socket. I clamp the twenty-kilo weight to a maintenance shelf before I open it and start assembling the unit. Fold out the parabolic dish, screw it onto the tripod, bolt that to the hull after scanning for wires. Attach power pack, scrambler module, microcell transceiver.
I test the dish by tuning to a public broadcast news feed and smile at the tiny vid image in my left eye HUD. Now I can use my shoulder-phone to talk to the dish, and the dish can connect me to Earth.
After I drop the empty case back in the pocket, I take a moment to admire my handiwork. Itâs not the most circumspect
I can feel my heart beating faster. Iâm scared, but also excited. I feel like a kid riding his bicycle without training wheels for the first timeâand preparing to ride the bike off a ski jump ramp, over a cliff, and into the ocean. Maybe not a great idea, but itâs sure going to be fun.
The airlock cycles open. I hope nobodyâs passing by the corridor outside, but the locker room, lounge, and office should provide decent sound insulation. I step inside the airlock and close the inner door. It seems to take an eternity for the atmosphere to vent and the status light to turn green. The outer door opens onto a black infinity. I step out onto the excursion platform, walk to the railing on the Sunward side, and start looking for handholds on the hull. A big ship like this needs plenty of maintenance grips and niches to allow in-flight repairs.
Dejah Thoris âs constant acceleration simulates gravity. Ascending fifteen decks until Iâm past the cargo section is going to be like climbing up the side of a skyscraper. Except if I fall, there wonât even be ground to hitâeither my tether will hold, and Iâll get yanked back into the side of the ship, or the tether will break, and Iâll float through interplanetary space until I get close enough to a relay buoy to send a distress signal with my puny shoulder-phone. Thatâs if I donât get fried by the main engines as I tumble past the bottom of the ship.
Did I mention this is going to be fun? Yeah. Fun.
Iâve connected several tether cables together to make a run long enough to get me past the cargo section. I attach the carabiner at one end of my mega-cable to the bank of rings above the airlock, wrapping the cable around twice just to be safe. Then I engage the magnets in my boots and start climbing.
Itâs slow going only because I have to avoid windows. Walking up the side of a building turns out to be surprisingly easy. This is fun. I try a few experimental hops, just to see how far off the hull I can get. The gravity makes things tricky; once Iâm not attached to the ship, it accelerates past me and I fall backward. But maybe if I rig the cable â¦
My helmetâs faceplate dims automatically as I come over the horizon into sunlight. Iâm at the edge of the cargo section, where the rectilinear containers have been lashed together on the outside of the ship and covered with solar panels. Just like Ellie described. I take a moment to admire the structure, multicolored bricks beneath a gleaming blue mirror.
Then I switch my left eye into telescope mode and find the Earth: azimuth negative forty degrees, elevation plus five. This side of the ship always faces Sunward. That allows Dejah Thoris to maintain communications with Earth, and itâll do the same for my equipment.
I think of a fish-covered pizza and open the pocketâwithout the barrier, since Iâm already in a vacuum. That makes it much easier to pull out the Echo Delta.
The full name is âemergency communications dish,â but I guess âEcho Deltaâ sounds snappier. The bulky military case falls out of the pocket and nearly yanks my arm out of its socket. I clamp the twenty-kilo weight to a maintenance shelf before I open it and start assembling the unit. Fold out the parabolic dish, screw it onto the tripod, bolt that to the hull after scanning for wires. Attach power pack, scrambler module, microcell transceiver.
I test the dish by tuning to a public broadcast news feed and smile at the tiny vid image in my left eye HUD. Now I can use my shoulder-phone to talk to the dish, and the dish can connect me to Earth.
After I drop the empty case back in the pocket, I take a moment to admire my handiwork. Itâs not the most circumspect
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