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here through there unless it s with us. Jeez! What a mess! Home Sweet
Fridge!
Nothing useful in the lounge, Jerry noted. Want to burn it?
Maybe. If anything s alive it s gonna be against that bulkhead, though, or
along the ceiling seams. I ll settle for that.
There was the same whooshing sound, longer this time, and then it cut off as
Nagel yelled Hold it! Hold it! We don t want to start a fire! The cure would
be worse than the disease at this temperature!
Doc, you still with us? Sark called.
Yes, I m here. Let me get up and get to the
ungh!
Suddenly I can t move! I oh, shit! Forget it.
What s the matter, Randi? Jerry Nagel called, uncharacteristically using her
first name.
I m embarrassed. I had myself strapped in, right? Forgot to remove all the
straps. Felt like somebody was pinning me down!
Just relax. Go up to the door panel. If you press the control on the right of
the identipad you ll be able to see
through the door somewhat and that should give you a look at us. Don t mind
the look of the place, though. It s a real mess.
I never knew you could do that with this door
, she thought to herself, but she tried it and discovered that he was right.
So long as you kept your palm on the plate for more than ten seconds, a kind
of see-through window opened in the door. Clever, and useful for the kinds of
emergencies this room was really designed for.
She gasped when she saw the outer room, even though she d been warned about it
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
and even though the view
through the door was less than ideal. The room had been a common meeting
place, a place to relax, to plan, to just joke around. Kind of a living room
for this communal base unit, really. Now it was all discolored, much of the
furniture and wall decorations were oddly misshapen, and half the lights were
either out or cocked at odd angles.
Debris was all over the floor from the rapid decompression, and some very
solid things had shattered from the cold.
She saw the two figures in the room, completely suited up. One was holding a
heat rifle at the ready, the other had a similar weapon on its belt but was
now fumbling with a standard e-suit.
Got this one from the shuttle spares, so it should be okay, Jerry told her.
Now comes the hard part. I m coming right up to the door now, and I ll turn
on my internal light so you can see I m not made of gelatin. He came straight
to the door, the light went on, and she was very relieved to see the old
familiar face. Just to emphasize who was what, Jerry Nagel winked and stuck
his tongue out at her.
Satisfied? he asked her.
Yeah, okay, if it s not you we re all lost anyway. Now what?
This gets tricky. To unlock and unseal the door you re going to have to do it
manually and with the full palm authorization. The thing is, while we ve got
equalized pressure in here now with you, it s still about forty below, and
I m not about to turn the heat on. The only way we can do this is for you to
open the door, then get back and away from it as quickly as you can. It ll
still give you a real cold blast. I ll toss in the suit and close the door
again from this side. Turn on the suit s internal heater from the outside and
wait until you have something that won t freeze at the touch, then get suited
up fast, full seals set it for vacuum even though we ve got air here and
make sure all the systems work. We ll cover your exit here. Lucky s gonna take
this back down to a vacuum as soon as we re all set, and that should do it.
Then we go back up and ride the shuttle section in to Mother. Got that?
Yeah, I think so. Palm on, got a green, now I m punching in the security
code.
There was a hiss as the very tight vacuum seal on the door let loose and
pressure equalized.
Okay, she said, Turning the latch now, then getting back!
She turned the big security latch and could feel the cold creeping in even
before the door opened. There was a frigid blast, and then the suit was tossed
in and the door reclosed. She felt suddenly like she was trapped in a
refrigerator, although the safety systems in the command and control center
popped on blowing warm air back in.
She pulled the latch back down, worried that she might stick to it in the cold
and relieved when she didn t, even though her hand felt slightly frostbitten
from just that little touch. Now she examined the suit, reached in, powered it
up and turned on the internal heating. It wouldn t be warm until she sealed it
up with her inside, but it wouldn t freeze her toes off, either.
For a moment she got the paranoia back. What if some of that stuff had gotten
into the suit? When she got in and sealed it . . . But, no, she couldn t think
that way. If she did, she d never get out of here.
Put it on, put it on, seal it up, check all systems. . . .
God it s cold!
Verify power and working heat, then verify she was at vacuum setting. She
heard the seals go tight, knew she was now in a smaller biosphere but as
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