Children of the Fleet (Fleet School #1)(91)

He knew what this internal monologue was about. There was no doubt in his mind—the crease of the glove was the thing that would come into contact with any object out there. No, he was chattering to himself in his own mind to postpone the inevitable moment when he went through the tiny workman’s airlock and found himself outside.

Because he had caught himself procrastinating, he moved immediately. Suit sealed? Confirmed by the row of green lights along the bottom of the heads-up display inside the helmet. Breathing suit atmo? Yes. How many minutes? Only an emergency suit, not recently recharged—two hours of air, but only half an hour of full battery. Got to get a bunch of these fully charged before they …

Procrastinating again. Inside the airlock, he sealed the interior door, then carefully thought through the steps in airlock training. If you just pop the outer door, you’ll be ejected along with the air. Don’t even imagine you’re strong enough to hold on to something and not get blown out the door. Even though this airlock was much tinier than the cargo airlocks they had trained them on, Dabeet wasn’t taking chances. First activate the pump and get as much air out of the chamber as possible. Done. Wait wait wait. Didn’t take long—air cleared.

Not all of it, of course, but there wouldn’t be any rapid puff of air when the outer door opened.

Even so, Dabeet hooked an arm through the bar on the inner door—no doubt put there for just this purpose, since it stood out far enough to insert an entire spacesuit arm into the gap. Only when he was securely in place did he push the button to open the outer door.

He had thought there would be some kind of metal-on-metal prang, but no, he had to turn his body to see that the door was open. No sound at all.

Do I leave the door open for when I come back?

Airlock discipline. Always close the door. Always always always. Because your rescuers may need an airlock. And you can’t be sure you’ll return to the same spot.

But to close the door, Dabeet had to pass through it.

There were arm-grip bars on all four sides of the door. At first Dabeet tried to snake an arm around and push it through the gap, but no. These bars were meant to be held by hands, not by arms.

He tested the grip. Sure enough, it was clumsy and fumbly when he first tried to attach, but when he pressed the crease of the palm into the bar, the gloves activated and gripped like steel.

Bacana. He could go out the door now.

Right now. Any second now.

Because he became impatient with his own fear, Dabeet almost pushed himself right out, but he stopped himself. He had no idea how much force he should use. With his hand gripping the outside bar, his back was to the doorway. The last thing he wanted to do was push so hard he broke the glove’s grip on the bar. Or broke his arm. Could that happen?

Dabeet pulled his other arm away from his handhold on an interior bar and used his fingers to push his body out into … space … no, just the area outside the …

He felt his breathing growing fast and ragged as he seemed to whirl out of the door.

But his grip on the outside bar held as a kind of pivot, and it did not let go when he whumped against the hull of the station.

He expected himself to bounce off, but no. The nanooze gripped him immediately. It was holding his back firmly to the hull.

By reflex, he almost pulled his hand away from the bar, almost let go. After all, this was like lying on a hill, wasn’t it? The nanooze holding him like gravity.

The ship is always above me. I am not lying on the ship. I am hanging from the ship. I’m holding on to the ship for dear life. Obey these rules and live.

Dabeet opened his eyes and allowed himself to see and understand his situation.

He was on the upper curve of the inside of the wheel of the station. He could see the under-construction wheel “down” near his feet. It was actually parallel to the wheel he was on, but that would only be obvious down near the fattest part of the tube. Up here near the top, it could have been a separate vehicle.

Dabeet looked left, then, slowly, right. The wheel he was on curved like a huge halo above and around him. The unfinished parallel wheel went only partway in one direction, where it left off with construction materials and equipment fastened to it at the end. In the other direction, he could see that it went much farther, before it ended in a similar welter of supplies and tools. The wheel he was on was complete.

He thought of the inside of a bicycle wheel. There were no spokes here, though. Just tubes snaking out to the four cubes of the battlerooms. It took a bit of study to figure out that yes, all four cubes were in place, one of them mostly occluded by the other three.

Those tubes had to be the corridors. But they were so small. Forty at a time, kids would run along those corridors and …

No. Those tubes must be life support, because there was the corridor. A single corridor, because that’s how the children experienced it. One corridor leading to each end of the one battleroom it was attached to. Rigid, rectangular. Like airplane jetways, only longer.

Now Dabeet could see how that single corridor always stayed attached to the same battleroom. But it also continued around the outside of the first battleroom and then forked to go on to the second, the third, the fourth. That’s how it looked from the inside, too. They never saw where the other corridors led off. They only ran the path that was open to them, lit up with their team colors. Each one leading to one end or the other of the square. The enemy’s gate, our gate. And then the corridors leading to the teacher door, the observation rooms. The mysteries of the battleroom now laid out clearly before him.