0401: Suiting Up
Ziggurat #316
A moment later, his monotonous voice crackled from the wall speakers. "Strap in and hoods up, everyone. We're about to experience thirty seconds of decompression. And by 'we,' I mean 'you.'"
Six faces turned toward Constance and Lamont as the pressure-sealed door between the cockpit and the cargo bay slid open with a hiss. The other passengers, Westward crew members who were destined for the dark moon below, sat on the metal benches lining either side of the bay. The pair made for something of a spectacle as they tromped ponderously through the hatch, their magnetic crampons clanking on the grated metal floor. Lamont felt like a newborn calf just learning to walk.
"Nerves have got nothing to do with it, love," Lamont insisted. "I simply don't fancy the notion of putting you in danger."
"We're always in danger," Constance pointed out. "Besides, it ain't your choice." She had acclimated to the magnetic boots far more quickly than Lamont, and she was soon standing near the rear hatch, where there was a shelf of metal lockers.
"It was my idea," Lamont complained.
The door between the two sections of the asteroid pod had closed, either automatically or by Ed's command. A moment later, his monotonous voice crackled from the wall speakers. "Strap in and hoods up, everyone. We're about to experience thirty seconds of decompression. And by 'we,' I mean 'you.'"
Surprised, the crew members raced to pull the hoods of their Martian vacuum suits out of the slim pockets beneath their collars. The suits were reportedly designed to deploy the hoods automatically in the event of atmosphere loss, but Lamont had never met anyone willing to test that assertion. When pulled down over the head, the hood formed an airtight seal with the collar. The magic was simultaneously reassuring and unsettling; a reminder of just how far the Martians had advanced before their society mysteriously came to an end.
In the meantime, Constance had opened a locker and pulled out a space cowl, which she handed back to Lamont before retrieving one for herself. These helmets were Earth technology, a hard metal shell that fit over the shoulders with a transparent composite bubble for the head. While the cowls did have a pneumatic seal around the neck, their purpose was not to provide breathable atmosphere, since the Martian suits already did that. Rather, they contained radio units and connections for a variety of other attachments.
One of the crew members, George White, looked at the pair with astonishment as he realized what they were about to do. "Brother," he said to Lamont as he fastened the restraining straps that were built into his bench, "You picked a hell of a time for a moonlight stroll."