Astronomicon: Icarus

13 - Oxygen

Enzo overrode the safety system on the ore hold airlock doors, again causing both inner and outer airlocks to be open at the same time. The hold itself was already evacuated so there was no need to wait for the air to be pumped out.

Both men clunked their way out to the outer airlock doorway, looking out at the sea of asteroids before them. Most of the rocks were following their age-old path, steadily travelling their route around the sun, but others, knocked off path by collisions, were heading off in a variety of directions. Enzo and Hugo scanned the asteroid field, looking for any sign of something approaching.

"Can you see anything?" asked Enzo, over the radio system.

Hugo shrugged but did not reply.

"Can you hear me?" asked Enzo.

Hugo tried to gesture something, pointing to the side of his helmet then shaking his hand. It took him a few moments to realise that Enzo had no idea what he meant. He pointed to his helmet again then this time pointed one finger upwards and then attempted to move his other hand across to the first, but his bulky EVA suit would not allow that kind of movement. Enzo's continued puzzled expression made him stop trying to mime the problem. Instead, he thought for a moment, then reached out and grabbed Enzo's shoulder as best he could within the restriction of his EVA gloves.

Enzo looked most puzzled as Hugo pulled the two of them closer together, gently knocking their helmets together. Hugo held the helmets firmly together and spoke loudly.

"My radio is out," he said, the audio vibrations passing directly between the touching helmets, allowing them to hear each other quite clearly.

"Ah. I asked if you could see anything," repeated Enzo.

"No," replied Hugo, "But while we're talking, we're not looking."

Hugo released his grip on Enzo's shoulder, and both men turned to face the open hatch again. They both screamed involuntarily as an EVA-suited figure arrived at speed, slamming into both of them and jarring their mag-boots clear of the metal floor plates. Both men were thrown heavily backwards through the inner doors, completely out of control.

Enzo was flipped head-over-heels down the centre aisle of the hold, his feet bouncing heavily against the ceiling as he went. Reacting quickly he took several rapid steps against the ceiling, giving his mag-boots a little opportunity to grip the metal surface. The soles of his boots slid but did not break free of the surface. Within a few more steps he had slowed his forward momentum and come to a halt with his world inverted. Without gravity to give a sense of up and down, the hold ceiling now felt just like the floor of an unfamiliar room.

Hugo did not react so well. He spun across the floor, bounced into the space between floor and ceiling and eventually managed to grab the edge of one of the huge ore bins. Clinging onto it, he bounced heavily against the side of the bin, winding himself but managing to hold his grip. Dmitry almost slid right past Hugo, but he managed to check himself by grabbing Hugo's flailing leg. Hugo cried out in pain as his leg was wrenched backwards.

Enzo clunked across the ceiling, hastily heading for the airlock control panel. When he got there he found not only was it uncomfortably high, from his perspective, on the wall, but that the buttons were upside-down. He hit the button sequence to close both the inner and outer doors, then set about walking down the wall beside the airlock and getting himself onto the floor again.

Hugo planted his mag-boots on the floor and lifted himself onto his feet. He found Dmitry lying backwards at a diagonal angle, his boots attached to the floor, but all his attention focused on unfastening his helmet. Hugo clunked across to him as quickly as he could, pulled him upright and attempted to hold Dmitry's frantic hands away from his helmet's clasps. Dmitri beat his hands away.

As soon as Dmitry was in a standing position, Hugo could see that his face was turning blue. He was gasping frantically and looked like he was about to pass out. Hugo looked around at Enzo and waved urgently, using the standard circular motion of his hand to indicate starting the pumps. The inner airlock door was already sealed, so Enzo pressed the sequence of buttons that activated the air pumps.

Within seconds the powerful pumps began to rapidly transfer the stored air back from the temporary reservoirs and to fill the hold with the vital gas. Hugo turned back to Dmitry, horrified to see that he had already unfastened both of his helmet clasps and was in the process of unclicking it from the neck ring. There was a faint puff of condensation around the base of the helmet and Dmitry lifted it immediately clear of his head and left it to float spinning across the hold.

He gasped in the thin, but rapidly thickening air. It took a minute or so to be thick enough to be healthy but it was obviously better than what he was attempting to breathe within his spacesuit. Enzo checked the display on the airlock control panel to confirm that the pressure within the hold was steady. Once the hold was fully repressurised, that would be the best indication that their repair was sound. Hugo checked the pressure meter on the wrist of his EVA suit and discovered that the air pressure was already over eighty-five percent normal, easily enough to breathe, so he set about undoing the clasps on his own helmet.

Normal colour gradually returned to Dmitry's face, but he was still breathing heavily.

Hugo lifted his helmet clear of his head but held onto it. "It's good to see you. How did you manage that?"

"Easy-peasy," coughed Dmitry, still badly out of breath.

"We thought you were gone," said Hugo.

"I thought you all wanted me gone. I was almost back at the ship when she moved away. I adjusted my course and she moved again. I was beginning to think you were avoiding me."

Hugo laughed, "I don't think so, although I don't know much about that new guy piloting the ship. How did you get back to us?"

"Used the reserve oxygen tank as a propellant," replied Dmitry, still coughing, "But I used it all up before I got here. Then I had the choice of giving up and drifting through space until my main oxygen supply expired, or using that too in a last-ditch attempt to get here."

"You used it all up?!" exclaimed Hugo.

"Every last millilitre. I'd been holding my breath for over a minute before you appeared in the airlock."

"Well now you're back, we can get out of here and away from these rogue asteroids. The whole area's gone crazy," said Enzo.

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