Heinlein, Robert A – Have Space Suit will Travel

Then I couldn’t get the little blade open. Space-suit gauntlets don’t have thumb nails.

I said to myself: Kip, quit running in circles. This is easy. All you have to do is open a knife-and you’ve got to . . . because Peewee is suffocating. I looked around for a sliver of rock, anything that could pinch-hit for a thumb nail. Then I checked my belt.

The prospector’s hammer did it, the chisel end of the head was sharp enough to open the blade. I cut the clothesline away.

I was still blocked. I wanted very badly to get at a bottle on my back. When I had thrown away that empty and put the last fresh one on my back, I had started feeding from it and saved the almost-half-charge in the other one. I meant to save it for a rainy day and split it with Peewee. Now was the time-she was out of air, I was practically so in one bottle but still had that half-charge in the other-plus an eighth of a charge or less in the bottle that contained straight oxygen (the best I could hope for in equalizing pressures), I had planned to surprise her with a one-quarter charge of oxy-helium, which would last longer and give more cooling. A real knight-errant plan, I thought. I didn’t waste two seconds discarding it.

I couldn’t get that bottle off my back!

Maybe if I hadn’t modified the backpack for nonregulation bottles I could have done it. The manual says: “Reach over your shoulder with the opposite arm, close stop valves at bottle and helmet, disconnect the shackle-” My pack didn’t have shackles; I had substituted straps. But I still don’t think you can reach over your shoulder in a pressurized suit and do anything effective. I think that was written by a man at a desk. Maybe he had seen it done under favorable conditions. Maybe he had done it, but was one of those freaks who can dislocate both shoulders. But I’ll bet a full charge of oxygen that the riggers around Space Station Two did it for each other as Peewee and I had, or went inside and deflated.

If I ever get a chance, I’ll change that. Everything you have to do in a space suit should be arranged to do in front-valves, shackles, everything, even if it is to affect something in back. We aren’t like Wormface, with eyes all around and arms that bend in a dozen places; we’re built to work in front of us-that goes triple in a space suit.

You need a chin window to let you see what you’re doing, too! A thing can look fine on paper and be utterly crumby in the field.

But I didn’t waste time moaning; I had a one-eighth charge of oxygen I could reach. I grabbed it.

That poor, overworked adhesive tape was a sorry mess. I didn’t bother with bandage; if I could get the tape to stick at all I’d be happy. I handled it as carefully as gold leaf, trying to get it tight, and stopped in the middle to close Peewee’s exhaust entirely when it looked as if her suit was collapsing. I finished with trembling fingers.

I didn’t have Peewee to close a valve. I simply gripped that haywired joint in one hand, opened Peewee’s empty bottle with the other, swung over fast and opened the oxygen bottle wide-jerked my hand across and grabbed the valve of Peewee’s bottle and watched those gauges.

The two needles moved toward each other. When they slowed down I started closing her bottle-and the taped joint blew out.

I got that valve closed in a hurry; I didn’t lose much gas from Peewee’s bottle. But what was left on the supply side leaked away. I didn’t stop to worry; I peeled away a scrap of adhesive, made sure the bayonet-and-snap joint was clean, got that slightly recharged bottle back on Peewee’s suit, opened stop valves.

Her suit started to distend. I opened one exhaust valve a crack and touched helmets. “Peewee! Peewee! Can you hear me? Wake up, baby! Mother Thing!-make her wake up!”

“Peewee!”

“Yes, Kip?”

“Wake up! On your feet, Champ! Get up! Honey, please get up.”