Kane, Brigid and Grant had noticed them before, but since they had been nearly hidden by boxes of materiel, they assumed they contained nothing of importance.
The crates had been shifted to one side, and Lakesh opened one of the locker doors. He removed a dark one-piece garment from a hook and showed it to them. It was gunmetal gray in color, and the light glinted from the many zippers and metal apertures on the sleeves and legs.
“Suprotect3 and neoprene weave,” announced Lakesh. “Damn near indestructible, constructed in a multilayer format, affording atmospheric integrity, thermal and humidity controls. It’s lined with a layer of lead foil to prevent radiation contamination. With all the openings sealed and the helmets and breathing apparatus attached, they’re airtight.”
Kane eyed the suit doubtfully. “How old are they?”
“Over two centuries, but like I said, the material they’re composed of has an almost eternal shelf life. Designed as rad-proof environmental suits, the personnel here used them shortly after the nuke whenever they left the installation.”
Lakesh unzipped a sleeve, pointing out a network of tiny filaments on the inside lining. “Internal thermostats that will keep you comfortably cool or toasty warm, depending on the external temperature or pressure.”
He fingered a cylindrical pouch on a leg. “Secondary oxygen tanks slip inside here. The helmets are equipped with their own self-contained circulation equipment.”
“That solves the breathing and temperature problems,” Brigid said. “What about the gravity or lack thereof?”
Lakesh returned the garment to the locker. “If these were space suits, they’d have magnetic boots. Unfortunately they aren’t, so they don’t. However, there should be handholds on the station’s bulkheads that you can use in case of zero-G conditions.”
He swept his gaze over them. “Any further questions?”
“Just out of curiosity,” spoke up Grant, “just how far away is Parallax Red from here?”
Lakesh shrugged and smiled wanly. “In astronomical terms, only around the corner. Approximately 250,000 miles.”
No one replied. They struggled to conceive of such a vast distance, trying to find personal frames of reference.
Finally Kane ventured, ‘ ‘That seems an awfully long way for a gateway jump.”
“Distance is relative when you’re dealing with quantum mechanics,” said Lakesh. “There is no relativistic range limitation on hyperdimensions.”
“That you know of,” Brigid argued. “So far, the transit pathways have followed the curvature of the Earth, from jump point A to reception point B. Therefore, measurements can be made from gateway to gateway, so distance is not relative.”
Lakesh evidently wasn’t hearing anything new. Diffidently he responded, “The gateways form interstices and interfaces between linear points, regardless of the distance between them. Utilizing hyperdimensional space, there is little difference between a mat-trans unit in Cuba and one in Australia. The same principle applies to the gateway here and one on the dark side of the Moon.”
When no one responded, Lakesh inquired, “Anything else?”
“Just this,” Kane replied. “When do we leave? Or is that relative, too?”
At 0700 the next morning, they convened in the ready room adjoining the jump chamber. Brigid, Kane and Grant had made their preparations the night before, filling flat cases with special equipment, rations and water. All three of them wore the formfitting environmental suits, all the seals zipped up and complete with the secondary oxygen cylinders.
The only modifications Kane and Grant had made to the suits were the additions of their Sin Eaters holstered to their right forearms. Their combat daggers hung in scabbards from web belts.
Brigid carried a stunted Ingram Model 11 subgun, slung over a shoulder by a leather strap. She examined one of the helmets resting on the table, turning it over in her hands. Dark gray in color like the suits, it was made of a lightweight ceramic-alloy compound. The treated Plexiglas faceplates polarized when exposed to light levels above a certain candlepower.
On each suit, squat oxygen tanks were attached to the rearward part of the headpiece. The Suprotect3 lining hung down from inside the helmet, to be attached to the suit’s collar by an arrangement of tiny snaps and zippers.
The suits were hot, despite their internal thermostat controls, and none of them felt comfortable. Although the fabric hugged the contours of their bodies, it was stiff and a little unwieldy. The swelling in Kane’s knee had gone down overnight, but the suit’s tight leggings constricted it to an annoyingly painful degree.