The cargo hatch had no airlock; the twins decompressed the entire hold, then opened the door, remembering just in time to snap on their lines as the door opened. They looked out and both hesitated. Despite their lifelong experience with vacuum suits on the face of the Moon this was the first time either one had ever been outside a ship in orbit.
The hatch framed endless cosmic night, blackness made colder and darker by the unwinking diamond stars many light-years away. They were on the night side of the Stone; there was nothing but stars and the swallowing depths. It was one thing to see it from the safety of Luna or through the strong quartz of a port; it was quite another to see it with nothing at all between one’s frail body and the giddy, cold depths of eternity.
Pollux said, ‘Cas, I don’t like this.’
‘There’s nothing to be afraid of.’
‘Then why are my teeth chattering?’
‘Go ahead; I’ll keep a tension on your line.’
‘You are too good to me, dear brother — a darn sight too good! You go and I’ll keep a tension on your line.’
‘Don’t be silly! Get on out there.’
‘After you, Grandpa.’
‘Oh, well!’ Castor grasped the frame of the hatch and swung himself out. He scrambled to click his magnetic boots to the side of the ship but the position was most awkward, the suit was cumbersome, and he had no gravity to help him. Instead, he swung around and his momentum pulled his fingers loose from the smooth frame. His floundering motions bumped the side of the ship and pushed him gently away. He floated out, still floundering, until his line checked him three or four feet from the side. ‘Pull me in!’
‘Put your feet down, clumsy!’
‘I can’t. Pull me in, you red-headed moron!’
‘Don’t call me “red-headed”.’ Pollux let out a couple of feet more line.
‘Pol, quit fooling. I don’t like this.’
‘I thought you were brave. Grandpa?’
Castor’s reply was incoherent. Pollux decided that it had gone far enough; he pulled Castor in and, while holding firmly to a hatch dog himself, he grabbed one of Castor’s boots and set it firmly against the side; it clicked into place. ‘Snap on your other line,’ he ordered.
Castor, still breathing heavily, looked for a padeye in the side of the ship. He found one nearby and walked over to it, picking up his feet as if he walked in sticky mud. He snapped his second line to the ring of the padeye and straightened up. ‘Catch,’ Pollux called out and sent his own second line snaking out to his twin
Castor caught it and fastened it beside his own. ‘All set?’ asked Pollux. ‘I’m going to unsnap us in here.’
‘All secure.’ Castor moved closer to the hatch.
‘Here I come.’
‘So you do.’ Castor gave Pollux’s line a tug; Pollux came sailing out of the hatch — and Castor let him keep on sailing. Castor checked the line gently through his fingers, soaking up the momentum, so that Pollux reached the end of the fifty-foot line and stayed there without bouncing back.
Pollux had been quite busy on the way out but to no effect — sawing vacuum is futile. When he felt himself snubbed to a stop he quit straggling. ‘Pull me back!’
‘Say “uncle”.’
Pollux said several other things, some of which he had picked up dockside on Luna, plus some more colorful expressions derived from his grandmother. ‘You had better get off this ship,’ he concluded, ‘because I’m coming down this line and take your helmet off.’ He made a swipe for the line with one hand; Castor flipped it away.
‘Say “even-Steven” then.’
Pollux had the line now, having remembered to reach for his belt where it was hooked instead of grabbing for the bight.’ Suddenly he grinned. ‘Okay — “even-Steven”.’
‘Even-Steven it is. Hold still; I’ll bring you in.’ He towed him in gently, grabbing Pol’s feet and clicking them down as he approached. ‘You looked mighty silly out there,’ he commented when Pollux was firm to the ship’s side.
His twin invoked their ritual. ‘Even-Steven!’
‘My apologies, Junior. Let’s get to work.’