mcgrew's Journal: Mars, Ho! Chapter Thirteen

Oxygen
The cargo hold door was open. That wasn't right, that door should always be closed. I went in, scared to death about Destiny, straight for the airlock.

The outside hatch of the airlock was open, which meant somebody was outside the boat. That relieved me a little, I'd worried one of the whores had thrown her out the airlock without a suit. But the open hatch said that thankfully hadn't happened

It also said that I wasn't getting outside here. Thankfully there were three airlocks that doubled as boat docks. One was for the Captain's houseboat connected to the pilot's room, and the other two were at opposite ends of the ship. Sometimes dozens of ships coupled like this traveled together. It's supposed to be cheaper that way for big loads.

I flew as fast as I could to the other wing, put on a suit and went through the other docking airlock, closing it behind me.

The climb on the skyscraper-like boat was a lot easier without gravity. It was probably stupid of me but I was in a hurry to get to Destiny, who was probably dying by now so I didn't bother with tethers, I just moved as fast as I could. My God but this woman was my life! The thought of losing her... I climbed faster.

I kept trying to call her on the suit radio, knowing it was useless. Her radio probably wasn't even turned on or she would have tried to call me rather than following me out.

I finally made it around to the airlock she'd left open and saw her floating about six or so meters from the boat. I hooked two tethers to a rung next to the airlock and one to my suit and pushed off towards her. She wasn't moving and that worried the hell out of me, if she was conscious she'd be thrashing around in a panic. She was obviously out of air.

You would think climbing a tether without gravity pulling at you would be easy. You'd be wrong.

There's no gravity but there's still mass. There was the mass of two humans and two suits, which weren't all that light. I climbed the tether to the lock and pulled her in behind me.

Finally inside the airlock I shed my gloves and her helmet. She took a big gasp of air - she was alive! I got our suits off as the medical robot wheeled her away with an oxygen mask on her face.

I floated back to the pilot room to make the course correction. The ship's inspection would be a little late today.

I should have inspected the ship first.