The newly exposed sector of the Engine Chamber contained an aluminum box set flat against the lower floor of the compartment; the box was about the size and shape of a coffin and it was sealed by a lid held in place by a wheel lock. Traveller explained that this “air cupboard” was airtight, and that on its far side was another door which led to the exterior of the craft—to space! This second door could be opened by a man within the box by means of another wheel. “The air in the box would puff out to space, of course,” Traveller said blithely, “but—as long as the upper door were sealed shut—no harm would come to the inhabitants of the Cabin. Thus access to the exterior can be gained without breach of the airtight shell.”
Holden frowned as he studied this device. “Most ingenious,” he said quietly, “except for the fate of the poor chap inside that coffin, who would surely die for lack of air within minutes of opening that second door.”
“Not at all,” said Traveller, “for inside the cupboard is a special suit. The suit is completely sealed, and is fed with air by a hose arrangement from within the ship. Thus a man could live and work in the vacuum of space for several minutes without ill effect.”
I found this difficult to envisage, but—after some minutes of questioning—I grasped the essentials of the arrangement.
And my destiny lay before me, as clear as a road marked on a map. A kind of calmness settled over me, and I said quietly, “Traveler, how long is this connecting air hose?”
“Over forty feet, when fully extended. It was my intention that the intrepid engineer could reach any section of the ship.”
I nodded. “In particular,” I said slowly, “he could make his way to the Bridge area, and to the hatchway which admits entry to the Bridge from the outside.”
Holden’s face filled with wonder and a kind of hope. “Ah. And the suited man could thereby gain access to the Bridge itself.”
Traveller glared thunderously. “Young man, are you suggesting that such an adventure should actually be undertaken?”
I shrugged, still quite calm. “It seems to me to offer a chance, if a slim one, of surviving; while to stay here and do nothing promises only a slow and uncomfortable death.”
“But this is an experimental system!” His arms flapped like the wings of some absurd bird. “I have worn that suit for only a few seconds at a time, and that on the surface of the Earth; I have yet to solve the problems of airflow, of heat loss—”
“What of all that?” I asked. “Let this be the ultimate test, Sir Josiah, the test to destruction. Surely the lessons learned in such a jaunt would be invaluable in the construction of new and better suits in the future.”
That tempted the scientist buried within the old fellow, and I saw naked curiosity surface for a moment in his eyes, but he said, “My young friend, I would not survive such a trip long enough to put any such lessons into practice. Now let us close this compartment up and—”
“I too am sure you would not survive such a trip, sir,” I said frankly. “For you are of advanced years and— forgive me—an asthmatic.” I surveyed the rest of the ship’s company. “Holden is far too rotund to squeeze into this device—and, if he will pardon, is hardly in the physical state to undertake such a strenuous jaunt. And Pocket—” The servant’s eyes were fixed on mine, and were filled with imploring; I only said gently, “Of course we could not ask our faithful friend to undertake such a voyage. Gentlemen, the course is clear.”
“Ned, you can’t mean—”
“Vicars, I absolutely forbid it. This is suicide!”
I let their words cascade around my ears, hardly hearing, for my mind was quite made up. My eyes saw past my shipmates to the hull of the vessel—and then, as if the wall were turned to glass, I seemed to see into the void itself; a place of infinite cold, of vacuum, riddled by speeding bullets of rock…
And a place into which, I knew now, I must soon step.
7
ALONE
I was all for plunging straight on with my adventure, for it was still early in the morning; but Traveller insisted that to propel myself out of the ship without making adequate preparations would reduce my slight chances of success to zero.
So it was that Traveller determined that a full two days should elapse before I was to enter the coffin- shaped air cupboard. Although I was unsure as to the effect of this delay on my fragile courage and mental state, I ceded the position.
Traveller went to work on my physical preparedness. “You are entering an unexplored realm, and it is impossible to be sure what effect the environment of space will have on your body, clothed in its protective suit as it will be,” he said. So he put me on an intensive diet of light meals, with plenty of bread and soup. Traveller insisted on—and enforced—a slow chewing of every mouthful, so as to avoid the possibility of swallowing air. At first I railed against this regime, but Traveller curtly pointed out that a stomach filled with gas is like a balloon; and in the airless vacuum of space there would be no atmosphere to constrain the unlimited expansion of such a balloon under pressure from the air contained within…
He extended this analogy in brutal terms; and I chewed my bread with renewed enthusiasm.
I was fed cod liver oil and various other iron solutions, whose purpose was to enhance my strength, and from a small pharmacy Traveller maintained, doses of senna pods and syrup of figs, in order that I might be cleansed internally of all unwanted baggage. As I strained under the agony of these medicaments I wondered if I had entered a sort of Purgatory, an anteroom to the airless Hell I would face beyond the hull.
Finally Traveller mixed a solution of a bromide salt in my tea. This puzzled me, although I had heard of such potions being fed to infantrymen in the field. At length Traveller took me to one side and explained that the purpose of the bromide was to restrain what he called certain impulses common to young men of my age and temperament, which might have unfortunate consequences for a body locked into an air suit. I was bewildered by this; for, although I thought often of Francoise during those dark days, my thoughts were more in the form of silent prayers for her safety and our eventual reunion than any more excitable speculation; and it was difficult to envisage any such notions distracting me at my moment of greatest peril!
Still, I took Traveller’s bromide with good humor.
The first night was difficult to face, for Traveller expressly forbade any alcohol with my meals; and as I lay in my pallet within the darkened Cabin my heart pounded and sleep seemed impossibly far away. After perhaps an hour of this I rose and complained to Traveller. With many muttered protests he rose—the bobble on his nightcap floated behind him as he glided through the air—and prepared for me a powerful sleeping draft. With this inside me I slept a dreamless sleep; and Traveller repeated the dose on the next evening.
So it was that I awoke on 15 August 1870, somewhere beyond the atmosphere of Earth, with my body purged, cleansed and relaxed, ready to journey alone into the endless void beyond the hull of the
Traveller had me strip naked save for a brief pair of shorts, and he gave me a greasy, sour-smelling oil which he bade me smear over all my skin below my neck. “This is an extract of whale blubber,” he said. “It has three purposes: the first is to nourish the skin; the second is to retain the heat of the body; and the third, and most important, is to provide a seal between your skin and the material of the air suit.”
Holden looked puzzled by this. “Then the air suit will not provide a shell of air around Ned’s body?”
“Such a shell would swell up instantly, like a balloon, under the pressure of the air it contained,” Traveller said. “It would become quite rigid, trapping the space voyager as if crucified in an immovable box.” He held out his arms and legs in the air and waggled his fingers helplessly, miming such a predicament.
I had had no idea that air—invisible, intangible—could exert such forces.
Once I was greased up, Pocket opened up the air cupboard and extracted Traveller’s patent air suit. The suit consisted of undergarments and an outer coverall; the undergarments—combinations, gloves and boot-like stockings—were of india rubber. I was made to squeeze any stray air bubbles out of the space between the rubber and my skin. I was fortunate that my physique was at least roughly comparable to that of Traveller for whom the suit had been tailored, and the undergarments fitted well enough, chafing only around the armpits and knees.
