The black-coated me began crawling blindly forward, dragging one leg behind me. I could see that my eyes had been open and staring, but they were covered with the same coating of enties as the rest of me. It made my eyes itch and water thinking about it.
I can’t say that it was very enjoyable watching myself scrabbling like a gimpy tar-covered crab toward where Jenny lay. Gloria slipped her hand into mine. “Pretend it’s a movie,” she whispered. “There’ll be a happy ending.”
As painful to watch as that had been, watching myself struggling to drag her back was even worse. I held her hand even more tightly.
Fortunately something easier on the eyes appeared on the left side of the screen. It was Gloria, finally catching up with me. She was nude and magnificent. I was naked, she was nude. I couldn’t have told you what the precise difference was, but I knew it when I saw it.
She went through almost the same routine as I did; eyeing Gabe, taking in the situation on the monitoring screen, glancing at and rejecting the pressuits.
But instead of taking a kamikaze at the airlock the way I had, her gaze went back to the screen. Her eyes narrowed in calculation, and I could almost hear her brain revving up like like a batch of superprocessors given a particularly knotty problem to solve.
I had managed to drag Jenny maybe a meter and a half by then, and was in the process of losing my grip and crashing into a wall like an ant with malting antennae.
Gloria’s gaze swept the chamber like a scanning beam, locking onto the white box by the outer door, her body following after a second later.
She snapped the box’s door open so hard it’s a wonder it didn’t come off in her hand, reached inside, then pulled out an emergency breather mask.
“Now why didn’t I think of that?” I muttered darkly. “Some safety officer.”
Gloria squeezed my hand tightly as on the screen she pulled the mask on and triggered the air cannister. “I had more time to think. That, and I’m a whole lot smarter than you.” I shot her a dirty look. She just grinned.
The Gloria image was heading for the lock now, moving as fast and full of purpose as she ever had on the football field. Lowering her head, she put her arms out in front of her like a diver entering the water and plunged into the shimmering black wall.
She came out the other side all glazed in black like an animated sculpture covered with powdered obsidian.
But not completely covered. Her face was visible. The enties went right up to the rubber seal of the breather mask and stopped, leaving its clear plastic faceplate bare.
I got it then. I’m not usually so slow on the uptake, but I’d had a rough night.
“How did you know it would work like that?” I asked.
She shrugged, her blanket slipping in an interesting manner. “Logic. I’d seen the one part of you that wasn’t covered by enties.”
I studied the screen image of myself dragging Jenny forward centimeter by centimeter, my fingers hooked in her suit’s neckring. Then I saw it. My wristlet, winking in the light as I moved. It was made of metal and plastic, like some suit parts, not overcomplicated water, like skin.
Had I been able to see Gloria coming for me I probably would have broken down and cried. She swept down on Jenny and me like a statue of a goddess come to improbable life, stooped—
“You picked me up first.” I remembered it then.
Another shrug. “You were closest.”
Maybe so, but I could see the look on her face as she picked me up like I was no burden at all, parking me on one round hip and gathering my face to her breast with one arm. Once she had a good grip on me she bent and gathered Jenny up with her other arm. I stiffened when my leg hit the floor, then went limp.
Once she had both of us she headed back toward the airlock. She moved quickly, but with tightly controlled speed. Looking at her face and her posture I got the feeling that if that lock had somehow turned to solid concrete it wouldn’t have slowed her one iota.
Into it she went... emerging into air. The entie bodysuits, which covered both of us, melted back into the barrier as we went through, leaving me naked and her nude again.
Jeff, Anna, Bob and three of his medical people were waiting for her. The went into action, taking Jenny and me away from her and beginning work on us even as they lowered us to the floor.
Gloria stood there, watching intently.
Watching them work on me.
After a moment she peeled off her facemask.
“End replay, Sorry,” she called. The image froze, faded.
But she hadn’t stopped it soon enough. I saw.
Tears in the eyes.
In the face of a woman who took how she felt about me very seriously indeed.
That all happened exactly one year and two days ago.
One reason I remember the date so precisely—and don’t dare forget it—is because we were married two days later. Her all in white—like anyone was going to tell her she couldn’t wear it—and me in a tux with one leg shortened because of my cast. Jenny was Maid of Honor, Jeff and Bob Best Men. Gabe, who had been sleeping-potioned by the same turkey pies which had nearly killed Jenny was ring-bearer. Sorry conducted the ceremony. He even got my name right.
I just got done talking to that moron Binkovitch.
We’re supposed to begin testing the new self-suiting airlocks in about five days. I’m forced to admit that the concept has some merit; the original lock enties have been modified so all you have to do is walk out the lock wearing a breather mask. No matter what you’re wearing—or not wearing—it suits you up as you pass through. The entie coating is also supposed to make regular and construction grade pressuits safer by making them self-sealing. Once again, a concept with some merit.
That ferret-faced weasel Binkovitch says they’re foolproof.
My darling wife can hardly wait to get her hands on them and begin testing.
Me, I hate them already.
We’ll fight about it, sure as my name’s Dove Murphy.
There are some things you can’t expect marriage to change. Not if you want it to work.