The Solar Farm was my best hope for doing exactly that. The Farm was typical of all such installations, the place where we grew new solar cells out of silicon and the like. One of my regular jobs was to harvest the new cells every so often, when a new crop was ripe, and convey then to Lagrange for sale as a small secondary source of income. Therefore, I knew the farm area well, though I usually approached from another angle.
It was just as well; by the time I got to the Farm I was virtually blind, and even under the fogging my eyes were red and burning from the perspiration that was continually getting into them. Any sane EVA would have ended long since; poor visibility is more than enough excuse for an abort. I didn’t have that option, however, and when my fingertips finally reached the end of the beam I hung there in the microgravity for just a moment and tried to think things through. The cells grew on long stems, I knew, stems that could serve as parasol handles in a pinch. But by now I was totally blind, and thrash around though I might, I couldn’t feel anything except smooth, featureless hull anywhere around me. Carefully I closed my stinging eyes and concentrated; the farm had to be just ahead of me on my right, I knew. It simply had to be!
There wasn’t anything else to do. If I stayed where I was, I would die. If I went back, we would all die. If I jumped and took my best guess at where I was going, we all might live.
So I pulled myself up onto the beam and jumped.
My long chicken-toes felt very awkward and confined in their human-shaped prison; I could not even have walked in normal gravity. Despite the discomfort I lined myself up as best I could, and gently shoved myself away from the I-beam in what I knew simply must be the right direction. Then I extended my arms and legs fully, and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
It was growing very warm indeed inside my hot-pink double-breasted space suit, I realized dully as time passed and passed and passed without my encountering anything. At least I’d probably be unconscious with heat stroke before I ran out of air, as near as I could figure it. Then I could drift eternally in free orbit, a real prize for anyone who found me dressed as I was. It would be a fitting enough end for the Pussy Pilot, I told myself as eon after endless eon crept by. “Look over here, Elmer! Lookie here at what I found! You ain’t gonna believe this shit!”
Then, long after I’d given up, something brushed up against my left fingertips. Instantly I was in action, rolling hard in that direction and flailing, flailing, flailing…
…yet encountering nothing once more.
My breath was coming in sobs, I suddenly realized, and I was so frightened that I was about to foul myself. I was panicked, utterly panicked, and nothing kills in space more efficiently than panic. Quite deliberately I froze in position and took several long, deep breaths of good, fresh air. Then, I tried to look at my position rationally.
I had not merely imagined feeling something solid, I knew for certain. Or at least it was safe to assume that I hadn’t, since if I were that far-gone I was dead anyway. Therefore, I was probably floating very near the Henhouse, most likely just where I expected to be, near the Solar Farm. The Dragon’s whip was still exactly where I’d stashed it; moving slowly and deliberately despite the ever-increasing heat I brandished it to explore the area around me.
On one toss, I distinctly felt the whipcord strike something.
I ran the whip through my fingers until I located its wickedly thin end. Then I gripped it firmly and whirled the handle about my head, bolo-style. Clumsily I released the handle at just about the point where I imagined that the Henhouse was…
…missing cleanly.
Once more I whirled the handle and released it; this time, however, I was rewarded. Though I thought that I’d missed once more, when I tried to pull the handle in I came up short. Though the resulting jerk nearly yanked the whip out of my hands, I managed to hold on, slowly drifting towards my goal.
Eventually I hit and hit hard, bruising my head through the soft improvised helmet. It was worth it, though, for just before I struck the hull everything went black. I’d found shade!
Once more I scrabbled around me with all four limbs, trying to figure out exactly where I was. My left foot encountered a tall, narrow sort of pole, which felt to me just like the stem of a growing solar cell. Moving very carefully in the dark, I turned end-for-end and explored the object with my hands. Yes, I decided, it simply had to be a cell. I reached into my tool kit and pulled out the pliers, then used them to strike a carefully judged blow to the stem’s base. It broke free, and I knew that at last I had my umbrella.
Because of the fact that spacewalks were so routine in the Farm, there were plenty of handholds scattered conveniently about. Though I was still a bit disoriented, the cells grew in perfect rows and I was able to follow them easily enough. Eventually I came to the end of the Farm, which unless I was a full hundred and eighty degrees off in my estimates placed me just outside the girls’ living quarters. Here I stopped to think things through.
I was blind, totally and completely blind. Even worse, though I was finally out of the sun I was still far, far too hot. It takes considerable time for heat to radiate away in the vacuum of space, and time was something that I didn’t have very much of. If I didn’t find a way to cool off, and soon, then I would die before finishing my work. It was as simple as that.
But how?
My mind spun idly as I hung there in space and sweated, sweated, sweated. I’d have been dead long since, I realized dully, if I hadn’t been made over into a chicken. The docs always improved the patient’s body as much as possible as a matter of routine when extensive transmutation was undertaken, and I was no exception. I had better than perfect eyesight and hearing, the speed and stamina of an Olympian, and the constitution of an ox. Right at the moment, for the very first time, it was well worth having the constitution of an ox in exchange for the appearance of a chicken. Still, I had to cool myself down, and soon. A standard spacesuit, I knew, accomplished this by evaporation. Was there any way that I could gain access to liquids from this side of the hull?
Hmm. Not that I could think of.
But gasses were fluids too, weren’t they? And they could cool too….
Carefully I reached into my tool kit and pulled out a screwdriver. I didn’t like what I was about to do, didn’t like it at all. It was dangerous as hell, for me as well as for anyone who might be on the other side of the hull. But what choice did I have? I was hot, and I craved a cooldown like a drug addict craves his fix.
First, I took a moment to tie myself to the nearest handhold. Then I grasped the screwdriver firmly…
…and drove it right through the thin hullmetal!
A jet of air rushed out immediately, and I placed myself directly in front of it so as to get the maximum effect. The cold, expanding air felt wonderful, even through the layers of tape and rubber between it and me. It reminded me a garden hose on a hot summer afternoon back on Earth, or of an ice pack pressed into my belly. All too soon the airflow shut off as the room beyond was emptied and the automatic hatches sealed off the hull breach, so again and then a third time I crawled across the hull and created new leaks, feeling a little better each time. It was damned expensive air-conditioning, yes. But it was air conditioning all the same, and that was what mattered.
I was still pretty hot after wasting three suites worth of air, though not nearly so bad as I’d been. More important, however, my head was now clearer, and I was shaded under a parasol. I was free to begin dealing with what I feared was by far the more difficult of my two problems. My helmet lenses were still badly fogged up. I was as blind as a bat. And I couldn’t possibly jump out to Aphrodite if I couldn’t see her.