I was going after him, that was certain. Not only for humane
reasons--he was the most important member of the crew. With him around,
there were only two opinions, his and mine. Without him, I'd have
endless opinions to contend with.
But it wouldn't do any good to go out no better equipped than he.
There was no time to wait for tractors to be built if we wanted to
reach him alive, and we certainly couldn't reach him five or ten
miles out with our three miles of safety line. We would have to go in
spacesuits.
But how would that leave us any better off than Quade?
Why was Quade vulnerable in his spacesuit, as I knew from experience he
would be?
How could we be less vulnerable, or preferably invulnerable?
* * * * *
"Captain, you got nothing to worry about," Quartermaster Farley said.
He patted a space helmet paternally. "You got yourself a self-contained
environment. The suit's eye looks into yours at the arteries in the
back of your eyeball so it can read your amber corpuscles and feed
you your oxygen in the right amounts; you're a bottle-fed baby. If
transphasia gets you seeing limburger, turn on the radar and you're
air-conditioned as an igloo. Nothing short of a cosmic blast can dent
that hide. You got it made."
"You are right," I said, "only transphasia comes right through these
air-fast joints."
"Something strange about the trance, Captain," Farley said darkly. "Any
spaceman can tell you that. Things we don't understand."
"I'm talking about something we do understand--_sound_. These suits
perfectly soundproof?"
"Well, you can pick up sound by conduction. Like putting two helmets
together and talking without using radio. You can't insulate enough to
block out all sound and still have a man-shaped suit. You have--"
"I know. Then you have something like a tractor or a miniature
spaceship. There isn't time for that. We will have to live with the
sound."
"What do you think he's going to hear out there, Captain? We'd like to
find one of those beautiful sirens on some planet, believe me, but--"
"I believe you," I said quickly. "Let's leave it at that. I don't know
what he will hear; what's worrying me is _how_ he'll hear it, in what
sensory medium. I hope the sound doesn't blind him. His radar is his
only chance."
"How do you figure on getting a better edge yourself, sir?"
"I have the idea, but not the word for it. Tonal compensation, I
suppose. If you can't shut out the noise, we'll have to drown it out."