Flight coveralls are designed to be airtight when fully zipped. Hoods with transparent face-plates and oxygen leads can be hermetically sealed to the collars, and every ship has emergency plug-ins for the oxygen tubes. In combat, all spacemen keep their hoods thrown back, like mackinaw hoods, so that if a hole is blown in the hull, they can slip the hoods on and plug into the emergency oxygen supply. Struggling into a full-dress spacesuit is too complicated a job to entrust to the few frantic minutes that spell the difference between life and death, and meanwhile, the coveralls are far more comfortable in flight.
Besides, anyone who'd seen what a spacesuit does to a figure like Pat's will agree that it's a dirty shame.
While Pat was climbing into her outfit, I was outlining the plan we'd have to follow. As long as I was going to go along with this offer of hers, temporarily, at least, I might as well do it right.
"I got into a cab accident, or something," I said. "That accounts for the shape I'm in. You're an old friend of mine, and since I'm in no condition to fly and fight at the same time, I'm taking you along as co-pilot.
"Weidmann'll stick me for your pay, of course. I'll make sure he does—that way there won't be much kick about you coming along, especially if I make it a 'both or neither' proposition.
"When we get out in space, you show me how to get to Thorsten's bubble in the Asteroids, and that's it. We deliver the pile charge, shoot back out into space, fake the signs of a big battle, and yell for help over the radio. There'll be a squawk about you being a woman then, of course, but hell, us spacebums are supposed to be devil-may-care, aren't we?"
It was a great little plan, all right. It would give SBI the location of Thorsten's base, and it wouldn't hold up delivery of the pile charge any longer than it would take to salvage it. Meanwhile, space would be rid of Harry.
"Sounds like it'll work, all right," she said. "I wish I was surer the SBI didn't have anything big on me. It'll be a bad enough stink as it is." She grinned. "But we'll make out."
Weidmann was out at the field, fuming over the fact that I was an hour and a half late.