The captain stared up at him goggle-eyed. “What kind of a contraption is that?” he demanded. “And what are you doing in it?”
Kurt by now was floating a good ten feet off the floor. He had visions of spending the night on the ceiling and he wasn’t happy about it. “Get me down now,” he pleaded. “We can talk after I get out of this thing.”
The captain gave a leap upwards and tried to grab Kurt’s ankles. His jump was short and his outstretched fingers gave the weightless armor a slight shove that sent it bobbing up another three feet.
He cocked his head back and called up to Kurt. “Can’t reach you now. We’ll have to try something else. How did you get into that thing in the first place?”
“The middle section is hinged,” said Kurt. “When I pulled it shut, it clicked.”
“Well, unclick it!”
“I tried that. That’s why I’m up here now.”
“Try again,” said the man on the floor. “If you can open the hatch, you can drop down and I’ll catch you.”
“Here I come!” said Kurt, his fingers selecting a stud at random. He pushed. There was a terrible blast of flame from the shoulder jets and he screamed skywards on a pillar of fire. A microsecond later, he reached the skylight. Something had to give. It did!
At fifteen thousand feet the air pressure dropped to the point where the automatics took over and the face plate clicked shut. Kurt didn’t notice that. He was out like a light. At thirty thousand feet the heaters cut in. Forty seconds later he was in free space. Things could have been worse though; he still had air for two hours.