Mac cursed under his breath. He sounded so cocksure, so all-knowing. He felt like beating himself. His earlier self, who had blithely toured Valier trailing the microphone wires without any real premonition of trouble. It always happens to the other guy—Not this time, chum, he reminded himself.
The gloves were systematically foiling his attempts to withdraw the coil of wire at his side. The tool kit was the ultimate in maintenance work, compact and complete with extension handles for the cutters and wrenches. Everything was there, but practically impossible to use. His fingers finally closed over the wire; he jerked it out and with it the splice tool. The little pliers caromed from the brace above him and sailed out toward the motor, beyond the ship. He watched, horrified, as the tool slowly cartwheeled away into space.
"All right," he muttered, "scratch one splice tool. It was also my only pair of pliers, but I'll manage." He knew he could use the wire cutters in a pinch. "In a pinch," he repeated. "Oh, that's a hot one. That's about all that's happened this trip, so far. Pinch me, pinch the wiring—What a pinch!"
Holding the roll of wire tightly in one hand, he grasped the cutters and pulled them from the kit with utmost care. He unrolled a foot-long section of wire and clipped it off, laying his flashlight in the tool kit so that it would shine out in front of him. He managed to attach the tiny splice lugs by pinching them with the cutters, then moved cautiously to the wire which still drooped from the jumble of machinery. "Drooped" wasn't precisely the word; actually the wire had been bent into its position and stayed that way.
As the harried major reached for the brace on which the wire had been bracketed, his tool kit vomited flashlight, wrenches and screwdrivers, leaving him in total darkness. His cursing was regular, now, monotonous and uninspired. There was another pencil light in the kit, snapped tightly to the case, and Mac reached for the whole business. The spare light was a maintenance problem in itself. Question: How to retrieve a fountain pen sized object, when it's held by a small snap and the retriever is encumbered by three pairs of arctic mittens?
Mac saw his errant flashlight out of the corner of his eye, its beam fastened on a collapsed screw driver while both swam sluggishly toward the inspection ladder. He located the pencil light and jerked it loose, holding the short wire and cutters in his other hand.
This, Mac knew, was the crucial point. If he could splice the wire hanging in front of him, Valier would once more be in perfect shape. He would have welcomed an extra hand or two, as he straddled a brace and shoved the tiny flash between his headpiece and shoulder fabric. The wire should be stripped, he knew, but he hadn't the tools. They were scarcely ten feet from him, but could have rested atop the Kremlin for all the good they did him. He got most of the strands of one end of wire shoved into a splice lug, and called it good enough. It was like trying to thread a needle whose eye was deeper than it was wide, while in a diving suit, using the business end of a paintbrush to start the thread.
He withdrew one hand and searched the kit for friction tape. It might be mentioned that an insulating tape which would be adhesive at minus two hundred degrees centigrade yet keep its properties at plus one thousand, was the near culmination of chemical science. Silicon plastic research provided the adhesive, an inert gum which changed almost none through a fantastic range of temperatures and pressures. The tape Mac used to insure his connection had an asbestos base, with adhesive gum insinuated into the tape. He wrapped the wire tightly, then bound it to the brace. He noticed his visor fogging up and felt a faint, giddy sensation. Anoxemia! He let the tape drift as he reached for his regulator dial. What a fool he was, he thought, to starve his lungs. He turned the dial to emergency maximum and gulped precious liters of oxygen-helium mixture. The gauge showed a store of the gas which might possibly be enough to last him, if nothing else went wrong; perhaps ten minutes.
The pencil flash, mercifully, still rested in a fold of his shoulder joint fabric. The insulation tape floated near his waist; he grabbed it and stowed it between his knee and the brace, then reached once again for the wiring.