"Second-guessed you, Skipper—" Johnny Streeter was already halfway into a pressure-suit. "Just zip me up the back and check my petticoat...."
Josh Thorn grinned, closed Johnny's suit, secured his soap-bubble helmet. They'd both been Out before so it wasn't as if this was the first time. It was just that this was the first time it had to be done.
"Suit-check, Johnny...."
"I read you—" crackled the bulkhead audio.
"Air?"
"Fourteen point seven psi, oxygen 26 per cent, nitrogen...."
They finished the check; all the complex machinery of Baggy-Drawers was functioning perfectly. Then Instrument Check—Methodically, Johnny's gauntleted mitts touched each magnetic hook on the wide girdle, named each implement suspended from it, replaced it.
"Can I go out and play now?"
"Be a good boy, Johnny."
The lock hissed, cycled down, and then Thorn was hearing the metallic noises of Johnny's feet striding ponderously like some story-book Colossus along the "upper" hull, sternward, and then to port.