The cheekpieces and foreheadpiece of Grunfeld's suit began to close on his face like layers of pliable ice.
Jackson called faintly, "Now I understand. Their ship—" His voice was cut off.
Grunfeld's ice-mask was tight shut. He felt a small surge of vigor as the suit took over his breathing and sent his lungs a gush of high-oxy air. Then came a tingling numbness as the suit field went on, adding an extra prop against decel to each molecule of his body.
But the weight was growing. He was on the moon now ... now on Mars ... now back on Earth....
The weight was stifling now, crushing—a hill of invisible sand. Grunfeld saw a black pillow hanging in the cabin above him aft. It had red fringe around it. It grew.
There was a whistling and shaking. Everything lurched torturingly, the ship's jets roared, everything recovered, or didn't.
The black pillow came down on him, crushing out sight, crushing out thought.
The universe was a black tingling, a limitless ache floating in a larger black infinity. Something drew back and there was a dry fiery wind on numb humps and ridges—the cabin air on his face, Grunfeld decided, then shivered and started at the thought that he was alive and in free-fall. His body didn't feel like a mass of internal hemorrhages. Or did it?
He spun slowly. It stopped. Dizziness? Or the suits revolving forward again? If they'd actually come through—