"We will all go together when we go," said the man.
De Hooch turned his head away and looked at the ceiling.
And he realized that it was the ceiling of the antechamber.
"My legs hurt," he repeated. And he could hear the hoarse whisper inside the helmet. He realized that he was lying flat on his back. He had been jarred around quite a bit in the suit.
He wondered if he could sit up. He managed to get both arms behind him and push himself into a sitting position. He wiggled his feet. The servos responded. He hurt all over, but a little experiment told him that he was only bruised. Nothing was broken. He hadn't been hit as hard as Ferguson and Metty had been.
"Willows?" he said. "Willows?"
There was no answer from the earphones.
He looked at the chronometer dial inside his helmet. Oh two forty-nine. He had been unconscious less than ten minutes.
The same glance brought his eyes to two other dials. The internal radiation of the suit was a little high, but nothing to worry about. But the dial registering the external radiation was plenty high. Without the protection of the suit, he wouldn't have lived through those ten minutes.
Where was Willows?