“You couldn’t stand it long,” Dr. Kenton said, chuckling grimly. “It’s hot enough to boil water out there right now!”
“Then when the sun is down, it must be nice,” put in Mrs. Kenton innocently.
Her husband grinned. “If you call over two hundred degrees below zero centigrade nice!”
A crisp voice came over the speaker: “All passengers to the dressing room to don space gear!”
“You mean we have to go out in that?” Mrs. Kenton asked, shocked.
“I don’t know any other way of getting to the settlement across the way,” was Dr. Kenton’s gentle reply.
As the Kentons were walking along the corridor to the dressing room, they suddenly felt light on their feet. The unexpectedness of it sent them colliding with one another. A voice from a wall speaker said: “Watch your step. The artificial gravity of the ship has been cut off.”
“I feel like a feather!” Jill said, dancing along.
“You should—you weigh only one sixth of your Earth weight,” her father said. “But you be careful or you’ll have another accident like you did earlier!”
The passengers lined up to receive their space gear. It was bulky equipment, but not very heavy in the light gravity. In the dressing room, several crewmen demonstrated how to put on the space suits.