Headley locked on his helmet, cogged the port shut, tested his radio. Caxton answered shortly, shut his visi-ports and both turned to the entrance of the ship.
Metal squealed beneath Headley's hands; then the cogs were loose. Headley braced his shoulder against the port, strained mightily, was joined by his partner. Together, their strength was sufficient to force the door open against pressure of the air outside.
The air gushed in with incredible force, shoved the men forcefully against the metal wall, then subsided as the pressure was equalized. Headley stepped forward, felt the icy crystals of snow tapping against his suit. He thrust one arm through the port, gasped, as gravity jerked it groundward. He leaned back, sighed. Inside the ship, with its inertia-stasis gravity, normal movement was possible; but outside, with the super-gravity, even slow walking would be a job.
"Set your suit control for three graves," he ordered. "That way, we'll have enough weight to stay on the ground, and will still be able to move."
Bart Caxton growled an unintelligible reply, drew his right arm from the semi-rigid sleeve of his suit, made an adjustment on the suit's control-panel. Instantly, weight descended with pile-driving force, and muscles corded in his legs to counteract the tripled gravity.
Headley adjusted his gravity control, then connected himself to Caxton with a ten-foot length of cable. Carefully, he lowered himself from the port, stood erect in the howling wind and snow, waited until Caxton had clambered down to his side. Reaching upward, they closed the port, leaving it uncogged, so that they could easily reenter.
Headley checked his radi-compass bearings, then braced the full force of the wind, Caxton pressing forward at his side. They struggled toward the ice-sheathed cliff a hundred yards away, each step an agony of effort, clumsily dodging a huge boulder that rolled a lazy path of death toward them.
Snow smashed at them, made vision difficult, went whirling away. Even through the radi-heated layers of their suits, they could feel the implacable cold plucking at their lives with skeletal fingers of death. Minutes passed, as they fought through the drifting snow, each minute an age of effort; and when Headley glanced back, he felt a vague surprise to find that they had travelled so short a distance. He grinned at Caxton.
"Like trying to run in a slow-motion dream," he said, frowned slightly when he heard his partner's sullen growl of acknowledgment.