The Forever War #5.1
„It doesn‘t take long for these to cool down.“ He stopped and picked up a piece. „This one is probably twenty or twenty-five degrees. Watch.“ He tossed the „warm“ rock onto the ice slab. It skittered around in a crazy pattern and shot off the side. He tossed another one, and it did the same. „As you know, you are not quite perfectly insulated. These rocks are about the temperature of the soles of your boots. If you try to stand on a slab of hydrogen, the same thing will happen to you. Except that the rock is already dead. „The reason for this behavior is that the rock makes a slick interface with the ice-a little puddle of liquid hydrogen-and rides a few molecules above the liquid on a cushion of hydrogen vapor. This makes the rock or you a friction less bearing as far as the ice is concerned, and you can‘t stand up without any friction under your boots. „After you have lived in your suit for a month or so you should be able to survive falling down, but right now you just don‘t know enough. Watch.“ The captain flexed and hopped up onto the slab. His feet shot out from under him and he twisted around in midair, landing on hands and knees. He slipped off and stood on the ground. „The idea is to keep your exhaust fins from making contact with the frozen gas. Compared to the ice they are as hot as a blast furnace, and contact with any weight behind it will result in an explosion.“ After that demonstration, we walked around for another hour or so and returned to the billet. Once through the airlock~ we had to mill around for a while, letting the suits get up to something like room temperature. Somebody came up and touched helmets with me. „William?“ She had MCCOY stenciled above her face plate. „Hi, Sean. Anything special?“ „I just wondered if you had anyone to sleep with tonight.“ That‘s right; I‘d forgotten. There wasn't any sleeping roster here. Everybody chose his own partner. „Sure, I mean, uh, no. . . no, I haven‘t asked anybody. Sure, if you want to. . . .“ „Thanks, William. See you later.“ I watched her walk away and thought that if anybody could make a fighting suit look sexy, it‘d be Sean. But even she couldn't. Cortez decided we were warm enough and led us to the suit room, where we backed the things into place and hooked them up to the charging plates. (Each suit had a little chunk of plutonium that would power it for several years, but we were supposed to run on fuel cells as much as possible.) After a lot of shuffling around, everybody finally got plugged in and we were allowed to unsuit- ninety-seven naked chickens squirming out of bright green eggs. It was cold-the air, the floor and especially the suits-and we made a pretty disorderly exit toward the lockers. I slipped on tunic, trousers and sandals and was still cold. I took my cup and joined the line for soya. Everybody was jumping up and down to keep warm. „How c-cold, do you think, it is, M-Mandella?“ That was McCoy. „I don‘t, even want, to think, about it.“ I stopped jumping and rubbed myself as briskly as possible, while holding a cup in one hand. „At least as cold as MiSSOUrI was.“ „Ung.. . wish they‘d, get some, fucken, hai in, this place.“ It always affects the small women more than any-body else. McCoy was the littlest one in the company, a wasp waist doll barely five feet high. „They've got the air co going. It can‘t be long now.“ „I wish I, was a big, slab of, meat like, you.“ I was glad she wasn't.
