Free April by Mackey Chandler Page B

had the skills to have easily disabled the camera, but wanted to allow them to watch for some reason. He slid into the emergency suit so smoothly, it could have been a training video for using them.
    The suit was a 3M brand, by the logo on the shoulder, silvery for outside use from an airlock. He didn't need to pull the sizing straps, to gather the unused material, because he filled the suit up to its design limits. Once he was suited up, the belt with its hardware went back on, with the pad and holster centered in the small of his back, out of the way.
    When he was sealed and rigged, he reached back in the blazer and pulled out a vacuum rated marker, like the construction workers used on struts and girders. With easy, familiar strokes, he drew a laughing seal on the wall. Suspended over its nose was an Earth globe for a ball showing a rough outline of the Western Hemisphere.
    He cycled the outer door conventionally, not dumping the air in a hurry. So, he had started the pump down before he was in his suit. It was a huge safety violation to race the pressure drop suiting up, but he hadn't looked worried, or in a rush at all.
    When the hatch opened, the USNA shuttle she had seen yesterday was framed exactly in the middle of the opening - perhaps two hundred meters from the lock. Its top was toward the station in sunlight, so the wide flat top of the wedge shaped lifting body was presented toward the lock, to present its biggest cross section from their perspective. It was a pretty dazzling white dart, against the blue and brown Earth, with the cloudless Horn of Africa large behind it. A hatch on the top of the shuttle was open and its sharp shadow drew a long dark line down the top of the space plane. There was a soft suited crewman in the opening, with something in his hands she could not quite make out.
    Art positioned himself, gripping a take hold  and braced against his feet. He drew back once, going through a trial motion and checked it. Then on the next try he pulled back, until his back filled the camera view. This time let go as he stretched both arms straight before him and jumped through the opening like a springboard diver. After he cleared the opening he brought his arms back with a rolling motion, which started his body making a slow turn.
    "It's going to zoom," Jon warned.
    As the shuttle started to show behind his contracting image the video did zoom, in steps, doubling and then again. The jumper tucked his legs up to turn faster and April could see now the waiting crewman held a coil of light line, with a tapered weight tied on the end. A throwing line, to toss across Art's path and pull him in, because he had no jetpack to maneuver with. However it was not needed, as he opened up from his tuck and landed on both feet, within arm's length of the open hatch, absorbing his motion in a squat. One glove slipped over the hatch edge and he pulled himself in head first, as smooth as an eel sliding in a hole.
    The crewman leaned back to give him room, knees against the rim of the hatch and gave him a fraternal backhanded swat on the butt as he went past. Then the crewman reached up to pull the hatch closed, but paused long enough to raise a single digit in disdainful salute toward their camera, before he closed it.
    "That boy has jumped once or twice before," was all April could say, really irritated by the performance, as Jon's image expanded back to fill the screen.
    "No kidding. If the construction guys take a little jump with no safety tether, the foremen will usually rip into them, but if a guy can jump like that, they just pretend not to see it."
    "Can you believe, he told me  he was excited to be getting a chance at going out in a p-suit the next day?" She was embarrassed at being fooled so thoroughly.
    "April, he was here five days and everybody lapped up whatever story he was spinning. It's my department's job to know about people like him and we had, not-a-stinking-clue, he pronounced the tmesis slowly, with