Free All Judgment Fled by James White

."
     
     
A few seconds later he was blown through the outer door by escaping air,

and another eternity passed while he jetted back to the hull and closed

it again. Walters and McCullough re-entered the chamber, still without

alien interference.
     
     
The problem now was to get Walters out of his damaged suit and into the

replacement quickly enough to keep him from being gassed. McCullough

started by opening the pilot's face-plate, taping up his nostrils and

making him breathe slowly through his oxygen line. Then he wrapped his

legs around the pilot's waist and began cutting away the damaged suit.
     
     
It was hard, painstaking work. The plastic and metal foil was difficult

to cut with a scalpel and McCullough was all too aware of the skin and

blood vessels lying just a fraction of an inch below. The drying unit in

his own suit refused to cope with the increased flow of perspiration,

his visor was fogging badly despite its special coating, and he wasn't

dissipating nearly enough of his body heat.
     
     
This would be a great time to pass out from heat stroke.
     
     
Quickly he slit the legs, arms and chest, peeling them away to leave

only the shoulder section which contained the air supply and hinged-back

helmet. There followed a weightless adagio dance and he drew the new

suit onto the pilot's legs and arms while the tatters of the old one

hung out from his back. Walters could not give him much help because the

alien atmosphere was making his eyes stream and no matter how hard he

tried he could not stop coughing -- which drew more of the stuff into

his lungs. By the time he told Walters to hyperventilate and hold his

breath while the changeover was completed, McCullough was afraid that

he had already breathed in too much of it.
     
     
Finally they were ready to leave. The discarded suit twisted slowly,

like some shredded, dismembered corpse, in the mist which was growing

visibly in the area of the leak. McCullough wondered what the aliens

would make of it, what they would infer and deduce regarding the human

race. The thought made him look toward the transparent panel in the door.
     
     
There were three of them.
     
     
McCullough pushed himself toward the corridor door without thinking --

the reason for doing it seemed to come after the action rather than

before. To Walters he said quickly, "If they open that door the outer

one won't open -- there's sure to be a safety interlock system -- and if

they see us trying to leave they will surely open it. I'll move close

to the window and block their view while you open the outer seal --

the suction will pull us out. Where's that blasted pipe?"
     
     
He couldn't see it. Probably it was hiding in plain sight against a

background of Ship plumbing, a tree hiding in a forest.
     
     
His idea was to hold their attention somehow while blocking their view

of what Walters was doing. To do so he had to get close to the transparent

door panel and either arouse their interest or frighten them away.

McCullough did not know of anything he could do which would prove fascinating

to the aliens, but he just might be able to worry them a little with

his camera.
     
     
It was a beautiful instrument which fairly bristled with supplementary

lenses and attachments. It might very easily be mistaken for a weapon.
     
     
In some deep recess of his mind a small voice was reminding him

insistently of the need to consider the alien point of view, and

to do nothing to give them the wrong idea about humanity and human

behavior. McCullough felt a moment's shame, but he was really much too

frightened to listen.
     
     
There was no perceptible reaction from the e-t's as McCullough drifted

up to the window, still aiming his camera. One of them was drifting

in the center of the corridor, a stubby, dumbbell shape covered with

long spikes. Each half of its body was roughly the size of a football,

and there were no sensory or manipulatory organs visible. A