Chapter 2

At last the airlock door slid open, and a blizzard of snow engulfed Nick. The gust of wind pouring into the opening was nearly enough to shove him back. He caught the edge and could barely see his gloved hand on the door frame. If he didn’t get out and get this closed soon, the whole track would ice up, and then he wouldn’t be getting it closed again until spring!

Always aware of the audience, Nick grinned. “Feels like I accidentally parked her right on top of a new geyser! Ordinarily, Europa doesn’t have much of an atmosphere, but there are these temporary out-gassing events.”

Nonsense, of course. Even a geyser wouldn’t look like this on Europa, but that wasn’t really the point. He leaned into the wind.

“Continuing egress. I need those power systems online.”

Actually, as long as he had fuel for the rocket heater he would be fine. He could come back after the storm passed to clean out the generator, but the last time he let it get cold it had been a pain to thaw it out with a gas torch.

Since the airlock took up the space normally used for a small porch on the tiny homes, it was an immediate step down, but he had built a ramp and painted it to look metallic. Not that any of that was visible since it was already covered with snow.

Nick forced his way out and turned back to the opening. First, he had to reach in and pick up the octagonal tube that was his toolkit. He slung its strap over his shoulder. Here an automatic door might have been helpful, but it still wouldn’t work without power. He knocked snow off the hatch beside the door, lifted it and pulled the lever inside down the opposite way than he had done with the inside lever. The door moved an inch. He had to crank the lever over and over, ratcheting the door closed one inch at a time. It looked cool when the weights pulled the doors open, but not so much when he had to ratchet them closed.

“Closing airlock hatchway,” he said for the cameras.

On editing, he would cut away and not show how long it took him to close the hatch. The whole time snow billowed around him and streamed into the opening. By the time he closed off the last narrow opening, there was a good drift of powdered snow building up in the airlock.

“Attaching tether now.” He pulled out a cable from the spool on his belt and clipped its carbineer to the thick eyelet attached to the wall.

“Attached. Proceeding with power generator repair mission.”

Nick bounced down the ramp with a sort of hop, and the wind nearly blew him over. He landed, skidded and nearly fell.Wow! That wind was really strong. He sometimes bounced around, pretending that he had to operate in Europa’s low gravity, but not today. It was hard enough to balance with the suit’s support pack, but he also had the toolkit to contend with.

He steadied himself and turned back toward his space cabin.

It was nearly hidden in the snow except for the emergency LEDs dim blue glow that barely penetrated the thick curtains of blowing snow around the cabin. The entrance wasn’t facing directly into the wind— fortunately—so most of the snow blew past the rounded shape of the space cabin. The exterior was shaped and designed to look as if it was some big space rover, with dark panels and lots of g