He was locked out.
The most intense fear gripped him. His body was almost immobile from cold; he knew he had only a few seconds of consciousness remaining. He had to open the hatch. He pounded it, pounded the metal around the rim, feeling nothing in his numb hands.
The wheel began to spin by itself. The hatch popped open. There must have been an emergency button, he must have - He burst above the surface of the water, gasped air, and sank again. He came back up, but he couldn't climb out into the cylinder. He was too numb, his muscles frozen, his body unresponsive.
You have to do it, he thought. You have to do it. His fingers gripped metal, slipped off, gripped again. One pull, he thought. One last pull. He heaved his chest over the metal rim, flopped onto the deck. He couldn't feel anything, he was so cold. He twisted his body, trying to pull his legs up, and fell back into the icy water.
No!
He pulled himself up again, one last time - again over the rim, again onto the deck, and he twisted, twisted, one leg up, his balance precarious, then the other leg, he couldn't really feel it, and then he was out of the water, and lying on the deck.
He was shivering. He tried to stand, and fell over. His whole body was shaking so hard he could not keep his balance.
Across the airlock he saw his suit, hanging on the wall of the cylinder. He saw the helmet, "JOHNSON" stenciled on it. Norman crawled toward the suit, his body shaking violently. He tried to stand, and could not. The boots of his suit were directly in front of his face. He tried to grip them in his hands, but his hands could not close. He tried to bite the suit, to pull himself up with his teeth, but his teeth were chattering uncontrollably.
The intercom crackled.
"Norman! I know what you're doing, Norman!"
Any minute, Beth would be here. He had to get into the suit. He stared at it, inches from him, but his hands still shook, he could not hold anything. Finally he saw the fabric loops near the waist to clip instruments. He hooked one hand into the loop, managed to hold on. He pulled himself upright. He got one foot into the suit, then the other.
"Norman!"
He reached for the helmet. The helmet drummed in a staccato beat against the wall before he managed to get it free of the peg and drop it over his head. He twisted it, heard the click of the snap-lock.
He was still very cold. Why wasn't the suit heating up? Then he realized, no power. The power was in the tank pack. Norman backed up against the tank, shrugged it on, staggered under the weight. He had to hook the umbilicus - he reached behind him, felt it - held it - hook it into the suit - at the waist - hook it
He heard a click.
The fan hummed.
He felt long streaks of pain all over his body. The electrical elements were heating, painful against his frozen skin. He felt pins and needles all over. Beth was talking - he heard her through the intercom - but he couldn't listen to her. He sat heavily on the deck, breathing hard.
But already he knew that he was going to be all right; the pain was lessening, his head was clearing, and he was no longer shaking so badly. He had been chilled, but not long enough for it to be central. He was recovering fast.
The radio crackled.
"You'll never get to me, Norman!"
He got to his feet, pulled on his weight belt, locked the buckles.
"Norman!"
He said nothing. He felt quite warm now, quite normal. "Norman! I am surrounded by explosives! If you come anywhere near me, I will blow you to pieces! You'll die, Norman! You'll never get near me!"
But Norman wasn't going to Beth. He had another plan entirely. He heard his tank air hiss as the pressure equalized in his suit.
He jumped back into the water.
0500 HOURS
The sphere gleamed in the light. Norman saw himself reflected in its perfectly polished surface, then saw his image break up, fragmented on the convolutions, as he moved around to the back.
To the door.
It looked like a mouth, he thought. Like the maw of some primitive creature, about to eat him. Confronted by the sphere, seeing once again the alien, unhuman pattern of the convolutions, he felt his intention dissolve. He was suddenly afraid. He didn't think he could go through with it.
Don't be silly, he told himself. Harry did it. And Beth did it. They survived.
He examined the convolutions, as if for reassurance. But there wasn't any reassurance to be obtained. Just curved grooves in the metal, reflecting back the light.
Okay, he thought finally. I'll do it. I've come this far, I've survived everything so far. I might as well do it.
Go ahead and open up.
But the sphere did not open. It remained exactly as it was, a gleaming, polished, perfect shape.
What was the purpose of the thing? He wished he understood its purpose.
He thought of Dr. Stein again. What was Stein's favorite line? "Understanding is a delaying tactic." Stein used to get angry about that. When the graduate students would intellectualize, going on and on about patients and their problems, he would interrupt in annoyance, "Who cares? Who cares whether we understand the psychodynamics in this case? Do you want to understand how to swim, or do you want to jump in and start swimming? Only people who are afraid of the water want to understand it. Other people jump in and get wet."
Okay, Norman thought. Let's get wet.
He turned to face the sphere, and thought, Open up.
The sphere did not open.
"Open up," he said aloud. The sphere did not open.
Of course he knew that wouldn't work, because Ted had tried it for hours. When Harry and Beth went in, they hadn't said anything. They just did something in their minds.
He closed his eyes, focused his attention, and thought, Open up.
He opened his eyes and looked at the sphere. It was still closed.