Artemis

I held a rod of aluminum stock to the top of the skirt and set the flame on it. It was awkward in my EVA suit, but not too bad. A bead of molten metal formed at the tip and dribbled down. Just as Dad predicted, it wicked along the gap and filled the crack.

By habit, I brought the flame down to the fill site to keep the bead molten.

“No need for that,” Dad said. “The metal will stay liquid longer than you expect. There’s no air to convey the heat away. Some gets lost through the metal, but the state-change soaks up most of the energy. It can’t radiate too far.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” I said. I returned the flame to the aluminum stock.

Dale stood a few meters away, ready to save my life.

And there I was again. Melting metal while in a vacuum. If a blob melted my EVA suit, my life would be in Dale’s hands. If I sprung a leak, he’d have to haul me into the rover airlock. I wouldn’t be able to do it myself because I’d be too busy dying of asphyxiation.

Bit by bit, I worked my way around the perimeter of the skirt. Dad told me when I went too fast or slow. Finally, I got back to the start of the seam.

“Whew,” I said. “Time for a pressure test.”

“No it isn’t,” Dad said. “Run another line. All the way around. Make sure you completely cover the first weld.”

“Are you kidding me?!” I protested. “Dad, that weld is solid.”

“Run another line, Jasmine,” he said firml

y. “You’re not in any hurry. You’re just impatient.”

“Actually I am in a hurry. I have to get this done before the Sanchez shift change.”

“Run. Another. Line.”

I groaned like a teenage girl (Dad really brought that out in me). “Dale, hand me more rods.”

“No,” Dale said.

“What?”

“As long as you have that torch in your hand, I won’t take my eyes off you, I won’t be more than three meters away, and I won’t have anything in my hands.”

I groaned louder.

It took another twenty minutes, but I ran another seam around the skirt under Dad’s watchful eye.

“Well done,” said Dad.

“Thanks, Dad,” I said. He was right. I’d done a good job. Now I had an air shelter perfectly welded to the smelter bubble’s hull. All I had to do was cut a hole in the wall from inside the shelter and I’d have a ghetto airlock.

I set the torch down on a nearby rock and spread my hands at Dale. Now that I met his stringent requirements for safety, he ambled toward the inflatable.

The inflatable was the same kind I’d helped set up during the Queensland Glass fire—an accordion tube with a rigid airlock connector at each end. He and I each grabbed a hoop and backed away from each other. I headed toward the newly welded air shelter while Dale went to the rover.

I loaded all my welding equipment and tanks into the tunnel, then connected my end of it to the air shelter. Then I joined Dale and we both climbed into the rover airlock. Together we pulled the tunnel’s other connector into place.

I stared down the tube toward the still-sealed air-shelter hatch.

“Time to test it, I guess,” I said.

He reached for the valve. “Keep on your toes. Just ’cause we’re in EVA suits doesn’t make us safe. If we misconnected the tunnel, we could be in for an explosive decompression.”

“Thanks for the tip,” I said. “I’ll be ready to jump out of the way if a pressure wave moving the speed of sound comes at me.”

“You could be less of an ass.”