When he was inside they lowered a helmet over his head, its visor open, and when it was locked at his neck they sealed up the hole in the suit through which he’d entered. The material at the front of the suit was pulled into a bunch, tied with a fat rubber band, and tucked inside his suit, which was then sealed up by two thick zips. It felt as if he had a cushion tucked under his shirt.

All this took place before a big glass window. Beyond the window there were rows of seats, filled by people with notebooks and cameras and tape recorders. The apparatus of the press. But there was little sense of urgency, and the seats were half-empty.

Maybe these weren’t really pressmen, he thought, but historians.

Or obituary writers.

He was helped to his feet, and he tried walking around. The suit was stiff, and every step required a conscious effort. Evidently the suit was internally wired for strength.

Geena, wrapped up in her own suit, was grinning at him.

Now he looked at Geena, he had to admit these Russian spacesuits looked pretty cool. They were basically all white, including their boots, with copper metal rings at neck and wrists for helmet and gloves, and the zippers making a neat V-shape at the front. They even had handy little pockets in their legs where you could store your gloves.

Geena said, “How do you feel?”

“Like John Glenn.”

“Don’t insult your suit,” Geena warned. “In space, it is your only true friend.”

A pad rat took hold of him now, and closed down his helmet. He felt it settle into the seal at its rim. The voices outside became indistinct murmurs, his own breathing sounded like a rattle. He felt as if he had been excluded from the outside world, shut away into this shell by the pad rats.

By contrast, they seemed to be swarming over Geena, touching her and beaming up into her smiling face, as if they were trying to root her to the Earth.

The pad rats connected his suit to an air pipe, and he heard a hiss as air was pumped in. He felt his ears pop; a pressure test, then. As the suit filled up the limbs became stiffer. Experimentally he tried to move an arm; it was like wearing a car tyre inner tube.

The pad rats, miming, showed him a knob on his chest. When he turned it, the high-pressure air hissed out, and he was allowed to flip up his visor.

He picked up his battered microscope box — it looked enjoyably unhygienic in this operating-theatre atmosphere — and he was led out of the building, to a kind of parade ground.