Van Horn landed them a couple of miles east of the Transhumanists’ landing field—a compromise between security considerations and minimizing the distance they’d have to walk. The landing site was behind a low ridge which lent its own low-tech concealment. As soon as Tomori confirmed that they had not been detected, Jason, Rojas and Mondrago (whom Jason had insisted be allowed to come along) suited up. Like all passenger-carrying spacecraft, the Comet carried, as a legal requirement, enough light-duty survival suits for all souls aboard. Jason (from his days with the Hesperian Colonial Rangers) and Mondrago (from his former life as a merc) were about as familiar with these as Rojas, whose training included them as a matter of course. This was not a bulky full-scale spacesuit, with its array of accessories. Instead, it appeared to be a jumpsuit made of electrically active, self-repairing nanofabric, flexible even when expanded slightly by pressurization. That “skin,” powered by sunlight and the wearer’s body heat, recycled waste and exhaled carbon dioxide, providing air and water practically indefinitely.
