Their only correlation is that they all occurred within the same time-frame. —Boeing official, after eleven passengers were sucked out of an airliner, Boeing’s eighth public relations disaster within a year THE NEXT MORNING’S EVA was also eventful. Nobody died, but the near miss was spectacular. We had progressed in proficiency to the point where Sulke would have half a dozen of us at a time unsnap our umbilicals and practice thruster use without constraint—six being the most she and Reb were confident of being able to supervise at one time. Learning precise thruster control was not easy, and several times Reb and Sulke had to rescue someone who’d blundered into something they couldn’t figure out how to undo. Sulke tended to hair-trigger reflexes; she was determined not to lose any more students. But Reb’s gentle good humor counterbalanced her and kept it being fun. Raise your hands as if in surrender, palms forward.
