Seabourne screeched to a halt, snapping his feet together and sliding on his heels. It looked like something out of an old cartoon. Every experience with the real world screamed that that sort of thing never actually happens, like slipping on a banana peel or wandering off a cliff and not beginning to fall until you actually look down. Seabourne's grip on reality was tenuous at best. Sometimes, it looked like reality's grip on him was also less than fully secure.
"I leave no man behind!"
He helped Scotty to his feet as a gargle/hiss/roar echoed down the hall.
"Avians are much more negotiable though, come on! The pod should be right... here!"
The entrance to the pods were clearly marked, unlike the crew access corridors. The evacuation deck doubled as a promenade/overlook for the commercial deck. There was a clear line where Orbital's lights, advertisements, holosculptures, and other assaults on the senses suddenly gave way to utilitarian green arrows with universal escape iconography. Orbital knew better than to obscure an escape route. Well, it NOW knew better. Experience may be the teacher of fools, but lawsuits were the teachers of corporations.
All of the pods were currently missing, which was standard protocol for a ship in dry dock undergoing a long term re-fit. The explosive bolts on the pods would only fire them directly into the scaffolding. Since Orlando was now well into the ice fields, the probability of firing a pod directly into an obstacle was significantly reduced. One pod was still attached, marked off with caution tape.
"That's our huckleberry!"
The two men hobbled over to the door and tore down the tape. The faint splat-splat-splat of webbed feet on fluid soaked floors was getting louder but not in a linear fashion. The goose was making its way to its targets via a blind Brownian motion, it seemed. They had time, but not a lot of it. Seabourne opened the door.
"Ooooooooh, this ain't orbital standard issue."
An Orbital life pod nominally sat 10 people who were willing to get very cozy with each other. Given that the alternative was a fiery death if you're lucky or slow suffocation if you're not, it usually wasn't hard to get people on board with the idea, literally and figuratively. The mandated lifeboat drills had been a hassle for passengers until Seabourne had made it into an event on the Breezewood. It was the first one on the passengers' itineraries, a nice bookend for the singing of "Auld Lang Syne" at the end. "Be nice to your podmates," he had always said during the drills, "otherwise they might leave without you!"
Seaboune stepped into the pod, a tight squeeze as the modifications only left room for one person.
"Only one seat? And a bed? The transponder's been removed! The supplies are all still there, but it's still for ten people for three days. Why would one man need 30 days worth of supplies?
Seabourne seemed to have a blind spot for the assembled electronics jammed into every corner along with the giant steel and glass column in the middle of the pod where seats 4-8 should have been. Blue-green swirls made their way around its core beneath its frosted glass as the machinery hummed. A faint smell of ozone said the device had been active, though in standby, for a while. Instead of messing with switches or displays, Seabourne picked up a three ring binder left on the bed and leafed to the table of contents as he stepped back onto Orlando's evacuation deck.