At the start of this extravehicular activity, Slava had exited through the airlock on the side of New Caird —a ship that was no longer with them. His supplies were running low. He had to get inside the command module before he ran out of air. This could be achieved using an airlock built in for that purpose. It was located adjacent to the docking port in the "nose" of the ice-buried command module. Passing through it, he would enter the uppermost level of the module, where he could breathe the same air as everyone else. But he had taken the precaution of checking himself out with an Eenspektor, and found powerful radiation coming from several locations on his suit—basically, wherever he had come into contact with the surface of the shard.