He stuffed his slacks into the shower drain, and used a gorgeous Ascot and Meer hand-sewn shirt, filled with what was left of the paper towels, to block the air vent.

“I’ll never be able to wear them again,” he told Hutch, who laughed but didn’t ask for details.

“Tell me when you’re ready.”

Socks clogged the twin faucets on the sink. And he had a problem. The shower nozzle and the drains in the sink and shower. Three sites, but he was down to shorts and undershirt.

Tear the undershirt in half, that’s the ticket. He removed it and tried, but it resisted. He pulled, twisted, summoned his adrenaline and tried again. He braced part of it underfoot and put all his weight into it, but it held. Strong stuff.

He gave up and pushed it whole into the sink drain. His shorts proved just as tough, and he ended by using them to block the shower drain.

All that remained was the nozzle. But he was out of clothes.

“Tor? Time’s getting tight.”

He remembered an old story in which a bunch of guys used their rear ends to block off an air leak in a spaceship, but he suspected the nozzle would get pretty cold pretty fast, and he didn’t want to need surgery to get unstuck from the fixture.

He had a handkerchief!

It was in a shirt pocket, so he dug the Ascot and Meer out of the vent, retrieved the handkerchief, and returned the shirt. He removed the shower nozzle and jammed in the handkerchief. “Okay, Hutch,” he said.

THE FORWARD SECTIONS of the ship throbbed and writhed. In the mist that obscured the hull, Alyx could make out the beginnings of an arc, rather like a large malformed ear, forcing its way up out of the turmoil. Amidships a webwork had begun to form. It looked familiar, something she’d seen before, but she couldn’t pin it down.

The spectacle was obscene. Her stomach churned much as the ship did, and she looked away, back toward Nick, still trying to punch a hole through the hull. Lights from the lander, reflected off the mist, played across him. He seemed to be caught in a spectral rhythm, gaining substance and losing it, all in sync with the lights and the clouds.

“How’s it coming, Nick?” she asked. If he didn’t hurry, the metal would turn to mist in the glare of his lamp.

“I’m almost through.”

She thought about the onboard AI. It was not alive. She knew that. But nonetheless she would have liked to shut it down, turn it off, so she wouldn’t feel as if they were abandoning someone. She had considered mentioning it to Hutch, but Hutch had her hands full, and it was silly anyhow. Still—

“Do we have him out yet?” George’s voice startled her. For a moment she’d thought it was the Wendy’s AI. The Wendy’s Bill.

“Not yet,” Alyx said. “A couple more minutes.” She hoped.

Hutch and Tor were talking back and forth. “Drains are secure.”

“Cutting through the shelves.”

“What’s up top, any idea?”

The last was directed at Bill, who responded immediately: “Just wiring.”

HUTCH CUT THE shelving with little resistance, freeing the flanks of the washroom from the bulkhead. Then she sliced through the deck, in front and on both sides.

She had brought the spare e-suit and air tanks along in case something went wrong. If she misjudged and cut through somewhere and the compartment began to lose air, she would rip the door off and try to get Tor into the suit. That would be a frantic business at best, but it would give them a chance.

All three drains were connected beneath the compartment. Hutch cut them and blobs of water drifted out. A single water pipe fed the facility, but she left that until last.

She cut through the rear bulkhead on both sides, pushed her way into the storage bin behind the washroom, and sliced through the overhead and deck.

“How we doing, Nick?”

“I’m about two-thirds of the way done. Just give me a few more minutes,” he said.

But the forward bulkhead was looking worse. Its gray sheen was moving as she watched. It looked cancerous.

She cut the washroom free from its upper moorings and from the wiring. Only the water line held it in place. She looped the cable around the compartment’s four walls, then brought it over top and bottom, and secured it like a Christmas package. “Ready to go,” she told Tor. “Soon as we finish making the hole.”

“Good.”

“I’ll be back in a minute.”

“It’s getting a little brisk in here, Hutch.”

“Just hang on, Champ.” She retreated to the bulkhead, outside which Nick was working, paying out cable as she went. “Nick, beat on the hull for me, will you?”

There was of course no sound in the airless room, but she placed her palms against the metal and tracked it easily to the section he was working on. “Okay, that’s good,” she said. “Stand clear.”

“Hutch.” He sounded annoyed. “I’m almost through—”

“Argue about it later. Go. I’ll take it from here.” She turned on the laser and waited. When he said he was out of the way, she sliced methodically into the metal. It blackened and sizzled and came away until she saw starlight. She worked with a will, enlarging the hole.

Behind her, the forward bulkhead, like thick heavy syrup, began to spill into the room.

The hole wasn’t big enough, but she was out of time. The sluggish gray-black mass that had been a solid wall floated toward the washroom.

“Nick,” she said, “Back to you. Make it bigger.”

“Hey! What’s going on?”

She’d forgotten Tor was listening.

“It’s okay,” she said. His teeth were chattering. “We’ll have you out of there in a few minutes.”

“I’m ready,” said Tor, “any time you are.”

She stole a glance at the creeping tide, at the dark mist drifting into the chamber through the space the bulkhead had occupied, and cut the water line. A torrent poured into the room. Unbound by gravity, it ricocheted everywhere. “Okay, Tor, we’re going.”

She pulled the compartment free of whatever restraints remained, dragged it by sheer force toward the exit hole.

She could see occasional flashes of light as Nick worked. “It’ll be a tight fit,” he said. And then, with a string of profanity, he saw and reacted to the tide. “What’s that?”

“Keep cutting,” she cried.

The washroom had heeled over, and she was pulling it out topside first. It crashed into bulkheads and cabinets and the deck and even the overhead, but there was nothing she could do about it. No time to slow down. Tor demanded to know what was happening, and she told him they were getting out, they were in a hurry, hang on as best you can.

The hole was maybe just big enough. Maybe. Nick finished and got out of the way as Hutch came through, dragging the thing in her wake, trying to keep it aimed straight. Directly in front of her were Alyx and the lander, nose in. Nick moved quickly to her side in an attempt to help, but he only got in the way. She lost her concentration and it probably wouldn’t have mattered anyhow, but the washroom was tumbling and it hit the bulkhead half-sideways. Tor delivered some profanity of his own. Hutch kept the line tight to keep the compartment from bouncing back into the sludge. Then Nick grabbed hold, rotating it, straightening it until she could pull it into the hole.

It jammed about halfway. “It might come apart,” he said.

No time to worry about that now. She didn’t even have the spare suit if it did. But the thing wouldn’t move. They tried together, planting their feet on the hull, but it was too tight.

Hutch was about to use the torch again when Alyx waved to her to throw the cable. She whirled it over her head, Wild West style, and lobbed it in her direction. Alyx caught it on the first try and quickly secured it to the forward antenna mount, as planned. When she’d done that she got back inside.

“Okay, everybody,” she said, “get clear. Bill, back out.”

Forward thrusters fired and the lander backed away. The cable straightened. Tightened. And the vehicle stopped. “We’re stuck,” said Bill.