Earth unaware

CHAPTER 10

Wreckage

Victor flew down to the lockers in the cargo bay, moving fast. He landed, threw open his locker, grabbed his pressure suit, and quickly began putting it on. There were miners all around him doing the same, stepping into suits, grabbing rescue equipment: winch hooks, coiled cable, medical pouches, hydraulic spreaders, and shears. Victor’s mind was racing. The Italians were dead. The pod had attacked, and the Italians were dead. Janda. No, he wouldn’t think it. He wouldn’t even consider the idea. She wasn’t dead. They were putting together a search party. They would look for survivors. There were big pieces of wreckage out there. Some would have people inside them. Janda would be one of them. Shaken perhaps, frightened even, an emotional wreck, but alive.

How long ago had the pod left? Eighteen hours? That was too long to go without fresh oxygen. If there were survivors, they would have to have masks, with plenty of spare canisters of oxygen. Most canisters held up to forty-five minutes of air, but maybe the Italians had canisters that held more. It was possible. Plus there would be air in whatever room the survivors had sealed themselves up in. And that’s what survivors would do. They’d seal themselves off in a room somewhere that hadn’t been breached and wait for rescue. The Italians were smart. Surely they had rehearsed for emergencies like this. Surely they had emergency gear throughout the ship. They would be prepared. They would have a stockpile of canisters and masks. Both for adults and for children.

But air wasn’t the only problem, Victor told himself. They would need heat as well. Without battery heaters or warmer blocks or some other emergency heat source to keep out the cold, survivors would freeze to death. It wouldn’t take long. The cold this far out was relentless. It made Victor nervous. That was too many variables. If the survivors had sealed themselves off, and if there were no breaches, and if they had masks and canisters to spare, and if they had a heat source, then maybe they had a shot.

The locker beside Victor opened abruptly, startling him. It was Father, who grabbed his own pressure suit and hurriedly climbed into it.

“What are someone’s chances after eighteen hours?” asked Victor. “Seriously.”

“This could have happened more than eighteen hours ago,” said Father. “The pod was here for twelve hours. It might have attacked when it got here instead of immediately before it left. In which case we’re thirty hours in, not eighteen.”

Victor had considered this, but he said nothing. Thirty hours was too long. That drastically reduced the likelihood of them finding anyone alive, and he wasn’t going to accept that as a possibility. Besides, it didn’t seem likely anyway. Why would the pod stay after it attacked? To scan for life? To make certain the job was done? No, it seemed more plausible that it had tried to communicate or observe or scan. And when those efforts had ended or failed, it had attacked and run.

Father closed his locker and faced Victor. “You sure you’re up for this, Vico?”

Victor understood what he was asking. There would be bodies. Death. Women. Children. It would be awful.

“You’ve never seen something like this,” said Father. “And I would rather you never did. It’s worse than you can imagine.”

“I can help you, Father. In ways none of these miners can.”

Father hesitated then nodded. “If you change your mind, if you need to come back, no one will think less of you.”

“When I come back inside, Father, it will be with you and with survivors.”

Father nodded again.

Bahzim, who had replaced Marco as chief miner, was calmly shouting orders from the airlock entrance. “Have two people check your suit and lifeline inside the airlock. Two. Head to toe. Every seam. Do not rush inspections. The debris outside will be jagged and sharp and will puncture your suit or your line. Keep your line slack to a minimum. Stay with your partner. Segundo, I want you and Vico on saws.”

Father nodded.

Victor went to the equipment cage and took down the rotary saws. They were dangerous tools outside since they could so easily slice suits and lines, but the blades had good guards and Victor and Father had experience using them. Victor carried them to the airlock.

Toron entered from the corridor, flew down to the airlock, and faced Bahzim. “I’m coming with you.”

“This is for experienced walkers only, Toron. I’m sorry.”

“I know how to spacewalk, Bahzim.”

“You don’t have enough hours, Toron. If the sky was clear, I wouldn’t have any issue, but there’s a lot of debris out there. Anything could happen.”

“My daughter is out there.”

Bahzim hesitated.

“There’s one lifeline left,” said Toron. “I just counted. You have room for one more person.”

“He can come with me and Vico,” said Father. “We’ll need someone to hold our lines clear while we work the saws.”

Bahzim looked unsure. “You don’t have a suit, Toron.”

“He can wear Marco’s,” Victor said. “They’re about the same height.”

Bahzim considered this then sighed. “Hurry. I’m closing this hatch in two minutes.”

Toron nodded his thanks to Father and Victor then quickly changed into Marco’s suit.

They hurried into the airlock, and Bahzim sealed the hatch behind them. Everyone unspooled a lifeline from the racks along the wall and attached it to the back of his partner’s suit. Then came the helmets. Bahzim typed in the all-clear, and fresh air and heat filled Victor’s suit. Everyone took a moment to inspect the suits and lifelines of those around them. When all was clear, Bahzim punched in another command, and Victor’s HUD blinked on. Live video of the wreckage outside appeared on Victor’s display, taken from the ship’s cameras. El Cavador’s spotlights cut through the darkness, lighting momentarily on a piece of wreckage, as if considering it, judging by its size and shape if it were a likely candidate for survivors. Apparently it wasn’t. The lights moved on. Victor’s heart sank. There was so much debris. So much destruction. How could he possibly find Janda in all this?

The first bodies appeared shortly thereafter. Two of them. Men. Stiff with death. The spotlights rested on them, but the men were thankfully at such a distance that Victor couldn’t make out their faces. The lights moved on.

A few minutes later the ship came upon a large piece of wreckage. El Cavador’s retrorockets fired, and the ship slowed and then stopped alongside the wreckage.

“Listen up,” said Bahzim. “We’re opening the doors. First ones out are Chepe and Pitoso. They’ll do a quick scan while the rest of us hang tight. If they detect something, the rest of us go in.”

The wide bay doors opened, and what had been video became a reality. The wreckage in front of them was a mangled heap of destruction: bent girders, severed conduit, twisted pipes, torn foam insulation, crunched deck and hull plates. It looked as if it had been ripped from the ship instead of cleanly cut away by a laser. Victor searched for markings on the hull that might identify it as Vesuvio, Janda’s ship, but there were none. Bahzim gave the order, and Chepe and Pitoso were out in an instant, flying down to the wreck and moving fast.

They flew to the hull side of the wreck where the surface was smooth and there were fewer protrusions that might snag or cut their suits. There were several windows, and Chepe went to those first, shining his helmet lights inside. The first few windows were quick looks, but at the fourth window they stopped. “There are people inside,” said Chepe.

Victor’s heart leaped.

“But they’re not moving,” said Chepe. “I don’t think they’re alive. Some are wearing masks, but it looks like they died from anoxia. They must have survived the attack, though. I see emergency heaters set up in the room. We just didn’t get here in time.”

“Is Alejandra with them?” asked Toron. “Do you see Alejandra?”

“It’s hard to see faces through the masks,” said Chepe. “And many of them are turned away from me. Plus the window’s small. I can’t see the whole room, especially around the corners.”

“Maybe they’re not dead,” said Toron. “They could be unconscious. Maybe we could revive them.”

Isabella’s voice came on the line. “Chepe, it’s Isabella. I’m at the helm. Can you send your helmet vid feed over the line?”

The video from Chepe’s helmet appeared on Victor’s HUD. Now everyone saw what Chepe saw. There were bodies drifting in a dark space. The room-what Victor could see of it-looked like barracks, with hammocks and storage compartments for clothes and personal items. Glow rods in the room offered some light, but they had dimmed to almost nothing. Chepe’s helmet lights illuminated a few faces, and Victor saw at once that there was no reviving these people. Some had eyes open, staring into nothing, the look of death forever frozen on their faces. Men. Women. A young child. Victor recognized a few of them from the week the Italians had spent with them. That woman there had been holding an infant back on El Cavador during one of the feasts-Victor distinctly remembered-but she held no infant now. And that man, he had sung with a few other men during that same feast, a song that had left them all laughing.

“Bang on the hatch,” said Isabella. “See if anyone responds. Watch for movement.”

Chepe took a tool from his pouch and banged it hard against the hatch. Victor watched. Chepe’s lights swept the room through the glass, pausing at each person. He banged again. A third time. A fourth. No one moved.

Janda wasn’t among them. Victor was sure of it. Even those who were turned away, whose faces he could not see, he knew the size and shape of her body enough to know she wasn’t here.

“We could put a bubble over the hatch and send in Chepe to run vitals on those people,” said Isabella. “But that’s going to take time, and right now every second counts.”

A bubble was a small inflatable dome that could be hermetically sealed over an external hatch. If Chepe was inside the bubble when it inflated and sealed over the hatch, then he could open the hatch and go inside without exposing the room beyond to the vacuum of space. Bubbles could be dangerous, though, as they required you to momentarily detach your lifeline to climb inside. The lifeline was attached to a valve on the bubble’s exterior. This fed to an extendable lifeline inside the bubble, which restored air and power to the suit wearer. But detaching your lifeline, even momentarily was a risk.

“I’d say it’s highly unlikely we’ll find anyone alive in there,” said Isabella. “I suggest we press on and look for signs of life.”

“Agreed,” said Concepcion. “Return to the ship. Let’s keep moving.”

“We’re just leaving them there?” said Toron.

“There’s nothing we can do for them, Toron,” said Concepcion. “But there may be others we can reach in time.”

Victor felt hopeless then. These people had survived the attack. All the factors that Victor had considered critical for survival had been met. And yet all of them were gone. He pictured them alive, huddled around a heater, clinging to each other, speaking words of comfort. How long had they lasted? Twelve hours? Fifteen? Had they known El Cavador was coming? Had they believed rescue was imminent? Or did they think themselves all alone, waiting out the inevitable?

Victor looked at Toron beside him and saw that Father had a hand on Toron’s shoulder, comforting him. Toron looked pale, even in the low light of the cargo bay.

“They had masks and heaters,” said Father. “That’s a good sign, Toron. It means there’s equipment out there.”

“Little good it did them,” said Toron.

Chepe and Pitoso landed back in the airlock, and the ship moved on. The bay doors remained open as they continued to patrol through the destruction. Twice more they stopped, and twice more Chepe and Pitoso flew out to investigate. One of the wrecks was empty. The other had a massive hole in the back that hadn’t been visible until Chepe and Pitoso went in for a closer look. There were no signs of survivors.

The ship moved on. As they continued patrolling they passed more bodies. Most were men. But there were women, too. And children. One burned terribly. Victor turned away.

Once, a corpse floated uncomfortably close to the open airlock, right there in front of them. It was a man. A boy, really. No more than twenty. He could have been a suitor for Janda if he wasn’t married already. His eyes were-thankfully-closed. The miners nearest the edge could have reached out and touched him, and for a horrific moment Victor thought the body might float inside. But the ship moved on, and the body slipped past.

No one spoke. Several of the miners glanced back at Toron to see how he was taking it, the compassion evident on their faces. Toron never said a word, and as the minutes stretched into an hour, Victor’s hope began to dissolve. There was too much wreckage. They had come too late. Nineteen hours was far too long. Perhaps if they hadn’t stopped to install the pebble-killers or scatter Marco’s ashes, if they had accelerated then instead of de celerating, maybe they could have saved someone; maybe they could have stopped this whole thing from happening.

No, they couldn’t have arrived before the attack. Even if they had pushed themselves and never slowed. And what good would it have done if they had been here? They’d be just as dead as everyone else.

A large piece of wreckage came along the ship. The biggest piece yet. El Cavador’s retros fired, and the ship slowed. Victor couldn’t imagine how anyone could be alive inside. The whole structure was twisted, not just the ends. And none of the sides were smooth with hull plating, suggesting that it had come from somewhere deep inside a ship.

Approaching it would be difficult. Sharp twisted beams and other jagged structural pieces protruded from all sides in a random fashion, like a crushed metal can wrapped in iron thorns. Chepe and Pitoso flew down cautiously, circling the wreckage from a distance. “I see a hatch,” said Chepe. “It’s solid. No windows.”

“Can you get close enough to bang on it?” asked Bahzim.

Victor watched Chepe’s approach via the man’s vid feed. Chepe drifted to the hatch slowly, steering clear of the jagged girders and beams.

“Watch his line, Pitoso,” said Bahzim.

Chepe settled on the hull beside the hatch. “The space around the hatch looks smooth,” he said. “We could get a bubble around it if we needed.” He banged on the hatch, then pressed his hand against the metal. He wouldn’t hear a knock response from anyone inside, but he would feel the vibration of it. Chepe waited a full minute and knocked again. After a pause, “I don’t feel anything.”

The wreckage was drifting and rotating. One of the jagged beams was coming close to Chepe’s lifeline. “Back off,” said Bahzim. “She’s spinning.”

Chepe and Pitoso pushed off from the wreckage and floated a short distance away as the wreckage slowly spun in front of them. The far side of it, which hadn’t been visible before, turned into view of the cargo bay. It was a mess of twisted channel beams and girder framework, bent and mangled together, worse even than the other sides. But through that, beyond the web of distorted metal, was a corridor, maybe ten meters deep, like a shallow cave, with the entrance to it pinched half closed. Victor zoomed in with his visor and strained to see through all the obstructions, trying to see down into the corridor.

Then he saw it.

A flicker of light. A movement. There was a hatch at the end of the corridor with a small circular window in the center. And in that window there was a light. A glow rod. Wiggling in someone’s hand. “There’s somebody inside!” Victor shouted, and before he knew what he was doing, he had pushed his way to the end of the airlock and jumped out into space.

“Vico, wait,” said Bahzim.

But Victor wasn’t waiting. He had seen someone. Alive. “There’s someone down there.” He hit the trigger on his thumb, and the propulsion pushed him toward the corridor entrance. He jinked left, avoiding a protruding beam, then jinked right avoiding another.

“Slow down,” said Father.

Victor rotated his body, got his feet under him, and slowed. He landed expertly atop the bars and metal that bent across and blocked the corridor. He stepped to the side, squatted down, and looked through a hole in the web of metal down into the corridor, as if peering down a well. He could see him clearly now. A man. The circle in the hatch was smaller than the man’s face, but he was clearly alive and looked desperate. He wasn’t wearing a mask, either, meaning he had none, or the canisters had run out. Victor zoomed in, switched on his helmet vid, and blinked out the command to send the feed to everyone else.

The reaction was immediate. Bahzim started giving commands. “All right. Listen up. I want cables on this wreckage. Moor it to us. Lock it down. I don’t want it spinning. Segundo, I want you and Vico cutting away that debris at that entrance. I want the other shears at the hatch Chepe found. We might be able to reach survivors through there. Chepe and Pitoso, circle the wreckage another time and look for another way inside. Nando, I want you with a board and marker down there with Segundo and Vico communicating with whoever’s inside. I want to know how many are alive and what their status is.”

Father and Toron gingerly landed beside Victor, carrying the saws and hydraulic shears.

“He must have heard Chepe knocking,” said Victor. “There might be other people in there.”

“And we’re going to get them out,” said Father, handing a saw to Victor. “Try the saw first. If it gives you problems, go with the shears. Let’s cut these channel beams away first.” He indicated the ones Victor had avoided. “We need a clear path in and out of here.”

Victor wanted to say something to the man at the hatch. “We’re here. We’re going to get you out. You’re going to live.” But no one could reach the hatch yet with all the obstructions in the way, and Victor had no means of communicating with the man anyway. Father took the beam on the left, Victor the one on the right. Victor fired up his saw. The blade spun.

“Clean cuts,” said Father, “as close to the bottom as you can. Don’t rush.”

Victor’s blade cut into the metal. He couldn’t hear it, but the saw vibrated in his hands as it ate through the beam. Nineteen hours. Someone had gone nineteen hours. It looked like a big space. There had to be more people inside. Maybe it was their version of the fuge, the designated place for an emergency. Maybe lots of people had gone there. The saw felt slow in his hands. He pulled the blade free and killed the power. “Toron, give me the shears.”

Toron passed them, and Victor wiggled the pincers into place and started the hydraulics. The shears went much faster, cut-crunching their way through the beam, opening and closing like a ravenous animal, making easy work of the metal.

Bahzim was giving more orders, sending two more miners down with hydraulic spreaders.

The shears bit through the last few inches, and the beam snapped free.

“Easy,” said Father. “Push it away slowly, not by a jagged edge.”

Their gloves had an outer layer of leatherlike material and were built to withstand heavy use and scrapes, but Victor was overly cautious anyway. The beam drifted away. Nando was down near the web of metal covering the corridor entrance, writing on the small light board with a stylus. He wrote, “How many people?” and turned the board around for the man. The man in the hatch placed nine fingers against the glass.

“Nine people,” said Nando.

“Vico,” said Father. “Don’t take your eyes off what you’re doing. Pay attention.”

Victor turned away from the hatch. Father was right. He couldn’t cut and watch Nando or the man at the hatch. He focused on the girder beam he was cutting and guided the shears through the metal. Nine people. So few. The Italians had close to three hundred people.

“He’s writing on the glass with his finger,” said Nando. “One letter at a time. He’s moving slowly. He seems half out of it. Air. He’s saying they need air.”

“I don’t see any other entrance besides the hatch we knocked on,” said Chepe. “We’ve been around the whole thing.”

“Ask him if Alejandra is in there,” said Toron.

“Ask him first if he can reach the outer hatch,” said Bahzim. “We might be able to get a docking tube sealed over it. Then they could open the hatch and fly right up to us.”

Victor continued to cut metal while Nando wrote. Shards of twisted bulkheads and deck plating fell away as Victor’s shears chewed through them.

“He’s shaking his head no,” said Nando. “They can’t reach the hatch.”

“Why not?” asked Bahzim. “Because they sealed off that room or because it’s not accessible from where he’s at?”

“I can’t fit all that on the board,” said Nando.

“Just figure out a way to ask him,” said Bahzim.

Nando wrote. Victor allowed himself a glance down the corridor. The man in the window looked half asleep. His eyes kept drooping. “He’s passing out,” said Victor.

“Keep cutting, Vico,” said Father. “Stay focused.”

Victor returned to his work, cutting furiously, pushing pieces away, trying to clear a path.

“He’s writing again on the glass,” said Nando. “H… U… R…”

“Hurt?” suggested Bahzim.

“Hurry,” said Chepe. “He’s saying hurry. They’re out of air. Now he’s drifting away. We’re losing him.”

“We’ve got to get air in there now!” said Toron.

“Chepe,” said Bahzim. “You and Pitoso get a bubble over that hatch you found. Get nine masks and canisters. I want you to find another way to reach these people and get them air as fast as possible.”

Victor guided the shears through a particularly thick girder. There was still so much to cut away, still so much work to do. We’re not going to make it, he realized. We have nine people just a few feet away, and we’re not going to reach them in time.

Chepe shot upward from the wreckage, twisting in such a way that his lifeline easily avoided the sharp protuberances. Protecting your line was the most critical part of flying, but it was also the first thing most novice flyers forgot. Everyone was always in such a rush to shoot forward that they never took the time to look back. Which was a mistake. If you wanted to avoid snags, kinks, knots, and cuts, you had to “keep your mind on your line,” as the saying went, and Chepe always did.

The hatch he and Pitoso had found was on the opposite side of the wreckage, so Chepe flew straight up to a distance that he figured was at least twice the distance to the hatch and begin his descent, moving, as always, in an arc. Most young flyers assumed that the best route between two points was a straight line, but Chepe knew different. Tall arcs worked best. You avoided the obstructions that could snag your line, and wherever you were going, you always arrived with plenty of slack.

Pitoso appeared beside him, keeping pace, moving in a parallel arc, with their lines trailing behind like a parabolic tail. They both slowed at the same instant as they approached the jagged debris around the hatch. As soon as they landed, Pitoso pulled the deflated bubble from his bag and unfolded it. Chepe then helped him spread it over the hatch. Bulo, another miner, arrived carrying a bag of masks and canisters, and Chepe took them and slid them under the bubble canopy. Then he reached back and detached his own lifeline. His suit powered off. His comm went silent. His HUD disappeared. He climbed under the canopy, found the ripcord and pulled it. The bubble inflated into a clear dome that sealed itself to the hull with Chepe and the masks inside. Pitoso plugged Chepe’s detached lifeline into the external valve on the bubble while Chepe took the internal line and plugged it into his back. Power returned to his suit, and with it, fresh air and heat.

“I’m set,” said Chepe.

“Go,” said Bahzim.

Chepe removed the emergency lid from the center of the hatch to access the manual wheel lock. Then he gripped the wheel and turned. At first he strained, but the wheel suddenly loosened, and it spun quickly thereafter. Finally he felt the lock snap free, then slowly lifted the hatch. He felt no rush of air as the vacuum of the bubble was filled from air inside. He checked his sensors on his wrist and confirmed what he already suspected. “There’s no air beyond the hatch. There must be a leak inside.”

“Then we don’t need the bubble,” said Bahzim. “Take it off so you have more mobility to look around.”

Chepe found the release valve on the bubble and pulled it. The bubble deflated, and Chepe returned his normal lifeline to his back. The room beyond was dark and cluttered with floating debris. Chepe floated through the entrance, intensified his helmet lights, and saw-

A dead man’s face just inches from his own. Chepe recoiled. The face was gaunt and white in the bright lights, eyes closed, mouth slack, a man in his fifties, an apron around his waist. No mask.

“Push him to the side,” said Pitoso, coming in through the hatch. “There’s bound to be more like him.”

Chepe set his feet against the wall and reluctantly reached out and pushed the man in the chest, sending him back into the darkness to the right.

Pitoso came forward, pushing other debris away. “Looks like a kitchen,” he said.

Chepe took in their new surroundings. The room had once been a large kitchen, maybe twenty meters square. But now it barely resembled one. The walls were all slightly bent, twisted to one side in the attack, creating awkward angles and shadows, with the floor sloping up slightly in one place and dipping down in another. Debris was everywhere. Pots, food, appliances, all scattered throughout as if everything had broken free and banged around in the explosion. Structural material stuck out from the walls: conduit, pipes, support beams. They would need to tread carefully in here.

“Come on,” said Pitoso. “Let’s find another way to the survivors.”

They advanced slowly, lightly tapping their propulsion triggers to push themselves forward, brushing aside debris as they went: cutlery, tubs of dry goods, boxes. Another body floated to their right. A woman, wearing an apron.

“I see a hatch,” said Pitoso.

Chepe looked where Pitoso was pointing, and his heart sank. A hatch was indeed ahead, but there was no way of reaching it. Not easily anyway. The whole floor had broken upward right at the hatch, as if pulled apart, bending deck plating and support beams up and onto the bottom half of the hatch. The hatch itself looked undamaged, but getting to it and clearing a path wide enough to open it would take hours at least, even a day maybe. The bigger problem, though, was the wall around the hatch. It was bent and pinched in places.

“We can’t get to those people this way,” said Chepe. “There’s no way we’ll get a bubble seal over that hatch, even if we cut all this debris away. Look at the wall.”

Pitoso shined his light around the edges of the hatch. “Then we need to find another way.”

But there wasn’t one. They circled the entire room. They found storage rooms and another hatch, but this led to a corridor where the walls pinched completely closed, and beyond it was space anyway.

“We got nothing,” said Chepe. “The only way to reach the survivors is through the blocked corridor where Vico and Segundo are cutting.”

“Then we’re in trouble,” said Pitoso. “Because even if they get air in there, there’s no way to get those people out.”

“Back up,” said Victor. “We’re cutting the last pieces free.”

Nando and Toron backed away from the opening, while Victor and Father cut the last of the girder framework away, clearing the entrance of debris. Their work wasn’t done, however. The entrance was still too narrow for anyone to pass through and reach the hatch; the walls had been pinched close together when it tore away from the ship.

“Get those spreaders in there,” said Bahzim. “Make that entrance as wide as possible.”

Victor and Father stepped aside for those with the hydraulic spreaders. The men placed the two ends of the spreader on opposite walls of the entrance and then started the hydraulics. The spreader bars expanded, pushing the walls father apart, making an opening. Finally, after several minutes that felt like an eternity, the walls were wide again. Victor didn’t even wait for the miners to remove the spreaders. He ducked under the machine and flew down to the hatch.

Through the window he could see people inside. Those that were moving looked on the verge of falling asleep.

“Do you see other people?” asked Father, coming up behind Victor.

“Do you see Alejandra?” asked Toron.

“No,” said Victor. “But I can’t see everyone. Some of them are alive. Barely.” He turned to Father. “We need to get air in there immediately.”

“How?”

Behind Father, running parallel along the corridor wall, were a series of pipes. Victor moved to them, identifying them by their shape and type. Fresh water. Sewer water. Electrical. Air. The air pipe disappeared through the wall near the hatch. Victor knew there would be a valve on the wall on the other side. As soon as the corridor decompressed, the emergency system would have sealed the valve automatically so that no air from the room escaped through the severed pipe in the corridor.

“If we can get someone inside to open the air valve,” said Victor, “we can attach one of our lifelines to the pipe and feed them fresh air.”

“Disconnect someone’s line?” said Father.

“Either that or they die,” said Victor. “I’ve been watching Chepe’s vid as we were cutting. There’s no reaching them any other way.”

“He’s right,” said Bahzim. “If you don’t get air to them here, they die. I’m not too keen on cutting someone’s line, though.”

“If you got a better idea, let’s hear it,” said Victor.

“I don’t,” said Bahzim.

Victor looked at Father. “Decision time.”

Father hesitated. “All right. But we use my line.”

Toron was at the hatch window, looking through.

“Move over, Toron,” Victor pushed him aside and looked through the window. “There. Across the room. On the right side. There’s another valve. That means there’s another air pipe over there. We need to flood this room. Two lines pumping in a hundred times what the lines are feeding us now. Take Nando and see if you can find the pipe that feeds to that valve. Leave the light board. Toron and I will do this pipe.”

Father looked through the window of the hatch, spotting the valve, judging where the corresponding pipe would be on the other side of the wreckage. He turned back to Victor. “I don’t like this.”

“Me neither. But we don’t have time to discuss it, do we?”

Father sighed. “Be careful.”

Father went. Nando followed. Victor looked at Toron and handed him a wrench from his tool belt. “Bang on the hatch. Get someone’s attention. They need to open that valve.”

Toron began banging on the hatch. Victor took the saw, fired it up, and cut easily through the pipe. Then he killed the saw, set it aside, and used another tool to pry the pipe that led to the room away from the wall.

“He’s coming back,” said Toron. “The guy from before. He’s back. But he looks half asleep.”

“Anoxia. Lack of oxygen. Mental confusion. Impaired thinking. Write on the board. Tell him he needs to open the valve. Keep knocking so he stays with us.”

“I can’t knock and write at the same time.”

Victor took the wrench and banged. Toron wrote then held up the sign. “Open the valve,” Toron said.

The man inside read the sign and furrowed his brow.

“He doesn’t understand,” said Toron.

“Point to it,” said Victor. “Show him where the valve is.”

“I can’t see it,” said Toron.

“It’s probably to the right of the door. Our right. His left. Flush against the wall.”

“There,” said Toron, pointing. “Look there. That valve, can you see it?”

The man’s eyes followed Toron’s finger, but then he blinked and wavered, confused, as if the last string of understanding had been cut. He tried to look but his eyes wouldn’t focus. He was drifting, seemingly unaware of his surroundings.

Toron banged on the hatch with his fist. “Open the damn valve!”

The man shook his head, getting his bearings, and blinked again. Then he came to himself, as if a switch had flicked on in his mind, and he saw the valve. Comprehension registered on his face. He reached for something out of sight. “He’s going for it,” said Toron.

“Put your hand over the end of this pipe,” said Victor. “So that none of their air escapes if he opens the valve before we’re ready.”

Toron pressed his hand against the pipe’s end.

“Bahzim,” said Victor. “As soon as Toron tells you to, increase my lifeline air supply to maximum, as much oxygen as you can pump in.”

“We’re ready,” said Bahzim. “But you realize you’re cutting off your own air.”

Victor grabbed the saw and fired up the blade. “I’ll be fine. I’ve done this before.” Which was only partially true. He had lost power to his line when the corporates attacked, but he had never lost his line entirely. No one had. No one that lived to tell about it later, anyway.

“Here. Use my line instead,” said Toron. He reached back to detach it, but Victor was faster; his hand was already on the release latch of his own suit. Victor squeezed the mechanism, and the line came free. The power in Victor’s suit went off. His HUD winked out. The chatter of communication went silent. Now all he heard was the sound of his own breathing. The safety valve on the back of his suit had sealed the hole where the lifeline connected, preventing Victor’s suit from deflating like a balloon. He brought the detached line forward and pressed it down over the saw blade, slicing through it easily. He tossed the severed head of the line aside, then got a firm grasp with both hands on the longer portion of the line that extended back to the ship. There were several hoses and wires inside the lifeline, held together by the protective outer tubing. Victor took out his knife and cut down the side of the lifeline, slicing through the outer tubing but being careful not to cut the air hose inside. Then he pulled the outer tubing down, freeing the air hose from the other hoses that supplied heat and electricity and communication. He took two wire clamps from his pouch that were wider than the air hose and slid them onto it. Then he nodded to Toron to remove his hand and Victor shoved the air hose onto the pipe. The air hose was bigger, but not by much. Victor quickly tightened the wire clamps, so the air hose clung tightly to the pipe and wouldn’t shoot off when more air came through. Then he gave Toron a thumbs-up and watched as Toron relayed the order.

The air hose stiffened as oxygen surged into the pipe. The question was: Was the air getting through or was it blocked by the valve? Had the man opened it, and if so, had he opened it all the way? Victor looked inside the hatch window but couldn’t see the man. Several people inside were stirring, as if hearing the rush of air.

“I think it’s working,” said Victor. But of course no one heard him.

He noticed then that his fingers and feet were cold. His visor was fogging up. The air in his suit was stale. He felt pressure applied to his back, and his suit came to life. Air poured in. Heat. His HUD flickered on. Only it wasn’t his HUD. All the data boxes were positioned in all the wrong places. He turned. Toron was behind him; he had given Victor his lifeline. Bahzim’s voice said, “The air’s going through, Victor. He opened the valve. Good work.”

“Victor, your father has the other pipe ready,” said Nando. “Send someone over here to open this valve.”

Victor turned back to the window. Several people had mustered the strength to gather at the hatch, breathing the fresh air. Victor grabbed the board and wrote, then banged on the hatch. A young but haggard woman came to the window, read Victor’s note, and nodded, comprehending. She looked to where Victor was pointing, saw the valve on the far wall, and nodded again. She seemed weak, drained of life, but somehow she pushed off the floor and drifted over to the valve. She put her hand on it then turned. At first Victor didn’t think she had the strength to turn it, but she persisted, and the valve opened wide. Air rushed through the valve, blowing the woman’s hair to the side. She inhaled deep, eyes closed a moment, then burst into sobs, burying her face in her hands-whether from relief at having survived or from grief for those who hadn’t, Victor could only guess.

“Toron will share his line with you until you’re both back on the ship,” said Bahzim. “I want you back in the airlock. No one outside without a lifeline.”

“How are we getting these people out?” Victor asked.

“We’ve been discussing that. The docking tube is too wide to get down that corridor and seal around the hatch. Do you think we could get a bubble over that hatch? Maybe we could fill a bubble with suits. Then they open the hatch, suit up, and quickly fly up to us.”

Victor inspected the wall around the hatch. “It’s too narrow in here. And even if we get the spreaders down in here, the wall is too damaged to hold a seal. What if we pull the wreckage into the airlock? Then we fill the space with air and they open the hatch and walk out.”

“The wreck’s way too big,” said Bahzim.

“Then we cut it down with one of the PKs, slice away all the rooms that are compromised and keep only the room with survivors. If we shave enough away, it might be small enough to squeeze inside.”

“Laser cutting around these people?” said Concepcion. “That’s extremely dangerous.”

“Bulo’s a good cutter,” said Victor. “He could sign his name on a pebble if he wanted to.”

“I could do it,” said Bulo, who was listening on the line. “If the ship is holding steady, if we anchor the wreckage so it doesn’t move. I can slice off the deadweight easy.”

Concepcion asked, “Segundo, what do you think?”

“I don’t know of a better option,” said Father. “The downside is time. Anchoring and cutting and moving them inside. That all will take a lot of time. I’m guessing five or six hours at the least. And there might be more survivors out there who need immediate help. We’d be essentially ending the search.”

Victor was watching Toron, who was at the hatch window with a light board. He wrote something that Victor couldn’t see and showed it to the man on the other side of the glass. The man read the board then shook his head. Toron released the board and turned away from the hatch. The board drifted away and Victor saw the single-word question written there: “Alejandra?”