Lifeline

Ramis noticed the sweat of his fingers inside his gloves. He held the vial of pressurized trigger-hormone; it felt slick against the Mylar of his suit. He remembered Sarat, years ago, saving him from the building that came rotating toward him at deadly speed, when he drifted too close to the Aguinaldo’s rim.

And later, finding the one sail-creature nymph with the “Z” mark on its back—the one that had been more special than any other.

He remembered playing with Sarat, as they both grew older, and Sandovaal assuring him that sail-creatures were not intelligent, that they only responded to stimuli.

Falling toward the curved, kelp-covered inner surface of the Aguinaldo, stranded and helpless as the wide wall rushed toward him. Ramis felt the fear burn in his lungs. But Sarat was there, stopping him, pushing him to safety, saving him.

You were always there to catch me when I fell, Sarat. Are you ready to catch me now?

Ramis rammed the hypodermic cartridge inside the sail-creature’s membrane and ejected the vial’s contents.

Minutes passed. Ramis began to wonder if it would even work.

Reacting with incredible slowness, the cell-thin sails collapsed. They drew in toward Sarat’s body, lumbering together as a butterfly might bring in its wings. They stretched dozens of kilometers out in front of the cyst. With the sudden movement, wispy fragments tore away, rippling like the shrouds of a ghost.

Sarat’s crumpled body struck Orbitech 1, pushing against the tattered ends of its sails. Ramis felt the impact ripple through the creature’s flesh, but he was padded by the curtains of wall-kelp and kilometers of sail. The minute-long collision dragged on; it seemed to take too long.

He felt himself drifting back again, rebounding. Suddenly, panic burned through him. If he drifted out of the colony’s grasp, then he would be stranded again, without even the sails for maneuvering.

Sarat was dead; Ramis knew it, but he refused to let the journey be wasted. Sarat could not have died for nothing.

The video monitor was dark. Outside, the cameras had been covered up by folds of the collapsed sails. Ramis sealed his helmet, made certain that the sail-creature embryos were protected in their airtight canisters, then took out his knife.

He had to get out; he had to do something before it was too late. Ramis shouted again into the transmitter. Nothing. He saw that he had left it on, and the battery was dead.

He hesitated only a moment out of respect for Sarat, then plunged the knife into the tough membrane, trying to cut his way out of the cyst. When the blade broke through to the outside, decompression tried to rip the knife out of his hand. Outrushing oxygen tore the gash open wider. Ramis continued to saw with the knife edge. Crystals sparkled as the humidity inside the cyst flash-froze, layering everything with a thin coating of ice. One of the wall-kelp bladders burst and froze in the same second.

Ramis could see through the opening in the cyst, then he felt a tug on the carcass of the sail-creature. As he peered out, he saw several figures in space suits near him, attaching a tether to keep Sarat from drifting farther away.

Ramis felt drained with relief, but he could not yet relax. He kept hacking with his knife, trying to make the opening wide enough for him to emerge. One of the suited figures swam up in front of him, face-to-face, nodding.

Ramis was startled to see behind the faceplate a man who bore a look of excited hope and wonderment that seemed to cut through weeks of despair.

As he emerged from the hulk of the dead sail-creature, Ramis turned back, feeling like a newborn coming out of a womb. He looked at the shriveled remains of Sarat. The once-magnificent sails now looked as if someone had crumpled up a gigantic wad of paper and tossed it aside.

Sharp needles of pain struck his joints, and uneasy tremors raced through his muscles. But it felt wonderful to move again, to stretch, to be free. He stared down and saw only an infinity of stars, not the curved wall of the Aguinaldo. If he started to fall, he would keep falling forever and ever.…

Dizzy, he looked up at the large observation windows on either side of the Orbitech 1 docking bay doors. Pressed against the observation windows were scattered faces. They appeared as gaunt and anxious as the face he had seen inside the suit.

One of the suited figures wrestled the knife from his hand. Ramis was too weary to struggle, so he released it and kicked toward the airlock. He tried to make motions to show them what they needed to get from the cyst. Apparently they used a different frequency in their suit radios, and he didn’t want to waste time figuring it out. That was one more detail they should have firmed up before his departure.