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
