and round, and the most color was always the observer inside. They had become Shooter and Cleary when Kyle and Lark talked about them. Lark fitted into Shooter like the egg in an eggshell. Her pressure suit was painted as a gaudy Earthly sunrise, primarily bright yellow. It was plugged into Shooter's systems via a thick umbilical. Within the fishbowl helmet her black hair was pulled back so tightly her dark eyes looked asian. She'd painted yellow streaks into her hair.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“No. Twitchy. I broke one of the big grabbers trying to get loose. One was busted already, you know. Shooter's older'n I am. Two grabbers are twisted up in creeper. The little grabbers are useless. I'll ruin this damned thing if I keep trying to power out of here.”
How did she get a round ball caught in a forest of long vines? A ball festooned with mechanical arms and sampler tubes... “Can you go a different direction?”
“I tried backwards and forwards. I'll shoot for a roll next, I guess.”
“You can ruin all the grabbers you want, honey. Just don't hurt yourself.”
“Duh.”
Henry contradicted him, “Lark, if you break off an arm, you'll breach the hull. Stop wiggling the ship randomly. And go to voice-only.”
The screen images froze. “Got it,” Lark replied, her image in the screen suddenly frozen with an angry, determined look on her face.
“Don't do anything until we tell you,” Henry said. “Think about conserving power. You can turn the video on again when we have a plan.”
“Stay calm,” Suriyah said, “Breathe deeply, slowly. Relax. Go easy on your water.”
“I was fully stocked when I left. That's power and food enough for days.”
“Ten of them, if you're careful,” Henry said. “We'll have you back in time for your party. But that's no excuse for waste.”
“A-okay. Think I should try for the roll? I can use the little adjustment jets.”
“Hang on and let us analyze for a bit.” Henry clearly had control.
“You'll be fine,” Kyle said. “We'll think of something.” His stomach was a knot and his fingernails bit into his palms. “If nothing else, you can climb down.” No, wait, those ten days worth of air and water were in Shooter! Not the suit!
“Dad, the door's jammed. I've already tried getting it open.”
“I'll be listening, Honey,” Henry said. “Just relax and stay available for questions.” He turned off the feed that sent the general conversation to Lark.
Paul edged towards the monitors and looked at the one with Lark's image still frozen on it. “Will she die?” he asked.
Henry put a hand on the boy's shoulder. “Not if we can help it.” He squatted to Paul's height. “It's a tough situation. She'll have to get herself free somehow. You and I can help Lark figure out what to do.”
“Can't we take the other marble?” Kyle interrupted. “I could use the arms to tear my way in—”
Henry shook his head. “The thruster died last week. It's not repairable. I ordered another one, more advanced. It'll be on the next ship, the one you're supposed to leave on.”
Kyle winced. More things were breaking and less was being done to fix them as the base lurched towards the end of its useful life. He had no idea what to tell Lark to do. “Lark, can you tell me exactly what happened? I'm sure you said, but I wasn't in here to hear it. It's hard to visualize without outside cameras.”
“Suriyah sent a remote cam right after I called her. But it'll be thirty minutes; it had to prep itself before it launched. The left-side grabber broke months ago. Henry and I tied it down. I checked it before I went out. It's even on the ship-check sheet since it's been trash so long.”
Kyle looked at Henry, who sighed.
“Well, it was tied down, I checked! I was going to the midline of the Styx. You got the vines growing in both directions, Dad, and now it's weaving a kind of net. It looks really good. I'm trying to study the autotrophic processes in the healthier plants. Something is ... changing; they're becoming more active as we get further away from the Sun. You'd expect them to be slower since it's colder. I want to understand before we have to leave.”
Suriyah and Paul were drawing in the corner, looking at the stilled video images and working on a slate. Their whispering was distracting. Kyle moved closer to the mike. “Okay, honey, but how'd you get stuck?” He winced. She hated it when he called her “honey.” Sixteen-year-old girls were touchy.
To her credit she ignored the slight. “I ... I don't know. The arm must have broken free. I got too close. Anyway, a pretty thin leaf-vine got stuck in it, and I wasn't going very fast, but it jerked the marble and shifted my course. That's when the real problem came with the arm; anyway, that's when I could tell it was dangling freely, and since I was still moving it caught more stuff, and then slammed me into a big vine. I tried to use the topside arm, and I ... I... just got it tangled, too. So I decided I'd try and thrust out of here, and I put it at full power.”
Lark sounded defensive; she wasn't supposed to use full power in the creepers. “You didn't have a choice, honey.” Damn it—there was that word again. What was wrong with him? “It was a good choice, Lark.”
“It wasn't good. The marble was too stuck, and the topside arm broke, and I didn't get out. That was when I called Suriyah.” Lark was quiet, then she said, “There's a big vine blocking the door, Daddy. It's feeling around the edges, but the heat leakage has it stopped. But I can't even go EVA to cut myself free.” There was a tremor in her voice.
“We'll figure it out. Henry and Suriyah and Paul are working on something right now.”
Kyle paced. Suriyah had shooed the others out, so only the four of them, and Lark's frozen face, remained. Kyle talked to Lark off and on, encouraging. She was getting impatient. Kyle felt lost. This wasn't fair—they were
