Imani had covered the shelter window from the inside.
The covering was a brown paper bag, cut open, taped at three corners. The fourth corner had curled back. Through it Mara could see a strip of blanket and the edge of a woman's cheek. Kit knocked gently on the hatch.
"Imani? I'm Kit. Rescue medic."
Nothing moved.
Leonie stood behind them holding a flat packet of scrubber material. "She hears you."
Kit glanced back. Mara saw his thought and shook her head: wait.
A tiny click came from the hatch speaker. "Are you really there?"
"Yes," Kit said.
"I can see you on the camera. I mean—I'm sorry. Are you from the ship?"
"We came down in the capsule."
The paper bag lifted. An eye appeared, brown and bloodshot. It moved from Kit to Mara to Leonie, and stayed on Leonie.
"You don't have to come in," Imani said.
"I need to look at you," Kit said. "I'll keep my gloves on."
"How many of you?"
"Three. Our pilot's at the dock. Two of us here."
Leonie set the scrubber packet beside the hatch. "For the next change. It's the last sealed one, so don't open it until you need it."
"I know."
The paper dropped back.
Leonie remained beside them, one hand on the curved bulkhead. The exchange lines at her waist traveled away toward the pumps. Mara could hear liquid moving in one, a soft gritting sound.
"I'll wait at the table," Leonie said at last.
She walked away. The shelter's bolts clicked immediately.
The hatch opened inward, just wide enough for Kit to look through. He introduced himself again, very gently, and asked if he might come in. Imani moved aside. Mara followed as far as the opening and stopped.
The space was smaller than June's bathroom. A narrow couch filled the back wall. Under it stood food packets, water and a covered sanitation container. The fixed breathing assembly occupied a metal frame beside the door, its gauges at eye level for a person lying down. Someone had taped a photograph to the inside of a cupboard: a beach at low tide, nobody in it. Socks dried on a little shelf under the air return.
Imani wore the same clothes as in the dossier, but they hung loose on her now. Her hair was braided tight against her head. The pattern had grown fuzzy with days of sleep. She was breathing fast.
"Can you slow that for me?" Kit asked.
"I am trying."
"No hurry. I'm just going to sit here."
He folded himself onto the edge of the couch, leaving her the corner furthest from the door. Mara stayed in the hatch. Her mask hissed. Imani watched its valve open and shut.
"You didn't take it off," she said.
"No."
"Good."
Kit offered her a sealed sensor, explained what it did, let her attach it herself. She put it on the wrong finger, corrected it before he spoke. Her hand shook so badly the little device rattled against her nail.
"Did you send us a message?" Mara asked.
Imani looked at Kit.
"You can answer her," he said. "I'm just watching the numbers."
"Yes."
"Whatever we tell you, leave us."
Imani flinched at the words. "I didn't mean—if you could help. Of course I wanted someone to help. I thought if I said don't come, someone would ask why."
"We're asking now."
She drew the blanket into her lap and smoothed it. There was no wrinkle left by the time she spoke again.
"Leonie wanted your name in the request. Not just a rescue team. You. She kept asking whether the powered rig could be brought down. She said once you saw Jonah, you'd understand."
Mara's hand tightened on the hatch rim.
"Understand what?"
"I don't know. Moving something. Moving them. I heard pieces. I was in here."
"Did she tell you there was danger to us?"
"She says it's safe if nobody's injured. If nobody needs it." Imani looked at Kit's gloved hands. "I saw what happened to them. Not all of it. I couldn't watch all of it."
"Tell me what you could," he said.
Imani's mouth worked. She swallowed, looked at the beach photograph, and gave them a precise account of the first hours after the failure. The power had gone out in sections. The station had settled. The bore-side systems had shut down and the atmosphere plant had failed with them. Emergency air had been spent on injured people while they tried to restore the plant. Jonah had collapsed. Leonie had moved him beside the exchanger. There had been something growing in its low-pressure circuit already.
"His color changed," she said. "He was gray. Then he wasn't. He could speak. He asked for his glasses."
She had remained at the hatch while Leonie asked her to help. She had stepped back. That was the part she told twice, changing only the words: she had stepped back; she had gone back; she had not helped.
Kit watched her sensor settle.
"And the others?" Mara asked.
"Nessa was hurt. Benji couldn't get air. Leonie was trying to work and then she couldn't either. The room went wrong. The alarms stopped because there was no point to them. I had the shelter open. I thought they were coming."
"They didn't?"
Imani shook her head. "By then they were attached. Leonie told me to shut the hatch. She did. She said shut it, Imani, keep your air."
The last words had the exact rhythm of Leonie's voice. Mara could hear her saying them.
"She's kept me alive," Imani said. "You need to know that. Every day. I can't be saying all this and not—she kept me alive."
"I heard you."
Imani leaned back. Kit reached slowly toward her, paused, and she nodded. He checked her eyes, the skin inside her mouth, the tender places where she had slept badly against the couch. Her body was ordinary and tired. Mara found herself grateful for the sweat at Imani's hairline, then hated the gratitude.
"We can put you on our supply now," Mara said. "Save what's in this bank."
Imani looked up sharply. "There's enough?"
"Yes. Hester's extending a line. You're not using another hour of this if you don't have to."
She touched the assembly. It was frame-mounted, connected to a regulator and the shelter's scrubber circuit. Ten and a half days for one person, the marked provision said. Nine gone. The remaining gauge agreed with Imani's little handwritten log, allowing for panic and work. A day and a half left for one frightened woman. If three people breathed from it, about twelve hours. Mara did the sum automatically, then put it away. They had capsule air and a functioning departure vehicle.
"Can you take it with you?" she asked Hester over the crew channel.
Hester had the drawing open before Mara finished. "No. Fixed low-pressure outlet. We could breathe from it here. We're not tearing that frame apart and making a charging compressor out of wishes."
"Just checking."
"I'm bringing Imani a feed. Keep the door clear."
Imani had heard Hester through Mara's speaker. She looked from the bank to the hatch, as though the little room had changed dimensions.
"I can come out?"
"If you wear the mask," Kit said.
"I know. It's just—"
When Hester arrived she set the spare mask in Imani's lap and made her handle it. The seals, the reserve switch, the quick connection. Imani repeated every action. Hester corrected one with a finger placed under the fitting instead of a scolding. Then Kit helped Imani stand.
She could not straighten at first. Her back had learned the couch's shape. She pressed a palm into her hip and laughed once, a short startled bark that seemed to frighten her. Mara moved aside. Imani stood in the hatch breathing from the capsule, one bare foot on the yellow floor beyond the shelter.
"There's no smell," she said.
"Mask," Kit reminded her.
"Yes. Of course. I meant—nothing."
Benji was waiting at the end of the passage. He tried to look as if he had only happened to stop there, but a bowl and clean spoon waited in his hands.
Imani looked at him. Her breath quickened in Mara's ear.
"You look better," Benji said.
"You always say that."
"Sometimes you're worse and I'm lying. Today you're better."
She took one step. The hose followed. Another. Benji moved back to give her space, the lines at his waist catching for a moment before he freed them. Imani saw the catch and stopped.
"Come on," he said softly.
She went as far as the table. He set the bowl down. She put both palms flat on the wiped surface and stood there looking at it, not at the people around it.
Hester went back to the dock to complete the surface feed. Kit stayed with Imani. Mara returned to the shelter to shut its reserve outlet. She wrote the remaining gauge reading on the log beneath Imani's cramped numbers, her own writing large and ugly in gloves. The bank would wait intact. She checked the hatch could open freely from inside, though there would be nobody inside it now.
The brown paper covering rustled against her sleeve.
There was writing on its hidden side. She lifted the corner. Not another warning. A list in pencil: dates, meals, a shower, a walk outside, a glass of cold water without the taste of the shelter. The last entry had been pressed so hard it had almost torn through.
Tell them I want to go.
Mara laid the paper back exactly where it had been.
At the table Imani was sitting beside Benji. Leonie had put a pillow behind her back. Jonah was asking Kit whether the ship had fresh fruit, something with a smell. Nessa stood at the passage to the Bore Room, watching the bearing image on her tablet.
Mara went to Imani and crouched until they were level.
"I'm taking you up," she said.
Imani closed her eyes. When she opened them, she looked at Benji, then down at her own hands.
"Thank you."
Mara stood. A shiver traveled through the floor into the soles of her boots. Across the room a spoon rang against a bowl.
Nessa had already turned toward the Bore Room.