Nessa had not waited for Mara's answer.
On the Bore Room screen the small sample cell hung from the service boom above the capsule's exterior tray. Its pressure vessel gleamed in the crawler lights, round-ended, no larger than a beer keg. Flexible lines connected it to a compact exchanger at the capsule's service port. Two containers of separated sample fluid sat clamped beside it, feeding the little chamber in measured pulses.
Inside a transparent section on the low-pressure side, the carrier had turned gold.
For one second Mara forgot the command she had been about to give.
"It's producing," Nessa said.
She stood at the local service console, one hand on the boom control, the other braced against the edge. Her line ran toward the exchanger behind her. She had put her bag beside the tram hatch, as if even now she did not want anybody to think she had forgotten the agreed destination.
Kit stood in the narrow service passage between the docking trunk and the Bore Room. He was securing the line guide she had asked him to move. The place was dry, pressure-protected, confined by a hatch on each end. Not a place to be when heavy structure moved around it.
"Kit. Come out of there," Mara said.
He looked up. "Almost done."
"Now."
Nessa turned toward her. "If you shut the run down, we won't learn anything."
"Don't move the boom."
"It needs to come square to the port. The return's too high."
"Then hold it and let me see the load."
Nessa looked at the gold in the output tube. Mara saw the moment she chose it: the clear line, the proof of something she had been told to wait for, a chance she could almost hold. She moved the control.
The boom slewed toward the capsule.
"Stop," Mara said.
The cell swung. Its load was small compared with the cradle, but the boom's long reach multiplied every misalignment. A temporary restraint ran across the edge of the capsule tray; it caught on the damaged guard left from the earlier load recovery. Mara saw it tighten and reached for the emergency hold.
Nessa hit stop first.
The arm stopped under power. The loaded restraint did not release. The cell's momentum pulled through it, the boom's base flexed, and a heavy crosspiece at the far end struck the exterior junction box beside the rail.
A sharp report came through the structure.
The box crumpled. Its cover flew open and vanished beyond the camera. On the station screen the remote-release circuit changed from green to gray.
The boom rebounded.
Mara watched the second impact arrive and could do nothing to stop it. The crosspiece came down across the capsule's exterior valve block. Metal folded around metal. A protective cage collapsed into the regulator assembly beneath it.
Hester shouted over the crew channel, one fierce word.
The capsule shook against its docking clamps. In the passage Kit flung up a hand to steady himself. His carrier guide slid down the wall. The outer end of the trunk moved, not far, enough that the hatch frame pinched its own seal housing.
A piece of the wall cladding buckled inward between him and the Bore Room.
Kit's line caught beneath it.
"Don't pull," Mara said.
He froze. Then the little return loop beside his hip flattened.
"It's caught," he said.
The words were terribly quiet.
Mara dropped to the passage entrance. A gap remained above the buckled cladding, wide enough for her shoulders if she went flat. Kit stood beyond it, turned sideways, one arm raised to keep the supply line from sharing the return's kink. His fitting lay just under the edge of his shirt. The pale patch at his neck had begun to darken.
Nessa was beside Mara now.
"I can reverse the boom."
"Do not touch it."
"It will unload—"
"You don't know what it will unload. Stay here. Hold his supply."
Nessa knelt, reached into the passage and supported the round line where it crossed the bent panel. Her face had gone blank with concentration or horror. Mara could not spare a moment to decide which.
The output alarm from the sample cell began.
Nessa looked back.
"Eyes here," Mara said.
The woman turned back to Kit. She held his supply with both hands.
Hester came over the channel. "Primary delivery assembly's crushed. I'm isolating the bank. Capsule hull's intact. Do not move that boom again."
"Understood."
"My cabin air's holding. Mask on for station. Main reserve won't feed safely through that. I'm closing the bank."
Mara heard the physical clicks as Hester worked. The gas stayed in its bank, unreachable through broken delivery. A full bank made unavailable by one bent piece of metal. She could hate it later.
Leonie arrived from the Living Drum, followed by Jonah and Benji. She looked at the passage and went directly to the main carrier balance. Jonah went with her.
"Kit's return is pinched," Mara said. "Need bypass at this end."
Benji held out a short line. She took it. It would not reach unless she got past the panel.
"Hester, I need the small spreader. Not the ram."
"At the hatch. Imani's bringing it."
The cell output alarm rose, fell, rose again. On the screen its golden fluid had clouded. The two reactant supplies continued to feed. Nessa glanced toward it despite herself.
"It's losing charge," she said.
Mara took her chin in one gloved hand and turned her face back toward Kit. Not gently enough.
"This is the person. Hold the line."
Nessa stared at her, then looked into the passage. Her mouth opened. Mara expected an apology and had no use for one. None came.
Imani brought the spreader. Her reserve mask hissed, the long capsule feed disconnected since Hester had closed the primary bank. Mara had to make herself notice. Three ordinary people. Walking bottles now. They needed the fixed shelter supply for the work ahead. There was still that way to breathe; she had kept it intact.
"Open the shelter bank," she told Imani. "Set three work feeds at the Living Drum. Hester knows the manifold. Don't carry it, just connect it."
Imani nodded. She looked past Mara at Kit and swallowed hard. Then she went.
Mara fitted the spreader's jaws into the cladding seam. It was a light panel, not the hull, but its bent edge had caught beneath a load-bearing brace. She could open a hand's width, not restore the passage. She kept the tool clear of Kit's line and pumped.
The panel shifted.
Kit's whole body flinched. "That's worse."
She stopped. A small metal lip had dragged across the return line, flattening it further. The spreader could give her room or give him flow, not both at this angle.
"Benji. Can you take his return through the upper guide?"
He leaned close, looked along the line and shook his head. "Not without cutting the trapped piece. We need both sides connected first."
Mara nodded. She had known it. She had asked because somebody else might see what she did not.
Inside the passage Kit shut his eyes.
"No," she said. "Look at me."
He opened them. "I am."
"Keep doing it."
At the exchanger Leonie turned the manual balance toward Kit's branch. Nessa's own line twitched, its pale stream slowing. Her hands tightened around Kit's supply. She looked over her shoulder.
"Jonah," she said.
He had seen the same thing. The balance setting protected the shortest path through the old manifold. His branch lay there. Nessa's was farther away. Leonie was keeping the stable circuit stable, a defensible choice with a particular husband inside it.
Jonah put his hand on the handle.
"Move it," he told her.
"It will interrupt yours."
"Then mine."
"Jonah—"
He took the handle from her and turned it himself.
The flow at Nessa's waist steadied. The color at Jonah's neck changed. He set both feet square on the floor and held the position while Leonie reached for a second return.
Mara had no spare hands to thank him. He had not done it for thanks.
The sample cell stopped producing useful charge.
The alarm changed to a flat repeated tone. Nessa did not look away from Kit this time. She held the supply line in her hands while the thing that had looked like her way home failed behind her.
Mara clipped the bypass to her wrist loop, lay flat and pushed one shoulder beneath the buckled panel. The edge scraped her coveralls. Her mask struck the floor. She turned her face sideways so the seal would not lift and slid another inch.
Kit stood beyond her reach.
"I'm coming," she said.
He gave the smallest nod.
She put her hand farther into the gap and found nothing solid to pull on. Above her the damaged trunk made a soft, reluctant creak.