Mara's shoulder would not pass.
She could get her head and one arm under the panel. The other shoulder caught against the bent lip. Her breathing pack scraped the opposite wall, pulling at the hose behind her mask. She stopped before she pulled the seal loose.
Kit was close enough that she could see the pulse of clear material at his fitting. Too slow. Too dark.
"Turn toward me," she said.
He tried. His left leg failed to follow and he caught the wall. A tiny drop of dark fluid appeared where the sleeve met his skin. It traveled down his side, shining in the passage light.
"Don't reach," she said. "Just turn."
"I am turning."
The anger in his voice helped. She could work with anger. She shifted her right shoulder down, felt the edge of the panel cut through the outer fabric and stopped again. Her body was a badly shaped tool for the gap she had.
"Nessa. Spreader under the top edge. Not near the line. Above my left shoulder."
The tool entered her field of vision. Nessa fitted it carefully. Her fingers trembled against the handle.
"One pump."
Metal ticked. The panel lifted away from Mara's shoulder. Not enough.
"Another half."
"It'll catch the brace."
"I can see. Half."
Nessa eased the handle. The gap opened. Mara pushed through on her elbows, felt the pack drag, and came free so abruptly she struck Kit's shin. He made a hoarse noise and almost fell.
She caught him around the knees. His body was cold through the pants.
"Sit against the wall."
"Can't bend."
The changed hip. She had forgotten it in the urgency. She moved her hand to support the joint and guided him down at a different angle. He slid, breathing deliberately now though the air in the passage had nothing to give him. The sound was terrible, an old reflex trying to solve a new failure.
Mara freed the bypass from her wrist loop. Gray dust marked the bypass caps. She wiped them before opening the ends. One connection at the return fitting beside Kit, the other passed toward Benji through the gap. They needed to create a new path around the flattened length without interrupting the supply.
"Benji. Take it."
His fingers appeared under the panel. The cap disappeared. She felt a tiny tug at the far end.
"Set," he said.
Mara checked her coupling by touch. It seated. She opened the bypass.
Nothing moved.
"Not clearing," Benji said.
Mara looked at Kit's fitting. The sleeve had collapsed at its lower edge. Not a closed valve, not a problem in the new line. The body itself was holding damaged material against the outlet. She could see the dark knot beneath the transparent cover.
"Leonie. Obstruction at the patient return."
The physician's voice came from the other end of the passage. "Don't press the sleeve."
"I'm not."
"There should be a clearing pulse control on the branch. It's a soft tab."
Mara found it. "Here?"
"Show me."
She turned her wrist camera toward the fitting. Leonie took a breath she did not need, a deliberate act of concentration.
"Yes. One pulse. Then wait."
Mara pressed.
Kit's spine jerked. His hand flew to her wrist and held it in an iron grip. Beneath the sleeve the knot shifted but did not release.
She waited. Her whole body wanted to press again. The thing under his skin made a slow folding movement. A little stream of dark material left the knot and entered the bypass.
"There," Benji said.
Kit's grip loosened. His eyes remained on Mara's face.
"You don't get to say almost," he told her.
She had been about to.
"Okay."
The new return line filled. Gold entered his supply in brighter pulses. Through the gap she heard Jonah's chair scrape, then Leonie telling him to sit without letting go of the handle. He answered something too low to hear. Nessa's hands remained on the supported supply, blue-white patches forming at the joints of her fingers.
"Need to get him out," Mara said.
"I can lift another fraction," Nessa answered.
"Not enough for him. We take the lower panel."
"The brace is—"
"Leave the brace. Cut the cladding below it. Small cutter. Along the yellow strip, no deeper."
Hester sent the tool with Benji. Mara fitted a protective guard between the metal and Kit's line, placed her own hand behind the guard and guided the cutter from the safe side. The blade worried through the thin panel with a shriek that made Kit close his eyes.
"Sorry," she said.
He shook his head. His eyes stayed shut.
She cut twice, folded the severed panel inward and braced it with the spreader. A wider opening appeared beneath the heavy support. Enough for a body on its side if they moved the fittings clear first.
"We go slowly," she told Kit.
He looked at the gap. "That seems to be the problem."
She almost laughed. Almost was apparently available for something.
They moved his line bundle through first. Benji took it. Nessa held the opening clear and kept the supply loop above the cut edge. Mara brought Kit down onto his side, supporting the changed hip. He made no sound this time. The silence frightened her more than the complaint had.
"Still with me?"
"Unfortunately."
She slid through ahead of him, turned, reached back. Benji took his shoulders. Nessa steadied his side without touching the sleeve. Together they eased him under the panel and into the Bore Room.
Nine minutes had passed since the first impact. Mara saw it on the console when she lifted her head. Nine minutes for a hopeful machine to lose its charge, for a full air bank to become unreachable, for Kit to almost die within sight of people who could not get their hands through a gap.
Hester knelt beside him. "You're in the clear."
Kit looked at the cut panel. "Don't put that on the brochure."
She gave a short exasperated breath and helped Benji carry him to the bench.
Jonah was gray around the mouth. He sat with the balance handle gripped between both hands and Leonie's fresh return branch connected beside his own. She had stopped trying to take the handle away. Mara touched his shoulder.
"You can give it to her now."
He looked up. "Is Nessa clear?"
"Yes. Kit too."
He let Leonie take it. The color returned slowly, unevenly. Leonie stayed kneeling at his feet, watching his neck and hands. She did not touch him until he put a hand on her shoulder. Then she bent her forehead against his knuckles. He let her stay for a moment, then took his hand back to drink water.
Nessa stood at the console. The live-cell display showed circulation and no useful output. The isolated fragment had not died immediately; it continued making a slow internal movement on the camera. Its reactants still entered. But the charged carrier had faded to a cloudy gray. Native pressure and an imitation of the water chemistry had not reproduced the living bed's whole exchange.
Mara shut the patient-side test outlet, then the two sample feeds. She left the pressure vessel sealed at its native conditions.
Nessa watched her.
"Don't tell me," she said.
Mara did not.
Hester called from the dock. "I need everybody ordinary on the station bank. Now. Main bank's isolated. The block is beyond repair with what I have. Cabin scrubber's fine, ascent drive's fine, hull's fine. The oxygen delivery path is a piece of sculpture."
Imani had laid three work feeds at the Living Drum. Mara went there and let her help connect the new line. The hiss changed. Fixed shelter air, from the bank she had marked earlier, now feeding three people instead of one. The gauge had an honest remainder. They could finish work here if they used it carefully. They could not carry the frame into the capsule, and its low-pressure outlet could not refill their sealed walking bottles.
Imani watched Mara look at the gauge.
"I didn't waste it," she said.
"I know."
"When I was in there. I tried not to."
Mara put a hand on her arm. "You saved it. It's here because you saved it."
Imani looked down at the three new feeds. Then she went to find Hester's line and make sure it had not twisted.
Nessa came up the passage carrying the empty reactant monitor. She stopped at the bench where Kit lay. He looked at her, then turned toward the wall. She stayed a moment, holding the machine as if it might provide a reason to stand there. At last she set it on the table and went back to the Bore Room.
Mara followed.
The remote release indicator remained gray. Outside, the boom still hung across the crushed valve cage, a fixed weight they would have to clear before the capsule could separate safely. The source cradle was supported where they had recovered it, not yet a meter closer to refuge. All the useful jobs had become longer.
Nessa reached for the boom controller, then stopped with her hand above it. She looked at Mara.
"Tell me where to put it."
Mara studied the load. She took the second controller and stood beside her.
"First we take weight off Hester's valve block. Slow. I'll tell you when it moves."