The Loneliness of Distant Beings

Chapter Thirty-Two

We spiral out into space, still full speed, running like we're being chased even though it seems like maybe we no longer are. While Dom and Ezra check read-outs, I undo my belt and go to Mariana, my legs drifting to the ceiling against my will so that I have to pull myself to her by gripping her harness and I am now completely upside down, basically doing a handstand, and for a moment it is all so weird, so nauseating, that I lay my head against her chest, squeeze my eyes as far closed as they will go. That's when I feel her breathing, feel the rise and fall of her chest, her light outbreaths in my hair.

'Mariana,' I say, but she doesn't respond, and when I look at her she is slack-mouthed, the skin around her closed eyes dark and still.

'Hemple, you need to get back there,' calls Ezra.

'Back where?'

'You need to patch the hole. It's small but you need to do it fast. Locker one five five one.'

'Locker – what?'

I realise he is glaring at me in the convex mirror. 'That's where the emergency patch kit is.'

'Ezra, I . . . '

But just then Dom says, 'I'll talk you through it – just find the locker.'

I squint at the cream-coloured wall just to my side and notice the little recessed handles, the embossed numbers printed under each. Even though the shuttle is small, from this angle the selection of them looks infinite and I feel it crushing me. Then I take hold of the first with my fingers and pull myself close, read it: 738. Diagonally to the right: 752. Way off. Must be on the other side. I haul myself over there, swallowing mouthfuls of the hot metallic liquid that is filling my mouth, signalling the vomit I am only just managing to fend off. 1169. Closer. I pull myself up and down and up with my fingertips.

'Hemple, what the heck?' says Ezra.

'Leave her. She's doing it,' says Dom. 'Just get us back on trajectory.'

'What do you think I'm doing? Man, Suarez, what you don't know could fill a book.'

And while all this is going on I have found it, popped it open, and am now holding bags of tape rolls and this weird metal mesh in my hands.

'OK, I have it. Where's the hole?'

Dom checks a screen. 'Back part, sector five – it's in behind the insulation panels so you'll have to pull them off first but we are losing pressure at quite a rate so we need to get this done.'

'We're talking minutes!' yells Ezra, like this is helpful.

'OK!' I tell him, hauling myself to the back portion near the access hatch and trying to fit my fingers into the tight edges of the insulation panels.

'Be careful,' says Dom. 'When you pull that panel off you're going to feel the suck, big time.'

'Suarez, will you please watch your screen. If you let that power output slide, in manual, the rear thrusters will die and we'll go into a flat spin again,' says Ezra, through his teeth.

'I'm just trying to help her.'

'We all need help. Just do your job, man.'

But I notice that Dom still flicks his eyes to me in the convex mirror. 'That's it,' he says. 'That's the one. Just get ready for the suck. Don't let it pull you in, OK? Just get the stuff ready and bang it straight on.'

'This mesh thing?' I ask him, feeling myself begin to shake hard with the fear, feeling it spread down to my hands.

'That "mesh thing" is high tensile titanium,' smirks Ezra. 'The tape is a reinforced liquid fibreglass. Get them on and get them right and they will stand between us and the vacuum of space. You could just get on with it or we could talk about it for the next several minutes and all lose consciousness. You decide.'