She looks to her left and then her right, and then, finally, up. That’s when she sees that Lydia is floating near the ceiling, one arm stretched out. Vanessa finds her way to her and places two fingers on her neck.

“Houston, I can confirm Lydia Danes is alive,” Vanessa says.

“Copy that, Navigator,” Joan says. And then, her tone almost breathless: “Thank you.”

Vanessa looks past Lydia and sees where the hole was. She can barely stand to look at it. Such a fragile, cheap repair, and yet—if applied seconds earlier—might have saved them all.

“Houston, Danes found the leak and sealed it with a clipboard and duct tape.”

Joan is quiet for a moment. Vanessa is now hanging on her every word.

“Roger that,” Joan says. “Cabin pressure is now approaching 10.2 psi. We believe that with monitoring, we can keep it stable long enough for you to get everyone home.”

“It was the last thing Lydia did before she passed out,” Vanessa says.

“Yes, Navigator,” Joan says. “That is our conclusion as well.”

It was Lydia, of all people, who had saved them. Saved her. Vanessa laughs for a moment—the sound has a dark tinge to it, an uncontrolled terror. She knows that if she keeps laughing, it will be exactly like crying. It will take over her body—her horror shaking within her to get out—and she will not stop until it is far too late. She is teetering on the edge of mania, and it is so tempting to give in to it, to lose all touch with what is happening and let her mind leave her.

But she can’t.

“Lydia has the bends,” Vanessa says.

“That is our estimation, yes,” Joan says.

“How long does that give her?”

“She needs treatment within ten hours,” Joan says. “Griff maybe sooner. We cannot be certain due to the internal nature of his injuries, but we are tracking his vitals and we are formulating a plan. We believe it is possible to have you home in as little as three revs.”

“Four and a half hours? Is that even possible?”

“We believe it is. We will begin deorbit as soon as we can.”

Vanessa closes her eyes. “How soon until you have the deorbit plan?”

“Confirming landing sites, back to you ASAP. In the meantime, we ask that you prepare the deorbit checklist and, as you do, that you leave the biomedical sensors on Griff and attach a set to Danes as well, so that we can monitor her vitals from here alongside his.”

“Roger that,” Vanessa says. And then she cannot help herself but to confess. “Houston…we…we left the hatch open.”

“Copy that,” Joan says. “We already suspected that was how Griff was hit. We are just glad you were not. We need you up there. Back to you soon with our contingency deorbit plan.”

“Copy.”