She rationalizes in transit, not convincing herself for an instant. She's helping him as well as herself, she's doing him a favor. She's saving him from the ultimate lethality of his own lifestyle. Hyperosmosis; Slimy Implant Syndrome; mechanical breakdown. Rifters are miracles of bioengineering—thanks to the superlative design of their diveskins, they can even shit in the woods—but they were never designed to unseal outside of an atmosphere. Natives unmask all the time out here, let raw ocean into their mouths to corrupt and corrode and contaminate the brackish internal saline that braces them against the pressure. Do that often enough and something's bound to seize up eventually.

I'm saving your life, she thinks, unwilling to say the words aloud.

Whether he likes it or not, Alyx replies from the back of her mind.

"The light..." Bhanderi croaks.

Glimmers smear the darkness ahead, disfiguring the perfect void like faint glowing sores. Bhanderi stiffens at Clarke's side, but doesn't bolt. She knows he can handle it; it can't have been more than a couple of weeks since she found him inside the nerve hab, and he had to pass through brighter skies than these to get there. Surely he can't have slipped so far in such a short time?

Or is it something else, not so much a slip as a sudden jolt? Maybe it's not the light that bothers him at all. Maybe it's what the light reminds him of, now.

Boom. Blew it up.

Spectral fingers tap lightly against Clarke's implants: once, twice. Someone ahead, taking a sonar bearing. She takes Bhanderi's arm, holds it gently but firmly. "Rama, someone's—"

"Charley," Bhanderi buzzes.

Garcia rises ahead of them, ambient backlight framing him like a visitation. "Holy shit. You got him. Rama, you in there?"

"Client..."

"He remembers me! fuck it's good to see you, man. I thought you'd pretty much shuffled off the mortal coil."

"Tried. She won't let me."

"Yeah, we're all sorry about that but we really need your help. Don't sweat it though, buddy. We'll make it work." Garcia turns to Clarke. "What do we need?"

"Medhab ready?"

"Sealed off one sphere. Left the other in case someone breaks an arm."

"Okay. We'll need the lights off, to start with anyway. Even the externals."

"No problem."

"...Charley..." Bhanderi clicks.

"Right here, man."

"...you my techie...?"

"Dunno. Could be, I guess. Sure. You need one?"

Bhanderi's masked face turns to Clarke. Suddenly there's something different in the way he holds himself. "Let me go."

This time, she does.

"How long since I was inside?" he asks.

"I think maybe two weeks. Three at the outside." By rifter standards, the estimate is almost surgically precise.

"I may have...problems," he tells them. "Readjusting. I don't know if I can—I don't know how much I can get back."

"We understand," Clarke buzzes. "Just—"