I was alive. The pain was leaving my ears, and I was breathing: inhale, pause, inhale, as the pressure rose to normal.

I’d seen what had happened. Now I had time to think it through, to remember it, to play it back.

What had happened was insane.

The hull had turned to dust. Just that. All at once and nothing first, the ship’s outside had disintegrated and blown away on a whispering breath of breathing air. I’d seen it.

And sure enough, the hull was gone. Only the innards of the ship remained. Before me, the lighted control board. A little below that, the manhole to the packed bubble and the bubble package itself. Above the board, the half disk of the mystery planet and stars. To the left, stars. To the right, Elephant, looking dazed and scared, and beyond him, stars. Behind me, the air lock, the kitchen storage block and dial board, a glimpse of the landing legs and glowing radiator fin, and stars. The ST∞ was a skeleton.

Elephant shook his head, then turned on his suit radio. I heard the magnified click in my helmet.

We looked at each other, waiting. But there was nothing to say. Except, Elephant, look! We don’t have a hull no more! Isn’t that remarkable?

I sighed, turned to the control board, and began nursing the fusion drive to life. From what I could see of the ship, nothing seemed to be floating away. Whatever had been fixed to the hull must also have been fixed to other things.

“What are you doing, Bey?”

“Getting us out of here. Uh, you can scream now.”

“Why? I mean, why leave?”

He’d flipped. Flatlanders are basically unstable. I got the drive pushing us at low power, turned off the gravity drag, and turned to face him. “Look, Elephant. No hull.” I swept an arm around me. “None.”

“But what’s left of the ship is still mine?”

“Uh, yah. Sure.”

“I want to land. Can you talk me out of it?”

He was serious. Completely so. “The landing legs are intact,” he went on. “Our suits can keep out the radiation for three days. We could land and take off in twelve hours.”

“We probably could.”

“And we spent going on two months getting here.”

“Right.”

“I’d feel like an idiot getting this close and then turning for home. Wouldn’t you?”

“I would, except for one thing. And that one thing says you’re landing this ship over my unconscious body.”

“All right, the hull turned to dust and blew away. What does that mean? It means we’ve got a faulty hull, and I’m going to sue the hind legs off General Products when we get back. But do you know what caused it?”

“No.”

“So why do you assume it’s some kind of threat?”