I hope. Critically, Leo drew back and watched his quaddies work. Pramod had two hoses, one in each set of hands, and was rapidly alternating between them, blob after blob of water flowing onto the coils and the mirror, the ice already starting to thicken visibly. So far he hadn't lost a drop. Leo heaved a weary sigh of relief; it seemed he could safely delegate this part of the task. He gave Pramod a high sign, and left the bay to pursue a part of the job he dared not delegate to anyone else.

*      *      *

Leo got lost twice, threading his way through the Habitat to Toxic Stores, and he'd designed the reconfiguration himself. It was no wonder he passed so many bewildered-looking quaddies on the way. Everyone seemed frantically busy; on the principle of misery-loves-company, Leo could only approve.

Toxic Stores was a chill module sharing no connections whatsoever with the rest of the Habitat but a triple-chambered and always-closed airlock of thick steel. Leo entered to meet one of his own welding and joining gang quaddies still assigned to Habitat reconfiguration on his way out.

"How's it going, Agba?" Leo asked him.

"Pretty good." Agba looked tired. His tan face and skin were marked with red lines, telltales of recent and prolonged time in his work suit. "Those stupid frozen clamps were really slowing us up, but we're just about to the end of them. How's your thing going?"

"All right so far. I came in to prepare the explosive. We're that far along. Do you remember where the devil in all this"—the module's curved walls were packed with supplies—"we keep the slurry explosive?"

"It was over there," Agba pointed.

"Good—" Leo's stomach shrank suddenly. "What do you mean, was?" He only means it's been moved, Leo suggested hopefully to himself.

"Well, we've been using it up at a pretty good clip, blowing open clamps."

"Blowing them open? I thought you were cutting them off."

"We were, but then Tabbi figured out how to pack a small charge that cracked them apart on the line of the vacuum fuse. About half the time they're reusable. The other half they're no more ruined than if we'd cut 'em." Agba looked quite proud of himself.

"You haven't used it all for that, surely!"

"Well, there was a little spillage. Outside, of course," Agba, misapprehending, added in response to Leo's horrified look. He held out a sealed half-liter flask to Leo's inspection. "This is the last of it. I figure it will just about finish the job."

"Nng!" Leo's snatching hands closed around the bottle and clutched it to his stomach like a man smothering a grenade. "I need that! I have to have it!" I have to have ten times that much! his thought howled silently.

"Oh," said Agba. "Sorry." He gave Leo a look of limpid innocence. "Does this mean we have to go back to cutting clamps?"