Ragtime agrees to unseal the bridge and Joké, after sharing a melodramatic kiss with Fin, slips through. When did that happen? The crew syncs with her suitcams this time, and Shell notices they are all starting to work like a team.

The node adjacent to the bridge is already coated with some moss-like substance. It looks different from just an hour earlier. The Ragtime’s walls are all invisible under this creeping plant-like thing, the cargo nets acting like a trellis in places. Joké lingers over a clump.

“Joké, don’t. Advise rapid movement. Don’t stop for anything.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Flying insects stop on Joké’s helmet and slide off. Some might defy easy definition as they don’t look like anything Shell has ever seen. There are spiders the size of kittens, but with no eyes. They scuttle out of the way when Joké approaches. The going is difficult because although she is flying from node to node, the moss obscures the handrails or the directions.

Shit, the directions.

“Joké, stop,” says Shell.

“What is it?”

“Turn around, please. I want to see something.”

Behind, a sea of grey-blue, but no grab rails. The moss grows fast.

“Joké, how are you going to make your way back? You have no breadcrumbs,” says Shell. “Even Ragtime’s cameras can’t see you. Or maybe they can, but not in a visual electromagnetic spectrum.”

“Umm… I have a great sense of direction, Captain. I’ll be fine.”

Shell isn’t so sure. The lighting was already in power-saving mode because of the reactor leak. Now, covered in moss, the lights barely shine through. The gloom makes the Ragtime look more like a rainforest under the canopy. What is this gunk doing to the air filters? And what’s the moss feeding on? Growing on? There’s no soil or wood. The little Shell knows about the experimental organisms is that some of them are extremophile derivatives: they can live in difficult circumstances, which is the whole point. Human scientists need to know what can survive deep space. They need to know if this is something that can be genetically programmed into humans. Currently, deep-space travel involves hibernation, cooled temperature, slowed metabolism, that kind of thing. If humans can somehow be like the fungus that grows in nuclear reactors…

“Captain, can you see this?” says Joké.

A mound in the moss heaves sluggishly, like a velvet-covered animal.

“Avoid it,” says Shell. Are the creatures consuming each other? “Joké, I need you to get to the toruses, first priority.”

“Aye, Captain.”