The camera shows other vegetation now, some flowering. Blob-like beings fling themselves at Joké and hang on to her suit before dropping away, disappointed. The passages are narrowed at hatches. The crew and service areas of the Ragtime weren’t built to be pretty, and at the best of times they have rivets visible, bags of junk festooned, cables and ties and duct tape all over the place. The grey moss smooths everything out, like a soft-focus camera, a blanket of bluntness over reality. Cosy danger.

Joké flings herself into the next node and is blanketed in something scaly, slimy and muscular.

She screams out briefly, but the screen is covered in slime and blurry.

“Joké!” says Fin.

“I’m all right. The suit is holding, but I’m stuck. Something has me. I can’t see what it is, but I think it’s trying to pierce my suit. Or eat me. I can’t figure which. Um, both?”

“Can you move at all?” asks Shell.

“Negative.”

“Sit tight, I’m coming,” says Shell. She turns to the others. “I don’t want to hear any objections. Suit me up. Fin, weapon.”

“What kind?” asks Fin. “What are we facing?”

“I have no idea, and I will find out when I get there. Give me whatever you have.”

One of the storage bags attached to the walls contains an MCP suit, which is more manoeuvrable than a pressurised suit. This one is experimental but fully functional. Shell remembers being told to “take it for a spin a few times” back on Earth. It will protect from kinetic and radiant energy as well as inhalants.

Before anyone can object, Shell is out into the grey.

The MCP feels like every part of Shell’s body is being squeezed by a boa constrictor. It makes her more aware of the microgravity. It’s like a new and different force acting on her, but of course it isn’t. She propels herself the normal way: grab rail to steady herself, then push off through the air to the next node. The grey moss layer between her gauntlet and the alloy feels disgusting, like rot. It comes off and forms puffs of powder.

The entire experience is like swimming down the throat of a giant.