She is passing one of the shapeless mounds when it bursts open and reaches for her from her left. It’s one of the hauler bots and latches on to her. She cries out in surprise. It pulls her towards the wall, where a second one shakes free of the moss. She doesn’t fight. She needs the firmness of the wall to push off against, so struggling would be a waste of energy. Both bots have cutting implements on their appendages: one mechanical like a saw, the other a fine laser. She doesn’t wait to see how the suit will hold up. She fires at their appendages, which break off and fragment, scattering into a cloud. Their centre mass still functions, but it doesn’t matter. Without limbs they are harmless units, and maybe Salvo can make something with their parts.

Shell keeps going aft, noting from her visor that the weapon stays hot; no air currents to take the heat away.

She can’t see any signs, but Shell estimates that she’s in Node 4, just before the hatch into the spoke for the first torus. She grabs a rail to stop herself moving when she spots a heaving mound with a boot poking out.

“Joké, is that you?” asks Shell.

“Aye, Captain,” says Joké on the radio.

“How’s your suit integrity?”

“No warning lights, Captain.”

Joké is surrounded by tentacles and held fast. They come from three different sections of the Ragtime’s wall and, given their placement, are likely to be emerging from air vents. What are they growing on? The tentacles, once free of the grey moss, lack skin – or visible skin, at any rate. Shell can see muscles tensing and relaxing, fine blood vessels transporting blue liquid.

“I’ll get you out of there,” says Shell. “Don’t move.”

“Umm… I can’t.”

Closer look. There are spines on the tentacles. Even so, Shell gets a grip, braces her feet against the body of the ship and pulls. The tentacles do not budge. Shell traces one to the point furthest away from Joké and closest to the wall. She arms her weapon and fires. The tentacle ruptures, but it spews something that aerosolises – black inky stuff that obscures vision and does who knows what else.

“That worked… something gave,” says Joké.

“Try to disengage. It has some kind of counter-measure,” says Shell. She shoots the other two tentacles, and the same thing happens. The entire node will be full of the stuff. She grabs Joké’s gauntlet and pulls her free.

“The bridge is that way,” says Joké.

“I know. We’re not going to the bridge.”

Shell looks back. The blackness of the node is complete. She shines her powerful suit light at it, but it bounces off. “Ragtime, decrease atmospheric pressure on Node 7.”

No response. No guarantee that the moss isn’t blocking speakers.

“Lawrence, come back,” she says.

“Lawrence here, Captain.”