He'd bumped his upper face. He must be facing the rear wall of the cabin, then; he must have been spun around by the incoming underMantle fluid. He turned around, spread his hands behind him across the wall. The pain eclipsed his touch, but he could feel the curve of the wall, the round profile of a window. He pictured the cabin, as it had been in that last instant before the hatch came in. Hosch had been somewhere to his right.

He pushed away from the wall and Waved that way, groping ahead of him.

His hands found something. Hosch, it had to be. He ran his hands over Hosch's chest and head; Hosch didn't respond. Hosch's skin crumbled under Bzya's touch — or maybe it was the flesh of Bzya's own fingers and palms.

He found Hosch's hand, wrapped it in his own.

Two strong kicks and he'd found the open hatchway. He was still blind, and his sense of touch was fading — perhaps, he thought with horror, it would never return; even if he survived perhaps he would have to live in this shell of pain, without light or sound... But he could feel the rim of the hatchway, the splinters left by Hosch's brave kicking.

He tried to fall forward, out of the Bell, but something was holding him back. Something hard, unyielding, which pressed into his chest and legs — the Corestuff hoops, wrapped around the Bell. He lifted his feet against the lower hoop, grabbed the upper with a numbing hand, and tried to straighten his body. His lower back, already injured, blazed with pain. He felt an abrupt shift as the hoops slid apart. He lifted his feet and let his body slide forward through the gap; he held his hands over his head and felt the limp form of Hosch rattle against the hoops, following him.

He tumbled out of the Bell, dragging the supervisor after him.

He had to find the Spine. He turned to his left and kicked out. He held Hosch's hand tight — at least he thought he did; only pain reached him now from his hands, feet and face. He felt a whispering drag pull at his own body... No, he thought, it was more than that; there were a thousand discrete tugs at his flesh, like hooks dragging into the skin. His flesh was ablating, he realized slowly, crumbling off him as he Waved.

He reached ahead with his free hand. His sight was gone, both eyecups useless now. This was the way back to the Spine, as best he remembered it from the moment the Bell had been torn away by the Magfield surges. Of course, since then he'd been unconscious. The Bell could even have turned upside down...

But he didn't have any better guesses. He thrashed at the scouring liquid, trying not to estimate how far he'd Waved from the Bell, how much further before he was sure he'd missed the Spine.