The monitor hung from wires, asking for her password. It just fit past the lip of the access panel, and filled the space between the hulls with light so dim, she couldn’t see colors in it. Shadows of struts and spars made deeper darkness all around, and shapes she couldn’t make sense of. She had forty-five seconds before she had to head back. It was the fifth time she’d been down trying to scrape through the coating on the wires. In a real ship, it would all have been protected by conduit. On this piece of crap, the wiring had all been fixed directly to the hull with a layer of yellowed silicone epoxy. On the one hand, it was a blessing. On the other, she was horrified that she’d ever trusted her life to the ship. If she’d inspected between the hulls before they left Ceres, she’d have been sleeping in an environment suit the whole way to the Pella.

The coating peeled free. Thirty seconds. She took a bit of salvaged wire and shorted the circuit. A fat spark leaped out and the world lurched. Across the space, maybe four meters away, an indicator light went amber, and she was falling sideways. With the extra illumination, she could see the round, tree-thick body of the maneuvering thruster. She put out her arms, catching herself against a steel strut. When she pressed her helmet to it, the rumble of the drive drowned out the ghost-quiet radio. She reached for the wire, broke the connection, and the rumble stopped.

Out of time, she turned back, her head swimming. The ship was spinning, then. She had no way to know how quickly, but the Coriolis was enough to make her stumble on the way back.

With the panel closed, the hatch open, and her helmet off again, she sat still until her balance came close to returning. Then, moving carefully, drunkenly, she scratched the new information on the wall. She was developing a crude map of the ship’s secret interior and keeping track of all she learned. She was tired enough not to trust her memory. From the count she’d started, she knew she’d been on thirty sorties. Now, for the first time, she’d done something. It was only one thruster, but the ship was spinning now, tumbling in circles instead of burning ahead in a line. All the acceleration would be bled into the changing angular momentum, and she wouldn’t be going toward Jim as quickly. So maybe she’d bought a little time. It would make things harder for her, but she’d grown up in the Belt and on ships. Coriolis – and coping with the sick dizziness – was nothing new to her. She knew that the feeling of power and accomplishment she felt was out of scale with what she’d actually managed, but she grinned all the same.