I don’t remember all the details about the life-support system, but I know it has manual overpressure valves. The ship simply will not allow more than 0.33 atmospheres. If all else fails (which it will, because I shut the emergency systems down), it’ll vent excess pressure into space.

I can’t just release the nitrogen and hope for the best. I want to get rid of the existing oxygen first. I’m through messing around with this stuff. I want 100 percent nitrogen in here. I want to make this ship so utterly toxic to Taumoeba that it has no chance of survival. Even if it’s hiding under some goop somewhere—I want the nitrogen to suffuse through it. Nitrogen everywhere. Everywhere!

I grab the nitrogen cylinder, kick off the floor, and float back up to the control room. I throw open the airlock inner door and get into the Orlan suit faster than I ever have in the past. I boot everything up and don’t even bother with the self-check. No time.

I leave the inner airlock door open and turn the manual emergency valve on the outer door. The ship’s air hisses away into space. The primary and emergency life-support systems are powered down. They are unable to replace the lost gas.

Now I wait.

It takes a surprisingly long time for a ship to lose all its air. In movies, if there’s a little breach everyone dies immediately. Or the muscular hero guy plugs the hole with his biceps or something. But in real life, air just doesn’t move that fast.

The emergency valve on the airlock is 4 centimeters across. Seems like a pretty big hole to have in your spaceship, right?

It took twenty minutes for the ship’s air pressure to drop to 10 percent of its original value. And it’s dropping very slowly now. I think it’s a logarithmic function. So in the middle of this emergency, I just have to stand here with my tank in my hand.

“Okay. Ten percent is close enough,” I say. I close the airlock emergency valve to reseal the ship. Then I open the nitrogen tank.

So now, instead of listening to a hiss from the airlock, I listen to a hiss from the nitrogen tank.

Not much difference there.

Again. It’s a bit of a wait. But not as long this time. Probably because the pressure inside that nitrogen tank was a lot higher than the pressure in the ship. Whatever. Point is, in short order the ship is back to 0.33 atmospheres of pressure. But it’s almost entirely nitrogen.

Funny thing—I’d be perfectly comfortable if I took this EVA suit off. I’d breathe without any problems. Right up until I died. There’s nowhere near enough oxygen for me to survive.