Hail’s in my face before I can make more of the thought. “I said, are you sealed?” Her voice arrives direct to my ears, a repeat hitting my thoughts just as quickly as the sound finds the speakers. It’s like there’s an echo in here, one heard, one projected across the inside of my skull.

“Sealed,” I say, my voice strangely hollow.

“Sealed,” says Lear, his own echo running close behind.

“Sealed,” grumbles Salt. “This is going to take some getting used to.”

I look back at him. He’s wearing a bucket that actually deserves the nickname. Heavy bands run across the front, leaving only a narrow slit for the visor. Three camera-eyes cluster together on one corner, red lenses like a colony of blisters.

“I’ll get someone on the case,” says Hail. “We should be able to find something smaller, fudge the seals until they fit.”

Salt raps a knuckle on his jaw-plate. “I’ll take the suit as intended, thanks.”

Hail shrugs. “Your call.” She turns on her heel. “All right, Observation. We’ve just hit checkpoint 2. Good to go.”

The door slides back into place behind us, and the one ahead unwinds, mechanisms chattering. We follow Hail onto a narrow walkway maybe ten paces long.

A steel ravine stretches into the distance on either side of us. We can’t see the floor, we can’t see the ceiling, and the narrow horizon is cloudy with dust. Another door waits for us in the metal cliff ahead.

“Where are we?” I ask.

Hail smiles at me. “Between Horizon’s primary armour plates.”

We pass four more.

At the end of the line, we find a room, completely bare except for a single lamp in the ceiling. Must be the oldest thing I’ve seen on the ship so far. A crust of olive-green paint and corroded metal joins the lamp to its housing.

At first, it looks just like anything else that’s been around a few years, painted and re-painted every few maintenance cycles. It’s probably the same crew that does it—I doubt anyone else remembers where this is.

Looking closer, I realise the paint has been burned into place.

Hail faces us. “I need all of you to switch your filters on, full adaptive.”

I nod and cycle my visor settings. The world goes black for a second, and I blink again, scaling it back into grey, and finally into something closer to the way it was before.

“Ready?” she asks.

“Ready,” we reply, one after the other.

She nods, and I can just see the edge of her glowing eyes through her visor glass. “We’re here, Observation. Checkpoint 7.”

Silence for a second.

“Got it,” says Hail. “Pull the covers.”

Behind her, the wall splits across the centre. Two heavy plates roll away, and for a second, I’m blinded by the light. Every filter that can close, has.