“This is a very interesting strategy. One small problem though. The space between hulls is under vacuum. Normally, I could fill it with atmosphere, but the menus that would allow me to do so are currently disabled. Alas.” Aptat drew a circle. “Have your float and return to your chamber.”

“You don’t have any voidsuits?”

“No. It’s only me and Stringers here. There’s never been an occasion when anyone other than myself would need to go outside.”

Naecia blinked condescendingly.

“Yes, obviously, now would be one of those occasions,” they admitted. “Bad timing. Chamber.”

Naecia tightened her lips in frustration and pulled back toward her cell, but stopped short, her gaze having fallen upon the vault on the wall which housed Aptat’s extravagant armor when not being worn. “What about that?” she asked, drawing a finger up and down at Aptat’s body like a paintbrush. “That’s capable in vacuum, isn’t it?”

“My carapace?”

“Yes. Your...” shaking a hand at it, “carapace.”

“It is, but–”

“Problem solved.”

“We are integrated – I am integrated with the suit. You wouldn’t have any augmented movement or tools. Just baseline functions.”

“Would it keep me from dying?”

“Life support, yes. But I don’t think it would fit.”

“No doubt I’m thicker,” she said, squeezing a hand to show off a muscled forearm. “I’ll make it work.”

“I’d rather–”

“Rather what?” Naecia closed in on Aptat, eyes narrowed. “Do you know what we’ve come up with down there; all nine plus consciences brainstorming for three full cygies with almost no sleep? Fuck all. Unless you count boblet breeding techniques. If you want a chance at unhitching the Silent Child from that sortie, you’ll let me play dress up.”

A furrow formed in the pearlescent skin of Aptat’s otherwise smooth brow.

“Or maybe you already know steam systems,” Naecia added breezily.

“And why couldn’t I go and do it myself, under your tutelage?” asked Aptat.

“Balancing pressures is more art than science – a delicate operation, even if you know what you’re doing. But yeah, you should go for it,” she bluffed, “give it a try.”

Aptat was inscrutable.

Naecia made one last push to make her point. “You’d trust me to tell you which valves to open and which to close? Because an open line in the wrong place would go through you and your carapace like a parallax beam through slarp butter. On second thought, I like that idea.” She floated into her chamber and crossed her arms, prepared to go back down, but knowing she wouldn’t have to.

Aptat looked on with obvious discomfort as Naecia smiled brightly from inside the suit.