‘We’re all in shock,’ she said, ‘one way or another. But no one’s going to feel safe until the cooling chamber’s sealed and we have pressure again.’

Tarquinia went out into the void with a camera, then used surveying software and a pre-existing map of the hull to reconstruct the precise shape and dimensions of the gash. They had enough slabs of hardstone in the stores to cover the hole in the chamber, but no single piece would do the job. Ramiro unpacked the masonry workbench and set it up in the front cabin; he’d never envisioned employing it in mid-flight, imagining it would only be useful once they’d reached the surface.

The bench’s coherer could carve precision tongues and grooves into the edges of the slabs, but with no circulating air everything grew hot very quickly; the system hadn’t been designed for use in a vacuum. Tarquinia rigged up an impromptu cooling system, with an air tank venting across the surface of the bench. Ramiro couldn’t think of any better method, but he mentally reviewed their stock of compressed air. They had enough to deal with the crew’s metabolic heat for a stint – but shaping each slab was costing them about a day of that reserve for one person.

They coated the grooves with sealing resin and clamped pairs of slabs together while the resin cured. But they couldn’t assemble the whole structure outside the chamber or they’d never get it through the hatch; they’d have to carry it in as two pieces and join them there.

‘We can clamp these together in the chamber,’ Ramiro said, ‘but how do we apply pressure to bond the whole thing to the wall?’ The chamber was too large for them to brace themselves against any other surface.

‘Use the force from a jetpack?’ Tarquinia suggested.

‘That will agitate the sunstone,’ Ramiro pointed out.

‘What does that matter? The assembly will already be blocking the hole.’

‘But when we open the hatch there’ll be residual motion – and positive air pressure – so we’ll end up spilling more of the stuff.’ The sunstone wouldn’t be going into the void, but tracking down the small pellets even within the confines of the Surveyor wasn’t a trivial exercise.

‘That’s true,’ Tarquinia conceded. ‘So we need to set up a tarp behind us before we go in, closing off the space around the hatch. That won’t be perfect, but it should catch most of the spill.’

Ramiro had no better idea. The only alternative to the jetpack would be to try to install handholds in the chamber – again, without any easy way to apply pressure to a resin join, or to brace themselves to use a drill. He buzzed wearily. ‘At least Verano will be pleased: we can bring him back a long list of suggestions for making the next version easier to repair.’