The mask immediately fogged. Schmidt gave himself a quick hit of oxygen and tried not to panic.

In another minute, the section was completely silent and Schmidt felt himself start to freeze. He got up from the bench he’d crouched under and went to the gate seven door. It opened with only the slightest resistance.

On the other side of the door was Kruger: cyanotic, fingerless, frozen and looking, in death, extraordinarily pissed. Schmidt sidestepped Kruger’s corpsicle and ran as quickly as he could down the ramp, blue fingers clutching the space blanket and the oxygen.

The shuttle deck of gate seven had sprouted what looked like several doors leading to subterranean alcoves: the escape pods. Schmidt picked the closest one and with shivering hands cycled the portal shut. Sealed, the escape pod sensed the vacuum and freezing cold and blasted both oxygen and warmth into the pod. Schmidt cried and shook.

“Pod launch in fifteen seconds,” a computerized voice said. “Secure yourself, please.”

Schmidt, still shivering violently, reached up and pulled down the padded seat restraint as the escape pod counted off the seconds. He passed out before the voice got to three and missed his launch entirely.

*   *   *

Lowen cried with relief when the automated announcement about the escape pods fired up and then started going for one of them when their egress doors on the deck floor opened. Wilson reached out and held her back.

“What are you doing?” she yelled at him, clawing at his hand.

“We have a way off this station,” Wilson said to her. “Other people don’t.”

Lowen pointed to the escape pods opening up around her. “I’d rather go this way,” she said. “I’d rather have something around me when I launch myself into space.”

“Dani,” Wilson said, “it’s going to be okay. Trust me.”

Lowen stopped going for the escape pods but didn’t look the least bit happy about it.

“When they start launching these things, they’re probably going to cycle out the air,” Wilson said. “Let’s go ahead and cover up.” He attached his oxygen apparatus and then covered his head with his cowl.

“How do you see?” Lowen asked, looking at the blankness of the cowl.

“The suit nanobots are photosensitive and send a feed to my BrainPal, which allows me to see,” Wilson said. He reached over to help her with her oxygen and to seal her cowl.

“Great,” Lowen said. “How am I going to see?”

Wilson stopped. “Uh,” he said.

“‘Uh’?” Lowen said. “Are you kidding me, Harry?”

“Here,” Wilson said, and sent instructions from his BrainPal to Lowen’s suit. It sealed up everywhere but the eyes. “That should be fine until we go,” he said.

“When is that?” Lowen asked.

“I was going to do an emergency purge of the deck,” Wilson said. “But now I’ll wait for the pods to go before we do.”

“And then I’ll be blind,” Lowen said.

“Sorry,” Wilson said.

“Just talk to me on the way down, all right?” Lowen said.