The moral of the story is simple: my second-grade teacher, Number One, the universe, multiplication itself, all of them together—they can go fuck themselves.

If there’s a lesson, I’ll learn it my own way.

We left the ancient bathroom behind and had not gone far down the adjacent hallway before I became aware of a creaking, rustling noise, like some distant wind.

“What’s that sound?” I asked.

“We are near the outer hull.” One swept her flashlight over the wall to my left. I saw nothing unusual about it, just decaying old metal. “This is the sun-side of the ship. Radiation has made the hull very, very thin here.”

“What happens if the hull doesn’t hold?”

“Automatic containment procedures will seal off this part of the ship,” One said. “Assuming that aspect of the ship’s systems is still functioning. And we will be swept out into space.”

I’d seen a man spaced before, watched him choke and gag, the whites of his eyes going red. And we were so close to the furious radiation of the dying sun that we would burn even as we froze. I shuffled to the right, away from the side of the hallway that was thinning and exposed to space.

My shoulder bumped into a ledge in the wall, just barely protruding. I shone my flashlight on it and saw that there was a metal plate inside the ledge, within the wall. Those must be the containment procedures One had mentioned—in case of decompression, they would shoot out of the wall and seal off the section of the hall that had lost atmosphere.

Interesting. If I had a way to trick the ship’s computer into thinking we’d lost atmosphere, those ledges would slam shut. Maybe we could use that to separate us from the Ministers. The Ministers would be able to cut through—after all, the Indigo Minister had cut through the hull to board the ship in the first place—but it might buy us a few minutes. If I could figure out how to do it quickly.

I glanced around, looking to see how frequently those ledges were placed, and in glancing backwards I finally saw whatever had been following us through the dark: fish-white skin, long, long limbs, and hungry, glinting eyes.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:

The Choice and the Hull

I must have shouted, or made some sound, because Indigo stopped and the others turned around, flashlights blazing into the hall behind us just quickly enough to catch a glimpse. Whatever that thing was, it was as big as any of the Ministers, maybe even as tall as me. One flashed an order and the Red Minister peeled off from the group, pulling a thick long knife from its sheath at his waist, flashlight wavering as he ran, silent, after that huge spidering monster.

“What was that?” Quint cried out.

I moved towards her but hit the bulk of Indigo’s shoulder. Indigo pushed me back with a hand on my sternum. “Don’t move,” he said.