The repair drone hurried over, stood under her, and then rose up as high as he could on his many legs. Shall effectively turned himself into a cherry picker, cutting the five-meter drop to a two-meter one. Callie lowered her body carefully, holding onto the lip of the hatch with her gloved fingers, and dangled her body down. Her boots were right above Shall, and that drop was nothing, so she let go and a second later thumped into place, bending her knees as she landed.

But Shall’s back was hardly as smooth or level as a cherry-picking platform, and her boot hit a knobby protrusion and slipped. Her boot went out from under her, she pinwheeled, and then fell backward. What a stupid way to die, she thought.

But instead of Callie landing on her head and breaking her neck, Shall shot out a manipulator arm and snagged her around the ankle. Callie swayed upside down, her head half a meter above the smooth gray floor, mist eddying around her. “Thank you, Shall. Put me on my feet again please.”

Another manipulator arm supported her legs and spun her around and upright before setting her down. She wobbled for a second, but her inner ear was used to far worse abuse, so she got her balance back quickly enough. She glanced through the glass and saw Elena looking at her wide-eyed, Ashok guffawing, and Lantern across the room, poking at the side of the bio-drone. Callie didn’t trust the squidling even a little bit, but she’d been useful once or twice, so she didn’t object.

“Let’s see if the view in here is any better.” She turned on her thermal imaging, and the clouds of gray smoke disappeared. That was good: if the mist had been hot, the room would have been an impenetrable swirl of color to her heat vision, but the smoke was apparently the same temperature as the ambient air. The room’s dimensions were gargantuan – she couldn’t even see the far walls – but there was a speck of glowing yellow-orange-red off ahead and to the right. It looked a lot like a person, sitting upright. “We’ve got a live one,” she said. “Switching to the Anjou’s radio band.” She waited a moment for the rest of her team to follow suit, then said, “Ibn? Hans? Elena sent us to find you. If you read me, please respond.”

No answer, which didn’t mean much. The Anjou crew’s comms could have been damaged, or they could be unconscious… or they could have a head full of brain-spiders. The only way to know was to go over there and find out. “I’m taking a look.”

“Ashok, boost me up,” Elena said. “I want to be there.”

Callie sighed. “You’re the client. Come on. But be careful.”