My feet itched; they were too close to a nova. I had other priorities at that point. I stopped thinking and ran.

We bundled into the flitter; I let the buttlebot lift us off, and stored the Xeelee flower carefully in a locker.

The lift was bumpy: high winds in the stratosphere. A spectacular aurora shivered over us. "Squeem, are you sure you've done your sums right?"

"There is an inherent uncertainty in the behavior of novae," the Squeem replied reassuringly. We reached orbit; the main ship swam towards us. "After all," the Squeem lectured on, "a nova is by definition an instability. However I am confident we have at least five minutes before--"

At once, three events.

The moons blazed with light.

The Squeem shut up.

The main ship turned from a nearby cylinder into an arrow of light, pointing at the safety of the stars.

"Five minutes? You dumb fish."

The buttlebot worked the controls frantically, unable to comprehend the abrupt departure of the Squeem. The nova had come ahead of schedule; the twin moons reflected its sick glory. We were still over the dark side of the planet, over which screamed a wind that came straight from the furnaces of a medieval hell. On the day side, half the atmosphere must already have been blasted away.

The flitter was a flimsy toy. I estimated we had about ten minutes to sunrise.

My recollection of the first five of those minutes is not clear. I do not pretend to be a strong man. I remember an image of the walls of the flitter peeling back like burnt flesh, the soft interior scoured out...

Leaving one object, one remnant, spinning in a cloud of metal droplets.

I realized I had an idea.

I grabbed the Xeelee flower from its locker, and wasted a few more seconds staring at it. The only substance within a million miles capable -- maybe -- of resisting the nova, and it was the size of my palm. I had to grow it, and fast. But how?

My brain chugged on. Right. One way. But would there be time? The flower's activating base came off, and went into a suit pocket.

The buttlebot was still at the controls, trying to complete its rendezvous with a vanished ship. If there'd been time, I might have found this touching; as things were, I knocked it aside and began entering an emergency sequence. My thinking was fuzzy, my gloved fingers clumsy, and it took three tries to get it right. You can imagine the effect on my composure.

Now I had about a minute to get to the back of the vessel. I snapped closed my visor and de-cycled the airlock. I failed to observe the mandatory safety routines, thus voiding the manufacturer's guarantees. The buttlebot clucked nervously about the cabin.

Clutching the Xeelee flower, I pulled into space and set off one-handed.