And then the massive pressure started working on the structure of the pressure shell itself.

I’ve lost it. I’ve lost the reactor. It had taken seconds for his life to fall apart. He tried to react, to think of something to do, to make a report to Flight. But his mouth was dry, the muscles of his jaw locked.

There was a loud, dull bang, and the Command Module shook: bang, whump, shudder.

Dana, strapped into his center seat, could feel the spacecraft quake under him. Hollow rattles and creaks sounded from around the cabin, a groan of metal as the can around him was stressed; it was a noise oddly like a deep-throated whale song.

The master alarm shrilled in Dana’s headset, a shrill of staccato beeps. Yellow warning lights lit up all over the control panels.

He turned to look at his companions. Jones was staring at the instrument panel, and Priest’s eyes were round. That sure as hell wasn’t routine, whatever it was.

Jones cleared the master alarm.

The feeling of thrust died abruptly. It was like a slow collision in a car; Dana was thrown forward, gently, against his straps.

Jones said, “Jim. The Main A light is on. Check it out.”

Dana looked at his console. A red undervolt light was glowing. Damn. I should have been the first to see it. The Command Module’s systems were Dana’s responsibility.

“Confirm that,” he said. “We’ve got a Main A undervolt.” He was surprised his voice was level. He began to check voltage and current levels; they were showing erratic, inconsistent readings.

He heard pinging and popping noises. It was the sound of metal flexing. The spacecraft was still shuddering. Some damn thing has blown up on us.

Earth was wheeling past the windows. The Service Module thrusters ought to be firing as the spacecraft tried to maintain its orientation. But he couldn’t hear any solenoids thumping.

Jones was talking to Houston. “Natalie, we be a sorry bird up here. We’ve got a problem.” He unbuckled his restraints and floated up to the left-hand window. Dana knew he was following an old pilot’s instinct: at a moment like this, regardless of the telemetry, you needed to take a walk around the bird, to look for leaks and kick the tires, see for himself what was wrong.

Dana glanced out of the window to his right, past Ben Priest.

He saw sparks, chunks of some material, flying up past the Command Module. The material was glowing, red-hot.

Then he could smell something, inside his helmet. It reminded him, oddly, of Hampton: his childhood, the ocean.

Ozone.

Donnelly didn’t even need to hear the specific words. He could feel the event, see it in the changed postures of controllers all over the room, hear it in the sudden urgency of their voices.