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He gasped and spat and tried to order his perception. He was in a bland space, similar to the one they had entered originally; perhaps even the same one.

Yes. The same one, he decided. He could see a mark, like a scar, where the biozoon had been connected. The floor was the pliable, jellylike substance under him. He stabbed his fingers downward and they sank deeply into it yet his body stayed on top. Some kind of surface tension, he mused. Need to move slowly.

As he withdrew his fingers and widened his field of view, the blur cleared. The ambient light was low and the place smelt of. . . unwashed flesh. Probably his own.

He sat up carefully. A distortion in the jellylike floor caught his attention. Slowly, palms flat, he eased along on his butt to get a closer look. With every sliding movement his feet broke the surface and he had to pull them back out.

The distortion was variegated in colour, the closest part to him being dark. He screwed up his eyes, trying to make out the shape. It seemed large and square.

He plunged his hand below, and contacted a wet clump of hair. Then gristly flesh. An ear. He worked his way across the face and felt for contours he might recognise. The bridge of the nose was broad. Latourn maybe?

He reached further down and tried to tug the body towards him but only succeeded in dragging himself back under. Arching his back, he closed his fingers and paddled up until he was above the surface again.

He slid sideways on his stomach, about to try another angle, when he noticed something white next to Latourn.

Randall.

He reached his hand through the jelly-floor and touched matted hair. Then, he plunged his other hand down and hooked his hands under the mercenary’s shoulders. He began to pull, but his face sank below the surface and his mouth filled. Panicking, he rolled onto his back and lay there, panting and spitting, until the floor stopped moving.

The surface tension was fragile, and he needed to move more carefully if he wanted to stay on top. This time, when he rolled back onto his stomach, he only thrust one hand down. Feeling his way past Rast’s forehead to her nose, he touched a waxy seal like the one that had been over his. He scrabbled at it until it began to peel. When he’d ripped it off, he rolled carefully away and waited.

Why didn’t Latourn have one? he wondered.

Too many long moments later, Rast erupted from the floor in much the same way he had. He grabbed one of her flailing arms and croaked out, ‘Stop struggling, or you’ll go under again. I’m right next to you.’

Immediately she stilled. After a while the floor ceased to move.

‘Josef?’ she coughed.

‘Right here,’ he said.

‘We’re alive.’

‘For the moment. Open your eyes.’

‘I won’t ever forget that you got me out of there.’ Her voice was strangled and dead serious.

‘We’re not out yet.’

Rast tried to sit up, but her sudden movement sent her partially slipping back beneath the floor.

Jo-Jo reached across and grasped her arm. When the floor stopped moving again, he gave her some instructions: ‘Move real slow, palms flat. Make your body surface as wide as possible.’

‘Gotcha. Now what?’ Her voice sounded stronger with every word she spoke.

‘Look over your left shoulder. See that mark on the wall? I reckon that’s where the ‘zoon was connected. Somehow we gotta get that open.’

‘And what? Get sucked out into the vacuum?’ Her confident tone diminished a bit.

‘I listened to a bunch of conversations when I was spreading my rumour. I can’t be sure, but I think we’ve landed on Araldis.’

‘You can’t be sure? Are you nuts? What if you’re wrong?’

‘Well, we could stay here. Sink back underneath and become Extros for good.’

He felt the floor vibrate as she craned her neck around.

‘How about we try sliding in different directions? See what we come up against?’ she suggested.

‘I prefer to try the door idea first.’

‘First? There won’t be a second, if you’re wrong.’

‘I’m not wrong.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Something’s different. There’s no vibration. And the Extros