A third of the fruit that they’d so carefully stacked in wicker baskets before setting off had tumbled off into the void when they went over the water worldlet’s rim. They’d munched their way through quite a lot of the remainder since then, supplementing it from what remained of their prepackaged food. The globes were succulent and juicy, but no real substitute for drinking. They wouldn’t sustain them for more than another couple of days at best.

That left Ozzie considering the other objects or creatures that occupied the gas halo. With little else to do except observe their environment, he’d soon realized the nebula was actually quite densely populated. The largest artifacts were the water worldlets. He’d been wrong with his first guess about their geometry, though. As they were blown farther away from their original worldlet he saw its true shape. It wasn’t a hemisphere; more like a bagel that had been sliced in half. The flat upper surface with its archipelago of little islands was always aligned sunward, with the sea pouring over its entire rim. Water followed the curve around and then began its long climb back up through the central funnellike hole to fill the upper sea again and start the cycle over. The orifice where it surged out on top was always capped by an opaque white cloud squatting on the water, shielding the upwelling from sight. For a look at the gravity generator that made such a thing possible, Ozzie would have cheerfully sold his soul. Not that they could go back to the worldlet even if they were caught up by a wind blowing in the right direction. He simply couldn’t work out a safe way to land (or splash down). Not without a parachute.

So he started looking at the other things orbiting around and around inside the gas halo. There were a lot of bird-equivalent creatures flittering about, either singularly or in huge flocks. Those that had come close enough to see clearly so far had fallen into two categories: a genus with a screwlike spiral wing running the length of their bodies, and others that Orion had named Fan Birds, resembling biological helicopters. They might have been edible, but some of the spiral birds were quite large, almost Tochee’s size, with long sharp tusks that Ozzie didn’t really want an up-close and personal look at. Besides, he couldn’t figure out how to catch one.

The fact that there were so many indicated they must have easily accessible food sources, which was an encouraging prospect. He’d seen a quantity of free-flying trees, globular dendrite-style structures made out of what looked like blue and violet sponge, four or five times the length of Earth’s giant sequoias. He had more hope for them than the birds; they must have some kind of internal water reserve. As yet, none of them had been close enough to try for a rendezvous, especially with Tochee in its weakened state. They probably only had one chance at being towed toward a rendezvous, and the distance was decreasing with each passing day, so he would have to make a very careful choice.

What he really wanted was the kind of reef that Johansson had described. If for no other reason, Johansson had walked home back to the Commonwealth after being on one. So far there’d been no sign of anything like that. There were a myriad of specks everywhere he looked, but he had no way of judging the size and nature of them until they got within range of his retinal inserts.

His handheld array wasn’t helping much, either. For the third time in an hour, Ozzie reviewed the data it was displaying in his virtual vision. Nobody was using the electromagnetic spectrum to transmit in. Nobody had responded to the distress signal he’d been broadcasting constantly since their arrival. Although how far such a signal would travel through the atmosphere of the gas halo was a moot point.

Ozzie sighed in disappointment—once more. According to the clock in his virtual vision it was four hours since he’d last had a drink; when he checked the antique watch on his wrist it read the same. It was time to make that decision he’d been delaying in the hope of a small miracle.

His pack was tied to the decking a couple of meters away from the cradle he’d rigged up for himself. He wriggled out of the shoulder straps and glided over to it. The filter was inside, with its little length of tube coiled up neatly.

Orion stirred inside the nest he’d constructed out of rope and his sleeping bag. He started to say something, then saw the filter in Ozzie’s hand. “Oh, no. You can’t.”

“What’s gotta be done’s gotta be done,” Ozzie replied sadly.

“I’m not going to,” the boy announced with complete finality. “The Silfen made this place. So we don’t have to do that.”

“Are they near?” Ozzie asked patiently.

Orion pulled out his friendship pendant. He had to cup his hands around the little gem before he could see the diminutive jade spark at the center.

“Don’t think so.” The boy sighed gloomily.

“Figures.” Ozzie rummaged farther through his pack until he found an old polythene bag. He stared at it despondently. “Guess this is it then.”

“I’m not going to.”

“Yeah, you said.” Ozzie pushed off from the decking, and hauled himself hand over hand around to the nominal underside of the raft, which put a modest barrier between himself and his companions. This was difficult enough without an audience. It took a while for his reluctant body to cooperate, but he eventually managed to pee into the bag.

He screwed the filter onto the top of his water bottle. Looked at the polythene bag. “Oh, just do it, you wimp,” he told himself. The end of the tube went into the bag, which he constricted to keep the fluid around the intake. He began pumping the filter, squeezing the simple trigger mechanism repeatedly until there was nothing left in the bag.

“Oh, that is just massively gross!” Orion exclaimed as Ozzie reappeared around the edge of the raft.

“No it’s not, it’s just simple chemistry. The filter removes all impurities, the manufacturer guarantees it. You’ve been drinking identical water to this ever since we started.”

“I have not! It’s pee, Ozzie!”

“Not anymore. Look, old-time explorers had to do this the hard way when they got lost in the desert, you know. We’ve got it easy, dude.”

“I won’t do it. I’m sticking to fruit.”

“Fine. Whatever.” Ozzie popped the cap on his water bottle, and deliberately took a big swig. It tasted of nothing, of course; but what he thought he could taste was a different story. Damn that kid! Putting ideas in my head.

“Is that safe?” Tochee asked.

“Don’t you start.”

“It’s disgusting, is what it is,” Orion said. “Grossly gross.”

“I don’t know if you two have actually noticed,” Ozzie said, suddenly fed up with the pair of them, “but we are seriously up shit creek without a paddle. From now on, the two of you are saving your piss as well.”

“No way!” Orion yelped.

“Yes.” Ozzie held the bottle out toward Orion. “You want this?”

“Ozzie! That’s yours.”

“Yeah. I know. So you start saving your own.”

“I’ll save it, but I won’t drink it.”

“My digestive organs do not function as yours,” Tochee said. “There is no separation mechanism for me. Will your most excellent filter work for that?”

Orion gave a horrified groan, and turned away, jamming his hands over his ears.

“I guess there’s only one way to find out,” Ozzie said glumly.

Sharp motion woke Ozzie, something poking him repeatedly on his chest. He removed the band of cloth he’d wrapped around his eyes to give him some darkness. A tentacle of Tochee’s manipulator flesh was poised in an S-bend right in front of his face, ready to prod him again.

“What?” Ozzie grunted. It was difficult to get to sleep in freefall; he resented being roused. His virtual vision clock told him he’d been asleep for a mere twenty minutes. That only made him more grouchy.