Jupiter came into view as the habitat rotated, a distant fat sphere streaked with faint colors, flattened at the poles like a beach ball that some kid was sitting on. And then another sphere, farther away than the others. Or maybe just smaller.

Another fuel tank? Gaeta remembered somebody saying there were three of them. A small spacecraft hovered near the tank. Probably the ferry ship, he thought. Then he saw sparks flashing from the tank. What the hell are they doing to it?

“Three minutes,” came Fritz’s flat voice. He sounded bored.

Gaeta grinned. I’ve got enough juice in the propulsion tank to jet all the way around this sewer pipe, he told himself. Fritz wouldn’t be bored then!

“What are you laughing about?”

Gaeta realized he must have chuckled and Fritz picked it up. “Laughing? Who, me?”

Fritz replied, “No, the Man in the Moon. What were you laughing about?”

“Nothing,” Gaeta said, still thinking what fun it would be to take off and do a spin around the habitat.

“Well?” the skipper demanded, testier than ever.

Tavalera clicked off the laser and peered at the latch. The beam had cut halfway through it.

“Gimme another couple minutes,” he said.

“Get with it, then. Our window closes in less than ten minutes.”

Nodding inside his fishbowl helmet, Tavalera turned on the laser again. Sparks flashed blindingly.

“What’s the holdup?” demanded a new voice in his earphones.

Probably the boss of the habitat crew waiting for the third fuel tank, Tavalera realized.

“We have a malfunction on the tank’s release mechanism,” the skipper answered. “We’re on it. We’ll have it on its way to you in a matter of minutes.” Her tone was a half-million times sweeter than when she spoke to Tavalera, he thought.

“The attachment point is rotating out of position,” came the other voice, male, deep, irritated. “And my crew is running out of time. We weren’t scheduled to be out here this long.”

“I’ll adjust the capture angle,” the skipper said, a little tenser. “It should be no problem.”

“Time’s burning.”

“Yes, yes, just be a little patient. We’re working it.”

We, Tavalera grumbled silently.

“Tavalera,” the skipper yelled at him loudly enough to make him wince. “Get it done!”

“It’s almost there,” he said, angling his shoulder so she could see that the latch was nearly burned through.

Then the laser winked out.

“What’s happening?” she bellowed.

“Dunno,” Tavalera muttered, shaking the stupid little gun. “Capacitor needs to recycle, I think.”

“Bend it back!”

“Huh?”

“The latch, you stupid slug! It’s almost sawn through. Bend it back with your hands! Now!”

Without thinking, Tavalera let the laser float off on its tether and grabbed the metal latch with both gloved hands. It wouldn’t budge.

“Break it off!” the skipper screamed at him. “Get it!”

Desperate, Tavalera grabbed the laser with one hand while he still gripped the latch with the other. Maybe the capacitor’s got one more squirt, he thought, pulling the trigger.

It all happened so suddenly that he had no chance to stop it. The laser fired a set of picosecond pulses and the latch came loose in Tavalera’s hand, throwing him badly off balance. He went sprawling and dropped the laser, which went spinning out to the end of its tether, then snapped back toward Tavalera and fired off another set of pulses that hit the leg of his suit.

He screamed in sudden pain as the fuel tank jerked loose of its connection with Graham and began drifting out into space.

“It’s heading away from us!” the habitat’s crew chief roared.

“I can’t stop it,” the skipper yelled back.

Tavalera didn’t care. The pain searing through his leg was enough to make him giddy, almost delirious. He knew he was going to die, the only question in his mind was whether it would be from loss of blood or from asphyxiation as the air leaked out of his suit.

RESCUE

With nothing else to do but stand in the airlock and wait for Fritz to tell him the test was finished, Gaeta tapped at the keypad on the wrist of his suit to listen in on the chatter from the crew that was attaching the fuel pods to the habitat. Something was obviously wrong with the third tank, it was still out by the ferry ship and somebody was using a welding laser on it. More likely the laser was cutting, not welding, Gaeta thought.

“…stupid piece of crap,” he heard a woman’s sharp-edged voice, “how the hell did you puncture your suit?”

“I need help!” came another voice, scared. “I’m bleeding.”

Bleeding? Gaeta wondered. Punctured suit?

Then a third voice, male, angry and aggravated, “The tank’s off course! We can’t reach it!”

“There’s nothing I can do,” the woman whined. “He knocked it out of line.”

“Help me.” The bleeder’s voice.

“We can’t fucking reach you!” the angry male bellowed. “You’re going off in the wrong direction and you’re already too far for us to get to you.”

“I’m dying…”

“It’s your own stupid fault,” the woman screeched.

Switching back to his intercom frequency, Gaeta said into his helmet microphone, “Turn on all the cameras, Fritz.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Turn on all the cameras, dammit!” Gaeta snapped, launching himself out of the airlock. To himself he added silently, This looks like a job for Superman.

The suit’s propulsion jets ignited smoothly and Gaeta felt himself hurtling toward the errant fuel pod in the utter silence of empty space. But his earphones were far from silent.

“Come back!” Fritz yelled. “You can’t—”

Gaeta simply turned off the intercom frequency and tapped into the others’ frantic chatter.

“… not a damned frigging thing we can do,” the crew chief was yammering.

“He’ll die out there!” the woman pleaded.

Nothing from the guy who was hurt.

“Hang on,” Gaeta said into his mike. “I’ll get him.”

“Who the hell is that?”

“Manuel Gaeta,” he told them. “I’m on my way to the injured man. Can you see me?”

“Yes!” said the crew chief and the woman simultaneously.

The fuel pod was getting bigger. Jesoo, Gaeta realized, it’s huge! Despite everything, he laughed. Huevos tremendos.

“What’s his name?” Gaeta asked as he rocketed toward the fuel tank.

“What?”

“Who said that?”

“His name, the guy who’s hurt. What’s his name?”

“Tavalera,” the woman replied. “Raoul Tavalera.”

A chicano, Gaeta thought. He called, “Hey Raoul, habla español?”

No answer.

“Raoul!” Gaeta shouted. “Raoul Tavalera! You there? You okay?”

“I’m… here.” His voice sounded very weak. “Not for long, though.”

“Hang in there, man,” Gaeta said. The fuel tank was blotting out most of his vision now, a tremendous curving world of metal rushing up to meet him. “Your suit’s prob’ly sealed itself, maybe cut off the bleeding, too.”

Nothing.

“Where you hurt, man?” Gaeta asked as he slowed his approach and got ready to touch down on the massive sphere.

“Leg…”

“Ah, that’s not so bad. You’ll be okay.”

“Hey, Gay-etta or whatever your name is,” the crew chief interrupted. “I’m bringing my gang in to replenish their air and break out a couple more flitters so we can capture that tank.”

“What about Tavalera?” the woman snapped.

Gaeta was drifting around the tank’s curving surface now, looking for the injured man. “I see him!” he shouted. “I’ll take care of him.”

Tavalera was floating a few meters off the surface of the tank, held by his tether. Gaeta could see that his left leg was dotted by three little burn holes. The hard-shell suit appeared otherwise undamaged; the emergency cuff must have sealed off the leg the way it was designed to do.

Gaeta unhooked Tavalera’s tether and clicked it to his own armored suit. Then he started back for the habitat’s airlock with the injured astronaut in his arms.