"I'll toss you for it."

"It's okay."

"Wait a minute," said Nightingale. "What's going on?"

"There won't be anybody to hold it steady for her," said Kellie.

"I'll get out," said Hutch.

Kellie persisted. "Maybe we should go back to trying to find the collar."

"Won't work. Forget it. I'll manage."

They were in close. They came out of a cloud bank and saw sunlight. The net hung out of the sky, directly in front of them.

Kellie was right, of course. The spike would hold the lander at a constant altitude, but the net was moving. Once Hutch let go of the controls, the net and the lander would separate very quickly. She could expect to get to the airlock and find the net thirty meters away.

Well, there was no help for it.

Damn.

"What about the wind?" asked Nightingale.

"No problem at this altitude."

He was looking at her desperately. Poor son of a bitch was terrified. She tried to give him an encouraging smile. But there was no time to talk things over. She reduced the air pressure in the cabin to duplicate conditions outside. Then she opened the inner airlock hatch. "Mac," she said, "you first. Go when I tell you."

MacAllister nodded. "Thanks, Hutch," he said. And then he gazed wistfully at her. "Thanks for everything." He walked into the lock, and the outer hatch opened.

Never look down.

The net was hopelessly snarled.

"Wait till I tell you, Mac." She moved closer, felt the links brush the hull. Be careful: She didn't want to get tangled. "Okay, Mac. Go."

MacAllister hesitated, and she caught her breath. Please, Lord, not another one.

Then he was gone. Hutch pulled qukkly away to give him room, to reduce the possibility of hitting him or the net with the spacecraft.

Kellie was leaning out, looking off to one side. "He's okay," she said. "He's on."

"Kellie, you're next. Wait for the signal." This way, if Nightingale panicked, he'd kill only himself.

Kellie leaned close to her in passing. "Love you, Hutch," she said.

Hutch nodded. "You too."

Kellie got into the airlock.

Nightingale was pulling more cable out of the locker. She wanted to ask what he was doing, but she was busy with other things.

Hutch brought the lander back in close. "When I tell you," she said.

Kellie waited, muscles tensed.

"Now. Do it."

Kellie stepped out into the sky. Hutch pulled away again.

"Okay." Kellie's voice rang on the circuit. "I'm on board."

Two for two.

The net's rate of descent was slowing. Hutch matched it and moved in again. "Your turn, Randy," she said.

He stood looking at her. "How are you going to get out?"

"I'll get out."

"How?"

The net stopped, paused, and began to rise. Hutch adjusted the lander's buoyancy, pushed into the linkage.

"Go,"she said.

He was standing immediately behind her.

"Not without you." His voice sounded odd.

"Randy, I can't hold it here forever."

He leaned down, showed her the piece of cable he'd just taken from the cabinet, and began to loop it around her waist.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

The cable was about forty meters long. He hurried to the airlock and she saw that he'd tied the other end around his own middle. "After I'm out," he said, "count to one, and come."

"Randy, this is crazy. If I don't get clear-"

"We both go. Up or down together."

The net was rising more quickly, accelerating, but she stayed with it. It clinked against the hull.

Hutch might have untied the tether. But it gave her a chance. Hell, it gave her a good chance. "Okay, Randy," she said. "Go/"

He disappeared into the airlock, and then he was gone. She veered off, giving him room, listening for him to tell her he was okay. But he was breathing too hard to speak, or maybe his vocal cords were frozen and the cable between them was snaking out of the cabin. / hope you're hooked to something, buddy. She let go the yoke, leaped full tilt across the deck, and dived through the airlock, scooping the tether as she went so it wouldn't become tangled with the lander. The net was already out of reach, rising and drifting away.

Nightingale would almost have preferred to stay in the cabin, with its comforting bulkheads and its seats, to go down with it, rather than throw himself into the sky.

There had been a moment, when he was tying himself and Hutch together, that he'd thought he was really looking for an excuse to avoid the jump. And maybe that's what it had been. Maybe he'd hoped she would refuse his help, and he could then have simply, magnanimously, stayed with her, shielded from that terrible hatch.

But she'd trusted him, and that trust had fueled his determination not to humiliate himself again. The net had been within easy reach. He had simply taken it, gathered it into his arms, and dragged himself from the spacecraft. Then he was alone and the lander was veering away and he was hanging on, his eyes shut.

The net was rippling and moving. Nightingale clung to it, stood on it, felt its folds all around him, made himself part of it. He got his eyes open. The lander looked very far away, and the line that connected him to Hutchins lengthened until he feared he would be torn from his perch. Where was she?

Connect the tether.

He had to let go with one hand to do that. Impossible.

He concentrated on the links, on the smooth burnished surface of the chain, on the way they were fastened. On getting secured to the net before Hutch came out of the airlock.

On anything other than the open void that yawned all around him.

He pried a hand loose, gathered up the tether, which dangled from his vest, and hooked it to a link. Pulled on it. Felt it lock down.

The net was moving up, accelerating. He was getting heavier. Below him, Hutch came out of the lander, tumbling.

He lost sight of her. Loose cable spilled into the sky, and he slid both arms into the links, grabbed hold of Hutch's line, which was tied securely around his middle, and braced himself. "I've got you," he told her.

The jolt ripped the cable out of his hands and yanked hard at his midsection. It dragged the loop down past his beltline to his knees, tore his feet off the cable, and for a terrifying moment he thought they were both going to take the plunge. But his tether held. He grabbed frantically for her line and clung to it with one hand and to the net with the other.

Someone was asking whether he was okay. Hutch's line was slipping away, and he gathered his nerve and let go of the net to get a better grip. He looked down at her swinging gently back and forth above the cloud tops.

He was afraid his own tether would part under the strain.

"Hutch?" he cried. "You okay?"

No answer.

She'd become an anchor, a deadweight, and he couldn't hold on, couldn't hold on. He squeezed his eyes shut, and his shoulders began to hurt.

He tried to pull up, tried to figure out a way to fasten her to the net, but he couldn't let go with either hand, or he'd lose her.

Kellie was asking for a goddam status report. "Hanging by my fingernails," he told her.

"Don't let go," said Mac. Good old Mac, always full of obvious advice.

His arms and shoulders began to ache. "Hutch? Help me."

Stupid thing to say. She was swinging back and forth, God knows how far below the bottom of the net, and she obviously couldn't help herself.

Why didn't she answer? Was she dead? Killed in the fall? How far had she fallen anyhow? He tried to calculate, to give his mind something else to concentrate on.

"I can't hold her much longer," he screamed at the circuit, at anyone who was listening. He was bent over and she weighed too much and he couldn't get her line up any higher. "Please help."

Marcel came on. "Randy, don't let go."

"How much longer?" he demanded. "How much longer do I have to hang on?"