Alice snapped out of her momentary paralysis. The robots weren't on her yet, and they were moving slow. There was still time; she could make it back to the Canvasback well before they arrived. At least, she could moving alone.

She eyed Marcos's bulk uncomfortably. Through the suit it was impossible to detect the slight motions of breathing. For all she knew he might already be dead.

"God damn you Marcos." Alice used the handholds inside the airlock as a brace while she re-oriented his body for transport. She wouldn't need to bear his weight in zero-g, but it was still a lot of mass to shift around.

Ready to go, Alice reached for the tether she'd left at the entrance. The rope listed at a curious angle. Had the Canvasback shifted? Alice followed the line with her eyes into the distance.

The ship was where she'd left it, but the rope no longer pointed toward it; it had drifted off. With a sick feeling Alice remembered that brief resistance she pushed through on her way out to save Marcos. The extra slack must have caught on a rock. Her rope was cut.

That still left Marcos's guide line. She could detach it from the control pod and clip it to her suit, but then she would also have to unhook it from each anchor as she went. Too slow.

"Safety third," muttered Alice, borrowing Marcos's old motto. She hooked one hand on his suit and grabbed the guide rope with the other. Her first pull against the rope barely moved them. With twice the mass and half the hands it took considerably more effort to get moving.

Alice checked the robots' progress. The nearest of the miners was still safely out of reach. She'd be gone well before it arrived. More worrisome, the bots ahead of her seemed to have re-oriented toward the Canvasback. Smarter behavior than their programming should allow. A Lynch 'upgrade' no doubt.

Another few pulls brought her up to speed. Alice let the rope run through her fingers, careful not to stray from the lifeline. The temptation to go faster was great, but any inertia she added now she'd have to absorb on the other end. Marcos's extra mass made that more dangerous. Plus she had to conserve energy; her oxygen warning had graduated to a full-blown alert.

With eyes locked on the ship, Alice tried to work through a deceleration plan. Focused as she was on the Canvasback, she almost missed the bot lying in ambush dead ahead, manipulator arm held out like a lance.

There wasn't time to stop, but going straight meant impaling herself on the robot. Alice took the only option left to her; she released the rope, bent her legs down and gave a light kick off of Petbe.

The result was a leap worthy of a superhero. She cleared the deadly lance easily. Then kept right on going. As the ground receded the full implications sunk in. She needed to eject some mass to get back to the rope, and she needed to do it now.

"Sorry Marcos."

Alice grabbed the anchor gun from his suit and aimed directly opposite the ground, keeping Marcos's body in line of the ballast slug.

"Please work," Alice prayed as she pulled the trigger. The spike sailed off into space, while the counterweight slammed solidly into Marcos's torso. Alice's ascent slowed. But not enough.

She squeezed off three more shots as fast as the gun would load, smacking Marcos with more counterweights. The force was enough to push them back toward Petbe, but the Canvasback was coming up too fast. They needed to lose more altitude.

Another shot edged her closer, then the clip was empty. Still not enough. Alice took a deep breath. Her air supply felt thinner, less nourishing. She ignored her complaining muscles and hurled the gun away with every ounce of force she could muster. They dipped a little more.

Below them the nose of the plane sailed by. They were higher than the fuselage, but maybe...

Alice reached down with her free hand, stretching hard. She caught the lip of the open canopy in her glove. Her arm seared from the wrenching force, the full accelerated mass of her and Marcos bearing down. She gritted her teeth and held tight. The ship wobbled from the impact, then steadied.

She'd done it! She'd gotten them back to the ship in one piece. Her elation was fleeting. Down below the mining robots continued their relentless crawl. Time was running out.

The oxygen alert flashed more insistently. Alice began panting. No matter how much air she took in it never seemed to be enough. Her lungs ached from the effort of breathing, her thoughts grew foggy and confused.

She grabbed Marcos's body with her legs and used her hands to pull the two of them down into the cockpit. The exertion pushed her over the edge; tunnel vision set in.

Sight failing, she ran her hands over the floor, desperately searching for the little silver bottle of air that could keep her alive. At last she found it, a smooth cylinder. She pulled it clumsily toward her regulator, but it wouldn't latch. With bleary dismay she realized the canister was upside down.

Gasping the last oxygen out of her suit, Alice painstakingly reoriented the bottle, screwing the threads into place one arduous quarter-turn at a time. Blackness pressed in on her, squeezing at her brain. An overwhelming urge to sleep took hold, an impulse she fought with failing resolve. One more twist, she promised herself. Then she would rest.

A burst of gas swept through her suit and Alice's eyes fluttered open. The air took on a sweetness she hadn't realized was missing. Two deep breaths brought her back to reality. She shook her head trying to clear the lingering fog.

Looking out, Alice saw the miners had closed the remaining distance, would be on top of her in moments.