else.
Gordius’s eye healed, more or less. There wasn’t any infection, although the top and bottom eyelids on that side were, he reported, ‘glued shut’. Jac wanted to test to
see whether they were actually sealed together, or whether Gord only didn’t open them because it was uncomfortable for them to move over the deformed, whited-out surface of the dead eyeball.
But he couldn’t think of a way of doing it.
So instead he worked at his glass. The piece was nearly complete. The thing to do after that would be: to make a second piece. Every now and again, his time at the drill threw up little pieces
of new glass. It was never anything substantial, and he didn’t bother trying to build a larger lump. But he took a few likely looking shards: two handsome sicklemoons in brown-green (once the
crap was scraped and polished off them). A straight piece like a miniature sword, or a cocktail stick. A few tiny little D-shaped chips, such as would have delighted the heart of Neanderthal
men.
He was nearly ready.
Then two fairly serious problems presented themselves to the whole group in quick succession. The first was something of which they all became only gradually aware, but which shook them into
desperate action. It became incrementally clear that the air pressure was lessening, very slowly. That was worrying enough, but even more alarming was the fact that the air was growing less
wholesome. Everybody grew breathless with the slightest exertion. They checked the scrubber, and it was working fine; but of course it could only recycle what was there, and the excavation was
continually making the interior space larger. More ice was needful, to generate more oxygen. There wasn’t enough in their drinking supply. ‘Feed in what we’ve got,’ said
Davide, with an anger that did little to disguise his anxiety. The thought of slowly suffocating, Jac thought, was a larger terror to his mind than the thought of dying of thirst. ‘And drink
what?’ countered Lwon. ‘Our own piss? No, we need to excavate a whole lot more ice.’
The practical upshot was that they started the second chamber sooner than they anticipated, as they swept the diggers round in a wider arc looking for another seam of ice.
This precipitated the second problem. The waste schutes, attached to the rear of the diggers, had been near full extension for a while. This new direction pulled them taut. That was alright;
when E-d-C pulled his schute from the socket it had burrowed through the rock wall, the hole sealed itself. Looking at the tapering point, it seemed that it was designed to fill its own tapering
hole with rubble. At any rate, it proved easy enough to reposition the schute. E-d-C set the mouth of it against the rock, inside the tunnel itself; and over the course of about an hour and a half
it dug through to the outside again. The same thing was true of the second drill’s waste schute. The problem came with the third digger, the one whose schute had been pushed through the
artificial barrier of the seal laid down by Marooner at the very beginning of their stay. Putting the waste schute through this material proved, in retrospect, to have been a bad
idea. When the schute was extracted it did not seal the hole, and with a horrifying rushing sound the air in the cavity began to gush into space.
Lwon, Davide and Marit gawped in horror. Mo began shouting incoherently. Everything in the main space was being drawn towards the leak point.
Even Jac found it harder than usual to remove himself from his own somatic responses (pounding heart, adrenalised bloodstream) and find his calm place. He managed it, though. He selected a
likely looking rock and placed it over the hole. This slowed the leak but did not stop it, for air was still seeping round the edge. So he retrieved some of the abject matter from the hole in which
they stored toilet waste, and worked it with some water from the spigot to make a clay, and with this he made a seal
Gordius’s eye healed, more or less. There wasn’t any infection, although the top and bottom eyelids on that side were, he reported, ‘glued shut’. Jac wanted to test to
see whether they were actually sealed together, or whether Gord only didn’t open them because it was uncomfortable for them to move over the deformed, whited-out surface of the dead eyeball.
But he couldn’t think of a way of doing it.
So instead he worked at his glass. The piece was nearly complete. The thing to do after that would be: to make a second piece. Every now and again, his time at the drill threw up little pieces
of new glass. It was never anything substantial, and he didn’t bother trying to build a larger lump. But he took a few likely looking shards: two handsome sicklemoons in brown-green (once the
crap was scraped and polished off them). A straight piece like a miniature sword, or a cocktail stick. A few tiny little D-shaped chips, such as would have delighted the heart of Neanderthal
men.
He was nearly ready.
Then two fairly serious problems presented themselves to the whole group in quick succession. The first was something of which they all became only gradually aware, but which shook them into
desperate action. It became incrementally clear that the air pressure was lessening, very slowly. That was worrying enough, but even more alarming was the fact that the air was growing less
wholesome. Everybody grew breathless with the slightest exertion. They checked the scrubber, and it was working fine; but of course it could only recycle what was there, and the excavation was
continually making the interior space larger. More ice was needful, to generate more oxygen. There wasn’t enough in their drinking supply. ‘Feed in what we’ve got,’ said
Davide, with an anger that did little to disguise his anxiety. The thought of slowly suffocating, Jac thought, was a larger terror to his mind than the thought of dying of thirst. ‘And drink
what?’ countered Lwon. ‘Our own piss? No, we need to excavate a whole lot more ice.’
The practical upshot was that they started the second chamber sooner than they anticipated, as they swept the diggers round in a wider arc looking for another seam of ice.
This precipitated the second problem. The waste schutes, attached to the rear of the diggers, had been near full extension for a while. This new direction pulled them taut. That was alright;
when E-d-C pulled his schute from the socket it had burrowed through the rock wall, the hole sealed itself. Looking at the tapering point, it seemed that it was designed to fill its own tapering
hole with rubble. At any rate, it proved easy enough to reposition the schute. E-d-C set the mouth of it against the rock, inside the tunnel itself; and over the course of about an hour and a half
it dug through to the outside again. The same thing was true of the second drill’s waste schute. The problem came with the third digger, the one whose schute had been pushed through the
artificial barrier of the seal laid down by Marooner at the very beginning of their stay. Putting the waste schute through this material proved, in retrospect, to have been a bad
idea. When the schute was extracted it did not seal the hole, and with a horrifying rushing sound the air in the cavity began to gush into space.
Lwon, Davide and Marit gawped in horror. Mo began shouting incoherently. Everything in the main space was being drawn towards the leak point.
Even Jac found it harder than usual to remove himself from his own somatic responses (pounding heart, adrenalised bloodstream) and find his calm place. He managed it, though. He selected a
likely looking rock and placed it over the hole. This slowed the leak but did not stop it, for air was still seeping round the edge. So he retrieved some of the abject matter from the hole in which
they stored toilet waste, and worked it with some water from the spigot to make a clay, and with this he made a seal
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