Nobody could think of any better options, so they strapped Mr. Gao to Brian’s back—and then remembered that the Chinese ship’s airlock had to be manually worked from the inside.

Or, at least, nobody could figure out another way to work it. Gabe volunteered to stay back, and Brian started the journey back to their own ship.

It was the longest fifteen minutes and ten seconds of Tori’s life. This time, several strands of hair actually came out, she was tugging at them so hard.

At least Gabe’s oxygen numbers started to improve. Well, not improve, really. They stopped going down as quickly. At first, Tori thought they stopped going down altogether, but the machine let her know at the five-minute mark that there was still a decrease—a tiny decrease. At this rate,...

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