“That’s already the plan,” another voice squawked in her helmet. “Stand back, Auger.”

“Careful with him,” she warned. “He’s got a bad rip near the right—”

Mancuso’s suit towered over the little boy. “Easy, son,” she heard. “Gonna have you fixed up in no time. You all right in there?”

“Hurt,” she heard Sebastian gasp.

“Think we need to move fast on this one,” Mancuso said, beckoning the second rescuer to him with a flick of one overmuscled arm. “Can’t risk moving him, not with the particle density as high as it is.”

“Recover in situ?” the second rescuer asked.

“Let’s do it.”

Mancuso pointed his left arm at the boy. A hatch slid open in the armour and a spray nozzle popped out. Silvery-white matter gushed from the nozzle, solidifying instantly on impact. In a matter of seconds, Sebastian became a human-shaped cocoon wrapped in hard spittlelike strands.

“Careful with him,” Auger repeated.

A second team then set to work, cutting into the block of ice immediately underneath Sebastian with lasers. Steam blasted into the air from the cutting point. They paused now and again, signalling each other with tiny hand gestures before resuming. The first team returned with a wheeled, stretcherlike harness, pushing it between them. Thin metal claws lowered from the cradle, slipping into the ice around Sebastian. The cradle slowly hoisted the entire cocooned mass—including its foundation of ice—away from the ground. Auger watched them wheel Sebastian away and load him into the first recovery machine.

“It was just a scratch,” Auger said, when Mancuso returned to check on her. “You don’t have to act as if it’s an emergency, scaring the kid to death.”

“It’ll be an experience for him.”