Each time his voice sounded more hoarse. Stan nearly cried out as he saw the arc develop. They were going to release too soon! Before he could do anything though, the men let go with a shout. Alex sailed just over the jet, past the two stranded survivors, to collide with the tangled gridwork atop the centermost cryo tank. Immediately he scrambled for purchase on the iced surface. The woman next to Stan grabbed his arm and hissed sharply as Alex began a fatal slide…

… and stopped just in time, with one arm thrown around a groaning pipe.

A sharp crackling noise made Stan jump back as one of the nearby chem-synthesis tanks crinkled, folding inward from the cold. Fiber-thin control lines flailed like wounded snakes until they met the helium jet, at which point they instantly shattered into glassy shards.

“They’ve cut the flow topside,” someone reported.

Stan wondered, was the helium partial pressure already high enough to affect sound transmission? Or was the fellow’s voice squeaky out of fear?

“But there’s too much already in those tanks,” another said. “If he can’t stop it, we’ll lose half the hardware in the cavern. It’ll set us back weeks!”

There are three lives at stake, too, Stan thought. But then, people had their own priorities. Hands took his sleeve again… this time several senior engineers were organizing an orderly evacuation. Stan shook his head, refusing to go, and no one insisted. He kept vigil as Alex worked his way toward the cutoff valve, hauling himself hand over hand. The pipes were left discolored. Patches of frozen skin, mixed with blood, Stan realized with a queasy feeling.

Centimeter by centimeter Alex neared the collapsed catwalk. One wall staple remained in place, imbedded in limestone. Barely able to see, Alex had to hunt for it, his foot repeatedly missing the perch.

“Left, Alex!” Stan screamed. “Now up!”

His mouth open wide, exhaling a dragon’s spume of crystallized fog, Alex found the ledge and swung his weight onto it. Without pausing, he used it to hurl himself at the valve.