He smiled tightly. "I mean, we should at least let them know we're due some posthumous citations."

"Got it," Faraday said. He didn't smile back.

They worked in silence for what seemed like a long time. The only sounds in the cabin were the beeping of the instruments, the howling of the wind outside, and—at least for Faraday—the thudding of his own heart.

The window was almost completely covered by the time he finally gave up. "We're not going to get through," he said. "The atmosphere's just too thick. I can't even pick up their carrier; and if I can't hear them, they sure as hell can't hear us. Any luck there?"

"Possibly," Chippawa said. "The creature's skin in general is pretty thick, up to thirty centimeters in places. Definitely the same as the wrapping around the mummies out there, though that stuff's not nearly as thick. But this batch—"

"Wait a sec," Faraday interrupted him. "Mummies?"

"That's what the emscan shows," Chippawa said. "The big one, anyway. It has the same basic internal structure as the fellow who buzzed us."

"And that structure's intact?" Faraday asked. "Not decayed or digested or anything?"

"Not that I can tell," Chippawa said. "That's point one for the good guys: At least we're not about to be eaten or absorbed alive. Point two is that the batch growing up around the Skydiver isn't nearly as thick or strong as the rest of it."

He nodded toward the window. "Which means that if the starboard helium line clears up soon enough, and if we're not too deep for the float to deploy, there's a chance we'll be able to punch our way out of here."

"Lot of ifs in that," Faraday pointed out doubtfully. An image floated to mind: a Golden Movie Age vid he and his brothers used to watch called Pinocchio, where the heroes had been trapped in the stomach of a giant whale. How had they gotten out of that? He couldn't remember. "Assuming all the rest of it, how do you propose we do that?"