And with a horrible twisting of Faraday's stomach, his chair fell away from beneath him and didn't come back up. The tether to the ship above had been broken, and the probe was in free fall.

"Floats!" Chippawa snapped.

Faraday already had the safety cover wrenched up and out of the way. "Floats," he repeated, and pressed the button.

There was the crack of explosive bolts, and the moaning of the wind outside was joined by a violent hiss as the tanks of compressed helium began dumping their contents into the probe's rubber-raft pontoons. Faraday held his breath...

And then, with another horrible twisting of his stomach, the Skydiver rolled over onto its right side.

"Malfunction!" he barked, eyes darting to the error display as all his weight slammed down onto his ribs and his right armrest. The words flashed onto the screen in bright red—"Starboard tank's blocked," he reported tightly. A support slide unfurled from the right collar of his suit, moving into position along the side of his head to relieve the strain the change in attitude had put on his neck.

"No helium's getting into the float."

"Must be water in the valve," Chippawa said grimly from his seat, now hanging directly above Faraday. "Firing secondary."

Faraday held his breath, straining his ears for the sound of hissing helium. But there was nothing.

And the error message was still glaring red at him.

"Secondary also malfunctioning," Chippawa reported. "Damn water must be in the line, not the valves. The expanding helium's frozen it into a solid plug."