"The wall!" someone cried.
Silvia looked up. The wall of the lifecraft hung suspended for a moment like some great jigsaw puzzle where the gun's blast had struck it. And then it fell apart, blowing outward with the hurricane of the cabin's air leaping into space.
Instinctively, Silvia slammed shut the glass on her faceplate and tried to grab some solid support. But a giant hand lifted her from the floor and whisked her out into the blackness of the void. Weightlessness came with terrifying suddenness, and at first it was like falling through black silent endless waters. She tried to scream, but the sound refused to come out.
She called George's name several times and then remembered the radio and turned the activating knob. "George," she said. "I'm outside the lifecraft. Can you see me?"
No answer came. Space was a velvet black out here, the stars gleaming points. She had no sensation of movement, but twisting her head in the helmet, she could see the lifecraft becoming smaller. Her heart sank with the knowledge that inertia was pulling her out, out farther and farther into space.
He's not coming after me, she thought suddenly, and the thought terrified her, made her throat suddenly tight. Even if he hears, he won't come.
Around her, space drifted—dark, silent, limitless. Ahead, a great nebula glowed.
"I'm sorry," she said slowly to herself. "I suppose I deserve it."
"Probably," George's voice came in her helmet, "but I'm coming after you anyway. Everybody's okay on this end, except our insurance man who couldn't get his helmet on in time; it seems my hands were somehow in the way."
Her heart leaped at his voice. "Do you still love me, George?" she asked. Somehow, that mattered more than anything else.