Something moved in the dark behind him.
Slowly, slowly, Fallon rose and turned. The veins of his lean face were like knotted cords. The hard steel of the hull held him, tight and close, smothering.
Blurred, faint movement. The soft scrape of metal against metal. He had been so sure Bjarnsson was dead. He'd been dazed and sick, he hadn't looked closely. But he'd been sure. Bjarnsson, lying so still, with his suit ripped open.
His suit ripped open. Volcanic rays would be seeping into his flesh. Rays of change—perhaps they even brought the dead to life.
There was a grating clang, and suddenly Fallon screamed, a short choked sound that hurt his throat.
Bjarnsson's face looked at him. Bjarnsson's face, with every gaunt bone, every vein and muscle and convolution of the brain traced in lines of cold white fire.
The shrouding leaden suit slipped from wide, stooped shoulders. The heart beat in pulses of flame within the glowing cage of the ribs. The coil and flow of muscles in arm and thigh was a living, beautiful rhythm of light.
