Behind me, something stirs.
My muscles go into a spasm like the one that causes a falling dream, my hold tears loose and I go tumbling through the air, rebound from a wall, twist, and manage to hook one foot in the frame of the door I was aiming for. I pull myself down and turn off the antigrav; then I just shake for a bit.
The sound was—
This is stupid, with everything torn to pieces in this ship there is no wonder if bits shake loose and drop around—
But it was not a metallic noise, it was a kind of soft dragging, very soft, that ended in a little thump.
Like a—
Like a loose piece of plastic dislodged from its angle of rest and slithering down, pull yourself together Lizzie Lee.
I look through the door into the other half of this level. Shambles. Smashed machinery every which way, blocking the door, blocking everything. No way through at all.
Suddenly I remember the tools. Mr. Yardo loaded the fish-boat with all it would take. I crawl back and return with a fifteen inch expanding beam-lever, and overuse it; the jammed trap door does not slide back in its grooves but flips right out of them, bent double; it flies off into the dark and clangs its way to rest.