"Off we go." Ralissa pushed gently on the edge of the airlock and drifted away. Lorkis joined her, followed by Kolya, Donovan, Dylan, Grishnag, and Ayastal. Everyone fired a quick burst from their thruster packs to accelerate them across the distance between the Jemison and the Vancouver.

Hard to believe we're here already. Kolya stared across the empty space between herself and the muddy orb that was Gamma Orionis b, with the slowly tumbling Vancouver crossing from the nightside to the dayside. The last few days had passed so quickly. She'd expected the anticipation of this moment to make it feel like the trip here was taking forever, but it hadn't. The company of Cora and her crew, plus Donovan's companionship, probably had a lot to do with it.

"How're you doing, Donny?" Kolya glanced over at him as he nudged his thruster and launched off to the left. She couldn't see his face through his darkened visor, but imagining his eyes popping out in surprise made her giggle.

"Uh, I'm -- well, I'm having a little -- oh, shit!" He tried to correct his course and rejoin the rest of the team. His efforts sent him flying past them and Kolya burst out laughing. "Aw, hell."

"You sure you don't want to come back in and watch the experts handle it?" Cora chuckled.

"Hey, cut me some slack. Even with the training, I've never really done this before. And I'm sticking with Kolya." He tried to correct his course once again and shot off at another angle. He sighed and grumbled, "Augh, fuck me!"

"Most of the Jemison's crew grew up in pre-medieval cultures," Grishnag reminded him with a quick laugh, "and they managed to figure these things out. Give yourself a chance. I think you'll catch on quickly enough."

Kolya giggled again, darted after him, and grasped his hand. She maneuvered behind him and put her arms around his waist. Her helmet picked up her brain impulses as she concentrated on guiding him back to the rest of the team, and her suit's thrusters fired accordingly, easing them back into their proper positions.

"You're a lot more graceful in bed." She grinned at the memories of their last several nights together. "And that's where it really matters."

"Heh. Well, thanks. That puts all this into a much better perspective." Donovan took a few slow breaths as they caught up with everyone else and followed them across the remaining distance to the derelict explorer ship. He stared at the slowly pinwheeling vessel and his breathing quickened. "I'm not sure how we'll board that thing, though, with it spinning like that."

"Aim for the middle and then make our way along the hull until we reach one of the hatches on the command module," Ralissa answered. "Then we'll see about bringing the primary systems back online if there's still any power left in the reactors."

"Right there." Kolya pointed to a spot in the center, between the two inner centrifuges, where the probe and shuttle bays were. "Where it's barely moving, just sort of rotating in place."

"Okay. Sure. Simple as that." Donovan took another deep breath.

Kolya stared at the central section of the hull and frowned. At first the formerly gray metal had appeared to be covered with dirt or soot, but now that she was close enough to make out details, she spotted dozens of tendril-like shapes weaving over the hull.

"Huh. Looks like something grew all over the ship. Tentacles or vines, maybe."

"Hmm. Wouldn't be the first time we've encountered something organic that can survive in hard vacuum," Ralissa said. "If we're really lucky, it'll be something we've never seen before. Who knows where -- or when -- this ship has been."

"Still not picking up any electronic emissions or human life signs," Cora said. "The crew either evacuated or died on the Vancouver."

"I hope they left," Donovan muttered. "I'm not looking forward to finding a bunch of dead bodies."

"Even if that's what we find, at least we'll be able to tell their families what happened to them and have their bodies transported home for funeral rites." Ralissa grasped a handhold on the hull, latched her tether to it, and made her way along the two forward centrifuges as if rappelling down a mountain.

The huge, rotating drums must have seized up, Kolya speculated, or someone on the ship had shut them down. Maybe if they'd stopped suddenly, their momentum had transferred to the rest of the ship and started it spinning.

Soot puffed up around the spots where Ralissa's environment suit-encased hooves touched the hull, and the same happened when everyone else followed her.

"I wonder what the ship drifted through," Kolya said. "Looks like it's been near a fire."

Lorkis plucked his comm from his belt and scanned the cloud of dislodged dust in front of him with one of its apps.

"That's not ash or soot. They're more like spores."

"That's never good," Donovan grumbled, and Ayastal chuckled.

"We'll have to go through thorough decontamination when we pass back through the Jemison's airlock." Ralissa paused to scan the spores near her before continuing. "They don't match anything in my database."

"Something completely new, then. Well, new to us, at least." Kolya grinned. "I like it already."

"It's only good if it won't kill us or mutate us or some goddamn thing," Donovan said with a slight shudder.

"True enough. It'd be a good idea to keep our spacesuits on the whole time we're onboard, even if there's a breathable atmosphere. There's no way to know what those spores could do if we inhaled any."

"Good thing we've got a backup team ready to relieve us," Lorkis said. "If our oxygen runs low before we can finish reviving the ship's systems, we'll have to return to the Jemison."

Kolya noticed a sensation of her weight increasing as she slid closer to the command module. Not enough to cause any discomfort, given the ship's slow rotation -- not nearly as much as the gravity on Earth's moon -- but it would take some getting used to.

She passed by one of the vine-like structures and gave it a casual tug without slowing down. It snapped off like a dry twig and tumbled up toward the planet as it rose over her right shoulder.

"Huh. Whatever this stuff is, it survived in space long enough to grow all over the hull, but couldn't last any longer than that."

"If the vines' function is to produce these spores, then I'd say they lasted long enough." Ayastal swatted a hand through a fine black cloud she'd stirred up. "I just hope none of them are inside the ship, because then they could still be alive."

"Gah," Donovan said under his breath, and Kolya held in a nervous giggle.

Ralissa stopped at a hatch on the side of the command module and dusted off the control panel beside it. "The spores could remain dormant in space indefinitely, too. When we return to the Jemison, we'll definitely need to scrub every square millimeter of our suits to be sure there aren't any of these things left in a crack or crevice."

"Not helping," Donovan grumbled, and Kolya couldn't hold in her laugh anymore.

Ralissa chuckled, prodded the control panel, and tugged on a small hatch beneath it. The hatch swung out, revealing an opening with a circular mechanism inside. The upper surface of the round thing had six slots crisscrossing it. Grishnag opened one of the compartments on Ralissa's backpack, pulled a gadget out, and handed it to her. Ralissa fit the round end over the circular mechanism, made sure it was locked in place, and pushed a button on the side. The end rotated, turning the mechanism, and the airlock cranked open slowly.

A puff of air sent a thick cloud of spores jetting past everyone. Ralissa leaned over the edge and aimed her helmet lights inside.

"It's empty. The inner hatch is sealed. Looks like there's just enough room for all of us to fit inside, so we won't have to cycle through in groups." She detached her tether from her belt, clipped it to a nearby handhold to prevent it from drifting out of reach, and climbed down into the airlock.

"Okay, Jemison, we're in."