The worker raised a hooked knife toward the nearest fabric lung, and the woman in the tank missed her fourth pump stroke.
Her lower support kicked sideways. Glass rang against Kegaku's severed graft while JJ caught the housing with both forearms. Kieran pressed her boot harder across the flute case. The open square in the funeral car wall narrowed to the width of her hand.
"Cut that lung and you lose the only account still offering payment."
The worker lowered the hook as far as his shoulder. Ivro Dask had been stitched above a repaired tear in his rib bag, which tightened when he answered.
"Your instrument took nine hundred measures after Earth stopped returning pressure."
Wind shoved brown grit across his platform. He leaned into it without wasting a hand on balance. Three workers behind him closed valves over their personal bags, while a fourth dragged a ceramic canister away from a rack with a torn seam.
