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simple machinery for a while.
    That anomalous reading, now, was probably a misalignment in one of the feedback elements, a bit too steep to be compensated for from the bridge. It was easily corrected, except for the awkwardness of just moving around in this damn chamber suit. He stooped and took a flow reading, turned a handscrew, and then backed it off a hair. There was a flow surge for some reason, but it only lasted a moment before the readings leveled off again. He played the screw back and forth very slightly; it wasn't a critical adjustment, but it was always good to have the flux-pile working as smoothly as possible. Finally (did he hear a ringing, an echo of some kind?—hard to tell, probably his own heartbeat pulsing in his ear), he moved over to check the other elements, one by one.
    When he finished the final adjustment, he rubbed his forehead against the suit faceplate, trying to scratch an itch over his eyebrow. It was time to be getting back to the bridge. And there was that ringing again—was it coming from the outside?
    The exit was on the far side of the pile, and it took him a few minutes to work his way around the circular catwalk. He stopped at the intercom. "This is Gev. Adjustments are all right in here. Has the power smoothed out in the net?" His voice was dull, a muffled echo inside the chamber suit.
    No answer. And there was that noise.
    Then the exit port opened, and clanging exploded around his head: general-alarm klaxon. Stunned, he sealed the hatch and hurried to the prep-room intercom. "Bridge! Bridge!" Still no answer; either no one was in the net, or communications circuits were out. The alarm meant a vital systems failure.
    He quickly checked the pile console; there was no danger here, but there was a massive interruption in the net circuit. He headed for the bridge at a run. The suit still encumbered him; panting, he flipped open his visor for more air. He shouted into a corridor intercom, and this time he was answered by a hiss. The corridor illuminators flickered but remained alight.
    He mounted the ramp to the bridge—and gagged as he inhaled a lungful of smoke. Choking, he slapped his visor down and panted rapidly, hoarsely, to draw filtered air through the suit. The bridge was gloomy and filled with acrid haze. He moved cautiously, squinting and blinking tears and thinking: there is burning flesh in this smoke. The instrument panels were blackened but no longer burning. He turned to look at the rigger-stations in the outer circle of the bridge. His stomach dropped. His crewmates were dead in their alcoves; their bodies still smoldered in the rigger-seats. Marc, the com-rigger, his neck and cheeks collapsed, his eyes sunk in their sockets, smoking. Gayl, Abdul, Niesh—all the same. He stared at each one for the same long minute. Numbness blocked every nerve, every emotion, every thought except a detached awareness of horror.
    For a time he did not move at all. But gradually the haze began to clear from the bridge, and he knew what had to be done. He remained shock-calm, and though the stench continued to burn in his nostrils and his stomach threatened to convulse, he did not become sick. Garbed still in the chamber suit, he wrapped the four bodies and carried them to a small, unused freezer-hold. He ventilated and scrubbed the bridge, and he finally shut off the clamoring alarm. He examined the instruments and recorders, and he reconstructed and logged the accident to the best of his ability. And then he went to pieces.
    He stayed in the commons; he was afraid to leave. Through tears and shakes and stuttering outcries to an empty ship, he relived and relived the accident. It had been a freak happening: a Flux abscess. Uncontrolled energies from the Flux had flared through the net, cauterizing every delicate nerveway tied into it—including the space communicators, the neural foam of the rigger-stations, and the riggers themselves. What had caused it? There was no way to be sure.