They attached the cable to my spacesuit, the same cable and winch we'd used to lower Big Betsy into the initial hole. It was easily thick enough to handle the strain. I stood, fully suited, at the edge of The Hole. There was no time for second thoughts. I checked my connections and my air, then dove down into blackness.

The cable slowed my descent while above me, another member of the team kept a precise measurement of the length of the cable. At 200 m, they slowed me to a stop. On the surface, André was measuring how much the core debris had slowed Rachel's capsule on her second pass. He would make precise measurements of her ascent and adjust his calculations accordingly.

I felt the cable vibrate as it was pulled a metre or so higher, then lowered by tiny increments, then raised again.

It was dark. I turned on my torch and pointed it down the shaft. Living in space had accustomed me to enormous distances, but the sight of that endless tunnel set my heart pounding. I checked my watch, which glowed a faint green. Three minutes.

The cable continued to hum, adjusting my position by small amounts.
Why did it take so much adjustment? Was her acceleration still changing? I thought about hailing André on the comm to ask him what the problem was, but rejected the idea. There was nothing I could do to help now.

Less than two minutes left. I couldn't see it yet, but the capsule was coming. I hefted the hook in my right hand, knowing I would only get one chance. If André's calculations were off, I would get no chance at all – either the capsule would fall short, plummeting back toward the core before I could reach it, or else ... or else it would rise too high, and two people would die instead of just one.

Where was it? Why couldn't I see it? Had it already reached its peak and fallen back down? I didn't dare look at my watch again, lest the capsule appear in that split second.

Suddenly, there it was, flying up toward me.

The lack of reference points made it hard to gauge its speed; one moment it looked too slow, others like it would plough right into me.

I shrank back, adrenaline pumping, unable to dodge it or move any higher. Then, just as I braced for the impact, it stopped – just centimetres away. I gaped at it, frozen with shock, and almost didn't move fast enough. I swung out desperately with the hook and wrapped it under a bar on the top of the capsule, just in time.

It shrieked and held, jerking the cable with a force that set it thrumming like a bass fiddle. But it did not fall.

When the hatch finally opened and Rachel stumbled out, she ran straight into André's arms. My hands were shaking. During the crisis, there had been no time to be afraid for her.

Now that it was over, the emotions flooded me. At that moment, life seemed so fragile, so fleeting. I watched Rachel and André hold each other and wondered if they could make a success at marriage. Rachel wasn't her mother, and André wasn't me; maybe they could. Even if they couldn't, what good would I do by standing in the way?

I removed my spacesuit and retreated to my sleeping quarters – a closet barely large enough for a narrow bed. I rummaged in my trunk and finally pulled from the bottom a gold pendant on a chain – a bird with wings spread wise, flying free from a cage. I had kept it long enough.