The crack that’s appeared outside gives a millimetre or two. It sends out fissures that broadly echo an aerial map of the confluencing Volga River. It’s not so far from Roman’s head, this crack, on the other side of the thin alloy shell, and no patching with epoxy and Kapton tape is going to hold it. The pressure in the Russian module drops just a fraction, barely noticeable, not enough to sound any alarm, and the clocks count themselves round towards waking time and the onset of another blitzed and man-made day.
