Pictured are some of the autotrophes of Petrolea. Titan is too far from the sun for photosynthesis to be effective. Instead, native mechanoid life harnesses wind power, ultimately drawing power from the tidal effects of Saturn on Titan's atmosphere. Energy not used immediately is stored as the liquid hydrocarbons that give Petrolea its name. [https://64.media.tumblr.com/12bf7f53895ab2bf9faf3aa27d34de9a/8f6d12942da2d433-0b/s640x960/c2cc4e76630458611ea9ab01a1ff40779f28c83b.jpg]

When the oxygen rose high enough to inflate the walls, Victor gave out a whoop and jumped into the air. By the time his boots drifted back down, the foam insulation on the floor had puffed up to triple its original thickness.

"O2's gone back down," Feroza read off her visor. "I suppose it must, as your foam has trapped so much air."

"The still can replace our air. And it's not my foam," Victor staged an elaborate bow and felt only a little silly doing it, "it's Petrolea's foam." He scratched the bubbly gray paste the covered the wall. "We copied the recipe for this stuff from the mechanoid heat reaction."

A defensive mechanism, most commonly seen in the favored prey of Dragons. "So we're sitting in a giant scab?" asked Feroza.

Victor gave her a thumbs-up. "Heat and O2 should climb much faster now. I hope you like it." He craned his neck within his bubble helmet, examining their little cave. What limited space they had was mostly occupied by the knee-high tube of the airlock. "…Even if this place looks like an inside-out igloo."

Feroza gave him a pat on the shoulder, which he could not feel through the thickness of his suit. "I couldn't be more pleased if this were a Mogul palace with an army of servants."

"Well," said Victor, "since we would freeze and asphyxiate in a palace along with all those servants..."

"This is infinitely better," said Feroza. "Thank you, Victor."

They looked through their visors at each other.

Something had changed. Their conversation had gone from mostly argument to mostly agreement. They even talked when they didn't need to, sharing observations about the hangar and its denizens, bits and pieces of their very different childhoods, snatches of poetry, from Feroza at least. Victor had never been as good at human operations, but it seemed to him the two of them were building the architecture of a relationship based on more than just the next few hours of survival.

"Well, this insulation is certainly effective." Feroza turned around. "I don't see any condensation on the wall at all."

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Victor cleared his tight throat. "Yeah. Just on the, uh, mouth of the airlock."

Calling it an airlock was generous. Really, it was just a series of valves composed of plastic petals. They were stiff and sticky enough to form a fairly good seal, but from here Victor could see the droplets of water forming around the dimpled hole in the center, where their air and hot water tubes lead to the still and the rest of the hangar.

"It would help if we had a sheet we could cover it with," said Feroza.

"Good idea," said Victor. "That will save us from having to look at a giant, wet plastic anus all the time, hey?"

She looked at him, eyebrows a nearly horizontal line over extremely un-amused eyes. "Quite," she said.

Victor could have slapped himself. Another uncomfortable pause later, he said, "We should have enough feedstock for a sheet for the insulated door, yes, and dinner. And then it won't matter, because we'll be able to fly back to Xanadu Base tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Feroza repeated, her voice flat.

"Yes," said Victor. "After we sleep."

The word "together" congealed in the air between them like water beading and dripping off a plastic sphincter.

"I'll just see about that sheet." Victor put on his helmet, got down on his hands and knees, and penetrated the airlock.

The still hummed along next to the airlock exit, a cage-shaped bulk covered with a growing population of guardian and repair factors. Gobs wouldn't stand a chance against the new defenses, and some judicious tinkering with the Dragon's behavioral processors ensured they'd leave the life-support engine alone.

Victor had every reason to be optimistic, even self-congratulatory. He had survived a day in a Dragon's nest. But could he survive a night with Feroza Merchant?

Sweat squished around his shaking hands as he typed commands. What was wrong with him? Victor had never been exactly suave, but he hadn't made this much of a fool of himself since he was ten and had pissed himself when a girl made him laugh. Although, given the number of times he'd peed into his catheter in Feroza's presence…ah, good. Something else to be embarrassed about.

The recipe he selected from the still's menu was a different polymer than the scab-insulation of the walls and ceiling. Rather than plaster-like paste, his new order was extruded in the shape and consistency of spaghetti. Victor's gloved hands had no hope of weaving the noodly stuff into a sheet, but it was self-adherent enough to stick together into a more-or-less flat shape when he mashed it.

Victor was trying to unstick the stuff from his gloves when the floor vibrated and shadows leapt from his hands. His helmet darkened against the sudden glare of the twin spotlights that had kindled behind him and his earphones filled with a whistling, static-filled growl.

Victor looked around at the Dragons. The exhausted mother had curled around its remaining young, one of which was awake and looking at him. The giant metal maggot crawled over its mother and approached on its caterpillar tread, the fat cylinders of its jet engines ratcheting up its back. The neck narrowed, lengthened. The head stretched toward him, mouthparts gliding open.

Only then did the alarms he'd installed go off.