“Preparing for war in space. As we got passed more details about these places, it became clear we were seeing a shadow space program under the command of the Pentagon. It was pulling in five times as much funding as NASA itself. What have you heard about Lake Ravenna?” he asked.

“I came across a Jack Moretti, a psychologist who worked there. My officer on Ascension was looking into him. Does the name mean anything to you?”

“No. Is he on Ascension now?”

“He died about eleven years ago. But there are connections between his death and the death of my colleague.”

Latham frowned.

“What would he have been doing at Lake Ravenna?” Taylor asked.

“I imagine he would have been working with military astronauts, the crews of a space defense force. Lake Ravenna was where a lot of this research began. NASA staff would disappear off the books, maybe reappear years later with some private aerospace company. In the intervening time they were based at Lake Ravenna. They developed strategies for space combat, the vehicles and weaponry involved, everything from putting arms depots on the moon to the use of particle accelerators, space planes, kinetic bombardment, you name it. More recently it’s been about exploiting the existing infrastructure up there. Disguised weapons. What Zhao saw emerging from the offices of commercial space companies in the West were designs that bore a strange resemblance to those he’d originally seen in development as defense systems. These were companies receiving a lot of political and financial support. That’s where I first came across Quadrant.”

Latham stopped for breath. He wasn’t well, Taylor realized. He looked pale and she’d noticed a slight limp beginning to affect his walk. Latham asked if she had any water and when she said she didn’t he took another moment before continuing.

“The documents I saw involved the movement of several million dollars to Quadrant’s debris program coinciding with new fears over China and Russia’s ability to knock out satellites. There was a big push around that time to ensure space became the new war-fighting domain. A new emphasis on establishing preeminence up there. The Pentagon was hijacked by space hawks, and anyone who objected was moved away. A similar thing happened over here. Vast amounts of off-the-books defense spending was redirected to the companies involved.”

“Quadrant are military?”