“If they need to be. The backbone of Ptolemy is a security net hung across several players. Quadrant come with wide-reaching orbital surveillance hooked up to an automated response system. Their technique for cleaning up space is to capture defunct satellites and drag them down to the earth’s atmosphere, where they get burned up, incinerator-style. But obviously you can do that with a live satellite, too. You can do it with anything. Most importantly they brought Ascension with them. Those at the top of the Ptolemy program channeled millions to Quadrant as a way of securing control of the island. There’s going to be some big changes on Ascension over the next couple of years.”

“Why Ascension?”

“Because there’s nowhere like it. You see, when the Chinese saw the plans coming out of Lake Ravenna, they shifted a lot of their research toward stealth technology. Zhao got us details of some ingenious means they’d devised of making military satellites disappear using mirrored surfaces or the earth’s shadow, even merging microweapons with debris clouds. It was jaw-dropping. But it meant the defensive focus on both sides moved toward increasingly sophisticated surveillance.”

They reached a muddy clearing beside the river, with a graffitied bench and the burnt-out carcass of a motorbike half hidden by brambles. Latham stopped, leaned against the back of the bench.

“In 2017 there was an incident where an American satellite was disabled in a co-orbital attack. Officially it was a data relay satellite, but it had inspection equipment for spying on other craft, which was one reason they weren’t able to publicize what happened. It had been shadowing the Chinese space station Tiangong-1 when an unidentified object approached, latched on, and tilted it toward the sun. All the instruments burned out within seconds. At least, that’s what they guessed happened. The incident occurred in a blind spot directly over the South Atlantic, and no one could see. The Chinese knew exactly what they were doing and had timed it perfectly.

“In the next few months a lot of attention got directed to Ascension Island, because its telescopes covered the blind spot. Whoever’s got Ascension would have the only comprehensive space surveillance system on earth. The US documents that Zhao was bringing us began to show back-channel discussions about bringing the UK into Ptolemy. Then we started seeing the names of colleagues coming up. And suddenly we were spying on ourselves—or, at least, on the corner of MI6 and the British government backing this scheme.”

“Gabriel Skinner.”

“He was one of the main ones. But he wasn’t alone.”

“How were the Chinese getting all this?”