There were further squads of troopers guarding the transfer station, their Black Dogs pounding up and down across the concourse on sturdy steel legs. One swivelled its head towards Saul as he moved towards a shuttle-car, turning away again as soon as its onboard AI registered the newcomer’s clearance.

‘Hey!’

Saul turned to see a man wearing the uniform of a security commander hurrying towards him. ‘Your clearance doesn’t allow you through here,’ the man told him.

‘If it doesn’t,’ Saul replied, ‘that’s a first.’

The commander studied Saul’s UP clearance for a moment, then rolled his eyes in evident irritation. ‘Great, more screw-ups,’ he muttered. ‘Where exactly are you headed?’

‘Newton.’

‘Why?’

Saul forced a laugh, deciding the commander didn’t really need to know. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he replied. ‘I’m really not at liberty to discuss that.’

He watched the other man consider this for a moment, before shaking his head slowly. ‘That’s not good enough. So long as we’re under a state of emergency, you’re going to need to get fresh authorization. Maybe—’

‘Sir!’ A trooper came running up to them just then. ‘We’ve got sixty or more people just broke through a cordon near the secure runway, where we’re expecting another hopper to arrive in the next ten minutes. Johnson wants to know what his orders are.’

‘Shit,’ the commander swore under his breath. ‘All right,’ he instructed the trooper, ‘tell him to use any force necessary to clear the intruders away from the runway. Any force, is that understood?’

‘Sir.’ The trooper nodded, before jogging back the way he’d come.

‘As for you,’ the commander turned back to Saul, ‘I don’t have the time for this. Get into a shuttle-car right now before I change my mind.’

Saul stared after the retreating trooper. ‘Did I really hear you give that order? You’re firing on civilians now?’

The commander’s face reddened. ‘I already told you I don’t have time for this.’

Saul raised both hands in mock surrender, before quickly boarding the nearest shuttle-car. It shuddered as the hydraulic clamps released it and it began to move forward, gradually picking up speed. Saul took a window-seat and watched as the concourse slid out of sight and the shuttle-car was carried into one of several tunnels running parallel to each other, the walls crammed with coolant pipes, radiation feedback buffers and shielding.

Before long he was being transported across the dozen metres of the wormhole itself, as four-fifths of his weight dropped away.