‘But . . . surely the gates will all have been shut down before that can happen?’

‘Which is exactly what I assumed,’ Saul replied. ‘But then I got to wondering why they hadn’t closed down the Florida gate before Copernicus was destroyed? If the footage I saw is anything to go by, the Lunar Array is going to be reduced to a ruin – but there’s no way of telling whether the gates themselves will be shut down before it’s too late.’

‘You think it’s possible they won’t be?’

‘What I think is that, if they’re going to shut anything down at all, it would have to be the Florida gate. That way they can still save Copernicus City and keep a foothold not just on the Moon, but also our solar system. But since we know they won’t manage to shut it down, that tells me something went wrong – and maybe they didn’t manage to shut down any of the Copernicus gates. Whatever happens to us,’ he said, ‘nothing is more important than making sure the worst scenario doesn’t happen. If it does, the colonies are finished, and the human race along with them.’

‘So what exactly is it you want to do?’

Saul looked and, suddenly and irrationally worried that someone nearby might overhear what he was about to say, and cry out in accusation.

‘I’m saying we ourselves need to destroy the gates at the soonest opportunity. Right now, if possible.’

He waited for what felt like a long time before she finally replied.

‘You can’t be serious,’ she said finally.

‘I’m entirely serious. Just think about the tens of millions out in the colonies who’ll wind up dead if we don’t do this. We’re talking survival of the species here, Olivia.’

‘We could still save some people—’

‘No.’ He shook his head violently. ‘At most you’d save a few thousand, if even that. There are billions more who are going to wind up dead, either way.’

When she spoke again, her voice sounded neutral, carefully controlled. ‘And how exactly do you intend to do this?’

‘We can use the Emergency Destruct Protocols to collapse the wormholes.’

‘Wouldn’t work,’ she replied immediately.

‘Why not?’

‘You need a minimum of two people, to activate the codes simultaneously, or it won’t work, and it’s not like they hand those codes out to just anyone who asks for them. You’d need special clearance from an executive committee, and I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon.’

Saul thought for a moment. ‘Fair point. In that case, who does possess that kind of clearance?’

‘Not many people, for a start,’ she replied. ‘I’d guess a few dozen at most.’

‘Then maybe we need to try and find some of them. We need to track them down.’

‘Jesus.’ She laughed. ‘You really think it’s going to be that easy?’