Amy sniffed and reached up to pinch away the tears gathering around her eyes. She stood up abruptly, the medical kit slipping from her grasp. ‘I don’t understand . . . why did he do this? He tried to kill you, too.’

‘I don’t know,’ Saul replied, reaching out with two gloved fingers to close Lester’s eyes.

Amy kneeled on her seat, her face twisted in anguish, as she stared down at her husband. ‘Listen to me, Saul,’ she said eventually, her voice hoarse. ‘There are some auxiliary suits.’

‘There are?’ Saul felt a sudden stab of hope.

Amy nodded listlessly and touched one gloved hand to Lester’s cheek. ‘ou can get yourself another helmet belonging to one of them.’ She took a deep, shuddering breath, and then stood up as straight as possible. Her eyes, blazing with anger, met Saul’s. ‘I want you to kill him, do you hear me?’

‘Amy . . .’

‘No, dammit, I want him dead.’

Saul tried to think of something to say. ‘I need to find out why he did this, and if I kill him, I can’t do that.’

Her gloved fists clenched themselves by her sides. She might be an old woman now, but Saul suddenly saw just how very formidable she must have been in her youth.

‘Then make damn sure he never gets as far as the colonies,’ she hissed in a half-whisper.

The spare suits were located in a locker hidden beneath a floor panel at the rear. Amy helped him pull out a new helmet.

‘Now listen up,’ she said. ‘We’ve landed a couple of klicks south-east of the Lunar Array. Any normal day, we’d wind up in jail for flying anywhere near this close to it.’ She retrieved the rifle from where she’d propped it against a bulkhead. ‘Here, you’re going to need this thing when you go after Mitchell.’

Saul searched her eyes as he took it from her. ‘Why in God’s name would you need something like this on board a tourist craft?’ he asked. ‘You could have blown a hole in the lander and killed all of us, not just Mitchell.’

‘It’s an insurance policy.’

‘Insurance against what?’

An uncomfortable look crossed her face. ‘Against getting caught.’

‘You were smuggling, is that it?’

‘Not necessarily in this bird. In the VASIMRs, mostly. Things got tight a few years back, and we were on the verge of going under. This way, we can slip all kinds of stuff past customs and fly it straight back home without going anywhere near Florida. People, sometimes, too.’ She shrugged. ‘I guess telling you this doesn’t matter now.’

‘So what were you planning on doing, if you got caught? Have a shoot-out with the ASI?’