A little while later they ushered Saul inside, where he met Gwen’s foster parents in an anteroom. It was clear Gwen’s foster mother had been crying, the father clearly agitated and jumpy. Saul assured them he had no intention of taking their daughter away from them and, in truth, he knew it had been long enough for Gwen’s memories of him to perhaps have faded. Ten years was a long time, after all.

Even so, nothing felt more important to him than getting the chance to see her face-to-face, even if it was just the once. Saul caught Kayes’ eye and nodded, before following Erkrnwald through to what appeared to be a staff cafeteria, with only a young girl sitting alone at a chipped plastic table, a mug clutched nervously in both hands.

She looked, thought Saul, just like her mother. He picked up a chair and sat down across the table from her, waiting until Erkrnwald had exited the room, and realized suddenly that he didn’t know what to say. He sat there searching for something, for any suitable words at all.

‘I know this can’t be easy for you,’ he finally managed to blurt out.

‘You’re . . . my father?’ she asked tentatively. ‘They . . .’

‘Yes?’ he asked.

‘They told me you were dead.’

She wore a long overcoat, much like his own, and had pulled the sleeves down over her knuckles so that most of her hands were hidden except for the fingers holding to the mug. She then put the mug down and started playing with the hems of her sleeves. Like her mother she had a wide, round face, and even wore her hair in much the same way, parted down the middle into thick braids and tied back in a bun. Her skin was a light chocolate colour, not quite as dark as his own. Beneath the overcoat, he could see she wore the overalls of a platform worker.

‘No,’ Saul shook his head, ‘very much alive.’ He looked around. ‘You’re . . . working here? And living here?’

She nodded, then glanced past him towards the same door he’d just come through. ‘That man said I shouldn’t talk to you about anything I do here. Not about my work or any of it.’

‘Erkrnwald?’ Saul grimaced. ‘Ignore him.’

She nodded and smiled, a little less tentatively this time. ‘Dad is . . . I mean, my foster father’s a geologist. I’m at school, but I work too. Everyone here has to chip in.’

‘While I was waiting outside, Jackson Kayes told me a bunch of stuff. He claimed the Revolutionary Council don’t have much influence out here on the platforms. Is that true?’