—he was there, his face pressed to the opposite wall, pinpricks of sweat standing out on his forehead. He groaned as cramp took hold of both his legs, pinpricks of fire spreading simultaneously through his chest and belly. He let himself slide down the wall to rest on his haunches, once more waiting for the pain to diminish. But, with every day that passed, the agony was just that little bit less.

After that, he stood up again, on unsteady legs, and stepped over to the wall immediately beneath the window.

The barred window was tiny, much too small to even contemplate squeezing through. It had also been placed far enough above head height to make it almost impossible to see more than a thin sliver of sky. Mitchell jumped up, and managed to grab hold of two bars, before pulling himself up with a grunt.

On his first day here, he’d been as weak as a fish flopping on a fisherman’s deck, but now his upper-body strength was coming back to him fast. He caught a glimpse of sycamores planted in a line beyond the window, and an airstrip further off. Low one- and two-storey buildings with whitewashed exteriors stood beyond it. He dropped back down, entranced by that vision of blue skies and flourishing grass. Just then, he heard the sound of footsteps approaching his cell door.

The guards were coming for him yet again.

‘All right, interview five,’ began Albright, tapping at the desk between them.

Mitchell guessed his interrogator was in his mid-forties, with hair greying at the temples. He wore the uniform of the Second Republic’s military.

‘Subject is Mitchell Stone. All right, Mitchell,’ said Albright, looking back up. ‘Let’s start from the beginning again. Tell me how you wound up in that cryogenics lab.’

Mitchell shifted in the folding metal chair, to which he was handcuffed on either side, and glanced up at the bouquet of omnidirectional lenses mounted in the ceiling directly overhead. ‘You’ve asked me that same question every single day since I woke up,’ he said, dropping his gaze again. ‘And every single day I give you exactly the same answer.’

Albright’s expression remained stony. ‘Things are going to be a little different this time, Mitchell, so just humour me.’

‘I was trying to reach the colonies,’ Mitchell replied, spreading his hands as far as the handcuffs would allow. ‘By that time the growths were spreading fast back on Earth. I couldn’t get to any of the colony gates in all the panic, so I figured I had at least an outside chance of staying alive in the cryo lab.’ He lowered his hands again. ‘And that’s where you found me, ten years later.’

Albright glanced down and scratched a note into the reflective surface of his desk with a plastic stylus.