Albright stared at him for several seconds, then stepped back to his desk and swept his hand across it in a practised gesture. The desk’s surface dulled to an inanimate grey.

‘The next time we meet isn’t going to be nearly as civilized,’ said Albright. ‘Because there’s too much at stake. But I want you to think about one thing that’s been puzzling me, before we meet again tomorrow morning.’

‘What?’

‘You were the only thing still alive anywhere on the Moon or Earth, when we found you,’ said Albright. ‘Why you? Why would whatever wiped out every last trace of life everywhere else lve you untouched?’

Mitchell looked towards the window, and said nothing.

NINE

South China Sea Airspace, 28 January 2235

‘Tell me, you ever jump out of a plane? Go parachuting, or anything like that?’

Saul glanced at the man opposite: lean and sharp-faced with deep-set eyes, his head jerking slightly from side to side as the sub-orbital slammed through the stratosphere. Saul’s UP floated a tag next to him, identifying the man as Sefu Nazawi.

‘Once,’ Saul replied. His knuckles shone white where they gripped the padded restraints confining his chest and shoulders.

Up until now, the conversation had been distinctly muted, ever since taking off from an airfield in Germany. Saul didn’t need a degree in psychology to know that he was the reason.

He glanced up front towards Hanover, who was leaning over the pilot’s shoulder. The two men were conferring quietly as the craft angled its nose downwards at a terrifyingly steep angle. They were approaching the endpoint of a sharply curving trajectory that had boosted them to the edge of space, before hurtling them back down towards the South China Seas, and nearly ten thousand kilometres to the east.

Sefu looked sceptical. ‘For real?’

‘Why do you ask?’ Saul replied, doing his best to maintain eye contact while the sub-orbital bucked and shuddered with profound violence.

‘Just in case we have to evacuate.’ Sefu barely suppressed a grin. ‘I mean, we’re a long way up and, with all those storms scattered around, we could get ripped to shreds before we reach the ground. It happens.’

‘Shit, yes,’ said the man next to Sefu. Saul registered that his name was Charlie Foster. ‘Did you ever see the UP footage from that guy who fell out of a sub-orbital? The one that came apart just fifteen minutes after take-off?’

‘I did,’ Sefu replied, turning to Foster with a snap of his fingers. ‘His ’chute failed, right? And his contacts kept recording, the whole way down.’

‘Bullshit,’ said Saul.

Foster nodded enthusiastically, gazing at Saul with an innocent expression. ‘No lie. Bastard screamed like a banshee right up until the end.’

Sefu noisily sucked air through his teeth.

‘Hit the ground so hard his skull wound up lodged in his ass,’ Foster added, shaking his head sadly.

Saul considered a variety of responses, most of them anatomically impossible.