‘Approximately five hundred metres, and they have not moved. Have you found anything interesting yet?’

‘Nothing so far.’

They came across the first corpse twenty metres beyond the door—or, rather, half a corpse. It lay on the floor, its lower half missing, and the top half so badly burnt it was impossible to tell if it was male or female. White teeth showed in stark contrast to the blackly incinerated face.

‘Jesu!’

That was from Chaline. Gant and Thorn had seen this sort of thing before. Mika knelt down next to the body and inspected it closely. She pushed at burnt lips to get a better view of the teeth, and the lips crumbled away. There was a gagging sound from Chaline. Mika held her diagnosticer against the belly, where the flesh had not been burnt and was like marble.

‘Female, heavily radioactive. I’d say she was flash-burnt in the explosion.’

‘Quick, then,’ said Gant.

‘Not necessarily . . . that’s strange . . .’

Cormac stepped forward and looked down. ‘Tell me,’ he said.

‘It looks like her lower half was cut away after she was burnt. I suppose that could have happened . . .’

Mika glanced up then around. There was no damage evident to the building where they were, or anywhere nearby. Cormac knelt down and inspected the corpse. He looked over to Mika.

‘See there.’ She pointed to the severed organs and muscle. ‘That was done with a shear of some kind, after she was frozen. See? No fluids.’

Gant stooped down, next to the two of them. ‘Now why would someone do that?’ he asked.

Cormac knew damned well that the question was rhetorical. He stood. ‘We’ll find out soon,’ he said. ‘No need to second-guess.’

They advanced and found another corpse in a similar condition. Then they found a stack of five corpses, which looked like a sculpture made in hell. None of these corpses was burnt. Mika inspected them closely, though with some difficulty as they were frozen together.

‘Hypothermia. Most of these froze to death.’ She pointed at the corpse of a man right in the middle of the heap. His skin was dark blue and he was impossibly thin. ‘That one is an Outlinker. He must have been in a low-G area when AG cut out. His neck is broken.’

‘Yeah, but who stacked them here, and why?’ wondered Gant.

Cormac wished he could give the soldier a dirty look.

They continued along, until Jane contacted them.

‘One of the heat sources is moving, coming your way.’

Gant spoke up quickly. ‘This isn’t scientific any more. What do you recommend, Agent?’

‘Get off this central aisle. We’ll hide for a while and see what we might see,’ said Cormac. There was no objection from Chaline; since they’d found that first corpse she had been very quiet.