Here was Kapur, the spindly Academician with the ruined Eyes, sunk in sullen misery. Beside him Mace drifted in the air, his cloak almost comically truncated over those missing legs. Next to Mace were two squat forms, wrapped in misted cloaks, clutching at each other. Round faces peered up at Mari fearfully.

She reached for their names. ‘Tsedi. Kueht. Right?’

They nodded. They were supply ratings, both male, plump, soft-skinned. They spoke together. ‘Sir, what happened?’ ‘When will we get out of here?’

Academician Kapur turned his sightless face. ‘We made a bonfire. A bonfire of wisdom almost as old as the universe. And we got our fingers burned.’

The ratings quailed, clutching tighter.

Useless, Mari thought analytically. Dead weight. Rumour had it they were cadre siblings, hatched in some vast inner-Expansion Conurbation; further rumour had it they were also lovers.

She moved on down the line of cloaked bodies. Two more survivors, roughly wrapped in their cloaks. She recognised Vael, a gunner ranked below herself, and Retto, a sub-lieutenant who had been officer of the watch at the time of the attack. Good sailors both. Even the officer.

Except they weren’t survivors at all. She could see that even through the layers of their imperfectly fitting cloaks, which had turned a subtle blue colour, the colour of death. Mari’s heart sank; it would have been good to have these two at her side.

Jarn had extracted a kit of what looked like hypodermic needles from a pack at Mace’s waist. ‘Take their cloaks. Retto’s and Vael’s.’

Jarn was one rank below the CO and his First Officer, with nominal responsibilities for communications. Mari knew her as a prissy idiot who routinely dumped any responsibility downwards. And now, in this grim situation, she had issued a stupid order like that. ‘Sir, they’re dead.’

Kapur turned blindly. A thin, intense, withdrawn man, he wore his head shaven after the ancient fashion of the Commission for Historical Truth, and he had a clutch of bright red vials strapped to his waist: mnemonic fluid, every droplet a backup record of everything that had happened during the action. He said, ‘I can read your tone of voice, gunner. I can tell what you’re thinking. Why did such good comrades have to die, when such a rabble as this has survived?’

‘Academician, shut up,’ Jarn snapped. ‘Sir. Just do it, gunner. There’s nothing to be done for them now. And we’re going to need those cloaks.’ Fumbling one-handed, she began to jab needles into the fleshy wall of the little cavern, squirting in thick blue gunk.

Of course Kapur was right. Mari surveyed her surviving companions with disgust: Jarn the pompous ass-muncher of a junior officer, Mace the half-dead wetback, Kapur the dried-up domehead, the two soft-bodied store-stackers. But there was nothing to be done about it.