Tarquinia considered this. ‘So one Councillor already knows what comes after the disruption? It’s hard to believe that they could keep that a secret from the others, and I don’t see how the politics would work: in the aftermath they’d just be despised by everyone for withholding the information.’

‘It’s not impossible, though.’

‘It’s not impossible, but I’m not going to rely on it.’

‘So what do we do?’

Tarquinia hesitated, then came to a decision. ‘I’ll go out and repair the occulter – clean the jets, change the air tank. It’s in free fall and we know the trajectory; it shouldn’t be too difficult to intercept.’

Ramiro fought down an impulse to volunteer himself; she’d have a far better chance of success than he would, if she could get out into the void at all. ‘Won’t the airlocks be guarded?’

‘I know a way out through the observatory,’ she said.

‘A way out that isn’t an airlock?’

‘It’s a chamber with two airtight doors,’ Tarquinia conceded, ‘but no one ever uses it to come and go. There are some small instruments that we operate in the void, and we slide them in and out on tracks to avoid all the rigmarole of going outside to tend to them.’

‘But a person can squeeze through?’

‘Yes. Just barely.’

Ramiro said, ‘We don’t know that it won’t be guarded, or monitored somehow.’

‘No. But we can be sure that every other airlock will be.’

‘How will you get access?’

‘I think I can talk my way into an observing session – and there are tools, cooling bags and air tanks there already, I won’t need to drag a lot of suspicious paraphernalia with me. All I need is a bell or two alone in the main dome, exploring some hunch about the disruption.’

‘A hunch that your colleagues will know must come to nothing, or the Council would have sent the results back three years.’

Tarquinia scowled. ‘No, it must come to nothing that’s recognised as vital in the next three days – but that doesn’t prove that the observations won’t be valuable later. I can invent some wild theory on my way to the summit. Believe me, I’ve seen the observing program – no one has any idea where to point the telescopes right now. The chief astronomer will be grateful for anything that looks even half plausible.’

‘So the instrument will be doing some automated sweep . . . while you’re out in the void fixing the occulter?’ Every part of this sounded desperate, but Ramiro had no better ideas. ‘Won’t you be tracked?’