‘Yeah, maybe,’ he replied, turning his head away from her to flick a bloody tear from his eye. ‘But there’s something out there looking for us that might be just as capable. It keeps zeroing in on me every time I create enough noise on Govnet.’

‘Malden?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘No, it’s the “powerful comlife” Janus mentioned.’

‘But they don’t have anything.’ She looked confused.

‘Seems they do.’

She was very thoughtful for a moment. ‘Are you making too much noise now?’

‘I don’t think so. Just local penetration.’

Local penetration wasn’t enough, however. At some point a diagnostic program would detect the alterations he had made, so he just hoped he had given himself and Hannah enough time.

Sliding glass doors drew open ahead of them, and they stepped out on to a pavement beside which were parked automatic ground taxis resembling stretched-out flying saucers. In the distance, between two glassy octagonal-section office blocks, the orange flames of a cluster of rocket motors blasted into the sky a long black shape with triangular rear wings and stubby nose wings. The space plane passed behind the tower block to his left, steadily accelerating upwards at an angle of forty-five degrees. Somewhere high above the Baltic, when it hit Mach five, its scramjet would kick in, taking it up to Mach fifteen, and its wings would fold into its body. By then its trajectory would be vertical, the scramjet finally shutting down through lack of air, and Earth’s gravity bringing the plane’s speed down to below a thousand miles an hour. Then would begin the long slow deceleration and manoeuvring towards Argus, if that happened to be its destination.

‘You realize,’ he said, ‘that without what I can do and have done we’ll end up in custody within minutes – and with that comlife out there there’s still a chance that’ll happen anyway.’ He glanced at her. ‘I can’t turn back now, but if you want I’ll get one of these’ – he nodded to one of the autotaxis – ‘to take you to a ground-level gate. The security system here will simply let you out, but beyond that gate you’ll be on your own.’

‘Is that what you want?’ she asked, pulling away from him a little. ‘I’m sure I’m a liability you can ill afford.’