Scarface, whose real name was Braddock, had found him another helmet to replace the one he’d managed to fill with his blood, and then given Hannah a battlefield medical kit. Apparently each of these soldiers was carrying one. Having stopped the bleeding, she was now using a stapling tool to put his scalp back together. Wound glue would only last if he didn’t exert himself for a week or so, which seemed unlikely.

‘How bad is it?’ he asked.

‘Very minor,’ she replied. ‘You know what head wounds are like.’

Now she was spraying artificial skin over his scalp, and finally she turned his head round and concentrated the spray over his right temple. He just met her gaze and said nothing. That she was further concealing the nub of synthetic skin covering the teragate socket in his skull told him she had picked up some idea of his intentions.

He looked round as Malden towed himself in from the space plane’s cockpit, gazed over to where one of the soldiers was throwing up in a sick bag, then focused his attention on Saul.

Saul had to admit that Malden seemed to know a great deal about how Argus Station operated. In the beginning, it had been Saul’s intention to take control there in the same way he had taken control of that gene bank and then Inspectorate Headquarters London, by feeding Janus into the system and letting the AI do all the work. Now Janus resided inside his head, was actually part of him and, had he not used a bit of forethought, he would have possessed no way of physically linking into a computer system. But he had considered this, which was why that teragate optic plug resided under that nub of synthetic skin at his right temple. He could only assume that when Dr Bronstein had made his report to Malden, he had neglected to mention the details of the operation Saul had undergone. And Saul preferred not to enlighten him.

‘You okay?’ Malden asked.

Saul had managed not to throw up as they went zero gravity, and now nausea pills were dispelling the rest of the sickness. Obviously they weren’t working so well for others aboard, including Hannah, who looked decidedly ill.

‘I’m good,’ he lied, for really his head felt as if someone had been sandpapering the inside of his skull, and though extended processing within lay available to him, he felt almost frightened to use it. ‘So what’s the plan? They have to realize this is no regular flight by now.’