They followed the path the space plane had already bashed through the surrounding structure, Braddock occasionally altering their course with his reaction jet or by thumping a foot or hand against some piece of twisted wreckage. Open space lay ahead, strewn with stars, then became visible above, too, through gaps in the bubblemetal plating. Reaching the point where the plane had punched into the structure, the first soldiers propelled themselves downwards and out of sight. Once Saul’s group reached the same edge, where supporting beams were sparse, they floated out over a long drop to the original outer hull of the station, which extended into the distance like a massive highway. Just visible over the rim, to the left, jutted the top of the technical-control centre.

Braddock slowed them with the jet, then guided them down after the others.

‘Malden,’ Saul enquired, ‘are we all using the same airlock?’

‘We’re not using a station airlock.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’ll see.’

Those who had already reached the main hull of the space station below began to walk out across it. Only upon seeing this did Saul check stored data on his spacesuit to find one item called ‘gecko boots’.

‘Boots,’ Braddock informed them as they reached the hull.

‘Hannah, you’ll find—’ Saul began, but she broke in.

‘I know.’ She stepped down onto the hull, and followed Braddock as if walking through tar.

Some distance ahead, cables extended out to one of the two smelting plants. They now headed towards these, circumventing the huge convex glass of a sun-catcher – for directing the sun’s rays inside – with the tilted monolith of a steering thruster lying to their right. Soon they reached the edge of the smelting-plant dock, and Saul peered down to where massive cables terminated, then up towards one of the big smelting plants perched like a steel rose atop a tall steel stem, around which craft buzzed like feeding bees. They descended, pausing only momentarily on a huge docking clamp to peer down into the seemingly bottomless well of an ore-transit tube leading down to the surface of the asteroid itself. Finally reaching the shadowy bottom of the dock, they moved out across it just as a big skeletal ore-carrier rose out of the transit tube only a hundred metres away from them, its hundred-tonne body sliding upwards in utter silence, massive guide wheels running on the cable. Now, directly ahead of Saul, the first two soldiers turned the cylinder upright and began fixing it to the hull.

‘What is that thing?’ he asked.

‘Vacuum warfare penetration lock,’ Malden replied. ‘Built by the Chinese about eighty years ago. The Committee doesn’t bother with such stuff now, as they have no opponents up here whose space stations or satellites they might want to penetrate.’

The forward eight held back, squatting down on the hull, heads bowed, whilst the two who had positioned the cylinder retreated as quickly as they could.