Kaskan shook his head. ‘No, it’ll be gradual anoxia.’ He nodded towards the windows. ‘I’ll raise the nitrogen content too, so they’ll start to feel tired, maybe a little ill and certainly a bit confused. If they realize something’s wrong, they’ll head for the bulkhead door to try and escape, and that exertion will probably be enough to knock them out. The door, of course, will have automatically sealed by then, and even if they do fire their weapons it’ll be at that door, which won’t cause us a problem.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

Kaskan just gazed at her steadily, but it was Carol who answered from behind, ‘Because he’s seen it happen often enough.’

Of course, Kaskan was one of those who had been due to depart at the time Var and others arrived. He’d been here during the first blowouts, during the period when it was discovered that not all the regolith blocks were completely solid and impermeable. Var remembered Gisender telling her about the time after one blowout, when even oxygen had been rationed and they had been forced to live right on the brink of asphyxiation for nearly a month. Many had not made it. Many had simply died in their cabins. Some, like Kaskan and Gisender, had been very suspicious of Ricard’s activities during that period, because the political director had seized control of the atmosphere regulators.

They waited long minutes as the bar on the graph Kaskan had altered rose up to the marker he had set. Kaskan meanwhile kept utterly still. Var was tempted to peek through the window to see what was happening with the two enforcers, but she knew that just the slightest miscalculation now would leave them all dead. Then, as they waited, the intercom crackled into life.

‘It would seem that the usual suspects have gone missing,’ Ricard announced. ‘Lopomac Pearse, Kaskan Lane, Carol Eisen and, of course our Technical Director, Var Delex.’

For one spine-crawling moment Var feared Ricard had located them, but now she could hear that Ricard’s words were issued from the public-address system throughout the base.

‘Director Var has murdered Gisender Lane and caused a number of atmosphere breaches, murdering nine Inspectorate staff along with Miska Giannis. She has also destroyed valuable government property, so it is inevitable that she must be seized and duly tried. However, her guilt does not attach to the other three, who, if they return to the Community Room straight away, will be treated fairly. Surely all four of you must be aware that you have nowhere to run, and surely you understand that, unless you hand yourselves over, I will have to order my men to use deadly force against you.’

‘Bastard,’ Kaskan muttered.

‘He’s just playing to the crowd,’ Var observed.

‘Like anyone will believe him?’

‘They’ll pretend to believe him. What else can they do?’