Hannah held her syringes ready. ‘So that means the Committee’s dream of being able to identify and eliminate single insurgents from orbit is still very much a dream?’

‘It is, but governments never let go of a bad idea.’

Saul finally pushed himself away from the gurney, standing up for a moment, still wobbly. In Earth gravity, he would already have been flat on the floor. Hannah stepped forward to squeeze the larger syringe into the pressure feed plugged into his forearm. Then she swabbed his biceps before injecting the smaller syringe, containing stimulants. Saul watched this procedure with a kind of impatient detachment.

‘So what’re they using now?’ Braddock asked.

‘A rather less specific option called DAS.’

As the stimulants began slowly kicking in, Saul straightened up and began to look marginally more alert. He gazed around the surgery, eyed the blood pooled on the gurney for a moment, then turned back to meet Hannah’s gaze. He gave a nod of acknowledgement. ‘Thanks.’

‘Think nothing of it,’ she replied. ‘It wasn’t exactly brain surgery.’

He managed a grin, but it seemed an expression delivered by rote.

‘Is that portable?’ He was pointing at the pressure feed – a device positioned on the side of the gurney, into which square blood packs were plugged like ink refills.

Hannah detached the object from the gurney and held it up.

‘We need to get into Tech Central itself.’ He reached out for the pressure feed, took it and tucked it under his arm.

Exiting the aseptic surgery was less of a problem than actually getting into it, though a little screen did flash up a warning about them taking contaminated clothing outside. After she had helped him pull on a pair of disposeralls, cutting through one sleeve so as to feed the pipes through, Hannah overrode this warning and they moved outside to join Braddock. Now Saul was mobile she could see how the sugars and stimulants were kicking in faster and how he propelled himself purposefully towards the door. But on gecko boots, Braddock got there ahead of him, opened the door and helped Saul to make his way through.

This display of oversolicitousness annoyed Hannah. She understood how their lives now depended on Saul, but there seemed more underlying Braddock’s behaviour than that. It seemed the soldier had found someone new to serve.

Once in the corridor outside, Braddock asked impatiently, ‘What the fuck is DAS?’