The two women pushed their way out first. Both had cropped blonde hair, probably because keeping long hair clean up here was nigh an impossibility, and they were of very similar appearance. They looked remarkably young to Saul, seeming little more than teenagers, but that merely meant they might have been using anti-ageing drugs. He checked personnel files stored in Tech Central itself and discovered that they were twins. Angela and Brigitta Saberhagen were very bright twins who had been born in Berlin twenty years ago, then turned into societal assets from the moment they started dismantling computers at the age of five. The man was bearded, balding and running to fat. Despite the clean technician’s clothing, his hands were ingrained with dirt, and Saul found that somehow reassuring. His name was Girondel Chang, home city Nanking in China, but he certainly didn’t look at all Chinese. Braddock ushered them over and mustered them in a line, but far enough away that he could still bring any one of them down if they decided to attack Saul.

‘Do you have any survival gear in or near here?’ Saul asked them, even though he already knew precisely what was available.

The twins merely looked at each other, and it was their bearded companion who replied, ‘Emergency survival suits in the lockers.’ He nodded towards a column of locker hatches that rose up one wall.

‘Well, get yourselves suited up, then,’ Saul instructed, ‘and fetch two extra suits out for myself and Hannah – Braddock here is fine in his spacesuit.’ He paused for a second. ‘My name is Alan Saul.’ He had used their names deliberately, to humanize them, to help transform them from nameless terrorists into real people.

‘We already know your name,’ said Brigitta, the twin who, from her record, he had known would speak first. She turned to study the screens, perhaps instantly understanding the need for survival suits.

Saul nodded to Braddock, and the soldier herded them towards the lockers, where they retrieved baggy survival suits that could easily be pulled on over their clothing. Here and there, wherever views were obtainable, he saw other station personnel already opening similar lockers and donning similar suits. They all clearly knew what was coming. However, there didn’t seem to be enough suits to go around, and in some areas people were already fighting over them.

‘What do you want of them?’ Hannah whispered.