Finding a wall console rarely used, in a room turned into a store, Var accessed a wide range of the base’s systems. Plenty of the information she could not review, since only Ricard knew the codes, but she still found enough for her purposes. Lopomac and Carol had knocked out the internal cam system throughout the base, but they hadn’t disrupted the external ones, or even the feed originating from the satellites orbiting Mars. After checking those external cams first, she keyed into the satellite feed. Ricard had locked down all communications to and from Earth, and she didn’t have the time to break his codes, but she was still able to pick up image data from satellites orbiting Earth which was being relayed to those immediately above. This she did to confirm that the Mars Travellers really had been decommissioned, and soon discovered that they had. The only evidence she could find of their existence was the nose section of Traveller VIII out in the orbital complex in which the Travellers had been built, but where it was being dismantled. Frustratingly, the shielding around Messina’s private building project prevented her obtaining image data of the Alexander, but while looking she found something else – something odd.

‘We’re done,’ said Lopomac.

Var glanced up to see him and Carol enter the room, and beckoned them over. She pointed at the image on her screen. ‘What do you make of this?’

‘You’re getting feed from Earth?’ said Carol.

‘Satellite cams – that’s all.’

‘What do we make of what?’ asked Lopomac, clearly puzzled.

The screen revealed one hemisphere of Earth, with satellites glinting above it. Using her ball control, Var moved the pointer up alongside one of the satellites, pausing it on a lengthy vapour trail.

‘I see,’ said Lopomac. ‘Maybe they’ve been repositioning them?’

‘Maybe, but there are plenty more vapour trails, and what looks like wreckage of some kind.’ Var paused, called up a menu and selected a long list of cam numbers, then scrolled down through it and selected again. ‘Then there’s this.’

Argus Station was distantly visible, and rising towards it were more space planes than Var had known existed.

‘Something big, I guess,’ said Lopomac. ‘Maybe we’ll be able to find out about it later, if we’re still alive.’

Var frowned, clicked back to exterior cam views of the base itself and was abruptly returned to reality when at random she selected one focused on the area just outside the main garage doors. Though this was night-time the cams possessed light amplification so that everything remained clearly visible. Spotting Gisender’s pathetic dried-out corpse, Var swallowed drily and rapidly checked other views. Still no sign of further action from Ricard, and there was work to be done. She reached out and slid over a laptop she had found earlier, checked its Bluetooth link with the console, and ensured she could call up all the cam views that could help her.

‘Have you fixed the garage doors?’ she asked tightly.