‘Being killed by a spidergun is more certain than any threats of Messina’s at present.’

‘Those things are that effective?’

‘They can deploy all eight of their guns at once, each with a rate of fire of a thousand rounds a minute, at four thousand metres per second. The rounds themselves are depleted uranium beads.’ Saul held up one hand, finger and thumb just a few millimetres apart. ‘They deliver the same kinetic energy as an eight-millimetre readergun round, but over a smaller area, and each robot carries about two thousand rounds in each of its leg magazines. So, yes, even discounting the other missiles they can deploy, they’re that effective.’

‘Messina won’t give up easily.’

‘Yes, I hope so.’

Feeling suddenly uncomfortable with the direction of this conversation, Hannah now glanced up at the arcoplex soaring above them. ‘How do people get in and out when it’s rotating?’ she asked, deliberately changing the subject.

Saul pointed in over the structure housing the drive mechanism towards the dark throats of several access tubes leading towards the cylinder’s spindle. ‘There’s a tube elevator that goes in through the spindle itself then curves down to the cylinder floor.’ He pointed downwards. ‘You enter it upside-down, in relation to the asteroid, then experience an apparent increase in gravity until you step out in the arcoplex. You’ll soon see.’

They went through the airlock and, waiting for the two spiderguns to follow them, all Hannah could see was a nightmare scene of corpses lying entangled all about her.

Even though many of the victims were guilty of killing citizens back on Earth, others were merely wives, husbands and children. Saul was right: human life, it seemed, had been cheapened by its sheer quantity.

‘Come on.’ Once the spiderguns had joined them, Saul propelled himself up the inner face of the endcap, and Hannah quickly followed, gliding over the corpses until she could snag a handhold projecting from the spindle, sitting beside a sunlight transmission panel that even then was growing dull. The spindle itself was over ten metres in diameter, with frequent handholds marking a course along it.

‘There.’ Saul pointed to a tubeway exiting the spindle some twenty metres ahead, which curved down towards a building situated on the inner surface of the cylinder. ‘Engineering for environments like those found inside this station presents some interesting challenges.’

Did he not even notice all the dead?

At intervals along the spindle they were obliged to circumvent buildings that actually attached to it, extending outwards like spokes. Peering through their windows, she spotted further corpses drifting like slow marionettes. Two thousand people wiped out here just because some of them weren’t voting for Messina.