‘He’s doing that right now,’ replied Var, a flick at her wrist control flinging up an exterior cam image in the lower half of her visor. One enforcer had already exited the crawler and positioned himself behind a boulder, his scoped rifle resting on a small tripod on the boulder itself. On the other side of the hex, the crawler had now stopped to discharge another sniper. This man set off at a steady lope, then abruptly dropped into a hollow in the ground, before setting up his rifle too. After a moment he rose from a crouch and gestured to the crawler, which set off again, this time turning in towards the hex. The imperious gesture was enough to make Var realize something.

‘In fact,’ she added, ‘Ricard is one of those two snipers.’

‘Makes sense,’ said Lopomac. ‘He wouldn’t want to put himself at risk in here. I’ll bet the other sniper is Silberman.’

The crawler drew over beside Hex Three at the point where Var had blown the windows, there discharging another three enforcers behind the water tanks. Whilst one covered the two nearest windows, the third ran over to the intervening wall, where Var now lost sight of him from the roof cams. Switching to an internal view, she saw a hand briefly appear in one window, then some object bounce inside. The view whited out and from where she hung above the reactor Var heard two hollow booms.

‘Grenades,’ she said, ‘just as predicted.’

‘Damn,’ Carol exclaimed. Var glanced at her questioningly, and she explained, ‘The glue, it’s photo- and thermoactive too.’

‘So a grenade flash will make it set hard,’ said Lopomac. ‘That’s great.’

‘Score one for Ricard,’ said Var. ‘But it’s not like your glue is something he’s deliberately and cleverly neutralizing.’ She did not mention her thoughts about lucky generals, instead focusing on the crawler as it rounded the hex and turned in towards the garage. Again it went out of sight of the roof cams, but Var now switched to the cam positioned in the airlock.

‘The crawler’s entering the garage airlock,’ she said.

Lines of vapour cut across her view into the airlock itself as the outer doors ponderously drew open, and the crawler rolled inside. The doors behind it closed and sealed, and she could tell that the gate valve had now opened to pressurize the lock as, over a long five minutes, the same vapour dispersed. How long would it take them to realize that the inner doors weren’t opening?

Ah, now.