Var assumed there must be some problem with the crawler’s computer or the disc itself, for the file containing personal messages directed to base personnel was empty, as were the other files containing software updates, Govnet search results and even the latest shipment manifest. However, some files were full: eyes-only stuff for Ricard, which she could not access, and the one containing the latest announcement from Delegate Margot Le Blanc – the usual weekly lecture that all base personnel had to sit through in the community room. Var opened it and let it play.

Le Blanc blinked into existence on the screen. As usual she was seated at her wide, polished and empty desk in her office in Brussels, above her head the space-exploration logo affixed to the wood-panelled wall behind her: a space plane penetrating the ring chain of the united world, all its links differently coloured to represent the various regions of Earth. The woman looked grave, but then that was nothing unusual, and Var felt a sneer appearing on her own face – such as she could never allow herself while watching such a broadcast within view of Ricard or any of his staff. Above desk level, Le Blanc wore a tight grey jacket straining at the buttons over her matronly running-to-fat body and a short-collar blouse, whilst out of sight she doubtless wore a neatly matching skirt and sensible shoes. An Inspectorate brooch cinched her blouse at the throat, but she wore no other jewellery, no make-up, had her hair in a page-boy cut, and a white and utterly utile fone in her ear. Her hands were neat, but meaty, the nails unvarnished. It seemed to Var that cloning technology must be more advanced than she had supposed, for many women in the upper echelons of the world bureaucracy looked just like Le Blanc.

‘Citizens of Antares Base,’ she began, as she always did, but this time how she continued was very different. ‘It is with a heavy heart that I address you today. Most of you, having been away from Earth for five years, and some for even longer, will be unaware of how circumstances have changed here. When you departed upon your great venture on behalf of the people, you left an Earth blossoming under the auspices of Committee rule.’

‘Yeah, right,’ said Var who, like many on the newest complement of technical staff for the base, had been secretively accessing the Subnet before her enforced departure. That was just about the time that the Inspectorate nuked Chicago and, as Var’s fellows were waiting at Minsk to board their space plane up to Traveller VIII where she awaited them in a holding cell, when the Committee had announced the restructuring of the East Saharan irrigation project. ‘Restructuring’ always meant something had gone drastically wrong, so that probably meant starvation in the North African sprawls, along with rioting and the deployment of Inspectorate military.