‘Pilot Tatjana, we both know that Grishkin here is the station’s most active samisdata pirate! We are all criminals, don’t you see? That’s the beauty of our system, isn’t it?’ His sudden, twisted smile was shockingly cynical. ‘Kosmograd is not the Potemkin, and you are not revolutionaries. And you demand to communicate with Marshal Gubarev? He is in custody at Baikonur. And you demand to communicate with the minister of technology? The minister is leading the purge.’ With a decisive gesture he ripped the printout to pieces, scraps of yellow flimsy scattering in free fall like slow-motion butterflies.