Ritchie continued. ‘The majority of our existing frontier militia, the lower ranks anyway, are made up of migrants, Mr President. It’s a fast track into the settlement programs and citizenship for most of them. They’re willing to take the risks – and they are very real risks – for the payoff. Now, returning to the situation at hand. If, say, for the sake of argument, we accepted only those fighters who had family connections among the civilian detainees, it would be a matter of little or no trouble to hold over them the fact that we control their access to their loved ones. Maybe ten years is too long. Five might be better. The point is, we control them and we control access to what they want. Their families. It’s just a matter of striking the right balance between punishment and reward. Maybe they get to come back for a week every six months, maybe two weeks every twelve. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, to some extent. To all intents and purposes, they’d still be our captives. But their jail would be the frontier.’

Silence, pregnant with possibilities, not all of them good, seemed to press down on the Oval Office. Barney Tench looked every bit as shocked as Jed had felt a few minutes earlier. McAuley was frowning furiously.

Finding himself in the unusual position off not knowing exactly what to think, Jed Culver settled for trying to read Kipper’s reaction instead. He knew the President’s natural inclination would be forgiving rather than punitive, at least of the spear carriers and foot soldiers. The altogether less liberal approach of effectively exiling them into the wilderness for a decade, and allowing tightly controlled access to their wives and children, probably didn’t appeal as much. But then Kip had been initially sceptical of Sarah Humboldt’s plan. Or Humboldt and Ritchie’s plan, he supposed, given how well they’d gamed the proposal.