Dakk led us back through Kard’s officer country. Commissary Varcin met us there.

Here, the partitions had hastily been taken down to open up a wide area of deck that was serving as a hospital and convalescent unit. There were crew in there in all stages of recovery. Some of them were lying on beds, weak and hollow-eyed. Many of them seemed to be pleading with the orderlies to be put back on the Torch despite their injuries - once you lose contact with your ship in a war zone it can be impossible to find it again. And many of them asked, touchingly, after the Torch itself. They really cared about their living ship, I saw; that battered old hulk was one of the crew.

An awful lot of them sported ponytails, men and women alike, apparently in imitation of their captain. Very non-Doctrinal.

When they saw Dakk they all shouted and cheered and whistled. The walking wounded crowded around Dakk and thumped her on the back. A couple just turned their heads on their pillows and cried softly. Dakk’s eyes were brimming, I saw; though she had a grin as wide as the room, she was on the point of breaking down.

I glanced at Tarco. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Among the medics I saw a figure with the shaven head and long robes of the Commission. She was moving from patient to patient, and using a needle on them. But she wasn’t treating them. She was actually extracting blood, small samples that she stored away in a satchel at her side.

This wasn’t the time or place to be collecting samples like that. I stepped forward to stop her. Well, it was a natural reaction. Luckily for me Tarco held me back.

Commissary Varcin said dryly, ‘I can see you have your future self’s impetuosity, ensign. The orderly is just doing her duty. It’s no doubt as uncomfortable for her as it is for you. Commissaries are human beings too, you know.’

‘Then what—’

‘Before they went into battle every one of these crew will have been injected with mnemonic fluid. That’s what we’re trying to retrieve. The more viewpoints we get of this action, the better we can anticipate it. We’re ransacking the ship’s databases and logs too.’

Call me unimaginative. I still didn’t know what unlikely chain of circumstances had delivered my older self into my life. But that was the first time it had occurred to me what a potent weapon had been placed in our hands. ‘Lethe,’ I said. ‘This is how we’ll win the war. If you know the course of future battles—’

‘You have a lot to absorb, ensign,’ Varcin said, not unkindly. ‘Take it one step at a time.’

Which, of course, had been my own advice to myself.