Around the perimeter of a central atrium there were small private cubicles, including dormitories, toilets and showers. Dolo and Luca were going to have to share one small, grimy compartment, at which Dolo scowled. Luca found a toilet and used it with relief. He had been unable to use the facilities in his skinsuit, in which you were just supposed to let go and allow the suit to soak it all up; it hadn’t helped that the suits were semi-transparent.

He wandered uncertainly through the large central area. Under its fabric roof the facility was too hot. There was a stink of overheated food from the replicator banks, and the floor was grimy with sweat and ground-in asteroid dirt. The troopers, dressed in dirty coveralls, walked and laughed, argued and wrestled. While Luca had kept his inertial-control boots on, the soldiers mostly went barefoot; they jumped, crawled, even somersaulted, at ease in the low gravity environment. Many of them were sitting in solemn circles singing songs, sometimes accompanied by flutes and drums that had been improvised from bits of kit. They played sentimental melodies, but Luca could not make out the words; the troopers’ vocabulary was strange and specialised, littered with acronyms.

There was graffiti on the walls. One crude sketch showed the unmistakable flared shape of a Xeelee nightfighter conflated with the ancient symbol of a fanged demon, and there were references by one sliver of a sub-unit to the incompetence and sexual inadequacy of the troopers in another, startlingly obscene. A couple of slogans caught his eye: ‘Love unto the utmost generation is higher than love of one’s neighbour. What should be loved of man is that he is in transition.’ And: ‘I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.’ Another hand had added: ‘I am become Boredom, the Destroyer of Motivation.’

He joined Dolo on a small stage that had been set up before rows of seats. The daily briefing was soon to begin here. Luca reported on the graffiti he had seen. ‘I don’t recognise the sources.’

‘Probably pre-Occupation. Oh, don’t look so shocked. There is plenty of the stuff out there; we can’t control everything. In fact I think I recognise the first. Frederick Nietzsche.’ His pronunciation was strangulated.

‘It sounded a good summary of the Druz Doctrines to me.’

‘Perhaps. But I wonder how much harm those words have done, down across the millennia. Tell me what you think of our proto-religion here.’