Dolo was watching him again. ‘You’re thinking of the lovely Captain. This is where she came from.’ He waved a hand. ‘An inductee into this dismal boot camp, here on New Earth, she was a tough fighter. Saw her first action at twelve, survived, went back for more. Why do you think I brought you here?’

Luca, bewildered, looked down at the dirt.

Dolo, at random, beckoned a small boy standing in a row of others. With a glance at his overseer the boy came running and stood at attention before them. His eyes were bright, lively. Dolo bent down and smiled. ‘Do you know who we are?’

‘No, sir,’ snapped the boy.

‘Then who are you?’

‘Who I am does not matter. Sir,’ he appended hastily.

‘Good. Then what are you?’

‘I am a little boy now, and I must study. But when I am big enough to operate a weapon I will join the unending war, and avenge those who have fallen, and fight for the future of mankind.’

Dolo straightened up. Luca would have sworn he could see a tear in his eye. ‘Novice, it has taken us twenty thousand years - perhaps even longer - to get to this point. But, step by step, we are reaching our goal. I give you the child soldier: the logical future of mankind.’

When Dolo nodded dismissal the boy turned away and walked back to his section. Luca could see he was struggling to contain his youthful energy, trying not to skip or run.

When they got back to the Rock, an evacuation and hasty re-equipping was underway. Non-combatants were removed from the Rock, equipment, stores and people hurried underground, weapons, sensor and drive emplacements rapidly completed and tested. Meanwhile the troopers were checking their skinsuits and other kit, and injecting themselves with mnemonic fluid, a record which might help the military analysts reconstruct whatever happened to them.

It turned out that orders had been changed. The Rock was to be hurled on its new mission to the Front in just a few more days, weeks ahead of the old schedule. Perhaps, Luca thought with a shiver, the prognosticating librarians on distant Earth had discerned some shifting in their misty maps of the future, and the Rock was to be sent to secure some famous preordained victory - or to avert some predetermined disaster.

But for him the most important consequence of this chain of events was that he was to be taken off the Rock and flown out to another station, while Teel was to ride the Rock once more to the Front itself.

He hurried to her quarters.

Aside from a small bathroom area there were just two pieces of furniture, a simple bed and table. She was sitting on the bed studying a data desk. The top button of her uniform was undone; he found his eyes drawn to the tiny triangle of flesh that showed there.