The Rock itself was a swarm of continual, baffling activity. Troopers crowded constantly past him, great files of them labouring from place to place carrying equipment and supplies. They were blank-faced, dogged, their suits carefully dusted with asteroid dirt in the probably vain hope that such camouflage would help them survive. Sometimes they stepped on Luca’s feet or legs, and he cowered against the dirt in his trench, trying to make himself small and invisible.

Bayla, the trooper on the charge of religious sedition, was with him, though. She had been assigned by Teel to ‘supervise’ him. Luca hadn’t seen anything of Teel herself since they had broken through the last cordon of Navy Spline ships and into the full battle light, and the final preparations had begun. Whatever fantasies he had had of working alongside Teel, of somehow participating in this effort, had long evaporated. The only human comfort he drew was from the warm pressure of Bayla’s leg against his own.

Bayla kept checking a chronometer and consulting lists that scrolled over the surface of her skinsuit sleeve. But every few minutes she took the time to check on Luca. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes.’ Again he had to push back to let a file of troopers past. ‘I don’t understand how they can do their jobs.’

‘What else is there to do?’

‘They must be afraid.’

He could see her frown. ‘You learn to live with the fear. Like living with an illness.’

‘A fear of death, or injury?’

‘No, not that.’ She spoke slowly. She seemed serene. ‘It’s more that it might not make sense. You feel you’re in the wrong world, the wrong time. That it shouldn’t be like this. If you let that in, that’s the true fear.’

He didn’t understand, of course.

A patch of Bayla’s sleeve flashed orange. ‘Excuse me.’ Bayla barked a command.

A file of troopers came scurrying through the dirt and took their position. They were carrying tools, he saw. The troopers all seemed small, light. Young, he realised. Bayla held up her hand, checked the time again - then brought her arm down in a chop. The troopers swarmed up over the side of the trench, using rungs and cables or just footholds gouged into the harder rock.

In response, light stormed.

Some of the troops fell back immediately, limp, like dolls. The rest of the troopers flattened themselves on their bellies in the dirt, under the light, and began to crawl away, face down, out of Luca’s sight. Other troopers came scurrying along the trench with med cloaks. They wrapped up the fallen and took them away, limp bundles that were awkward to handle in the low gravity.