The helicopter had a crew of three. They were all young men, no more than twenty-five. Their clear skin, regular features and glowing good health made Lucas feel old and ugly, as did their adulation when they looked at Rove. They all wore the same uniforms, black with silver trim, cut in a fashion that Lucas had hitherto only associated with certain science fiction franchises. Or with people who fetishized entirely the wrong parts of mid-twentieth-century history. A bundle of clothes was shoved into his hands, and he glanced enquiringly at Rove. His boss had already stripped to his vest and was pulling on a clean black shirt. The jacket being held out for him sported plenty of braid at the shoulders. Lucas was only mildly surprised that the man hadn’t awarded himself a chestful of medals for his own cleverness.

“You’d better change,” Rove shouted at him over the roar of the rotors. “You don’t want to stand out, after all.”

Looking at these bright young things, Lucas felt that ship had sailed, but he donned the uniform anyway. It was only the outward sign of the inward commitment he’d already made.

After an hour of flying, they came in sight of “home.”

Someone had felled a whole load of trees, levelled the earth and enclosed a few acres with a serious amount of barbed wire fencing. They’d obviously miscalculated though, because the buildings inside the compound were squashed right into one corner. And there was an expanse of excess space at the far end. Maybe Rove would turn it into a parade ground for his youth corps.

The buildings looked prefabricated, matching the sort Lucas had experienced during his army career. But every roof here displayed a gleaming expanse of solar panels. There were tents, too, on the spare ground, suggesting that someone’s numbers had been off—or some of the staterooms weren’t quite ready for human habitation. Lucas ticked off the likely purpose of each hut: barracks, mess, stores, HQ, vehicle pool. He could see a handful of machines already in motion, mostly clearing more ground of trees outside the wire. As the helicopter came down, aiming for a big quad in the centre of the compound, uniformed figures ran up and formed into ranks. There were far more of them than Lucas was expecting. When Rove stepped out with a languid wave, everyone there snapped crisply to attention. It was enough to fuel the wet dreams of a dozen Napoleons.