On the evening of the sixth day he was taken to a meeting in Nelquay Port. Apart from fourteen young soldiers still being treated in hospital, all the known survivors were there. It was estimated that more than sixteen hundred young people had died in the disaster, but around one hundred and fifty were still alive. Spoder realized immediately that he had escaped with comparatively little harm to himself – most of the other survivors were in a bad way.

A spokesperson from the island seigniory addressed the meeting, pointing out that the survivors had three choices. She said they must urgently decide what they wished to do.

The choices: They could wait on Nelquay for the arrival of the feared ‘black caps’, the military police escouades, then surrender to them. This would probably be in the next day or two. Or they could go into hiding, or disperse.

If they surrendered they would be treated by the military police as army deserters – because of this they faced the death penalty. In practice, execution was not likely to be carried out, as capital punishment had been abolished for many years in Faiandland itself. However, they would probably be sentenced to death, immediately commuted to a long spell of imprisonment in a military prison camp, followed by a return to the unit they had joined. The spokesperson added that high speed military vessels had already been detected leaving the southern mainland, probably heading for Nelquay, and they were expected to arrive within the next forty-eight hours.

The second choice was to remain on Nelquay and attempt to hide from the black caps. The woman said that the islanders of Nelquay would help them hide, and do what they could to protect them from capture. She explained Nelquay’s havenic and shelterate laws, which meant that among many other provisions no islander could be punished for hiding a deserter, or in this case a survivor from the shipwreck, but if any of the conscripts were discovered they would be immediately taken into custody. She added that staying in hiding was a viable option, because the people of Nelquay had substantial experience from past incidents. They were adept at concealing and smuggling escapees.