They’d colonized the reservoir around the time Greg moved into his chalet on the shore, seeding and harvesting their gene-tailored water-fruit. Their only concession to the convulsions of the PSP years was to store Greg’s military gear for him, and, very occasionally, provide sanctuary for an activist on the run from the People’s Constables.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Greg told Nicole as he climbed into his ancient rowing boat. When the neurohormone hangover had gone, when the memory of Edwards had faded, when he felt human again.

She untied the pannier and tossed it into the boat after him. “Sure, Greg. Take care.”

Back on land he headed for the pub to forget the kill, The Army had taught him how to handle that as well. How to suspend human feelings in combat, to refuse the blame for all the deaths, the pain, suffering, horror. Greg had never woken screaming like others in the regiment had.

He knew what he needed, the release which came from drink and women, gluttoning out, sluicing away the memory of Edwards in a wash of basement-level normality.

He had a good feeling as he walked into the Wheatsheaf at Edith Weston; esper intuition or old-fashioned instinct, it didn’t matter which, the result was the same. Static-charged anticipation. He opened the taproom door grinning.

The Wheatsheaf’s landlord, Angus, had come up trumps; his new barmaid was a tall, strapping lass, twenty years old with a heart-shaped face, wearing her thick red hair combed back from her forehead. She was dressed in a long navy-blue skirt and purple cap-sleeve T-shirt. A deep scoop neck showed off the heavily freckled slope of her large breasts to perfection.

Eleanor Broady. Greg stored the name as she pulled him a pint of Ruddles County, topping it with a shot of Angus’s home-made whisky. It lasted longer that way, he couldn’t afford to knock back pints all night.

Greg sat back and admired her in the guttering light of the oil lamps.