'He was diced by a strangleweb/ the Colonel says coldly, no sign of any emotion on his face at all. I wince inside - being slowly cut up as you try to struggle out of a constricting mesh of barbed muscle is a nasty way to go. Come to think of it, I've never thought of a nice way to go.

'I am leaving it to you to organise the rest of the men into squads and to detail special duties/ the Colonel says before stepping past me and striding down the corridor. A Departmento flunky swathed in an oversized brown robe hur­ries down to the Colonel carrying a massive bundle of parchments, and then they are both lost in the distant gloom.

'Inside/ orders an armsman from behind me, his nametag showing him to be Warrant Officer Hopkinsson.

The massive cell doors clang shut behind me, leaving me locked in this room with ten score murderers, thieves, rapists, heretics, looters, shirkers, desecrators, grave-robbers, necrophiles, maniacs, insubordinates, blasphemers and other assorted vermin for company. Still, it makes for interesting con­versation sometimes.

'Right!' I call out, my voice rebounding off the high metal ceiling and distant bulkheads. All sergeants get your sorry hides over here!'

As the order is passed around the massive holding pen, I gaze over my small force. There's a couple of hundred of us left now, sitting or lying around in scattered groups on the metal deck­ing, stretching away into the gloom of the chamber. Their voices babble quietly, making the metal walls ring slightly and I can smell their combined sweat from several days on the fur­nace-hot planet below. In a couple of minutes eight men are stood around me. I catch sight of an unwelcome face.

"Who made you a sergeant, Rollis?' I demand, stepping up to stand right in front of his blubbery face, staring straight into his beady black eyes.