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up with. You’ve been working this area your whole life, so just tell me what you think.’
    Secretary Humboldt looked horrified. But with an observable effort of will, she put aside the briefing notes. ‘Well, sir . . .’
    That was as far as she progressed for a few seconds, as she groped wordlessly for the right thing to say.
    ‘Come on, Sarah,’ urged Kip. ‘You’ve been out to the detention camps. You sat in on a lot of interviews. What’s your gut feeling?’
    Humboldt frowned. All of her training, all of her professional experience, had taught her to divorce her feelings from her judgment.
    ‘Mr President, most of them are just little people. They’ve been carried along by events. This is the women and children I’m talking about. Most of them have lost their men in the fighting. They’re alone in the world except for each other. If you’re asking could they be integrated, I believe the answer is yes.’
    Culver kept his face neutral, concentrating on taking handwritten notes as Humboldt spoke. Kip had made it clear that he didn’t care for his Chief of Staff monstering the Cabinet secretaries . When Jed spoke, he did so in such a way that Ms Humboldt could not have known he thought she was a fucking mad woman.
    ‘Madam Secretary, would it be the case that you would differentiate between the women and children and the captured fighters?’
    Everyone in the room was interested in the answer. The President waited on her eagerly. Admiral Ritchie bored into her with his unwavering gaze. Even Secretary McAuley gave the impression of concentrating wholly on what she said next, deficits at least set aside for now. It didn’t ease Humboldt’s discomfort.
    ‘All of the enemy combatants were initially debriefed by the military. I don’t have access to the raw transcripts or interview recordings, just executive summaries. Some of the prisoners, the surviving leadership cadre, as I understand it, have been separated out and remain under military control. The lower ranks – if that’s an appropriate description – can probably be roughly sorted into two groups. True believers and, well, soldiers of fortune, I suppose. Opportunists. Like the pirate bands they were fighting with, but nominally motivated by religious conviction. Most of the second group, I believe, were less interested in Baumer’s jihad than they were in securing land and life for themselves and their families. They’re not true believers. If we were serious about taking them up into the broader migration program’ – she said that very carefully, watching to see if Culver would react – ‘I would recommend that only this latter cohort, the opportunists if you will, those without strong ideological attachment to Baumer, be accepted, and then with certain caveats.’
    Thank God for that at least , thought Jed. Caveats he could work with. Especially big, ass-kicking caveats that effectively guaranteed most of these punks a trip back to sea on his garbage scow.
    ‘What sort of restrictions would we be looking at?’ he asked.
    A deep crease formed in the middle of Humboldt’s brow. ‘I don’t believe it would be good policy to maintain the integrity of the original cohort,’ she said, lapsing into bureaucratese.
    When she failed to explain any further, Kipper prompted, ‘So, what, you’re talking about breaking them up?’
    She nodded. ‘Yes, sir. Not family groups, of course. But I think we would find that integrating them into existing communities would be a smoother process if they weren’t allowed to cluster.’
    This time a querying frown from the President caused her to hurry on with an explanation. ‘They’re less likely to cause trouble, much more likely to settle in, if we bed them down well away from any bad influences. And from each other. They’re not ideologues. For the most part, they’re young widows with quite young children, often three or four of them, to look after. And no men, of course, to provide for them. I