"Is that how he phrased it? Anyway, it's feudalism, not fascism, apart maybe from some of the late Emperor Ezar Vorbarra's experiments in centralization. The glittering tinsel of neo-feudalism I will grant you."

"I am thoroughly familiar with the principles of Barrayaran government, thank you," remarked Dr. Galeni.

"Such as they are," muttered Miles. "It was all arrived at by improvisation, y'know."

"Yes, I do. Glad to know you aren't as historically illiterate as the average young officer coming up these days."

"So . . ." Miles said, "if it wasn't for the gold braid and the shiny boots, why are you with us?"

"Oh, of course," Galeni rolled his eyes toward the light fixture, "I get a sadistic psychosexual kick out of being a bully, goon, and thug. It's a power trip."

"Hi," Miles waved from across the room, "talk to me, not him, huh? He had his turn."

"Mm." Galeni crossed his arms glumly. "In a sense, it's true, I suppose. I am on a power trip. Or I was."

"For what it's worth, that's not a secret to the Barrayaran high command."

"Nor to any Barrayaran, though people from outside your society seem to miss it regularly. How do they imagine such an apparently caste-rigid society has survived the incredible stresses of the century since the end of the Time of Isolation without exploding? In a way, the Imperial Service has performed something of the same social function as the medieval church once did here on Earth, as a safety valve. Through it, anyone of talent can launder his caste origins. Twenty years of Imperial service, and they step out for all practical purposes an honorary Vor. The names may not have changed since Dorca Vorbarra's day, when the Vor were a closed caste of self-serving horse goons—"

Miles grinned at this description of his great-grandfather's generation.

"—but the substance has altered out of all recognition. And yet through it all the Vor have managed, however desperately, to hang on to certain vital principles of service and sacrifice. To the knowledge that it is possible for a man who would not stop and stoop to take, to yet run down the street for a chance to give. . . ." He stopped short and cleared his throat, flushing. "My Ph.D. thesis, y'know. 'The Barrayaran Imperial Service, A Century of Change.'"

"I see."

"I wanted to serve Komarr—"

"As your father before you," Miles finished. Galeni glanced up sharply, suspecting sarcasm, but found, Miles trusted, only sympathetic irony in his eyes.

Galeni's hand opened in a brief gesture of agreement and understanding. "Yes. And no. None of the cadets who entered the service when I did have yet seen a shooting war. I saw one from street level—"

"I had suspected you were more intimately acquainted with the Komarr Revolt than the Security reports seemed to believe," remarked Miles.