Among the demanding hands, the Kalif then recognized that of Elder Dosu Sutaravaalu, Archdeacon of Ananporu and Leader of the Assembly of Elders. An old man, nearly ninety, he arose without effort, though with a certain care. He bowed first to the Kalif, then slightly to Lord Fakoda.

"Your Reverence, we have heard from men here who have been blessed by Kargh above other men. We have heard about 'practical considerations.' " He said the two words as if they were distasteful. Then he bobbed a slight bow toward Lord Agros. "The morals of peasants have even been mentioned.

"But none of these have meaning except as they fit within the prescriptions and proscriptions of The Prophet. And The Prophet truly said, 'Be fruitful.'

"It is not ours to judge his words and say that they still hold or do not hold. He said them. They are ours to obey. As for the number of people-The problem is not the number of people. The problems are sufficient jobs, sufficient food. And it is our duty to solve them. But to solve them within the limits demanded by Kargh and written down for us by His Prophet."

After a little, it was agreed to shelve, for the present, the question of approval for the exportation of loohio. Lord Roonoa felt comfortable with this. Opposition had not been as vehement as he'd expected, and some year soon he might be willing to push things to a vote. When the prognosis was suitable.

The Kalif too was pleased with the session. Lords Rothka and Ilthka had been discouraged more easily than he'd expected. And Rothka's challenge made clear that there was a leak in his council; very probably Thoga. Meanwhile, of course, his marital plans would now leak to the public at large. Well, let them get a look at Tain. The public would approve, it seemed to him.

Beyond that, the discussions of Roonoa's proposal had shown him a possible fulcrum to gain support for an invasion. And accomplish other things; maybe even approval for the limited sale of loohio in areas of serious food shortages. He'd have to sort out the dynamics of the situation-see what the potentials were, the possibilities and cross-purposes.

During the discussion, another question had occurred to him. About SUMBAA. The giant artificial intelligence held virtually all the significant data there was, and supposedly had an unparalleled capacity to segregate, correlate, analyze, and integrate those data. And to create with them, at least within limits.

So why hadn't SUMBAA solved the problems of jobs and food? He could understand why it hadn't solved the question of population: religion was involved. But the others?

Surely it had been asked. Or had it? People didn't seem to wonder about SUMBAA, or even think much about it. It had been around for so long, doing what it did without consulting anyone. And really, apparently, without being much consulted by them except for the enormous volume of more or less routine bureaucratic needs.

Why? Why hadn't SUMBAA volunteered solutions? Could it be that, with the burden of routine, SUMBAA didn't have enough capacity left over? Somehow he didn't think that was it. Perhaps solutions didn't lie in the analysis of data. Perhaps they required some ability SUMBAA didn't have.

Sometime soon, he told himself, he'd go to the House of SUMBAA and discuss these things with him. With it. Tomorrow. Seven and Eightdays made up the weekend, and there'd be fewer demands on his time then.

Twenty-one

An Imperial Army captain stepped into Veen's office. "You're Colonel Thoglakaveera?" he asked.

Veeri looked up from paperwork. "That's right."

The man thrust out a hand to him, and he shook it. "My name is Alivii Simnasaveesi. I understand you were with the Klestronu marines in the alien empire."

Veeri's mood shifted cautiously from boredom to tentative interest; he wondered if this man knew anything else about him. "That's true," he said.

"I'm with Headquarters Regiment of the Capital Division. A friend of mine, Major Tagurt Meksorfi, is giving a party at his town place in the outskirts." The captain paused to see what Veeri's reaction might be to the major's gentry name. When nothing showed, he continued. "He gives one almost every Sevenday evening, for a dozen or two officers and occasionally a guest. He'd heard there was a Klestronu colonel here who'd been in the fighting, and asked me to invite you. Interested?"

It didn't even occur to Veeri to decline.

For nearly fifteen centuries there'd been no distinction in law between a "Greater" and a "lesser" nobility. The formal categories had been erased when the empire had become the Kalifate, part of an agreement that had gained Kalif Yeezhur the military backing of the lesser nobility. Backing that made him the first emperor Kalif.

But in fact the distinction remained, a distinction based mainly now on wealth and tradition. And while the senior male in every noble family, Greater or lesser, held a vote, members of only certain families were eligible to serve in the Diet.

Most of the old Great Families were still so regarded, even those whose earlier wealth had declined somewhat. Their extensive plantations gave them the potential to recoup, meanwhile living like true aristocrats. Occasionally of course, one of them would be disgraced and lose its status, or simply die out.

The Great Families had been joined from time to time, almost surreptitiously, by one and another family of the lesser nobility who'd become especially rich and influential. The Greater Nobles might then begin treating them like one of their own. An example was the Lamatahasu family, of which Lord Fakoda was presently the head.

The military, however, truly recognized no distinction, either in the imperial services or in those of the individual worlds. A son of the poorest noble family, perhaps with only a confectioner's shop to support it, could become a general if he had the necessary skills. In fact, the sons of lesser families made up a sizeable majority of the officer corps, from top to bottom, in every branch, even the navy. Thus, in the armed forces, if a Greater Noble was prejudiced against the lesser nobility, he'd do well to keep it to himself.

Gentry were a different kind of phenomenon, a legally defined class of different origin intermediate between the nobility and peasantry. Gentry made up the entirety of noncommissioned officers, the so-called "sergeantcy," which included corporals. And for a very long time, occasional gentry had entered the officers corps during war by promotion from sergeant. But only over the last three centuries had they been accepted into the service academies and grown to an appreciable minority of commissioned officers.

As officers, gentry met a certain amount of discrimination both socially and on promotion rosters, the amount depending on ability, personality, and the unit's commanding officer. Among gentry, excellence was usually necessary to attain a captaincy, short of one's final years; it was essential to rising higher.

Though wealth also helped.

At age thirty-one, Tagurt Meksorli was already a major. Kulen Meksorli, Tagurt's paternal grandfather thrice removed, had been hired as a stevedore foreman at a spaceport on Varatos. The young foreman, who was paid a percentage of his job contracts, had paid his peasant laborers on the basis of production. Under the table, of course; the practice was illegal, there being a set pay scale for peasants. Soon he bought the crew contract and developed a virtual fief, his fast, efficient crews having gobbled up much of the local cargo-handling business. The more profitable part of it.

Then, in a wild, high-stakes card game, Kulen had won a small hyperspace merchantman, a tramp freighter. He'd paid professional ship inspectors to go over it for him, then plunged most of what he owned and could borrow into getting it overhauled.