"You agreed."

"And my word holds for the whole Star, quiaff?"

Horse seemed reluctant to reply. "Aff. But we look like fools and—"

"Time will pass. We will find our edge."

Horse's eyes narrowed. "What has happened to you, Jorge? Once no base commander could have prevented you from avenging an insult. Once you would've been the first one to wade into a fight. You would have had five enemies on the floor before anyone else could throw a single—"

Aidan smiled. "I appreciate your faith in me, Horse. You make me sound like a hero in one of those Clan folk myths. But I have to protect the Star from—"

"We need protection from nothing, and no need to become poltroons because of—"

"Poltroons?" Aidan said, still smiling. "Where did you get that word?"

"I can read, too. You keep leaving books around and-"

Aidan's smile turned into a glare. "I told you not to mention them in here."

Horse's face reddened. "Sorry. At any rate, I pick up information here and there. And, anyway, why didn't you get mad when I called you that name?"

"First of all, the word is too funny when you hear someone actually speak it. Second, I understand why you said it. And, it might seem strange that I say this, but I agree with you. Even I do not know why I remain passive. No matter what we do, Kael Pershaw will find a way to throw even more discredit on me and the Star. Let me put it this way: Our bid is a loser, no matter how good it is, no matter who is bidding against us, no matter how much we flaunt the odds—what amuses you, Horse?"

"Flaunt. Another of your words. Maybe it's theme, well, you know—that's keeping us down."

"No, it is the old biases against us. There sometimes seems no way we can—you are smiling again. Another word?"

"No. In a way, yes. You said us. You continually include yourself as one of us, even though you were actually born a—"

This time Aidan gave Horse a slight kick to the shin. He had never known his comrade to make so many slips of the tongue in so short a period. Perhaps Horse had downed his own equivalent of a triple-fusionnaire before coming to the officer's lounge.

"I am one of you now," Aidan said. "My, well, origins do not matter. We have served together, fought together, brawled together for too long. I could never return to—"he peered around the room, saw that no one was eavesdropping—"never return to my old, well, status again. Do you understand, Horse?" Horse nodded. "Good. Now, let us get out of this place, while the stink of these trues is still mild in the air."

With Horse leading the way, they headed away from the bar. Aidan, who knew better, decided to walk past Bast and his rude friends. There was just so much passivity he could take.

"Star Commander Jorge," Bast said with mock formality.

"Star Commander Bast."

"I hope our little jokes did not offend you."

Aidan was tempted to rise to the bait, but he said instead, "I heard nothing that would offend me."

Bast glanced toward his cohorts. "See? They understand caste, too."

"I understand I am a warrior, yes."

The amusement drained out of Bast's face. "I did not mean that. I meant you are a freebirth and therefore genetically unsound, made from the materials of chance. Do you not agree?"

"All life is chance, opportunities to be bid for."

"That is not what I meant. I meant that the finest warriors are created by scientific design, the genes of superior warriors brought together to form a line of children. One mating creates many of a preeminent order, therefore trueborns. The other mating is the result of sheer accident and creates no more than, say, a small litter of genetically unpredictable freeborns. The superiority of trueborns is logically proven, quiaff?"

Aidan felt pulled in two. As a genuine trueborn, he saw the point of Bast's crude logic. But having fought side by side, lived side by side, with freeborns, he knew also that genetic chance could, and often did, supply military forces with warriors every bit the equal of those who had graduated to the role from sibkos. At the same time that his mind weighed the argument, the sheer repulsiveness of Bast made him think of murder.

"Genetic hegemony has been argued at length," he finally said to Bast.

"Ah, and the scholars have almost unanimously decided that the Clan eugenics system produces superior beings."

"Yes, but—" Aidan wanted to say that there had been times in history when scholars had been wrong. But then he would have had to reveal his sources, and it was vital to him to keep his personal library a secret. Kael Pershaw would seize it in a minute.

"But what?"

"You said almost unanimously. There have been dissenters."

"Traitors, yes."

"Not traitors. Scientists, researchers, theorists."

"Traitors. All traitors. We praise the eugenics program here, Star Commander Jorge, quiaff? QUIAFF?"

"Aff. You praise the eugenics program here."

"You? I said we. You do agree, quiaff?"

Aidan, although he was in an open area of the room, felt his back against a wall. He remembered the scene in Pershaw's office, after Aidan had mockingly performed surkai,when the base commander had insisted on a promise that Aidan and his freeborn warriors would stop brawling with the trues. Kael Pershaw had vowed that any aggression from one would result in the punishment of several and that any aggression from Aidan himself would bring down punishment on the entire unit.

"Perhaps, Star Commander Jorge, you misunderstood the question?" Bast stood up. "You are a freeborn, after all. I forget that things must be spelled out. What I said, honored warrior, was that the Clan eugenics program produced superior warriors. Which, of course, means that it produces superior beings. Therefore, we praise the eugenics program here, quiaff?"

Aidan knew what he must respond, and he did not know why he could not say it. Why did a simple "aff" lodge in his throat? Why could he not say it? Beside him, he could sense Horse bristling.

Bast leaned toward Aidan, the stink of his alcohol-saturated breath rushing forward as he spoke. "We praise the eugenics program here, quiaff? QUIAFF,you rotten freebirth!"

All restraint left Aidan in a rush. Anger, fueled by a triple dose of fusionnaires, took over. It no longer mattered what he had vowed to Pershaw. There was no freeborn in his unit who would have wanted him to capitulate to this overbearing enemy. "Freebirth" was the epithet most insulting to all warriors, regardless of their birth status. Trueborns offended other trueborns with it, used it almost casually against freeborns. Aidan had been called a freebirth many times since he had assumed the identity of Jorge, but this time, coming from Bast, it made him furious.

Grabbing Bast by the neck brace, he pulled him forward roughly. Then he butted the truebom warrior's head, letting go of the neck brace and pushing him back. Bast staggered backward, knocking over the chair on which he had been sitting, and his hands went to his neck. His eyes showed terrible pain. Aidan hoped he had reinjured the man's neck, that the injury was even worse than before. He relaxed, the anger out of him now. The other trueborns, clearly enraged but prevented by Clan warrior law to act as long as the fight was only between Aidan and Bast, muttered encouragement to their still-reeling companion. Aidan laughed scornfully. Bast reversed his backward motion and took a pair of stumbling steps forward, his hands still clutching the neck brace.