Off to one side, almost like a jury in a jury box, sat twenty or
so lesser officers, none of them ranking below the Kerothi equivalent
of lieutenant-colonel.

As far as MacMaine could tell, none of the officers wore the insignia
of fleet officers, the spaceship-and-comet that showed that the wearer
was a fighting man. These were the men of the Permanent Headquarters
Staff--the military group that controlled, not only the armed forces of
Keroth, but the civil government as well.

"What's this?" MacMaine hissed in a whispered aside, in English.

"Pearr up, my prrotherr," Tallis answered softly, in the same tongue,
"all is well."

MacMaine had known, long before he had ever heard of General Polan
Tallis, that the Hegemony of Keroth was governed by a military junta,
and that all Kerothi were regarded as members of the armed forces.
Technically, there were no civilians; they were legally members of the
"unorganized reserve," and were under military law. He had known that
Kerothi society was, in its own way, as much a slave society as that of
Earth, but it had the advantage over Earth in that the system did allow
for advance by merit. If a man had the determination to get ahead, and
the ability to cut the throat--either literally or figuratively--of the
man above him in rank, he could take his place.

On a more strictly legal basis, it was possible for a common trooper to
become an officer by going through the schools set up for that purpose,
but, in practice, it took both pull and pressure to get into those
schools.

In theory, any citizen of the Hegemony could become an officer, and any
officer could become a member of the Permanent Headquarters Staff.
Actually, a much greater preference was given to the children of
officers. Examinations were given periodically for the purpose of
recruiting new members for the elite officers' corps, and any citizen
could take the examination--once.

But the tests were heavily weighted in favor of those who were already
well-versed in matters military, including what might be called the
"inside jokes" of the officers' corps. A common trooper had some chance
of passing the examination; a civilian had a very minute chance. A
noncommissioned officer had the best chance of passing the examination,
but there were age limits which usually kept NCO's from getting a
commission. By the time a man became a noncommissioned officer, he was
too old to be admitted to the officers training schools