nd flipping back a few trank pills."

Joe looked at her. "I don't believe I've had a trank in the past twenty
years, Miss Haer. Even as a boy, I didn't particularly take to having my
senses dulled with drug-induced pleasure."

Some of her fury was abating, but she was still critical of the
professional mercenary. Her eyes went up and down his uniform in scorn.
"You seem to make pretenses of being cultivated, captain. Then why your
chosen profession?"

He'd had the answer to that for long years. He said now, simply, "I told
you I was born a Lower. Given that, little counts until I fight my way
out of it. Had I been born in a feudalist society, I would have
attempted to batter myself into the nobility. Under classical
capitalism, I would have done my utmost to accumulate a fortune, enough
to reach an effective position in society. Now, under People's
Capitalism ..."

She snorted, "Industrial Feudalism would be the better term."

"... I realize I can't even start to fulfill myself until I am a member
of the Upper caste."

Her eyes had narrowed, and the anger was largely gone. "But you chose
the military field in which to better yourself?"

"Government propaganda to the contrary, it is practically impossible to
raise yourself in other fields. I didn't build this world, possibly I
don't even approve of it, but since I'm in it I have no recourse but to
follow its rules."

Her eyebrows arched. "Why not try to change the rules?"

Joe blinked at her.

Nadine Haer said, "Let's look up that refreshment you were talking
about. In fact, there's a small coffee bar around the corner where it'd
be possible for one of Baron Haer's brood to have a cup with one of her
father's officers of Middle caste."

VI

The following morning, hands on the pillow beneath his head, Joe Mauser
stared up at the ceiling of his room and rehashed his session with
Nadine Haer. It hadn't taken him five minutes to come to the conclusion
that he was in love with the girl, but it had taken him the rest of the
evening to keep himself under rein and not let the fact get through to
her.

He wanted to talk about the way her mouth tucked in at the corners, but
she was hot on the evolution of society. He would have liked to have
kissed that impossibly perfectly shaped ear of hers, but she was all for
exploring the reasons why man had reached his present impasse. Joe was
for holding hands, and staring into each other's eyes, she was for
delvin