ters?"

"In keeping with the traditions of your people," he replied gravely.
"You Sword-Worlders used to raid everywhere you went."

"I'm afraid those bad old days are long past, Your Imperial Majesty,"
Lord Koreff said. "But we Sword-Worlders got around the galaxy, for a
while. In fact, I seem to remember reading that some of our brethren
from Morglay or Flamberge even occupied Aditya for a couple of
centuries. Not that you'd guess it to look at Aditya now."

* * * * *

It was First Citizen Yaggo's turn to take precedence--the seat on the
right of the throne chair. Lord Koreff sat on Ranulf's left, and, to
balance him, Prince Ganzay sat beyond Yaggo and dutifully began
inquiring of the People's Manager-in-Chief about the structure of his
government, launching him on a monologue that promised to last at least
half the luncheon. That left the King of Durendal to Paul; for a start,
he dropped a compliment on the cloth-of-silver leotard.

King Ranulf laughed dulcetly, brushed the garment with his fingertips,
and said that it was just a simple thing patterned after the Durendalian
peasant costume.

"You have peasants on Durendal?"

"Oh, _dear_, yes! Such quaint, _charming_ people. Of course, they're all
poor, and they wear such _funny_ ragged clothes, and travel about in
rackety old aircars, it's a wonder they don't fall apart in the air. But
they're so _wonderfully_ happy and carefree. I often wish I were one of
them, instead of king."

"Nonworking class, Your Imperial Majesty," Lord Koreff explained.

"On Aditya," First Citizen Yaggo declared, "there are no classes, and on
Aditya everybody works. 'From each according to his ability; to each
according to his need.'"

"On Aditya," an elderly Counselor four places to the right of him said
loudly to his neighbor, "they don't call them classes, they call them
sociological categories, and they have nineteen of them. And on Aditya,
they don't call them nonworkers, they call them occupational reservists,
and they have more of them than we do."

"But of course, I was born a king," Ranulf said sadly and nobly. "I have
a duty to my people."

"No, they don't vote at all," Lord Koreff was telling the Counselor on
his left. "On Durendal, you have to pay taxes before you can vote."

"On Aditya the crime of taxation does not exist," the First Citizen told
the Prime Minister.

"On Aditya," the Counselor four places down said to his neighbor,