Despite its miserable climate, Tanith was an important world. It was first a convenient dumping ground for Earth's disinherited: the rebels, criminals, malcontents, victims of administrative mistakes, and the balance of the wretched refuse of a civilization that could no longer afford misfits; and it was the main source of borloi, which the World Pharmaceutical Society called "the perfect intoxicating drug."

Few men knew that Tanith was also important because many of the borloi plantations were owned by the CoDominium Space Navy, and profits from the drug trade were important in keeping the Fleet in being after the Grand Senate began wholesale cuts in the Navy's budget.

Heat beat down on sodden fields. Two hours before the noon of Tanith's fifteen-plus hours of sunshine the day was already hot; but all Tanith's days are hot. Even in midwinter the jungle steams in late afternoon. In the swamps below the regimental camp Weem's Beasts snorted as they burrowed deeper into protective mud. In the camp itself the air hung hot and wet, heavy, with a smell of yeast and decay.

The Regiment's camp was an island of geometrical precision in the random tumble of jungles and hilltops. Each yellow rammed-earth barrack was set in an exact relationship to every other, each company set in line from its centurion's hut at one end to the senior platoon sergeant's at the other. A wide street separated Centurions' Row from the Company Officers' Line, and beyond that was the shorter Field Officers' Line, the pyramid narrowing inevitably until at its apex stood a single building where the colonel lived. Other officers lived with their ladies, and married enlisted men's quarters formed one side of the compound; but the colonel lived alone.

The visitor stood with the colonel to watch a mustering ceremony evolved in the days of Queen Anne's England when regimental commanders were paid according to the strengths of their regiments, and the Queen's mustermasters had to determine that each man drawing pay could indeed pass muster-or even existed.