"Hi," he said, holding out a hand. Then: "Ah, guddag."

"I speak English," John said, shaking with the brief hard clamp of tne Land. English and Imperial were compulsory subjects at school, and he'd practiced with his mother.

The other boy flexed his fingers. "Better'n I speak Landisch," he said, grinning. "I'm Jeffrey Fair. Tliat's my dad over there."

He nodded towards a tall slender man in a white uniform who was standing a careful twenty meters from the Hosten party. John recognized the uniform from familiarization lectures and slides: Republic of Santan-der Navy, officer's lightweight summer garrison version. It must be Captain Farr, the officer Mom had been seeing at the consulate about the citizenship stuff. 7 wish stie'd tell me the truth. I'm not a little kid or an idiot, he thought. That wasn't the only reason she was talking to Maurice Farr so much. "John Hosten, Probationer-hereditary," he replied aloud.

A Probationer-hereditary was born to the Chosen and automatically entitled to the training and the Test of Life; only a few children of Protege's were adopted into the course. Then he flushed. He wasn't going to be a S.M. Stirling 6- David Drake Probationer long, and he could never have passed the Test, not the genetic portions. Not with his foot. He couldn't be anything but a Washout, second-class citizen.

"You don't have to worry about all that crap any more," Jeffrey said cheerfully, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the liner Pride of Bosson. "We're all going back to civilization."

The Bag that fluttered from her signal mast had a blue triangle in the left field with fifteen white stars, and two broad stripes of red and white to the right. The Republic of Santander's banner.

John opened his mouth in automatic reflex to defend die Land, then closed it again. He was going to Santan-der himself. To live.