All were well dressed. This morning Daniel had donned his best 2^nd Class uniform, his Grays, but a good number of senior officers and those with private incomes were in Dress Whites.

As Daniel prepared to sit some ten rows back, he noticed a familiar face across the aisle. "Why, hello, Christopher," he said in a low voice, stepping toward the thin lieutenant seated there. "Haven't seen you since the Academy."

Christopher Cha continued to sit stiffly, gripping his chit between the thumbs and forefingers of both hands. Instead of looking up when Daniel spoke his name, he turned his face the other way as if he were searching for something further down the empty row.

I didn't go home with his girlfriend after a party, did I? Daniel wondered. He certainly didn't remember doing so, but there were some nights during graduation week that were at best hazy.

"Leary!" said a lieutenant commander in the fourth row. He was making an effort to mute his voice, but the resulting husky whisper could be heard for a dozen places in every direction. "Come tell me about the hero's life, bold fellow!"

Daniel went back and slid past the slanted knees of four strangers, all lieutenants, to get to Scott Morgan. They'd been classmates at the Academy. Morgan had run with a faster crowd than Daniel, estranged from his father, could afford to follow, but they'd gotten on well enough during such contact as they'd had.

"Pretty, eh?" said Morgan, tapping the pip-in-a-circle on the epaulette of his Dress Whites. As Daniel slid onto the backless bench beside him, Morgan touched the solid rectangle of a full commander on the collar tab of his Grays and went on, "Of course, they're not nearly as pretty as these, Danny-my-boy. Congratulations, and further congratulations for still being alive. I'd say the rank is pretty much a given if you do the sorts of things you've done and manage to survive."