"And yet the Alliance doesn't seem to have problems manning its warships," Cummins said. "More warships than the Republic has in service, as I understand?"

The fish plates vanished in their turn. The dish had indeed been hake, and the memories of foggy mornings at Bantry gave Daniel a twinge. Life had been simpler then, and it hadn't been so long ago. He was only 25 now, very young for a full commander.

"Guarantor Porra fills his crews with drafts from the relief rolls, Patron," Daniel said to Cummins. "You're better placed than I to say whether that'd be politically acceptable in the Republic-"

Speaker Leary's son didn't need Cummins to tell him that it'd lead to riots sufficient to level Xenos.

"-but speaking as an RCN officer, I'd very much regret seeing us go that route. The crews are likely to be disaffected and are sure to be inefficient. The Fleet-the naval arm of the Alliance-tries to get around the problem by assigning three crewmen where we'd use two, but that leads to overcrowding even though Fleet vessels are larger for their class. And in many circumstances, most in fact, more unskilled hands mean more confusion."

Servants to right and left offered Daniel tiny cutlets on a bed of rice, or squab with a bright purple root vegetable. Because his hobby was natural history, he was able to identify the "feathers" covering the bird as petals from the hearts of Hussite cardoons. With Hus deep within the Alliance, Dame Cathleen must've paid a fancy price for a product that hadn't been naturalized off its home world.

He took a squab. It'd been expertly boned and was remarkably tender. Force-meat stuffing preserved its shape.