Perhaps he had that from his mother: that, and pride. She’d let the infant beneath her heart live, abandoned her titled official lover, resumed her birthname, gone from Terra to Sassania and started anew as a dancer, at last married reasonably well, but kept young Dominic by her till he enlisted. Never had she sent word back from her frontier home, not when Flandry well-nigh singlehanded put down the barbarians of Scotha and was knighted for it, not when Flandry well-nigh singlehanded rescued the new Emperor’s favorite granddaughter and headed off a provincial rebellion and was summoned Home to be rewarded. Nor had her son, who always knew his father’s name, called on him until lately, when far enough along in his own career that nepotism could not be thought necessary.

Thus Dominic Hazeltine refused the offer of merry chitchat and said in his burred un-Terran version of Anglic, “Well, if you’ve been taking what amounts to a long vacation, the more reason why you wouldn’t have kept trace of developments. Maybe his Majesty simply hasn’t been bothering you about them, and has been quite concerned himself for quite some while. Regardless, I’ve been yonder and I know.”

Flandry dropped the remnant of his cigarette in an ash-taker. “You wound my vanity, which is no mean accomplishment,” he replied. “Remember, for three or four years earlier—between the time I came to his notice and the time we could figure he was planted on the throne too firmly to have a great chance of being uprooted—I was one of his several right hands. Field and staff work both, specializing in the problem of making the marches decide they’d really rather keep Hans for their Emperor than revolt all over again. Do you think, if he sees fresh trouble where I can help, he won’t consult me? Or do you think, because I’ve been utilizing a little of the hedonism I fought so hard to preserve, I’ve lost interest in my old circuits? No, I’ve followed the news, and an occasional secret report.”