It was First Citizen Yaggo's turn to take precedence--the seat on the right of the throne chair. Lord Koreff sat on Ranulf's left, and, to balance him, Prince Ganzay sat beyond Yaggo and dutifully began inquiring of the People's Manager-in-Chief about the structure of his government, launching him on a monologue that promised to last at least half the luncheon. That left the King of Durendal to Paul; for a start, he dropped a compliment on the cloth-of-silver leotard. King Ranulf laughed dulcetly, brushed the garment with his fingertips, and said that it was just a simple thing patterned after the Durendalian peasant costume. "You have peasants on Durendal?" "Oh, _dear_, yes! Such quaint, _charming_ people. Of course, they're all poor, and they wear such _funny_ ragged clothes, and travel about in rackety old aircars, it's a wonder they don't fall apart in the air. But they're so _wonderfully_ happy and carefree. I often wish I were one of them, instead of king." "Nonworking class, Your Imperial Majesty," Lord Koreff explained. "On Aditya," First Citizen Yaggo declared, "there are no classes, and on Aditya everybody works. 'From each according to his ability; to each according to his need.'" "On Aditya," an elderly Counselor four places to the right of him said loudly to his neighbor, "they don't call them classes, they call them sociological categories, and they have nineteen of them. And on Aditya, they don't call them nonworkers, they call them occupational reservists, and they have more of them than we do." "But of course, I was born a king," Ranulf said sadly and nobly. "I have a duty to my people." "No, they don't vote at all," Lord Koreff was telling the Counselor on his left. "On Durendal, you have to pay taxes before you can vote." "On Aditya the crime of taxation does not exist," the First Citizen told the Prime Minister. "On Aditya," the Counselor four places down said to his neighbor, "there's nothing to tax. The state owns all the property, and if the Imperial Constitution and the Space Navy let them, the State would own all the people, too. Don't tell me about Aditya. First big-ship command I had was the old _Invictus_, 374, and she was based on Aditya for four years, and I'd sooner have spent that time in orbit around Niffelheim." Now Paul remembered who he was; old Admiral--now Prince-Counselor--Gaklar. He and Prince-Counselor Dorflay would get along famously. The Lord Marshal of Durendal was replying to some objection somebody had made: [Illustration]