The sergeant looked around, trying to ignore him. "I'm here for Captain Donovan--Earl Basil, if you prefer. They said he'd be here. I've got an Imperial summons for him." The noble stretched out a hand. "This is he. Let's have that paper." "It's just the formal order," said the sergeant. "You're to come at once." "Commoners," said Donovan mildly, "address me as 'sir.'" "You're a commoner with the rest of 'em now." The sergeant's voice wavered just a little. "I really must demand a little respect," said Donovan with drunken precision. There was an unholy gleam in his eyes. "It's a mere formality, I know, but after all my family can trace itself farther back than the Empire, whereas you couldn't name your father." Sam Olman snickered. "Well, sir--" The sergeant tried elaborate sarcasm. "If you, sir, will please be so good as to pick your high-bred tail off that chair, sir, I'm sure the Imperium would be mostly deeply grateful to you, sir." "I'll have to do without its gratitude, I'm afraid." Donovan folded the summons without looking at it and put it in his tunic pocket. "But thanks for the paper. I'll keep it in my bathroom." "You're under arrest!" Donovan stood slowly up, unfolding his sheer two meters of slender, wiry height. "All right, Wocha," he said. "Let's show them that Ansa hasn't surrendered yet." He threw the tankard into the sergeant's face, followed it with the table against the two marines beside him, and vaulted over the sudden ruckus to drive a fist into the jaw of the man beyond. Wocha rose and his booming cry trembled in the walls. He'd been a slave of Donovan's since he was a cub and the man a child, and if someone had liberated him he wouldn't have known what to do. As batman and irregular groundtrooper he'd followed his master to the wars, and the prospect of new skull-breaking lit his eyes with glee. For an instant there was tableau, Terrans and Ansans rigid, staring at the monster which suddenly stood behind the earl. The natives of Donarr have the not uncommon centauroid form, but their bodies are more like that of a rhinoceros than of a horse, hairless and slaty blue and enormously massive. The gorilla-armed torso ended in a round, muzzled, ape-like face, long-eared, heavy-jawed, with canine tusks hanging over the great gash of a mouth. A chair splintered under his feet, and he grinned. "Paraguns--" cried the sergeant. All hell let out for noon. Some of the customers huddled back into the corners, but the rest smashed the ends off bottles and threw themselves against the Terrans. Sam Olman's remaining arm yanked a marine to him and bashed his face against the wall. Donovan's fist traveled a jolting arc to the nearest belly and he snatched a rifle loose and crunched it against the man's jaw. A marine seized him from behind, he twisted in the grip and kicked savagely, whirled around and drove the rifle butt into the larynx. "Kill the bluebellies! Kill the Impies! Hail, Ansa!"