"Maybe," MacMaine said thoughtfully. "On the other hand, if my overall strategy comes out the way I think it will, that battle may never be fought at all. I think that complete and total surrender will end the war before we ever get that close to Earth." "I hope you're right," Tallis said firmly. "This war is costing far more than we had anticipated, in spite of the weakness of your--that is, of Earth." "Well," MacMaine said with a slight grin, "at least you've been able to capture enough Earth food to keep me eating well all this time." Tallis' grin was broad. "You're right. We're not doing too badly at that. Now, let's go; the High Commander is waiting." * * * * * MacMaine didn't realize until he walked into the big room that what he was facing was not just a discussion with a high officer, but what amounted to a Court of Inquiry. The High Commander, a dome-headed, wrinkled, yellow-skinned, hard-eyed old Kerothi, was seated in the center of a long, high desk, flanked on either side by two lower-ranking generals who had the same deadly, hard look. Off to one side, almost like a jury in a jury box, sat twenty or so lesser officers, none of them ranking below the Kerothi equivalent of lieutenant-colonel. As far as MacMaine could tell, none of the officers wore the insignia of fleet officers, the spaceship-and-comet that showed that the wearer was a fighting man. These were the men of the Permanent Headquarters Staff--the military group that controlled, not only the armed forces of Keroth, but the civil government as well. "What's this?" MacMaine hissed in a whispered aside, in English. "Pearr up, my prrotherr," Tallis answered softly, in the same tongue, "all is well." MacMaine had known, long before he had ever heard of General Polan Tallis, that the Hegemony of Keroth was governed by a military junta, and that all Kerothi were regarded as members of the armed forces. Technically, there were no civilians; they were legally members of the "unorganized reserve," and were under military law. He had known that Kerothi society was, in its own way, as much a slave society as that of Earth, but it had the advantage over Earth in that the system did allow for advance by merit. If a man had the determination to get ahead, and the ability to cut the throat--either literally or figuratively--of the man above him in rank, he could take his place. On a more strictly legal basis, it was possible for a common trooper to become an officer by going through the schools set up for that purpose, but, in practice, it took both pull and pressure to get into those schools.