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“Why do you want to join a Free Company?” He was a short, humanoid type with deep black eyes and a thin, lipless mouth that never smiled.

“I’m an anti-social. I like to fight. I want to fight.”

“A misfit joining the misfits? A grudge against the Council? It’s not good enough, mister, we live on the Council. Try again.”

Saltario’s black eyes stared without a flicker. “You’re Red Stone, Commander of the Red Company. You hate the Council and I hate the Council. You’re the ...” Saltario stopped.

I said, “The Traitor of the Glorious War of Survival. You can say it, Saltario.”

The lipless mouth was rigid. “I don’t think of it that way. I think of a man with personal integrity,” Saltario said.

I suppose I should have seen it then, the rock he carried deep inside him. It might have saved thirty thousand good men. But I was thinking of myself. Commander Red Stone of the Red Company, Earthmen. Only we’re not all Earthmen now, every year there are fewer recruits, and it won’t be long before we die out and the Council will have the last laugh. Old Red Stone, the Traitor of the War of Survival, the little finger of my left hand still missing and telling the Universe I was a very old soldier of the outlawed Free Companies hanging onto life on a rocky planet of the distant Salaman galaxy. Back at the old stand because United Galaxies still need us. In a way it’s a big joke. Two years after Rajay-Ben and I had a bellyfull of the Glorious War of Survival and they chased us all the way out here, they turned right around and made the peace. A joke on me, but sometimes I like to think that our runout was the thing that made them think and make peace. When you’ve been a soldier for thirty-five years you like to win battles, but you like to feel you helped bring peace, too.