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Yeah, he was a surgeon, and yeah, you couldn’t slice without seeing blood, but being up to your ankles in it? Every day? That was hard.

It didn’t matter that the vast majority of the troops were clones, all stamped from the same press, and all programmed not to fear war. Even though they weren’t quite individuals, they still suffered and died, and the ones who didn’t die he and his colleagues had to put back together any way they could, desperately jury-rigging and cobbling procedures, swapping out organs and patching up wounds, and then send them back out to suffer again. And maybe, this time, die.

There were days when he hated the talent in his hands and nerves that made it possible for him to slice and plastistrip and heal. Perhaps, if he’d been trained in something else-genomics, maybe, or bio-robotics-he wouldn’t be on this stinking planet, mired in this stink-ing war. Of course, he’d rather be behind the lines in a Rimsoo than in the thick of things. His genetic pro-gramming didn’t include immunity to fear, after all. But he didn’t really want to be here in any capacity.

Jos thought of Barriss Offee, of the attraction he had initially felt for her. It was just as well that it hadn’t continued, he told himself, since she was not permes.

The fact that she was off-limits, however, did nothing to assuage his loneliness. He wanted someone for a life mate, someone to be close to, to cherish. But he would have to wait until he was back in his home system for that to happen.

He stared moodily into the depths of his tanque tea, as if some answer might be divined from the root frag-ments bobbing in the murky liquid.

"Stare any harder and it’ll evaporate."

He glanced up and saw Tolk standing there, in her off-duty whites. The light from the chow hall door was behind her, putting her in partial silhouette, but not so much that he couldn’t still see her features. Everything went out of his head except for one thought: Son-of-an-ibbot! She’s gorgeous!

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been aware that his chief nurse was human, and quite attractive; that was obvious to anybody with one working eye. But the same prob-lem that existed with the Padawan also applied to Tolk: she was not permes. The Vondars and the Kersos-his father’s and mother’s clans-were very solidly enster; disciples of a long and traditional sociopolitical affilia-tion in which Jos had also been raised. A big part of an enster’s core belief system was that no marriage could be made, much less consummated, outside the inhabi-tants of one’s own planetary system. The more extreme zealots restricted it even further, refusing to allow any affiliations offplanet. No exceptions were made.

Yes, a young man or woman could go offworld, and yes, even the staunchest Ensterites might turn a blind eye if a son or daughter somehow managed a temporary al-liance with one of the eksters-the "outsiders"-but when you came home, you left your wild urges behind. You did not bring an ekster home to meet your parents.

It was simply not done-not unless you were willing to give up your clan and be renounced and ostracized for the rest of your life. Not to mention bringing shame and contempt on your immediate family.

All this flickered through his thoughts at lightspeed. He hoped none of it showed, given a Lorrdian’s un-canny ability to read expressions and body language. Tolk wasn’t an empath, like Klo Merit was, but she could pick up and decode the smallest physical clues to just about any species’s mood.

"Tolk," he said casually. "Sit. Have some tea. In fact, have mine."

Tolk sat, took his cup and sipped from it, looked at him closely, and said, "Who died?"

"About half the troops in the Republic military forces, seems like lately."

"We’re keeping eighty-seven percent of those who ro-tate through our surgery alive."

He shrugged. She took another sip of his drink. "Okay, thirteen percent of a big number is still a lot. But it could be worse."

She had a nice scent about her; something slightly musky, yet fresh. He’d never noticed that before.