"I was a statistician before I got in the service, Sir."
"Well, they're screaming over at headquarters for qualified office personnel, and we have to send them any trained men we have—of any rank."
"It's for Haldor, Sir," I said. By now I knew the correct answer was most often the noncommittal one.
I reported to the Headquarters, 27th Invasion Force. The rumor was that Phase II, Reduction of Inhabitants to Slavery with Shipment to Haldorian Colonies, was about to start. And also, our Planners were supposed to be well into Phase III, Terraforming, already. Terraforming was necessary, of course, to bring the average temperature of earth down to something like the sub-arctic so that we Haldorians could live here in comfort. We lost quite a few fighters during invasion when their cooling systems broke down. Rumor, as always, was dead right; and the Headquarters was a mad rat-race.
The Senior Trontar of the office was delighted to get another body.
"Took your time getting here, Ruxt! You guard louts don't know the meaning of time, do you?"
I remained at attention.
"So you're a statistician, are you? Well, we don't need any statisticians now. We just got in a whole squad of them. Can you use a writer, maybe?"
"Yes, Sir," I did not remind the Senior Trontar that using a writer was a clerk's job, not a Trontar's, not a combat three-striper's, because the chances were that he knew it, for one thing. And he could easily make me a clerk, for another thing.