A voice of command bit out, "Hold it, you lads!"
The original situation which had precipitated the fight was being duplicated. But while the three Lowers had failed to respond to Joe Mauser's tone of authority, there was no similar failure now.
The owner of the voice, beautifully done up in the uniform of Vacuum Tube Transport, complete to kilts and the swagger stick of the officer of Rank Colonel or above, stood glaring at them. Age, Joe estimated, even as he came to attention, somewhere in the late twenties—an Upper in caste. Born to command. His face holding that arrogant, contemptuous expression once common to the patricians of Rome, the Prussian Junkers, the British ruling class of the Nineteenth Century. Joe knew the expression well. How well he knew it. On more than one occasion, he had dreamt of it.
Joe said, "Yes, sir."
"What in Zen goes on here? Are you lads overtranked?"
"No, sir," Joe's veteran opponent grumbled, his eyes on the ground, a schoolboy before the principal.
Joe said, evenly, "A private disagreement, sir."
"Disagreement!" the Upper snorted. His eyes went to the three fallen combatants, who were in various stages of reviving. "I'd hate to see you lads in a real scrap."
That brought a response from the non-combatants in the recruiting line. The bon mot wasn't that good but caste has its privileges and the laughter was just short of uproarious.
Which seemed to placate the kilted officer. He tapped his swagger stick against the side of his leg while he ran his eyes up and down Joe Mauser and the others, as though memorizing them for future reference.