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"It’s not Gord’s fault!" I said "Not any more than this is our fault Trist should be mad at whoever did it"

"Well, I sort of see it both ways," Rory replied obstinately "Obviously you and Spink and Gord ht Gord’s never said what happened, but I don’t believe he fell down the steps Now they’re getting their own back at you all, but Trist and I are the ones who are paying for it"

"You’re paying for it? How?" Spink was incensed

"Our whole room reeks, that’s how! And Gord isn’t even here to clean it up, so we have to put up with it until he gets back I don’t even want to go in there"

"You could clean it up for him"

"It’s his stuff It’s his mess"

"You just made Natred’s and Kort’s bed up Why is that different?"

Rory grinned good-naturedly, but still could not completely admit his hypocrisy "Well, their stuff isn’t covered in piss, for one thing And for another, I like them"

"And you don’t like Gord?" I was surprised

He looked at hed "Look, Spink, I know he helps you a lot, and I guess you and Nevare both like hih But you two don’t have to live with hi, like bacon gone bad And he’s always sweaty And he’s noisy; his bed creaks under hi He’s so da that every time he walks in the door, the room feels crowded I’ve seen you two stand side by side and shave at the same basin when you have to hurry Can’t do that with Gord There’s no roo to be too friendly He invites the things that happen to him with the way he calls attention to hie? The first tiot sick He’s all pale and wobbly and…Well, it was Trist that first said it, but I’ll adut he has, onder if he even knows he has a cock He prob’ly hasn’t seen it in a couple of years at least"

Rory laughed at his own joke Spink and I didn’t A week ago I would have, I realized But now it seeh joke about Gord were mockery of us as well Why? Not because ere his friends; I still did not feel that great a personal attacheted him had attacked us as well, and sole entity now Like it or not, when they mocked Gord, it was mockery of us as well I didn’t like it at all

Rory threw up his hands at our silent stares and shrugged defensively "Well, take it that way if you want to It’s not personal, not withhi for the Academy, my father said, ‘Son, choose your friends well Don’t let them choose you; you be the one who decides who your pals are The needy and weak ones will always be the first to try to beco In the cavalla, aallies ill stand back to back with his who shelter in his shadow’ When I first , and that I could count on you at my back And when I first th to be a real officer He’s a liability to those who befriend hi to be everyone’s buddy, and doing everyone favors; he knows he’ll need pals to protect hih situation You know that’s true"

I put the last book back onover what Rory had said By having Spink as a friend, I’d also chosen to be associated with Gord And by default, that cutfriends with Trist If I had not befriended both Spink and Gord, I could have been one of Trist’s companions I liked Spink and instinctively knew that in many ways our values were more compatible than if I had followed Trist Yet I also knew that Trist was more charismatic, hed aloud when I found it Fashionable Trist wasthe older cadets, even those of old nobility blood He’d eaten at the commander’s table, and even nohen Caulder scorned reeted Trist warmly If I had been Trist’s friend, those connections and associations would have been open to me as well But I had met Spink first, and at my father’s recommendation, had chosen hi?