sets, gray sacks, puss pockets--no offense to this Place--that the
Spiders have created, maybe by gigantic implosions, but no one knows for
certain, and then we're sent off on all sorts of missions into the past
and future to change history in ways that are supposed to thwart the
Snakes."

"True, lad."

"And from then on, the pace is so flaming hot and heavy, the shocks come
so fast, our emotions are wrenched in so many directions, our public and
private metaphysics distorted so insanely, the deepest thread of reality
we cling to tied in such bloody knots, that we never can get things
straight."

"We've all felt that way, lad," Sid said soberly; Beau nodded his sleek
death's head; "You should have seen me, _Kamerad_, my first fifty
sleeps," Erich put in; while I added, "Us girls, too, Bruce."

"Oh, I know I'll get hardened to it, and don't think I can't. It's not
that," Bruce said harshly. "And I wouldn't mind the personal confusion,
the mess it's made of my spirit, I wouldn't even mind remaking history
and destroying priceless, once-called imperishable beauties of the past,
if I felt it were for the best. The Spiders assure us that, to thwart
the Snakes, it is all-important that the West ultimately defeat the
East. But what have they done to achieve this? I'll give you some
beautiful examples. To stabilize power in the early Mediterranean world,
they have built up Crete at the expense of Greece, making Athens a ghost
city, Plato a trivial fabulist, and putting all Greek culture in a minor
key."

* * * * *

"You got time for culture?" I heard myself say and I clapped my hand
over my mouth in gentle reproof.

"But _you_ remember the dialogues, lad," Sid observed. "And rail not at
Crete--I have a sweet Keftian friend."

"For how long will I remember Plato's dialogues? And who after me?"
Bruce challenged. "Here's another. The Spiders want Rome powerful and,
to date, they've helped Rome so much that she collapses in a blaze of
German and Parthian invasions a few years after the death of Julius
Caesar."

This time it was Beau who butted in. Most everybody in the Place loves
these bull sessions. "You omit to mention, sir, that Rome's newest
downfall is directly due to the Unholy Triple Alliance the Snakes have
fomented between the Eastern Classical World, Mohammedanized
Christianity, and Marxist Communism, trying to pass the torch of power
futurewards by way of Byzantium and the East