ach
moment. Some place far off, echoing across the valley, a rooster crowed.

"A chicken!" Taylor murmured. "Did you hear?"

Behind them, the leadys had come out and were standing silently,
watching, too. The gray sky turned to white and the hills appeared more
clearly. Light spread across the valley floor, moving toward them.

"God in heaven!" Franks exclaimed.

Trees, trees and forests. A valley of plants and trees, with a few roads
winding among them. Farmhouses. A windmill. A barn, far down below them.

"Look!" Moss whispered.

Color came into the sky. The Sun was approaching. Birds began to sing.
Not far from where they stood, the leaves of a tree danced in the wind.

Franks turned to the row of leadys behind them.

"Eight years. We were tricked. There was no war. As soon as we left the
surface--"

"Yes," an A-class leady admitted. "As soon as you left, the war ceased.
You're right, it was a hoax. You worked hard undersurface, sending up
guns and weapons, and we destroyed them as fast as they came up."

"But why?" Taylor asked, dazed. He stared down at the vast valley below.
"Why?"

* * * * *

"You created us," the leady said, "to pursue the war for you, while you
human beings went below the ground in order to survive. But before we
could continue the war, it was necessary to analyze it to determine what
its purpose was. We did this, and we found that it had no purpose,
except, perhaps, in terms of human needs. Even this was questionable.

"We investigated further. We found that human cultures pass through
phases, each culture in its own time. As the culture ages and begins to
lose its objectives, conflict arises within it between those who wish to
cast it off and set up a new culture-pattern, and those who wish to
retain the old with as little change as possible.

"At this point, a great danger appears. The conflict within threatens to
engulf the society in self-war, group against group. The vital
traditions may be lost--not merely altered or reformed, but completely
destroyed in this period of chaos and anarchy. We have found many such
examples in the history of mankind.

"It is necessary for this hatred within the culture to be directed
outward, toward an external group, so that the culture itself may
survive its crisis. War is the result. War, to a logical mind, is
absurd. But in terms of human needs, it plays a vital role. And it will
continue to until Man has g