. Yes, young man, I was a colonel in the Twenty-first
North American Spaceborne Commando, which was a regular unit of the
Earth Defense Corps."

"And did you retire from the service?"

"No, the service retired from me."

"I beg pardon, sir?"

"You heard me correctly, young man. It happened just sixty-three years
ago. The Earth Armed Forces were demobilized, except for the police
whom I cannot count. But all regular units were demobilized."

"Why was that done, sir?"

"There wasn't anyone to fight. Wasn't even anyone to guard against, or
so I was told. Damned foolish business, I say."

"Why, sir?"

"Because an old soldier knows that you can never tell when an enemy
might spring up. It could happen now. And then where would we be?"

"Couldn't the armies be formed again?"

"Certainly. But the present generation has no concept of serving under
arms. There are no leaders left, outside of a few useless old fools like
me. It would take years for an effective force, effectively led, to be
formed."

"And in the meantime, Earth is completely open to invasion from the
outside?"

"Yes, except for the police units. And I seriously doubt their
reliability under fire."

"Could you tell me about the police?"

"There is nothing I know about them. I have never bothered my head about
non-military matters."

"But it is conceivable that the police have now taken over the functions
of the army, isn't it? That the police constitute a sizable and
disciplined paramilitary force?"

"It is possible, sir. Anything is possible."

* * * * *

(_Citizen Moertin Honners, age 31, occupation verbalizer. A slim,
languid man with an earnest, boyish face and smooth, corn-blond hair._)

"You are a verbalizer, Citizen Honners?"

"I am, sir. Though perhaps 'author' would be a better word, if you don't
mind."

"Of course. Citizen Honners, are you presently engaged in writing for
any of the periodicals I see on the dissemination stands?"

"Certainly not! These are written by incompetent hacks for the dubious
delectation of the lower middle class. The stories, in case you didn't
know, are taken line by line from the works of various popular writers
of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The people who do the work
merely substitute adjectives and adverbs. Occasionally, I'm told, a more
daring hack will substitute a verb, or even a noun. But that is rare.
The editors of such periodicals frown upon s