hings) more implacable. But it had been nearly a hundred years
since the Commonwealth had been directly involved in any kind of
offensive (military) war. Most observers had come to think of this
naive superpower as a big dog that liked to bark and throw its weight
around, but wasn't really looking for a fight. The damage it did was
more subtle and indirect---like stepping on flowers not yet open, and
crushing creatures too small for it to see.

But as the saying went, "When you sleep in the same bed with a giant,
you had better sleep lightly." The United Commonwealth was the most
powerful nation-state in the history of mankind, the more so because it
did not know its own strength.

9) P-B3

These are, of course, the bare facts, and like all generalization,
subject to flaw. There were West Germans who loathed and rebelled
against every hint of the Nazi mentality, Japanese who had never been
violent, Belgians and Swiss who opposed the coming war, members of the
Soviet leadership who cared, and Americans who saw the world clearly.

Unfortunately, as all too many times in the past, there did not seem
enough who broke the mold, nor did they play an active enough role, to
keep the wheels of ignorance and violence from churning. Because the
study of war is the study of people in power and the masses they are
able to persuade---of strife, twisted dreams and ambitions, and of
human nature set in its darkest surroundings. For this reason the
small and destructive characteristics of a people (of the aggressors,
at the least) tend to surface, often riding on the back of what is
truest and noblest in them, and individuals silently opposed to the
politics of carnage don't seem to count for much.

The sad and simple truth remains that, to be prevented, nationalistic
aggression must be resisted from within, either by large numbers of the
population, or by those in positions of power who are willing and able
to stop it. And so far throughout history, with very few exceptions
and during wars uncounted, it had not been.

* * *

0-0

The battle room aboard the armed space station Mongoose was quietly
tense and alert. The Czech and East German officers attended their
various stations with well-drilled efficiency and outer calm,
intermittently reading off coordinates and running hands across
pulsating fingerboards, making adjustments and speaking by headset to
the variou