ed. "Can I tell
you something, 'as a man?'" Dubcek turned his eyes away, poured the
bottle into the glass.

"Yes." Brunner too looked away.

"I wasn't always old, or alone, with no other calling." He breathed
heavily through his nose. "But my wife died some years back, and we
had no children. Some men can go on from such a thing: find another
wife, start again. But I am not one of them. I had never loved
before..... But that is beside the point." He drank the glass again.

"I found myself alone, in the military, with no real skill other than
being a soldier, a good officer. My father had been a working man.....
So I put all my energies into advancing my career, trying to fill the
emptiness. Telling myself." He gave a short, disagreeable laugh.
"Telling myself that if I could only rise high enough through the
ranks, that I could SAVE lives. I was going to make certain the old
war-mongers who ran the armies of the world did not subject innocent
people to the kind of loss I'd known. I was going to see to it that no
task force was ever advanced needlessly, no ship ever mindlessly
sacrificed to gain a tactical advantage." He stopped, as some other
emotion rose up in him.

"You say you hated me when you learned I had sacrificed a thousand men
and women. What would you feel if we had lost, and left the colonies
unprotected?" He rose in a rage, as Brunner stood and backed away.
"How would you judge me while some Belgian officer was raping your
pretty little wife?"

Brunner's eyes flashed murder at him, but he said nothing.

"Yes. And how would you have liked me when the political executions
and imprisonments began? Forget your romantic notions! When it comes
to occupying armies, there are no morals left to judge." He steadied
himself, took a breath.

"Behind us lie the three planets of our people, our home. One hundred
million inhabitants. Nothing else stands between them and us. And
maybe our enemies don't even want them. Perhaps they would be just as
happy to destroy the entire system, or even use radiation bombs: empty
the inhabited planets of life without destroying the cities, the
beautiful landscape. Do you think this is a fucking game?"

"You misunderstand. I am not judging you."

"And you misunderstand," said Dubcek bluntly. "Why do you think I take
an interest in you? Why do you think you are here?"

"I don't KNOW!"

Dubcek waited. "Shall I tell you?"

Brunner turned hi