erwise, could not yet smell blood in the water.

But all that careful work and planning was now being swept away by a
single, unforeseeable mistake. Over the years Stone had accumulated
numerous political debts, especially to those who had kept him going
during the lean years of 'progressive humanism', one of which he had
repaid by appointing a pompous, self-indulging and wholly unqualified
'hero' of the Nibian Wars (like Ulysses S. Grant, he had sent tens of
thousands to their graves without blinking), and a man he personally
disliked, as his Secretary of State. Charles William Hayes.

Like Douglas Macarthur before him, Hayes had given innumerable signs of
the obsession he now sought to enact. But like so many other men of
history who are not taken at their word (Adolph Hitler being perhaps
the clearest, and most horrific example), people had always assumed
that he took such a hard line against socialism (as Hitler had done
against the Jews) simply to encourage those who could elevate him to
power, and to tap into the volatile anger and frustration of his
countrymen.

But the truly frightening thing about such men, Hayes included, was
that THEY MEANT EVERY WORD THEY SAID. "Better dead than Red," an
expression borrowed from the Cold War days of the mid twentieth
century, was not just a slogan to him, but unwritten Holy Scripture,
handed down to him by the righteous God who ruled the Universe and
called men of courage and action to his service, in the unending war
against this modern day Satan. Etc. In his mind, too simple or too
stubborn to possess any clear sense of perspective, this same God
directed his every footstep, living within him and guiding his
thoughts. And anyone who stood in his way, or questioned his narrow
vision, was either weak, blind, or the enemy. As he had intimated in
his letter to Stone, so far as he was concerned, there was no 'middle
ground' in anything.

And in classic Shakespearean form, the inevitably tragic events of his
life had only served to bear out his convictions, and reinforce his
Messianic image of himself. Indeed, given the power of his obsession
and the unyielding pursuit of an aggressive, self-chosen destiny, they
could hardly have done otherwise.

So Edgar Stone brooded, and listened to his advisers argue, and tried
to think. While the winds of war swirled around him.

II

On the three socialist planets now occupied by the Belgians and Swiss,
th