headed
here---then passed on. The Alliance needed someone to test the waters,
and the Cantons were used for that purpose. The German States could
not care less. Any instability only allows them greater opportunity
for profit and expansion. Play both sides against the middle, then
pick up the pieces; that is their game. Whether the fascists win or
lose, they will get their cut." The young man looked incredulous,
opened his mouth as if to speak.

"I know, I know---the ideologies. Ideology always seems the great
motive to the young, the reason that nations rise and fall. It is time
you learned that no one, except perhaps a few misguided knights, or
here and there a religious fanatic, ever made war for anything other
than personal gain. Though they may have told themselves otherwise."
He relit his pipe, looking thoughtful. BUT DUBCEK DIDN'T SMOKE.

"I remember when I was young, the great heroes and villains of history
seemed to play out their parts as emissaries---the Churchills and
Hitlers---instruments of good and evil upon the Earth. This was
central to all my illusions. It gave my life as a soldier meaning, and
drummed me full of patriotism, and a lot of other high-sounding
excrement. But the hard truth is, Brunner, men make war because they
think they can get something out of it, whether money or glory, it
hardly matters. They hope to take something by force, that is
otherwise denied to them.

"Because when you reach my age you come to realize, as they have, that
there are no rules. . .except survival of the fittest. The great
aggressors of history, from the Greeks to the Roman to whoever, took
what they took because no one could stop them. It is very difficult to
explain unless you have lived through it.....

"MEN rule the galaxy, Brunner. Men. There are no unseen forces at
work, shaping our destinies to some more perfect end. You must learn
to be cynical: it is the key to all truth. Forget your fairy-tale
notions. We live or die by our own devices."

A lull.

"Then what..... What keeps you going?" The aging colonel rose and
went to a dark window.

"Life is a game of chess. And I don't like to lose."

Brunner struggle beneath the coverings, feeling smothered. Suddenly he
burst forward, eyes open.

"But you lost! You LOST. You lost....." His temples throbbed and he
could not remember where he was. For he was not yet awake. His dream
had played on him the cruelest trick of a