"

The screen went blank. The transmission ended. Stone, Plant and Bacon
were silent.

*

The following day Stone met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and had
them each swear a further oath of allegiance to him, their
Commander-in-Chief, to serve no other, and to have no secret dealings
with Hayes. He then appointed new heads of the Army and Space Navy,
and those who would not submit were dismissed.

There was angry shouting, and much hard feeling, but no violence in the
transition.

X

Isograph: 7/20 to 12/30

Not on the socialist and pioneer alone did the hammer-stroke fall. Nor
was the sword always wielded by those without a cause, to the detriment
of the noble and just. This struggle, this convulsion of wills, was a
human reality, and therefore complex.

Like and yet unlike so many wars before it, this conflict, neither
large nor glorious, was fought on a myriad of battlefields, where
reasons were often lost, and morals obscured. The constraints of
civilization had been removed, freeing men, both good and evil, to
commune once more with their darker nature. That was all. And that
was more than enough.

There was but a single unifying link among the sprawl of planets and
peoples caught up, involved, willingly or not, in this unraveling: all
those who transgressed were filled with the desire to take, at the
expense and death of others, and those who were transgressed upon,
fought with all they had not to yield up the pebbles of home, seeds of
family, and grains of meaning they had found. And whether right or
wrong, wise, brave or foolish, they bled.

Part, the First

The breast of woman is the very temple of Nature
Transporting the mind and body of Man
To other places,
Other times, where beings struggled
In endless rhythm with the forces
that seek to drag us back to earth.
Mystical, beautiful, oh Woman
You are the crown of creation:
The pure and holy vessel of new life.
Oh, glory of this world
Keep me forever young!

---unnamed Irish poet

The Irish planet-colony of New Belfast was rich and fertile. The air
was infinitely breathable and sustaining, the vegetation lush, with
roots that went deep into the ground. It was a land and sea t