d let them rebuild and get
strong, and with their strength acquire a knowledge of cooperation--and
take the chance that they would ultimately beat us. Knowing this, we
wisely chose the second course and set about teaching our fellow men a
lesson that was now fifteen years along and not ended yet.

By applying pressure at the right places we turned their attention
inward to us rather than to the outside, and by making carefully timed
sorties here and there about the periphery we forced them through sheer
military necessity to gradually tighten their loosely organized League
into tightly centralized authority, with the power to demand and
obtain--to meet our force with counterforce. By desperate measures and
straining of all their youthful resources they managed to hold us off.
And with every strain they were welded more tightly together. And
slowly they were learning through war what we could not teach through
peace.

Curiously enough, they wouldn't believe our aims even when captured
crews told them. They thought it was some sort of tricky mental
conditioning designed to frustrate their lie detectors. Even while they
tightened their organization and built new fleets, they would not
believe that we were forcing them into the paths they must travel to
avoid future annihilation.

It was one of the ironies of this war that it was fought and would be
fought with the best of intentions. For it was obvious now that we could
never win--nor could they. The Rebels, as we called them, were every
whit as strong as we, and while we enjoyed the advantages of superior
position and technology they had the advantage of superior numbers. It
was stalemate,--the longest, fiercest stalemate in man's bloody history.
But it was stalemate with a purpose. It was a crazy war--a period of
constant hostilities mingled with sporadic offensive actions like the
one we were now engaged in--but to us, at least, it was war with a
purpose--the best and noblest of human purposes--the preservation of the
race.

The day was coming, not too many years away, when the first of the
aliens would strike the Outer worlds. Then we would unite--on the
League's terms if need be--to crush the invaders and establish mankind
as the supreme race in the galaxy.

But this wasn't important right now. Right now I was the Executive
Officer of a scout ship commanded by a man I didn't trust. He smelled
too much like a stinking coward. I shook my head. Having Chase running