"I never heard about this," I said.

"You weren't meant to-but that's what was on his mind during that meeting. That the other side had decided that all-out nuclear war was inevitable too."

"But, I always thought he was a hero."

Major Tirelli looked wistful. "So did I-I still do. And maybe he was-maybe it takes more guts to stay out of a war. But either way, we inherited the consequences of that decision."

I sipped at the coffee. It was hot. And bitter. I said, "What we were taught was that he made a speech, an extraordinary speech, in which he said that the responsibility had been handed to him whether or not the world should be plunged into Armageddon. And regardless of the morality of any other issue, this one fact remained uppermost in his mind: if it could be stopped, it had to be stopped, and he would do whatever was required of him to prevent the deaths of millions and millions of human beings. He said that by the act of using nuclear weapons, a nation disqualifies itself from the community of rational thought."

"I heard the speech," she said. "My parents made me stay up to hear it. But I didn't understand what it meant until later. That man went to Moscow, hoping that it would be seen as a gesture of sanity. Instead, they saw it as capitulation and forced him to accept a crippling peace, a debilitating compromise. The tragedy is he knew exactly what they had done to him. Oh, he looked like a hero-he was being hailed as a courageous man all over the world-but he knew what he had given away: America's right to protect her foreign interests. What do you think Pakistan was about? It was an attempt to reestablish the old prerogative. And it failed. This time it was the Chinese who handed us the ultimatum. And this time, the treaties were even more crippling. Do you know what the allies did to Germany after the First World War? They took away that nation's right to an army. That was what was done to us. The United States was told that our existence as a nation would continue only so long as we maintained no direct threat to any other nation on this planet. And the cooperation with that agreement would be monitored by an international committee."

"We never heard this," I said.

"I told you, you weren't meant to. It's a part of our history that we aren't very proud of, so officially, it doesn't exist-like all the other pieces of history we don't acknowledge."

I hid my reaction behind the coffee cup again. When I lowered it, I said, "Is that why the foreign delegates are so paranoid about the way we want to fight the Chtorrans?"

"Right. Very few foreign governments see the Chtorrans as the threat we do. The reasons are varied. Some of them don't see science as anything more than a way to make the crops grow bigger. Others don't think the Chtorrans will be a threat next year because they aren't a threat this year. Most of the people we're dealing with don't even comprehend the scale of death produced by the plagues-so how can they comprehend that the plagues are only a small part of a much larger infestation?"

"Then Dr. Zymph was right?"

"If anything, she was understating the case. You've had enough direct experience with the Chtorr to know what they're like. But try to tell that to someone who's never seen one in action. They won't comprehend it. They don't want to."

"Doesn't that get frustrating?"

Lizard nodded wearily, and grinned. "Incredibly so!" She sipped at her coffee, then said, "Dr. Zymph knew that was how the delegates would react. She was willing to have it. We have to keep putting the facts out, but it happens every time the subject is raised in the international community. The delegates go crazy. They see the Chtorrans only as America's latest rationalization for rearmament. Listen, we're already rearming ourselves. We don't need a rationalization." She shook her head sadly. "But they're frightened; that's what it really is. Just about every nation on this planet is in trouble of one sort or another-there isn't one of them that isn't vulnerable to the first serious military threat that occurs. They're not concerned about the Chtorrans because they've never been bitten by one-but they're sure as hell scared of American military power, because they're still carrying scars. At least we're a threat they can comprehend, so they're displacing their fear and their anger onto us." Lizard looked at me. "Now do you see what kind of cow pasture you stepped into?"

"Ugh," I said.

She glanced at her watch. "I gotta go-but look, you can use the terminal here to tap into the History section of the Library of Congress. You might find it interesting. You probably don't know it, but as a member of the Special Forces, your security clearance is high enough to get you access to most of what you need to know."

"I didn't know that."

"Then you've got an interesting afternoon ahead of you. It'll be a while before anyone can get back to you. Be patient, okay? There are some decisions that have to be made first-"

I HADN'T thought about Whitlaw in a while.

I wondered if he was still alive. I'd never given it any thought before; I couldn't imagine him dead. I'd always just assumed he would be one of the survivors.

But then again, I couldn't imagine Shorty being dead either. Or my dad. And they were-so what did it matter whether I could imagine it or not? The universe was going to do what it damn well wanted regardless how I or anyone else felt about it.

Whitlaw ran his class the same way. He didn't care how we felt either. "You don't get to vote," he used to say. "You already did when you put yourself in this class. You belong to me, body and mind, until I'm ready to turn you loose upon the world."

The class was a two-semester unit. Toward the end of the first semester, Whitlaw abruptly asked, "Does anyone here know why this is a required course?"

"If we don't take it, we don't graduate." That was one of the mindless lurches who usually roosted in the last row of seats. A couple of his buddies laughed.

Whitlaw eagle-eyed the hulk over the heads of the rest of us. He gave him a thorough half-second of examination and then said, "That isn't the answer I was looking for, but considering the source, I guess it's the best I could have expected. Anyone else?"

No. No one else.

"It'll be the first question on your final exam." he prompted. Someone groaned.

Whitlaw stumped back to his desk. I wondered if his limp were bothering him. He didn't look happy. He opened the loose-leaf binder he used as his source book and paged through it silently, until he found the page he was looking for. He studied it with a thoughtful frown. After a moment, he looked up again. "No takers?"

No. We'd gotten too smart for that.

"Too bad. All right-we'll try it this way then. How many of you think it's appropriate for a population to rebel against tyranny?"

A few hands went up immediately. Then a few more, tentatively, as if terrified that they were volunteering to be on the front lines. Then a few more. I raised my hand. Pretty soon almost everyone had. Whitlaw didn't wait to see if it would be unanimous. He pointed at one of the abstainers. "How about you? Don't you think so?"

"I think you have to define your terms. You're being too general. What tyranny? Which one?"

Whitlaw straightened and eyed the fellow with narrowed eyes. "Are you on the debate team? No? Well, you ought to consider it. You're doing everything but confronting the issue. So all right, I'll make it easy on you-" He closed his book.

"-Let's say this room is the nation of Myopia. I'm the government. You're the citizens. Now, you know governments are not free. So the first thing I'm going to do is collect taxes. I want one casey from each of you." He started striding down the aisles. "Give me a casey. No, I'm not joking. These are your taxes. Give me a casey. You too. Sorry, I don't accept checks or paper money. What? That's your lunch money? Gee, that's tough, but your government's needs come first."