simply a garrison. According to plan, it would have played a decisive part in the final clash for Terrestrian supremacy. Meanwhile, there had come to be little difference between the rival dictatorships, except in the wording of their slogans. The Anglo-Capitalist Bloc had borrowed all the kinds and twists of regimentation of the rival bloc. The difference finally became one of flavor rather than principle.

A cool-headed few, in command of the Venusian garrison, had seen that neither side could win; that there would be only mutual and total destruction. The warfare became more and more atrocious; and the Anglo-Capitalist Bloc drifted further and further from the sort of organization that the Venus garrison, in no immediate danger, could contemplate defending with enthusiasm. Thus, when one day the Lunar Base radio complained of attack by suicide-ships and then went abruptly silent, the Venusian Base, which might have been expected to cry "Geronimo!" and leap into the holocaust, instead underwent a short and violent revolution in which the ardently military were disposed of. Then, stubbornly intending to survive chaos and idiocy, the Venus Base folded its hands and sat out the fatal clash that ended The War and virtually the whole of Terrestrian civilization with it....

After several centuries, the Venus Council risked an exploration party to Terra to see whether the globe was becoming fit for human habitation again. Large areas had, of course, through natural processes become decontaminated; there were scattered colonies of survivors—farmers, herdsmen, hunters, armed with clubs, spears, and other primitive weapons. Contact was made, communication struck up, trade—of considerable importance to both—established; and, after the ten years which this took, the Venusians were left with very little inclination to colonize Terra. Life under the domes was comfortable, with controlled climate, law and order, science and art. Comfortable, civilized, and sensible. While Terra—

"Be a sensible Venusian," was what Linda meant. "Don't go looking for trouble when you can do better without. Don't be a typical Terrestrian!"

The whole clash of the previous night had been silly. Irritated by Gil Dawson's giving Linda a ruby as a souvenir of his official inspection-tour of the Council-controlled Terrestrian trading-posts, Verrill had flung the trinket into the lake. After a brisk fracas in which Dawson had finally wearied of getting up, only to be knocked down again, Verrill had shouted to Linda and to most of Venus that he'd get her a man's-sized ruby, the Fire of Skanderbek. She, thoroughly outraged, had told him and Dawson 

 Prev. P 3/30 next