The Lotus Eaters Read Online Free Page B

what could have been purchased. Rarely used, and then more often by Carrera's staff than by anyone else, the boat rested in a small harbor at the base of the steep slope that led from the casa to the sea.
    "It'll be fine," his father answered.
    Carrera pointed out to sea and said, "Wait for the lightning again and you'll see a yacht down there, a big one, struggling against the waves."
    Hamilcar looked to where his father was pointing. Lightning flashed again and he saw it, as not much more than a big speck. "What kind of idiot takes a yacht out on a night like this?" he asked. "Drug runners?"
    "It's possible," Carrera answered. "But we can't know and I hope we're not sending a small patrol boat out to intercept in this shit.
    "Even so, 'it's pleasant, when the sea is harsh and the waves are dashing about, to watch from the shore the struggles of another.' "
    Around his father the boy could curse. "That's actually bullshit, Dad. I know you, because I'm like you. You want to be out there, fighting with the sea."

Chapter Two
For something which has, from time to time, been alleged to be a mere invention, war is remarkable for having been independently invented in all times, in virtually all cultures, and by all races. The trivial exceptions do nothing except to prove the rule. Nor is the phenomenon unique to mankind; lower animals, some of them, wage war, even though they invent nothing.

In short, the allegation of invention is nonsense; war is part of us, part of having the will to live and prosper, the desire to cause our genes, our classes, our countries, and our cultures to live and prosper, the heart to fight, the courage to risk . . . even to die, and the intelligence or instinct to organize the better to do those things. Any other position is, in the universe in which mankind lives, wishful thinking at its worst.
    —Jorge y Marqueli Mendoza,
Historia y Filosofia Moral ,
Legionary Press, Balboa,
Terra Nova, Copyright AC 468

Anno Condita 470 Anno Domini 2524 Observation Deck, UEPF Starship Spirit of Peace, Solar System
    To an outside observer, had there been any, the ship would have appeared brighter than day. Some of this was the refection of direct sunlight from the ship but still more was the reflection of that sunlight off of the huge sail that propelled the ship between the jump points and braked it at the end of the journey. In contrast, the Earth ahead of it was mostly swathed in night, only one thin crescent to the right side lit by the sun, and a larger area to the left lit by the moon's reflection. A corona of sunlight framed the sphere, except for a small part covered by the moon.
    On the night side, the side from which the Peace approached, a few cities and resorts of the elites could be seen by their artificial glow. Outside of those, at this distance, not even major continents and oceans were visible except through image enhancement.
    At least none of the cities are burning , thought Captain Marguerite Wallenstein, as she watched the approach from the observation deck. As subsequent messages had made clear, once Peace passed the rift, one of the reasons she'd been recalled to Old Earth was precisely that; that the reverted areas, those areas over which the Consensus, Earth's high governing body and the successor to the old UN Security Council, had lost control, were growing even as the barbarians within them grew more aggressive.
    Relaxing back into the seat reserved for the High Admiral of the United Earth Peace Fleet, a position the Captain hoped to assume very soon and permanently, Wallenstein crossed long, shapely legs, while her fingers unconsciously toyed with mid-length blonde hair. One might have thought her to be perhaps twenty-five years of age, and a young looking twenty-five at that. In fact, she was several times that, courtesy of the anti-agathic treatments that were Old Earth's last scientific breakthrough and the right only of the upper castes, Class Ones and Twos, who replaced