Chapter 4

No wars had been waged on Earth in four generations. The nationalistic fervor of the 20th century, the religious and racial zealotry of the 21st, the urban insurrections of the 22nd had long since been overcome by either sheer force or calming moderation. Advances in weaponry had rendered total warfare an idea of the past; with biological, chemical and nuclear "weapons of mass destruction" within the reach of all, few could fail to recognize that an all-out attack on any rival, no matter how hated, would inevitably result in their own national demise as well. (The zealots, the only groups willing to pay such a suicidal price, had been repressed by their own less fanatical fellows before they could trigger such a cataclysm.) For a time the hegemony of an increasingly authoritarian and plutocratic America and its efforts to impose an enforced Pax Amer­icana on the world presented, ironically, the greatest threat to that Pax; but two successive military "interventions" wiped out not only the rival nations but nearly half of America's own population and infrastructure and virtually all of its leadership, and a new generation of government eventually saw the wisdom of subsuming its waning dominance in the inefficient but con­sensually based community represented by the United Nations.

None of which, of course, served to restrain the uniquely human trait of behaving murderously toward others of its species with whom it had real or phantom disagreements. National governments persisted in imposing restrictive laws and restraints on both their own and others' citizens, and those adversely affected persisted likewise in rebelling, usually violently, against the perceived interference with their "rights"—religious, philosophical, political, economic or otherwise. What was called crime flourished as throughout human history, and so did guerrilla warfare; it was merely that all concerned had learned the self-serving advantage of moderation in their hostilities.

It was in this milieu that Igwanda grew up and pursued his chosen vocation. Born of a career soldier, he had from boyhood an orientation and interest toward what he called (and truly believed to be) "military service," his conscious thought emphasizing the "service." In fact, to him war was the greatest game ever, an exercise in the competitiveness of more placid intellectual pastimes such as chess, bridge, poker, go, etc., but with the added element of ultimate risk—life itself—and the added variable of individual courage and physical proficiency in the player's necessary repertoire of skills. Even as a child his desires drove him to review endlessly the great, the decisive battles of history, from the siege of Troy to Hastings through the Battle of the Bulge and beyond.

Igwanda's private frustration was that he had never participated—could never participate in the world to which he was born, as his impressive intellect recognized—in such a battle. His pride was that in those conflicts in which he had personally taken part, all guerrilla-type fracases, he had acquitted himself with unexcelled valor and unequaled tactical skill; and in that pride he was not mistaken.

In any organization a rise to the ultimate level of command requires a special combination of technical ability and political adroitness. Igwanda had none of the latter but an abundance of the former; he'd reached his rank, one below the managerial escalator of generalship, solely on that basis. He would never rise beyond it, as he reluctantly came to recognize, but in tactical competence he was second to none. It was on this basis that he was chosen by his superiors (though never his betters) to command the military contingent that would spearhead the return to Eden.

As befitted such a man, his first step upon being appointed to his command was to study the record of the initial landing. Not just to study it, to scrutinize it in unsparing detail. "Know your enemy," some long-ago student of warfare had written. To Igwanda anyone who attacked those to whom he had pledged his allegiance—and the human species certainly fulfilled that description—met the definition of enemy, and it was in that light that he regarded Eden's natives. His view was that the conflict that had ensued was something against which guard had to be established, and he had much less interest in why the battle had been engaged than in how future such battles could be avoided or, in the worst case, defended with minimal casualties.