you as a threat. Didn't the old Romans have some sort of maxim to the effect that when you're threatened with unease at home stir up trouble abroad?"

"You're being even more frank than usual," Jim said. "But that's one of the pleasures of these get-togethers, neither of us resorts to hypocrisy. But you can't keep up these tensions forever."

"You mean we can't keep up these tensions forever, Jim. And when they end? Well, personally I can't see my organization going out without a blood bath." He grimaced sourly, "And since I'd probably be one of the first to be bathed, I'd like to postpone the time. It's like having a tiger by the tail, Jim. We can't let go."

"Happily, I don't feel in the same spot," Jim said. He got up and went to the picture window that took up one entire wall. It faced out over a mountain vista. He looked soberly into the sky.

Vovo joined him, glass in hand.

"Possibly your position isn't exactly the same as ours but there'll be some awfully great changes if that military based economy of yours suddenly had peace thrust upon it. You'd have a depression such as you've never dreamed of. Let's face reality, Jim, neither of us can afford peace."

"Well, we've both known that for a long time."

They both considered somberly, the planet Earth blazing away, a small sun there in the sky.

Jim said, "I sometimes think that the race would have been better off, when man was colonizing Venus and Mars, if it had been a joint enterprise rather than you people doing one, and we the other. If it had all been in the hands of that organization ..."

"The United Nations?" Vovo supplied.

"... Then when Bomb Day hit, perhaps these new worlds could have gone on to, well, better things."

"Perhaps," Vovo shrugged. "I've often wondered how Bomb Day started. Who struck the spark."

"Happily there were enough colonists on both planets to start the race all over again," Jim said. "What difference does it make, who struck the spark?"

"None, I suppose." Vovo began to button his collar, readjust his clothes. "Well, shall we emerge and let the quaking multitudes know that once again we have made a shaky agreement? One that will last until the next summit meeting."

THE END.

Transcriber's Note

In two places in the text the word "reforestration" was corrected to "reforestation."

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