Ships were nearly obsolete in this respect. Landing barges could be blown out of the water as fast as they were let down into it. Paratroops were likewise hopeless. The slow-moving troop-carrying planes daren't even peek above the enemy's horizon without chancing an onslaught of "thinking" rockets that would stay on their trail until they were molten cinders falling into the sea. So someone invented the supersonic carrier. This was pretty good, allowing the planes to come in high and fast over the enemy's territory, as fast as the land-to-air missiles themselves. The only drawback was that the first men to try parachuting at that speed were battered to confetti by the slipstream of their own carriers. That would not do. Next, someone thought of the capsules. Each man was packed into a break-proof, shock-proof, water-proof, wind-proof plastic capsule, and ejected safely beyond the slipstream area of the carriers, at which point, each capsule sprouted a silken chute that lowered the enclosed men gently down into range of the enemy's rocket-fire ... This plan was scrapped like the others. And so, things were at a stalemate. There hadn't been a really good skirmish for nearly five years. War was hardly anything but a memory, what with both sides practically omnipotent. Unless troops could be landed, war was downright impossible. And, no one could land troops, so there was no war. As a matter of fact, Whitlow _liked_ the state of affairs. To be Secretary of Defense during a years-long peace was a soft job to top all soft jobs. And Whitlow didn't much like war. He'd rather live peacefully with his mystery stories and ham sandwiches. But the Capitol, under the relentless lobbying of the munitions interests, was trying to find a way to get a war started. They _had_ tried simply bombing the other countries, but it hadn't worked out too well: the other countries had bombed back. This plan had been scrapped as too dangerous. And then, just when all seemed lost, when it looked as though mankind was doomed to eternal peace ... Along came General "Smiley" Webb. "Land troops?" he'd said, confidently, "nothing easier. With the government's cooperation, I can have our troops in any country in the world, safely landed, within the space of one year!" Congress had voted him the money unanimously, and off he'd gone to work at Project W. No one knew _quite_ what it was about, but the general had seemed so self-assured that-- Well, they'd almost forgotten about him until some ambitious clerk, trying to balance at least _part_ of the budget, had discovered a monthly expenditure to an obscure base in the southwest totalling some millions of dollars. Perfunctory checking had brought out the fact that "Smiley" Webb had been drawing this money every month, and hadn't as much as mailed in a single progress report.