After all that---all the fighting, the hanging on, the despair and true heroism, hearts breaking and breaking through..... This plethora of human passions, pushed to their utmost limit, had not worked miracles of unification and achievement, or even brought men to a new understanding. There was nothing positive in any of it. All the battles, death and anguish, had not paid their awful price for good, but merely to resist an evil, and restore things to the way they had already been. How could anyone rejoice and claim victory? He saw then with melancholy and absolute certainty that no nation anywhere, ever, gained anything lasting from such a war. And though a personal victory might be won, on any national or international scale this was impossible. Human nature was not changed, and the seeds and roots of the scattered weeds were not eradicated, but merely remained beneath the surface, awaiting their chance to rise and reek havoc again. And the spiritual quota was not even returned to its original starting point. Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were dead, many more wounded, maimed, bereft or displaced. And for WHAT? Nothing had changed. Nothing had been accomplished. And nothing was the same. He felt a hand on his shoulder, whirled angrily. Seeing before him the familiar face of Eric Dobler, a destroyer captain formerly under his command, he tried to relax his features and his mind. But seeing the restive sorrow in the other's face, he suddenly felt a new sense of care and alarm. "What is it, Eric? What's wrong?" ... "Your brother is dead. He kept asking for you, but there was no time." Brunner's mouth worked, but no sounds would emerge. "He asked me to give you a message. To say..... He tried to be like you. That he was sorry. Sorry he had failed..... He couldn't hold them off." Brunner hung his head in agony and shame. And the words of Joseph Conrad sprang, so easily to his mind, seeming to sum up perfectly this brutal sham of Man's creation. DEAR GOD. "The horror! The horror!" And the tears that his wife was so fond of, trickled bitterly down his cheek. ........................................................................ .............................. EPILOGUE NIEMAN Nieman stood leaning over the main ship's console, the sharp lines of its blues, greens and whites reflected in his face. His lean, strong body was wrapped in celluloid black. The face too was hard and sharp, aged beyond illusion but not desire, eyes taut like those of a man with a squadron behind him and no fear of death ahead, but only a smoldering anger that had displaced all other emotion. And emptiness. A fleet of robot ships---that was enough.