Peace in the Wilderness by Marion Zimmer Bradley _To explore the future with a myth-maker’s divining rod may be a highly dangerous undertaking. You may venture far from familiar landmarks and find yourself turning a sickly shade of green. But so sturdily built and tremendous is the “Trojan Horse” which Marion Z. Bradley has envisioned here that the iron clang of his hoofbeats may even now be deceiving the world of tomorrow. The strangest of strange events becomes terrifyingly real and suspense mounts high indeed in this unusual novelette by the author of_ JACKIE SEES A STAR. =Like the great wooden horse of Homeric legend were the Pharigs--an enemy at the gates of a new Ilium’s space-defended towers.= The counterman was getting nervous. Kerry Donalson was the last customer in the little cafe. The clatter of dishes had completely subsided and to either side of him the cracked white-tile counter and worn stools were bare and clean and empty. Although Kerry was a well-dressed man far into his forties, the counterman hovered disrespectfully around him, giving a perfunctory toweling to surfaces already spotless. Finally, his starchy apron a-crackle with audible irritation, he demanded, “You got far to go, Mister? It’s getting close to curfew!” As if to emphasize the man’s words, a blinding dazzle of white light flared in the street outside, arching through the glass front of the cafe. “Not far,” Kerry said and paid no attention to the lights. For thirteen years no street on Earth had been dark at night. And during all of those years without darkness Earth had been in a state of total war. A young man had come into the cafe with the lights, and was making his way toward the far end of the counter. As the counterman turned toward the new customer, Kerry pointedly buried himself in the front page of the _Times-Telegram_. Behind his paper he turned his wrist to look at the dial of his watch. _Half an hour before curfew_, the message had said. _I’ll come up and speak to you. But don’t speak to me._ Kerry knew the headlines by heart, for he had scribbled his personal blue-pencil okay on every story. For five years now he had been editor, and part owner, of the _Times-Telegram_. Yet he continued to study the columns, as if something might be hidden there that would give him a clue to the mystery which had led him to seek a possibly dangerous meeting with a total stranger. The main story read: EX-GOVERNMENT SCIENTIST AFFIRMS MOON BASE POSSIBLE. Earlier in the day Kerry had skimmed it professionally for typographical errors, and now he shrugged off the story itself with cynical amusement. It was nothing but a rehash of the usual hopeful platitudes. The moon base project had been definitely abandoned.