"You heard me correctly, young man. It happened just sixty-three years ago. The Earth Armed Forces were demobilized, except for the police whom I cannot count. But all regular units were demobilized." "Why was that done, sir?" "There wasn't anyone to fight. Wasn't even anyone to guard against, or so I was told. Damned foolish business, I say." "Why, sir?" "Because an old soldier knows that you can never tell when an enemy might spring up. It could happen now. And then where would we be?" "Couldn't the armies be formed again?" "Certainly. But the present generation has no concept of serving under arms. There are no leaders left, outside of a few useless old fools like me. It would take years for an effective force, effectively led, to be formed." "And in the meantime, Earth is completely open to invasion from the outside?" "Yes, except for the police units. And I seriously doubt their reliability under fire." "Could you tell me about the police?" "There is nothing I know about them. I have never bothered my head about non-military matters." "But it is conceivable that the police have now taken over the functions of the army, isn't it? That the police constitute a sizable and disciplined paramilitary force?" "It is possible, sir. Anything is possible." * * * * * (_Citizen Moertin Honners, age 31, occupation verbalizer. A slim, languid man with an earnest, boyish face and smooth, corn-blond hair._) "You are a verbalizer, Citizen Honners?" "I am, sir. Though perhaps 'author' would be a better word, if you don't mind." "Of course. Citizen Honners, are you presently engaged in writing for any of the periodicals I see on the dissemination stands?" "Certainly not! These are written by incompetent hacks for the dubious delectation of the lower middle class. The stories, in case you didn't know, are taken line by line from the works of various popular writers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The people who do the work merely substitute adjectives and adverbs. Occasionally, I'm told, a more daring hack will substitute a verb, or even a noun. But that is rare. The editors of such periodicals frown upon sweeping innovations." "And you are not engaged in such work?" "Absolutely not! My work is noncommercial. I am a Creative Conrad Specialist." "Would you mind telling me what that means, Citizen Honners?" "I'd be happy to. My own particular field of endeavor lies in re-creating the works of Joseph Conrad, an author who lived in the pre-atomic era." "How do you go about re-creating those works, sir?"