There was none primarily because the games simply solved the main cause of it. Carefully controlled mortality rates on the battlefields kept the population where it belonged, prevented the ultimate over-crowding which was directly and indirectly responsible at 90 per cent of the causes of any armed conflict. The few who were sufficiently timorous to probe the philosophy upon which the system was based were at once amazed at its simplicity: it consisted simply of a logical premise that the killing of a required number of immature children was self-evidently worth the saving of millions of valuable adults. It was a matter of necessary sacrifice. Yes, the people of this time-phase would fit into the plan well. Not because they were intelligent, but because they had a natural tendency as followers, and because their limited imaginations held them in a mentally astigmatic state, too concerned with the status quo to ask questions concerning the future until it was too late. Blair smiled, this time openly. Tayne could have the directorship back there! Here there was no Tayne. Here was a world for the asking, upon which he would at last be the object of primary, not tertiary, worship by a planet! He could take the shapeless clay--could cultivate it, could forge it in time into a great, brilliant civilization--and it would be his, all his. What greater monument to the genius of a man.... * * * * * It was a week later when the time came. The Congressman from the south had been on a brief inspection of a hydrogen bomb site following a test detonation. The pink flush had subsequently vanished from his jowls and in its place was the color of ash. His brain had been mightily disturbed; he had been forced to the painful recourse of thought, and that had disturbed it even further. Two other Congressmen were getting away with intelligent debate, because the Congressman from the south was at last quite silent. "... And I contend that our armed forces have not at all times been informing us truthfully, especially regarding the need for vast land armies, when it is obvious that they have become obsolete. It is my opinion that their maintenance is used simply as a tool, gentlemen--a tool to gouge extra taxes from the public, thereby enforcing their increased dependence for survival on the government itself." "You mean, Congressman, to say that the Army lies?" "Like a rug, Congressman!" There was a murmur throughout the group, short, whispered exchanges. "You can substantiate this claim?" "Do I really have to, Congressman?" A gavel rapped quickly. Blair had slipped for the moment into the comfort of relaxation; by the Prelatinate, it was _amusing_!