"Now, essentially, you have it. Now, if you'll remember those two things--the captain's sacrifice and Mr. Hitler's fight for _Lebensraum_--we'll switch again. If I owed you a dollar, Carl, and gave you a bill, you'd accept it. What would it be worth?" "Why, about--let's see--" "No, I mean in terms of the metal backing it." "Well--actually, it could be worthless. But as long as I don't think it is--" * * * * * "Correct. As long as you, and everybody else of course, has faith in it, it is of value, and is working currency. Now one more thing. Did you ever have anything really bad happen to you when you were a youngster--say about ten years old, Carl?" "I don't get this, Doug. You're way over me--" "No, answer me. Think of something unpleasant that happened--" "Don't have to think. I still get goose-pimples when I hear a near-by train whistle. Almost got killed once when my father's car got stalled on a railroad crossing. Sort of a--I guess they call it conditioning. Pretty strong with me, I guess." "Yes. Now--we'll put the four things together, Carl. First of all, according to my plan, the world must somehow be given implicit faith in a method for the elimination of warfare. A method in which they will so strongly believe that, although the supposed reason for such belief may be scientifically quite fallacious, they will practice it nonetheless. To do this, they must be shown a method which, by one means or another, actually works. And, that is possible. There is such a method, based on the sacrifice of the few for the ultimate preservation of the many...." "Go on. So far you've brought in the dollar-bill idea; the business about conditioning, the captain and his company.... What method?" "Taking the drafted ten-year-olds--first of just this nation, then of the entire world--placing them once each year in four divisions in the Sahara desert, and setting them at one another with manual weapons." Carl turned white. He sat, unmoving, silent.