"Frankly, sir, I find that a little hard to accept," Erickson frowned. This time his challenge was planned, carefully timed to keep his subject talking.

"Of course. That's why you're here, so I could take this opportunity to show you a viewpoint other than that to which you are accustomed. As a journalist, you are no doubt aware that in the course of my career I have been compared with Genghis Khan, Caesar, Napoleon, and Hitler. I believe that if you could have interviewed any one of those men, he would have told you the same thing I am today, that there is no difference between the two sides of a battle except 'them and us'. There may be racial, religious, cultural, or military differences, but the only determination of who is the hero and who is the villain is which side he's on. That-and who wins."

"Then what you are claiming is that this moral equivalence of opponents also applies to today's situation?"

"Especially today," Tambu said. "Now that mankind has moved away from the bloodbath concept of war, it is easier than ever to observe. Despite the blood-curdling renditions of space warfare which adorn the newstapes and literature, actual combat is a rarity. It's far too costly in men and equipment, and there is no need for it. Each fleet has approximately four hundred ships of varying sizes, and there are over two thousand inhabited planets. Even at the rate of one ship per planet, there is always going to be over eighty percent of the planets unoccupied at any given time. For a ship of either force to move on a new planet means temporarily abandoning another. As such, there is little or no combat between the fleets. The objective is to either move into unoccupied systems and divert their tribute into our coffers, or move into an occupied system with sufficient force to where the opposing ships will abandon the system rather than enter into a lopsided battle. It's a massive game of move and countermove, with little if any difference between the gamesmen."