“Oooo.”
“If she has, she’s taking it well,” Davis said briskly. “Better than most of them will, when they find out the universe is full of warriors. This is the end of the world, Steve.”
“What?”
“I’m being theatrical. But it is. Three hundred years of the peaceful life for everyone. They’ll call it the Golden Age. No starvation, no war, no physical sickness other than senescence, no permanent mental sickness at all, even by our rigid standards. When someone over fourteen tries to use his fist on someone else we say he’s sick, and we cure him. And now it’s over. Peace isn’t a stable condition, not for us. Maybe not for anything that lives.”
“Can I see the ship from here?”
“Yes. It’s just behind us.”
Steve rolled out of bed, went to the window.
Someone had steered the ships much closer together. The Kzinti ship was a huge red sphere with ugly projections scattered at seeming random over the hull. The beam had sliced it into two unequal halves, sliced it like an ax through an egg. Steve watched, unable to turn aside, as the big half rotated to show its honeycombed interior.
“In a little while,” said Jim, “the men will be coming back. They’ll be frightened. Someone will probably insist that we arm ourselves against the next attacks, using weapons from the other ship. I’ll have to agree with him.
“Maybe they’ll think I’m sick myself. Maybe I am. But it’s the kind of sickness we’ll need.” Jim looked desperately unhappy. “We’re going to become an armed society. And of course we’ll have to warn the Earth…”