Julian F. Grow

“ Man the Creator, the Protector, the Destroyer: builder of shrines, burner of saints, good father, good soldier, good killer.... Man, the creature of choice.
5 nations remaining, sparse ruddy fruit of a thousand wars, nurtured by a billion dead. Five, the bloody consequence of union into pack, into tribe, into fief, to kingdom, empire and nation. The threads of history gathered finally into five flags, entwined in alliance at this point in time by a searing wind: Pan-American, Sino-Russian, Afro-Arabian ... racial armies, sons of the first beast to kill from anger, fathers of the unborn. ”

“ Interlinked webs of detection and retaliation or attack, within the webs bombs ... within the bombs targets, mapped and doomed by a spark. Each alliance a network of aimed and armed missiles, in deserts, on mountaintops, hidden deep and in the surrounding seas. Each alliance a pattern of targets, always an instant from obliteration. ”

“ Each chosen by his masters to be the nock of the arrow, the final factor; yet not an arrow, for each network of course was aimed at both the others. A moment's trust is fatal once the truce is broken, the masters reasoned, and so the bombs and the men were trained. ”