Grunt Life Read Online Free PDF Page B

as evidence of earlier visitations.
    The DRAKE EQUATION baffled me as it put forth a mathematical concept to show when and how Earth would be visited. But even I understood that with so many unknown variables, it was an equation which could only be used in hindsight to prove itself.
    Then there was the NEANDERTHAL POSTULATE , which identified the idea that once an intelligent species reaches a certain point, it destroys those who might compete for the same resources. I wondered if this was what the Cray were doing. Perhaps they saw us as a threat to their existence and had decided to remove us prior to us attaining a similar level of technology.
    I skipped over several others and ended up on HOSTILE TERRAFORMING , which presented the idea that our planet could be rendered uninhabitable for us, and inhabitable for the invading species. Several quotes from War of the Worlds were present, including one I remembered from my middle school reading: “ No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water .”
    There were arguments noting that the Earth was becoming hotter, more arid, and that the ice caps were melting, and extrapolating that we were already being terraformed. The conspiracy theories continued. I tried to pay attention to them, but my gaze kept returning to the Wells quote. The idea that we were being watched by some intergalactic Peeping Tom was terrifying.

 
    We find that the Romans owed the conquest of the world to no other cause than continual military training, exact observance of discipline in their camps, and unwearied cultivation of the other arts of war.
    Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus
     
     
    CHAPTER SIX
     
     
    I WOKE UP the next morning—or at least it felt like morning, even though I had no possible way of knowing—and returned to my tablet. COMPLETION OF YOUR PROGRAM OF INSTRUCTION WILL RESULT IN RELEASE FROM PHASE I TO PHASE II were the words I read with excitement, until I saw what was expected of us. The sheer number of books and papers I was supposed to read seemed impossible. I counted ninety-six manuscripts, forty-seven movies, and seven biographies which we were expected to read well enough to provide interactive input to the tablet upon completion. It was a genius strategy. With no bars, it might take some of us forever to complete this list. Hell, let’s face it, most of us wouldn’t even try and finish, if we weren’t locked inside the cells. By limiting our freedom, then offering it back to us if we completed, they were giving a huge incentive. Even the laziest of us would be inspired to get this done.
    The biographies included Julius Caesar, Chesty Puller, David Hackworth, and several other soldiers.
    Of the movies, I’d seen around half of them. They were the usual suspects: Kelly’s Heroes, A Bridge Too Far, Guns of Navarone, Hamburger Hill, They Were Expendable, We Were Soldiers, The Dirty Dozen, Where Eagles Dare, Saving Private Ryan, and Platoon . But there were also some foreign films I had never heard of, like Ivan’s Childhood, Kana ł , and Gallipoli . There were also some science fiction movies, such as Starship Troopers , the modern version of War of the Worlds, Battleship, Battle: Los Angeles, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Puppet Masters, They Live , and Independence Day ; I’d seen all of them except They Live and The Puppet Masters . I wanted to look forward to watching them, but I had all those books to read as well. I had a choice. I could either let the tablet read them to me, or I could read them myself.
    Although I wasn’t the fastest reader in the universe, I wasn’t bad. I’d