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industry, in a hundred years of tireless work, out in the dark, in habitations of steel and stone, we rebuilt ourselves for the purpose of war, and steeled ourselves for battle.
    “This time, when the humans struck the krim, we were finally at and past their military level. With nothing to defend, we knew only attack, and we drove the krim from one system after another. What we occupied, we turned to engines of industry to power our war machine, as the galaxy watched on in amazement. Again the tavalai intervened, right at our moment of triumph, to dissuade us from final victory. But by now humanity was too strong, and the tavalai dared not strike. The krim race ended there, killed to the last living vermin we could find, and today not a trace of them remains. Humanity made a statement, to all who would make genocidal war on us — we shall deal with you in kind. The galaxy heard us, and those who would make war on the weak and innocent have trembled.”
    Odd, Erik thought, that this telling had never bothered him before. This cheerful endorsement of genocide, this utter annihilation of an entire species, down to the last living child… to be sure, the krim deserved it, and that was no crude human propaganda. Nearly every species had been pleased to see them go — an evolutionary mistake, most agreed… with the possible exception of the sard, who were perhaps another such mistake themselves. But it did not change the fact that of all sentient species in the galaxy today, only one was responsible, and indeed happily revelled in, the successful genocide of another race. It was one thing to cheerfully recall that tale in the blood-curdling joy of just deserts. It was another thing to have seen mass killing in person, and to realise what it must have actually meant to do it.
    “For five hundred years, we built our new spacefaring civilisation upon captured worlds and new technology,” Alice continued. “But still the tavalai made us trouble. They blamed us for upsetting the old balance, with our new ships and weapons. They demanded that we disarm, as though we had not nearly been exterminated for that lack of weapons. They denied us membership of the ruling bodies. They blocked our trade routes, and intercepted our trading missions. They harassed our shipping, and destabilised our worlds. Their vicious allies, the sard and the kaal, launched many raids against us and our friends.
    “Obviously this could not be allowed to continue, and so once again we joined with our chah'nas allies, and with our newest allies, the wise and powerful alo, to win our freedom and secure our rightful place in the galactic order.”
    Erik glanced around to see if there were any alo present, but predictably there weren’t. Alo were not sociable, and their manners made chah'nas seem paragons of etiquette. They thought humans smelled bad, in more ways than one, but their combined wealth and knowledge was said to be more than all of human and chah'nas space combined.
    “We three formed the Triumvirate Alliance, and today, one hundred and sixty one years from its commencement, this grand project has finally succeeded. Let us raise our glasses in a toast. A toast to humanity. A toast to victory. A toast to friendship. The human race has been in space for fourteen hundred years, and we’re just getting started!”

3
    T he next morning Erik awoke to silken sheets and a distractingly comfortable bed. He was back in the family Homeworld residence — there were numerous, on all of humanity’s major worlds, but this one was home, the place of all his childhood memories. The far wall was glass, so clean it seemed invisible. Beyond, a view of Shiwon from the high hills that surrounded it, a tall and gleaming city before a glorious blue harbour. Above the ocean horizon, Balise’s huge crescent filled the sky, pale in the glare of daylight.
    Erik lay for a moment and contemplated this change of circumstance. It didn’t feel real. His life here, or his