THE PRIZE: BOOK TWO - RETRIBUTION Read Online Free PDF

the all-wise Mother that he hadn’t been involved.
    For once, Director Markoff sympathized with another being and understood the Professor's reluctance in discussing Earth, or humans for that matter, wishing he didn't have to either. Earth had turned out to be more trouble than any other ten planets combined. The staggering losses in front line troops had surpassed those in major conflicts with the Thrakee, or the Silurians, and yet, to this day, no one had been able to figure out what gave humans to such a fanatical will to fight. Young, old, and even children had refused to submit to the Empire’s rule.
    “I have studied other warlike cultures to help our brave military to um… assimilate other races into our greater Galactic Empire, but with so little direct knowledge of Earth and its people, it is difficult to ascertain what drives them, Director. Even with the fragmentary data Imperial Intelligence supplies.” It was nicely phrased, but the Director understood his not wanting to go out on a limb where humans were concerned.
    “Please be assured, Professor. Nothing you tell me will in any way affect you, or your family.” Unless he could put the Professor at ease, it was doubtful he could get anything useful out of him, except by more aggressive methods.
    “Well, Director.” For a moment, the Professor fiddled with his blue and white academician’s scarf around his neck as if it were too tight. “Humans are a contradiction.”
    “How so?”
    “Based upon my reading of all available data concerning Earth and its inhabitants, I have concluded that unlike most civilized cultures, they lack a sense of a racial identity.” Director Markoff nodded. This fact had been brought to his attention by others as well.
    “In the last ten thousand years of Earth's recorded history, they have only had a few years of peace. That is to say, no major inter-tribal conflicts. This race has been at war with itself on an escalating scale right up to the moment Imperial troops landed.” Even with the same database to examine, the Director knew he’d missed that particular point.
    “In the last two hundred years before Earth was…” the Professor coughed, “…added to the Tellurian Empire, ninety percent of the world's population was engaged in two major wars that caused the death of hundreds of millions of humans.” The Professor stopped for a moment and looked the Director in the eyes. “These humans are truly mad… they even dropped nuclear weapons on each other! Over the centuries, they have become experts at killing each other, and now us.”
    That was appalling even to the Director. A large rock, or main battery pulse cannon fired from a battleship in orbit, yes. But a nuclear weapon in atmosphere? He could only think of one time that option had been used by the Empire, and that was before he’d become the Director. It was also in the early days of expansion, before his more benevolent attitude had taken over. The contamination levels had hindered mining and administrative operations, as well as the availability and longevity of the available slave labor. Using nuclear weapons to end a war wasn't cost effective to his way of thinking.
    “Please continue, Professor. I’d like to learn and understand as much as I can about these humans.” These humans had already taken up more of his time than any other three species combined.
    “Yes, Director,” feeling a little more at ease, the Professor continued, “to understand what happened on this planet called Earth, you must first understand that originally, our esteemed Imperial Institute for the psychological study of indigenous species made a terrible error. Their analysis was based on the data from a planetary survey probe, incomplete data I might add.” Rather than interrupt, the Director let the man prattle on, as there was information to be gleamed from the seemingly less important aspects of his narration.
    “And what terrible error was that,