Brains are brains; both sides have 'em. It's what you're motivated to do with them that counts. That, and the importance attached by people to the product of those brains.
Twenty years ago, the Comrades had really gotten motivated. After they got what they wanted, they forgot about motivation and sat back to let the newest Hundred-Year Plan take care of the rest.
Twenty years ago, somebody on our side was short four billion bucks' worth of preventive medicine.
Now, after a couple of decades second-besting it, our side wanted to make up for lost time.
It was supposed to be a coup d'etat sort of thing, a fast shuffle, both at the conference tables and out here in Space. Now you see it, now you don't.
As topkick on the Space end of it I was supposed to know what was going on; me, and my execs, down to the day, the hour and the split second. But only the four of us. And none of us, studying those damned plans night after night for the last two months, had ever let the things further than arm's reach away from the safe in my office. They'd never been out of it except in our collective presence.
So I'd come on duty from my sleeping quarters that morning and relieved Loftus, whose week it was for the late duty behind my desk. Things had been Space-shape then. And as I'd told Kolomar when he got up from Earthside after my frantic triple-E signal, I'd only been out of that office for about twenty minutes from the time I'd taken over from Loftus to the moment I'd triple-E'd FBSI. There'd been a breakdown in the water-recovery plant. Nothing serious, but regulations said I had to be on hand personally to supervise any major maintenance.
While I was gone the door to my office was automatically sono-sealed. And I had the key.
When I came back it was gaping open, and the safe was still smoking. My orderly room duty sergeant was sprawled across his desk, a nasty bluish lump on his forehead. When I finally brought him around he could hardly remember his name, let alone who or what had hit him.