It meant control of a billion people, a rigid planetary economy. It meant the Assassination branch of the Corps. Assassination (carefully contrived to appear accidental) took care of those few malcontents who were either too smart or too stupid to sign up for colonization. It meant a gradual weeding out of the unsane, the power-mad, it meant learning the true meaning of sanity and peace and racial brotherhood.
And it meant the stagnation of science, a thick film of dust gathering on the textbooks of the military tactician, and warships rotting at anchor. It meant the white spire of the Stasis Administration Center at New Washington, and the words graven over the golden portals:
Know thyself, Man. Or die!
Was the dream worth it?
Or was Man doomed to die like a brawling ape, playing with lightning?
Saxon could not answer.
Meanwhile the colonies had to be inhibited. One interplanetary war could smash the fragile structure so painstakingly built over the last few hundred years. This was the turning point, the final cross-roads of Man's destiny.
Saxon smiled bleakly.
Ultimately there would be a colony they could neither inhibit or destroy. The adaptive ultimate. That colony would be Man no longer, but Homo Superior.
But by then, it wouldn't matter.