Norden added another intangible to the puzzle—either Miles was setting a trap for him, or it was hard to understand how he'd gotten the five stars on his insignia. An enemy was an enemy! He decided on silence as the best course, and was glad when the others began to leave. He watched them moving out, shocked again at the pretense that was going on. Did they really think war to the death was a game?
He started to follow, then hesitated, swayed by a sudden impulse. Surely it could do no harm. He located one of the waiters and asked for a package of food to take to Pat. To his relief, the man showed no surprise, and he soon had a bag in his hand.
Pat was still sitting at the machine. She took the food with a pleased smile that told him he'd done the right thing. "Why so glum?" she asked.
"Frankly, I'm puzzled," he told her. On a sudden impulse, he mentioned the lecture and how it had disturbed him.
"Dad!" She smiled, then laughed outright. "He always talks like that to a new man. Bill, did you ever see a little boy fighting a bigger one, wading in, crying, whimpering, but so mad he couldn't stop—couldn't even see where he was hitting? That's hate-fighting. And it's senseless, because the other side may be just as right. Professional fighters don't really hate—they simply do everything they can to win, coldly and scientifically."
She touched his arm. "Bill, be sensible. You act as if we couldn't win."
"What makes you think we can?"
"The computer thinks so. I tried it. We'll win because we know how to be efficient. We'll experiment a bit, because we don't have a set pattern—because we've kept individuality. The Aliens act like a preset machine. Like a crew killing pests.
"Start at the outside of a circle and exterminate inwards! Nonsense! They should have hit Earth at once, even if they had to retrace their steps a few times. But they aren't trying to find out whether we act like the enemy they planned on. No—what's the proper way is the proper way. A lot of our nations attempted that once—and look where they are now."
He shook his head, not believing her, but it left him uncertain and disturbed. The fact was that the enemy was closing the net—closing it so fast he'd be a dead man in two weeks, if he couldn't find the solution. As to hatred....