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itself into a dozen conflicting principalities, some independent, some controlled by other governments, and some—it was impossible to tell.
    “The Chinese picture still seems to change every day,” Altman i n formed his guest.
    “But it’s fair t’say that socialism as a force in human history seems finally t’have run its course.”
    Altman watched Gwen, who’d studied Marxist economics at Berkeley, the one university in the world still offering it, until conversation moved to safer ground. In mostly English-speaking Europe, borders meant less each year. Mirroring America’s economic problems, Europe had eliminated trade barriers on that continent, along with internal economic regulation.
    “They were desperate,” Brody observed, “unlike what’s left of the States so far.”
    “And yet today, their most marketable commodity”—Gwen, too, was trying to prevent raised voices and hard feelings at her table—“seems to be nationalism.”
    Brody laughed. “Now that nobody gives a damn, whole peoples who lost their identities in the fine print of many an ill-considered treaty after many a great war have reemerged as harmless curiosities. Armenians fight Turks each afternoon for theme-park visitors, with extra shows on Saturday and Sunday!”
    Gwen seemed grateful to arrive at what was almost a neutral subject. “Fierce Montenegrins with moustachios a foot long pose for the cameras with absurdly huge revolvers.”
    “While ads,” Altman tried to help, “argue over which parliament, Scottish or Welsh, it’s more fun to be Member-for-a-Day in.”
    “An’ they all agree that y’can do it on Visa or MasterCard!”
    “The effort hasn’t paid off yet,” the Senator answered. “Most o b servers feel it’s only a matter of time.”
    “So,” Brody offered, “though everybody’s broke, whatever trouble people’re losin’ sleep over these days, they’re enjoyin’ the first worl d wide cease-fire in a dozen decades.” He raised his glass. “Here’s t’the War Century, over at long last!”
    They raised their glasses. “The War Century,” repeated the Senator.
    “Over,” his wife responded, “at long last!”
    It was a sentiment they all could share sincerely.

Unauthorized Enterprise
Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed.
—Barbara Tuchman
     
    F ourteen-year-old Emerson yawned.
    “What has happened so far on Pallas is regrettable,” declared the Chief Administrator, who made an egalitarian habit every morning of a d dressing the assembled colonists.
    Emerson yawned. His hair was still wet from the shower he’d been forced to take, he ached with the stiffness of another night spent lying propped against a damp concrete wall, his arms and legs trembled with newly restored circulation—all of which had kept him from eating much breakfast. Again. His stomach growled in protest. Like the other peasants around him, he’d heard it all before, what this man was blathering about. As far as he knew, he was the only one who had never believed any of it.
    “ Two Lions Consortium of Siskei claimed this asteroid as private property thirty years ago, in 2007...” The figure posing at parade-rest high on the Residence verandah—far from the plebeian ranks frozen at atte n tion beneath his gaze—wore a face Emerson’s parents seemed to r e member only vaguely from TV or the movies of a previous generation. Emerson, who by now had seen that same face, closer up and more times than he cared to remember, knew better. “...in an arrogant and abusive violation of the universally acclaimed 1999 United Nations Convention rendering all such astronomical bodies the common property of all h u manity.”
    It was the same crap every morning. He resisted an urge to scratch beneath one shoulder blade, knowing from long experience that it would only start him itching in a dozen other places.
    “It’s more regrettable...” Despite his bruises, and the ordeal he knew