He had paused for a moment, searching for words. "What you have recognized, Pete, may be the royal's backup plan, the only plan that they could possibly resort to. You see, poverty can be brought upon humanity in such a manner that people will love it. Humanity has already become captivated by it. Misguided environmentalism can be used very destructively. It can be used to eliminate fundamental infrastructures, such as fertilizers, pesticides, refrigeration, nuclear energy, fossil fuel energy, and so forth. People have already been made to believe that the destruction of their livelihood increases their quality of life. They are literally kissing their destroyer's feet and feel good about it. This is happening now, just as it happened many times before, Pete, and so it will happen again. There is a fine dividing line between freedom unfolding from self-development, and captivity leading to self-destruction. Both may appear similar on the surface, at one point, but they are totally opposite when you experience their essence. The key is to stay alert and to keep on fighting!"

      Here Steve had laughed again. "Why am I telling you all this? Your dreaming only reflects what you already know."

      Those were his words. I was amazed at what Steve said, because I had dreamed this dream a long time ago. Steve suggested that my dreaming reflect a certain knowledge that seemed to indicate that we would come through the crisis alive? That question, however, was not resolved in my mind when we reached the black hull of the submarine. Still, his words kept ringing in my ears: "The key is to stay alert and to keep on fighting."

      + + +

     

      I asked the captain immediately as we entered, "Can your nuclear missiles be reprogrammed to detonate in space. We need to find a way to destroy the satellite that is killing your cities? We know exactly which satellite it is and where it will be at any given time."

      Steve explained to the captain that the satellite is in a near circular orbit at an altitude of forty-one-thousand kilometers. "It will come over the Arctic Ocean in slightly less than three hours," he added.

      The captain understood immediately what we were saying. Steve had brought our Atlas and his calculations to prove our point. The captain, though, wouldn't even look at them. He held onto a railing at first, then sat down. He must have been in his late sixties. His face was wrinkled and bore the scars of earlier battles. He called some of his officers together and laid out the problem to them. Each one confirmed that it couldn't be done. He finally turned to us and shook his head. "There is not a single missile in the world's nuclear arsenal that can reach this far into space," he explained in broken English. "This is why Nicolai failed."

      One of the officers took over for him and explained the reason. "All intercontinental nuclear missiles are designed for sub-orbital trajectories," he explained. "Their booster stage simply doesn't carry enough fuel to boost a nuclear warhead to such a high altitude. Not a single one of all the world's nuclear missiles can reach that high."

      He suggested that this might have been the reason why the killer satellite has been put into such a high orbit. He suggested that the reason why Nicolai had failed, might have been due to the simple fact that Russia had lost most of its technological capacity. He said, fifteen years ago, it would have been easy to shoot the killer satellite down, but no more. He explained, that once the Soviet Union was split apart, Russia had lost a large portion of its high tech industries. A lot of these were located in the Ukraine. "In the olden days," he said, "we had the engineering and manufacturing capacity to put something together in a hurry. We would have destroyed this satellite easily in those days."

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Stories about  Sex from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche