The Parthenon
(Mark van Vuuren)
The year is early 2000, and the new millennium offers
new promises, and new risks. The military world is divided between East and West,
the East represented by the Sino-Arabian Council, the West run by the Euro-American
Alliance, specifically, the Pentagon and NATO. General Arthur McAlvaney of the
Pentagon High Command has been informed an ICBM has been stolen. General Abur
Isfahan, head of Special Projects within the Armed Forces of the Sino-Arabian
Council, proud of the ICBMs he got from the Russians, is surprised when three
are launched without his authorisation, directed into space, waiting to find a
target. Both sides suspect each other of foul play, but in the background is a
Third Force, headed by a mysterious man known as Cox, who manipulates both
sides, and forces them to comply with his demands.
1
Military personnel in various
uniforms spoke quickly in hushed tones and walked briskly from group to group.
In the centre of the High Command conference room stood a large table. The
edges of three of the four sides were lined with personnel sitting in front of
monitors and laptops. On the fourth side stood a single chair, and in the
chair, staring at the map of the world spread over the large table, sat General
Arthur McAlvaney. The map changed colour every few seconds. First the shipping
lines were shown, then the military force build-up, if any, then the defence
satellite positions. His problem: an act of terror performed, he suspected, by
the Sino-Arabian Council, also known as the other half of the world. Although
the world existed in moderate peace, the old East-West conflict had never
ended, the boundaries had merely shifted. He looked up and then to his left.
The faces of the computer operators reflected the glowing patterns of graphs
and data on their monitors. Their quiet tapping on the keyboards droned in with
the murmurs of the groups of personnel behind them.
Sergeant Sue Crowley sat to
the right of the general. Through her headset, right ear, she was communicating
with NATO’s London
office; with her left ear she was listening to an official from the San
Francisco Space Defence Centre. Her monitor showed the faces of both parties
communicating with her and in her hand she held a direct line to the Pentagon.
The phone buzzed once. She answered without adjusting her headset, “Crowley,” and listened,
tapping data with one hand into her keyboard. She switched off the phone
without a word and looked towards McAlvaney.
The general had a lot on his
mind. The cigar in his hand helped him relax and focus at the same time. He
noticed Crowley’s
face and turned towards her. A man of few words and less respect for formality,
he raised his eyebrow. “What does Gibson say?”
“Nothing yet,
General,” reported Sergeant Crowley. “Our Super Fighter jet which hit the World
Trade Centre was not in error – the co-ordinates were punched in by General
Brown.”
Astounded, he
replied, “General Brown has been in a coma for the last six months.”
“Yes, sir. The
co-ordinates were entered two weeks ago. Voice and retinal validation checks
identify, General Brown, sir.” She continued, “Furthermore, news just in is
that one of our old ICBMs is missing.”
McAlvaney sighed and rested
his head in his arms. Captain Brian Gibson was the military’s top computer
whiz. If he couldn’t figure something out, who could? This was the first
international crisis of the new millennium and a double one at that. One jet
down and now a missing Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile!
2
The harsh midday sun
reflected on the cruel dry sand. The heat waves contorted the horizon into an
indistinct blur. A voice rang out followed by the sound of feet coming to
attention. A row of men in full military kit stood to attention on either side
of a red carpet. At the end of the carpet was a large hole with a fifteen foot
diameter bordered by a thick metal ring. To the side stood a group of
scientists wearing white coats. They were speaking amongst each other while
looking into the silo, which showed the head of a large missile.
Chief Scientist
Dr Yigal Bakko lead the conversation. “The beauty of these ICBMs is that they
don’t exist.” He paused for their attention. “Russia sold them to us way back in
’96. Replicas were made and destroyed in accordance with international
treaties. They might look old but they fly and they destroy.”
“What about
defence systems which will identify and destroy it in the sky?” asked one of
the scientists. “It’s slow enough!” .
Bakko was glad
this question had been asked. He had thought about it many times. “Defence
systems are so advanced that they’re incompatible with first releases!” The
group laughed. Computer software incompatibility was for once a welcome
anomaly.
At the other end of the
carpet stood a Rolls Royce which contained General Abur Isfahan, head of
Special Projects within the Armed Forces of the Sino-Arabian Council. He sat in
the back seat of the air-conditioned vehicle with an array of electronic
devices next to him. The back panel of the front seat opened to show a flat
monitor which he looked into while speaking into a portable phone. “Yes, I have
seen them. All of them. There are no problems.” He listened carefully to the
questions being asked. When he answered he spoke slowly with deference to the
speaker and to the other ten Council members sitting in the Council’s
conference room, observing him on a giant monitor. His brow began to furrow. He
bit his lower lip, breathed in deeply and began to speak. “No, Your Excellency,
I have not heard of the World Trade Centre crash. It was not a special
project.” He listened for a few more seconds and spoke with a slight smile, “If
it was not an accident and it was not on our agenda, perhaps we have a new
ally?”
3
The Pentagon conference room
was silent. The twelve top military officials sat in stony silence observing a
large monitor. In front of each official was a smaller monitor which folded up
from the desk. As each member spoke on areas representing his particular
responsibility his face would appear on the large monitor. For direct communication
from the Chief of Staff, the Secretary of State or even the President their
faces would also appear on this large monitor. Through complex scrambling
devices this system was thought to be the most advanced in the world. No
unauthorised source could access it and therefore nobody could misrepresent the
president, whose verbal instruction in time of war was final.
The face of Theodore Howick,
Secretary of State for the Euro-American Alliance, came onto the monitor. He
was a man of cold logic with a penchant for solutions. He cleared his throat
and spoke softly and concisely. “Gentlemen, we have a serious problem. A series
of events has occurred which indicates that a new strategy has been employed to
destabilise the Western Capitalist structure.
“First, one of
our Super Fighter jets has crashed – it was guided into the World Trade Centre.
The co-ordinates were authorised under General Brown’s name. The manual abort
programs were all overridden and the pilots died. Second, one of our old
pre-millennium ICBMs is missing. All current missiles which are kept in space
as well as those in satellite silos are accounted for. We can only assume that
it has not been launched and is within one thousand miles of its last location.
Third, military intelligence has found evidence that there are five silos
holding ICBMs in the Kavir
Desert, two hundred miles
South-East of Teheran. These are not our missiles. What is of concern is that
the sight was inspected by General Isfahan.”
The chairman of
the meeting raised a question. “Sir, for the benefit of those who might not be
in the know, what is the implication of General Isfahan inspecting the
missiles?”
Howick answered,
“Mr Chairman, General Isfahan is head of Special Projects within the Armed
Forces. His responsibility is to initiate projects which have been passed by
the Sino-Arabian Council and to ensure their successful implementation. We are
faced with a situation where our computer controls have been overridden and a
military build-up is evident. I suggest we first agree on ways to discuss this
problem, and secondly ways to address this problem.”
The military officials
debated at length and finally a motion was passed. The chairman tallied the
votes and typed the data into his keyboard. Howick’s face came onto the large
monitor. “Gentlemen, we have come to a decision. We will send a Fireshooter
attack gunship to destroy the command centre which controls Isfahan’s silos. The attack gunship will run
on autopilot. All computer operations will from now on be fully automatic. All
Fireshooter decisions will be made through Artificial Intelligence. This way we
should achieve an acceptable level of control against this new onslaught.”
The image of the Pentagon
conference room showing military officials in session was represented on a
monitor in a location far away. It stood alongside many other monitors, each
showing a different area of the world or a different player in the
international game of defence. Row upon row, from the floor to the ceiling,
covering all four walls of a cavernous office, monitors flickered in green and
grey. Isfahan’s
face showed on one monitor, McAlvaney’s on another. On another the missiles in
the Kavir Desert waited for their deadly
instruction. The centre monitor, larger than all the others showed an aircraft
carrier off the Madagascar
coast where a Fireshooter helicopter stood on a lonely deck. In the centre of
the room was a desk and behind the desk sat a bearded figure, slowly tapping
his fingers. The centre monitor image changed to show Howick’s face as his last
sentence was repeated. The bearded figure responded aloud, “I’ll decide that.”
4
Close to the southern edge
of Madagascar
stood the aircraft carrier Intex. It was a unique creation, staffed with one
thousand multi-tasking robots based on railway tracks. It was designed to be
run from satellite instruction; it could launch and land two hundred fighter
planes automatically without any human intervention. In enemy waters extensive
cameras captured all the horizons through a variety of filters, the images of
which were sent back to High Command where extensive analysis and computer
simulation occurred. Each missile on board the Intex had a camera attached to
it. In an attack situation the camera on the missile would dislodge five
seconds before impact. Attached to a small gas canister the camera could remain
in the same place for up to thirty minutes. At one thousand feet above ground
level it would not be detected yet provided valuable information about the
effect of the missile and the enemy’s reaction to it.
A small contingent of staff
was kept on board the Intex, in the unlikely event of an error creeping up
which could not be automatically resolved. Another reason for the staff was the
type of personality making decisions in the Pentagon: ‘A ship must have staff
on it; without them it will sink’. The staff comprised a chef and kitchen
personnel, a systems analyst, a systems auditor and a systems support
complement of fifty.
The systems support
personnel prepared the Fireshooter. It was a fully automated, jet-assisted
nuclear helicopter designed to carry two missiles within one hundred miles of
the attack zone. It could travel three feet above land or water and was made of
anti-radar detection material. Every movement could be controlled from the
Intex. In turn, every decision made by the Intex could be overridden by High
Command.
The support team completed
their preparations and withdrew to the side of the deck. The rotor blades began
to turn slowly. All co-ordinates had been entered into the system. There was no
more work to be done except react if an error occurred. Within the bowels of
the ship a lone operator sat watching a set of monitors, one for each camera on
board the Fireshooter and a separate group of images coming from telescopes
placed in satellites orbiting the earth. Marty Feldman loved his job. Nothing
could go wrong, nothing did go wrong. His main responsibility was to change the
video DVD discs when they were full, which occurred after every fifty gigabytes
of data. The Fireshooter rose ten feet off the deck, flew over the edge and
dropped to ten feet above the water, then headed North-East. Soon it was out of
sight.
With the ability to travel
up to five hundred knots the journey took forty hours. At a designated point
the Intex was informed the next decision was about to be taken: to launch the
missiles. Marty checked the various monitors. From the Fireshooter’s cameras he
could make out the infrared blur of the military base's lights. From the
satellite feed he could see the target zone. The Fireshooter suddenly thrust
forward sixty feet, then the missiles were launched and the craft shot back
thirty feet. Marty changed his gaze to a new monitor. It was the camera in the
nose cone of one of the missiles.
Within a few short minutes
the military base outline became more distinct. The target area blinked in a
different colour and the missile data showed it was ready to drop off the
camera. Suddenly all monitors flashed red; the automatic voice-over announced
the mission was aborted. The missiles turned and headed back to the
Fireshooter. The next step was the automatic deactivation of the missiles, but
the deactivation did not kick in. Marty reached for the deactivation override,
typed in his access code followed by the instruction code.
The automatic
voice-over announced, “Manual instruction aborted.”
Marty immediately
logged a call to High Command.
Sergeant Crowley
answered on the videophone. “What’s happening, Marty?”
“The deactivation
did not automate, Ma’am,” answered Marty in a breathless panic.
“Use manual
override,” her calm voice instructed.
“The system does
not adhere to the instruction, Ma’am!”
“Explode the
missile,” she commanded.
“Ma’am, yes Ma’am!”
Again the
voice-over announced, “Manual instruction aborted.”
Sergeant Crowley
maintained a cool professionalism. “Identify whether the error is by default or
third-person intervention.”
Marty checked all
incoming signal variances but couldn’t identify any erroneous input. He
answered in a near panic, “Third-person intervention, Ma’am.”
The Fireshooter
now came into view. Both missiles were aiming at it. The picture on the two
monitors was tossed into the air as the cameras released from the missiles,
quickly refocusing on the craft. The missiles hit the Fireshooter simultaneously,
erupting into an enormous ball of fire. The image from the satellite camera
showed a small red glow, then nothing.
5
Secretary of State Theodore
Howick sat next to General Arthur McAlvaney. Both focused on the monitor placed
in front of them.
“Art, I’ve called
this meeting with the Sino-Arabian
Council
before one of us blows the other off the face of this planet.”
McAlvaney nodded
his head slowly.
Howick liked
solutions more than he did problems. He shook his head. “I don’t know what
happened to the Fireshooter. Captain Gibson can’t explain it. He might be
joining us a bit later. He is preparing the feed which is coming in from Beijing.”
“What has he
managed to get up to?”
“Voice analysis
identifies the possibility of the speaker lying. A voice sine wave will appear
on our monitor, but the other side won’t see it. He’s at present filtering the
test image through an infra-red filter – by highlighting the skin tone changes
we’re sure to identify what is true and what they want us to believe is true.”
Again McAlvaney
nodded his head slowly.
The monitor
flickered a few times and an image of a face appeared. It was Isfahan’s face.
“Gentlemen,” began Isfahan, “although your
image is shown to our Council, their image cannot be shown for security
reasons. All commentary will therefore be made by myself.”
“Greetings,
General,” began Howick. “I have called this meeting as a matter of
international urgency.”
Isfahan wasted no time
in gaining the upper hand. “You first attack us, lose control of your own missiles
and destroy your Fireshooter. Now you wish to speak. Perhaps you should have
spoken first.” The sine wave moved without distortion.
“Correct. We were
in error. You, however, have acted justifiably.”
“How so?”
“By destroying
our missile co-ordinates.”
“Yes. Yes
indeed.”
The sine wave
streaked across the monitor, way out of its normal parameters, then returned to
a fine green line when Isfahan
stopped speaking. Three circles appeared on the monitor indicating his forehead
and cheeks had changed colour.
“I take it you
know of our Trade Centre crash?” continued Howick.
“Yes, I have
heard of it.”
“I take it this
is not one of your projects?”
“No.” The sine
wave remained constant.
“Do you know that
one of our old ICBMs has gone missing?” enquired Howick.
“No.” Again, the
sine wave remained constant.
“Well, we know of
your stockpile, and we’re very concerned should one go astray.”
Isfahan put his hand to
his ear. He listened carefully before responding. “Mr Secretary of State, what
exactly is the purpose of this meeting?”
Howick lent
forward and answered slowly and clearly. “We are experiencing a spate of
incidents which you did not plan. I am concerned that we might both be mutually
inconvenienced.”
Again Isfahan cupped his ear,
listening carefully to the instruction from the Council. He looked directly at
Howick and asked, “Have you heard of Sun Tzu?”
McAlvaney
answered, “The art of war.”
“Correct. On the
dictum ‘know your enemy’ we will make enquiries.”
“I take it a
truce for forty-eight hours is in order?” Howick asked hopefully.
“Yes.”
McAlvaney sighed
in relief, the sine wave remained within its parameters.
“Kindly thank the
Council for their valuable time,” concluded Howick, also relieved.
6
“Anything new, Crowley?”
McAlvaney was not
in a good mood. An unidentified third force appeared to be responsible for
three major incidents. He was concerned what might happen next.
She answered
promptly, “Yes, sir. A message on your private videophone.”
McAlvaney
stretched across his desk, switched on the scrambler and picked up the handset.
He heard nothing but the monitor flashed a message: “Code seven. Meet in VDR.
Go to Parthenon.com.” He turned to Crowley
and asked, “Howick wants to speak to me?”
“No, sir. You
already have a scheduled meeting with him within two hours.”
Howick was the
only one who said ‘Code Seven’ and he insisted on it – ‘Code Seven is me; if
anyone ever says ‘Code Seven’ know it’s me.’ He would be seeing him soon, so
why the secrecy? “Crowley,
get me Gibson.”
An hour later McAlvaney sat
in front of his computer and looked around his office. Computer boxes lay
stacked around him. Wires went in and out of each box and from each box towards
a central console. Gibson sat behind the console and informed McAlvaney
cheerfully, “Ready when you are, sir.”
McAlvaney nodded
slightly. He placed the Cyber helmet over his face and slowly opened his eyes
to adjust to the 3D electronic effect. VDR stood for Virtual Discussion Room.
Within the realm of Virtual Reality users could communicate with each other in
a virtual lounge, seeing the other speaker, observing how his face and hands
moved as he spoke. International corporations used this medium extensively as a
means to cut down on transport costs.
He typed in the instructed
address and waited to be linked to a lounge suite. Within a few seconds
electronic images began to appear. He saw a lavishly furnished room with a bay
window to his right. Ten chairs formed a semi-circle around him. He strained
his eyes as bodies began to appear on the chairs. The members generally looked
the same – bushy haired, glasses, track shoes, denims. Most of them had
receding hairlines and lines under their eyes.
“Welcome, General. I am sure
you wish to know what this is about,” introduced the speaker sitting directly
in front of him.
“Yes, I have
observed your instruction. How did you get my address?”
“Information is
our business. We have asked you to be here because we have a message for your
Secretary of State.”
McAlvaney leant
forward in his chair, waiting for the next sentence. The speaker sounded around
forty-five. An interesting accent, slightly Irish blended with a predominantly New York voice.
“We are
collectively known as the Parthenon. We claim responsibility for the World
Trade Centre incident. We stole your ICBM. It was us, not the Sino-Arabian Council who trashed your
Fireshooter.”
“Are you on the
Council’s side?”
“No.”
“Are you only
targeting us?”
“No. We have also
stolen Isfahan’s
ICBMs. Three of them. As we speak they’re heading into space.”
“To land where?”
“Nowhere yet. But
until then they’ll stay in space.”
McAlvaney
breathed in deeply. This discussion was more than he had bargained for. “I take
it you have demands.”
“Yes. You’ll have
them. Soon.” The voice was calm and controlled.
McAlvaney studied
the faces surrounding him. Normally, faces in VDR were altered to show the most
attractive profiles of the users. Most business users had their wrinkles digitally
removed from their VDR faces, and everyone’s nose was perfect. Yet somehow this
lot seemed to pride themselves on a nerdish, over-worked appearance.
“Good,” replied
McAlvaney finally. “Soon.”
The image cut out. He closed
his eyes as he took the helmet off his face, letting his eyes adjust to the
brightness of his office. He wanted the conversation to go on as long as
possible, in an effort to identify as much as he could about the Parthenon but
what he heard was so incredible he could barely keep control of the
conversation.
“You got that?”
he asked gruffly.
“Yes, sir,”
Gibson replied. “We don’t know their location, yet. However, we do know they’re
not part of the Council.”
7
The forty-eight-hour truce
had thirty hours left. Not that it mattered much. Marty Feldman on board the
Intex called Crowley
at midnight. Crowley
in turn called Howick. Howick called McAlvaney to inform him three ICBMs were
seen hovering in space. “Yes, I’m aware of it,” replied McAlvaney, yawning. He
was tired and not in the mood for eristic word play.
The following morning
Captain Gibson sat at his desk, his head in his hands. “We’ve watched the video
repeatedly. I cannot trace it, sir!” The anguish in his voice was apparent.
Howick stood
behind him and lectured, “Based on the speed of sound and of electricity we
compare the time when his voice was heard with when he opened his mouth. The variance
is his location in miles.”
“I did that, sir.
The signal was sent from a satellite-based server.”
“What does that
mean?” asked Howick abruptly.
“It means the
variance is greater than any distance one can be from here to any place on
earth.”
“In English?”
demanded Howick.
“They sent their
signal to a multitude of satellites. Each satellite sent and received the
signal. We can identify one satellite but not all of them, nor the location of
the speaker. They could be anywhere on earth.”
McAlvaney sat staring out
the window. The only solution now lay in a new approach. He looked pensively at
Crowley and
asked, “What do you think?”
Sergeant Crowley
sat at the other end of the room. She was attending to taking minutes, bringing
in coffee and taking calls. Yet she was glad for the opportunity to offer any
input.
She began, “Sir,
I feel that for an individual to be the Parthenon leader he must obviously be
well-educated.”
“Is that a
contribution?” snapped Howick.
She looked down
and kept quiet. After a while McAlvaney asked sympathetically, “Is this line of
thought leading somewhere?”
Crowley looked up and
answered. “Yes, sir. The ability to comprehend all these computer systems is
learned, not intuitive.”
“Correct.”
She continued,
“If it is learned, then perhaps he could be traced through an educational or
research institution.”
McAlvaney probed
again, “What do we know so far?”
“We can’t rely on
his face as all faces in VDR are subject to major cosmetic changes.”
McAlvaney nodded.
“He possibly has
programming experience in military software,” she continued.
Gibson
interjected, “That accent and his age could be of value.”
“Agreed.”
“The way he
speaks, in short concise sentences. His second-last sentence started with the
word ‘But’,” contributed Howick.
“What can you do,
Gibson?” asked McAlvaney, hoping that a solution would come soon.
“I’ll identify
his grammar style – and grammatical errors” – he looked at Howick for a moment
– “and run them against standard linguistic and grammar rules through every
Masters and Doctoral thesis published in the last twenty years.”
McAlvaney
remained cool, “How long will it take?”
“Six hours,”
answered Gibson enthusiastically.
“Six short hours,
please,” murmured McAlvaney.
Gibson came back after eight
hours with a list of the names.
“Four names, sir.
Pendleson, Cox, Yui, Cathcart.”
“Excellent,”
cried Howick.
“Which is the
one, Gibson?” asked McAlvaney impatiently.
“I’ve run checks
against all of them. Yui died fifteen years ago. Cathcart and Pendleson are
part of that society of anti-establishment drop-outs who live in the desert
planting crops and doing everything they can without computerisation.”
“It’s one of
them!” concluded Howick.
“Perhaps not,
sir.”
“Who else?”
enquired McAlvaney.
“Cox, sir.”
“Why Cox?”
“It’s the law of
deduction, sir. All the others have passport numbers, social security numbers,
fixed addresses, birth certificates, charge card numbers and a history of
regular transactions. All but Cox.”
McAlvaney nodded.
“We have access to every individual on this planet. If he does not seem to
exist it means he must exist.”
8
Within five hours of
discovering the identity of their leader McAlvaney was instructed to meet again
with the Parthenon in VDR. This time Howick and Crowley sat in McAlvaney’s office while
Gibson ran the controls, again hoping to identify the location of the group.
“Don’t call him
Cox – we don’t want to scare them off,” advised Howick as McAlvaney placed the
Cyber helmet over his face.
Again the images came up
slowly and the same stony faces appeared. The face of Cox in the centre of the
semi-circle spoke. “You have informed your Secretary of State?”
“I have,” obliged
McAlvaney.
“And you have
tried to identify us?”
“We have,” he
conceded.
The calm voice
continued, “We want to save humanity, not commit a crime against it. That the
three ICBMs have not been activated might give you an indication of our
intent.”
“Yes, it does,”
agreed McAlvaney, trying to play for time, hoping this would benefit Gibson in
any way possible.
After a long
pause Cox continued, “What we demand is the following. That every community
across the globe has Internet and VDR access within five years.” He paused
again. “That legislation governing family planning be implemented. That the
space program and the military budget will decrease by ten percent per annum
over the next five years. That all government research and special projects be
made public on the Internet. Lastly, that the production of combustion-engine
motor vehicles will decrease by twenty percent, the production of electric
vehicles to increase by twenty percent; both requirements to be satisfied
within two years.”
There was another
pause. McAlvaney asked, “Is that your full list?”
“That is all.”
“If we fail?”
dared McAlvaney.
“We’ll remind you
with one of our missiles.”
McAlvaney
challenged Cox, “We can develop the technology to counteract you. Your threats
are meaningless.”
The voice did not
waiver but answered confidently, “No. We control everything. We crashed your
jet. We stole your ICBM and we stole Isfahan’s.
We can reconfigure your defence systems. We can alter your communication
satellites. We can disrupt your banking systems. But we’ll start with an ICBM.”
Incredulous,
McAlvaney cried, “You’re threatening to destroy the Western world!?”
“No, just all the
world,” replied the cold voice.
“What about the Sino-Arabian Council? The same
conditions?”
“Yes. Dr Bakko is
with General Isfahan at present. He is explaining how his missiles got into
space.” McAlvaney thought he detected a smile on Cox’s face as he said this. He
continued, “We meet with the Council this afternoon. The same conditions will
apply.”
One of the faces
to the left of Cox spoke. “We’re ensuring the survival of the human spirit. We
cherish life a lot more than you do.”
9
McAlvaney hated hospitals.
He clenched the cigar between his teeth impatiently. He wanted to light it but
knew he would have to wait until he was outside. General Brown had come out of
his coma the day before.
“Welcome back,
that’s quite a snooze.”
General Brown was
not one for introductions. “I believe someone imitated me while I was away.”
McAlvaney nodded.
“They had a field day. Aimed a Super Fighter at the World Trade Centre.”
“I never miss, do
I?” asked Brown rhetorically.
“Never.”
“Computers, I
never liked those things.” They both smiled; it was a common problem.
“So, what’s the
worst of it?” continued Brown.
McAlvaney slowly
raised his head and answered softly, “The meek have just inherited the earth.”
-
End -
