He calmed down. For a while he continued pacing, then he sat down and said conversationally:

“Let me give you a few examples from recent cases of Patrol methods. Needless to say, this is strictly confidential. All the Galaxy knows is that there is peace—but we had to use every form of perfidy and betrayal to maintain it.”

He thought a moment, then began: “Sirius and Alpha Centauri fought a war just before the founding of the League which nearly ruined both. They’ve managed to reconstruct since, but there is an undying hatred between them. League or no League they mean to be at each other’s throats the first chance they get.

“Well, no matter what methods we use to hold the Centaurians in check. But on Sirius the government has become so hopelessly corrupt, the military force so graft-ridden and inefficient, that action is out of the question.

“Now a vigorous young reformer rose; honest, capable, popular, all set to win an election which would sweep the rascally incumbents out and bring good government to Sirius for the first time in three centuries. And—the Patrol bribed him to throw the election. He wouldn’t take the money, but he did as we said because otherwise, as he knew, we’d make it the dirtiest election in even Sirian history, ruin his business and reputation and family life, and defeat him.

“Why? Because, of course, the first thing he’d have done if elected would have been to get the military in trim. Which would have meant the murder of several hundred million Centaurians—unless they struck first. Sure, we don’t like crooked government either—but it costs a lot less in lives, suffering, natural resources, and even money than war.

“Then there was the matter of an obscure barbarian system whose people are carnivorous and have a psychological need of combat. Imagine them loose in the Galaxy! We have to hold them in check for several generations until sublimation can be achieved. Fortunately, they are under an absolute monarch. A native woman whom we had educated managed to become his mistress and completely dominate him. And when the great nobles showed signs of revolt, she seduced one of them to act as her agent provocateur and smoke out the rebellious ones.

“Immoral? Sure. But two or three centuries hence, even the natives will thank us for it. Meanwhile, the Galaxy is safe from them

“A somewhat similar case was a race by nature so fanatically religious that they were all set to go crusading among the stars with all the weapons of modern science. We wrecked that scheme by introducing a phony religion with esoteric scientific ‘miracles’ and priests who were Patrolmen trained in psychotechnology—a religion that preaches peace and tolerance. A dirty trick to play on a trusting people, but it saved their neighbors—and also themselves, since otherwise their extinction might have been necessary.

“We really hit a moral bottom in the matter of another primitive and backward system. Its people are divided into clans whose hereditary chiefs have absolute authority. When one of the crown princes took a tour through the Galaxy, our agents managed to guide him into one of the pleasure houses we maintain here and there. And we got records. Recently this being succeeded to the chiefship of the most influential clan. We were pretty sure, from study of his psychographs, that before long he would want to throw off the League ‘yoke’ and go off on a spree of conquest—it’s a race of warriors with a contempt for all outsiders. So—the Patrol used those old records to blackmail him into refusing the job in favor of a safely conservative brother.