One night, a spaceship appeared in the sky of a planet that had never seen one before. It appeared as a brilliant new star moving silently across the heavens.

Primitive Tribesmen who were sitting huddled on the Cold Hillsides looked up from their steaming night drinks and pointed with trembling fingers, and swore that they had seen a sign, a sign from their Gods that meant that they must now arise at last and go and slay the evil Princes of the Plains.

In the high turrets of their palaces, the Princes of the Plains looked up and saw the shining star, and received it unmistakably as a sign from their Gods that they must go and attack the accursed Tribesmen of the Cold Hillsides.

And between them, the Dwellers in the Forest looked up into the sky and saw the sign of the new star, and saw it with fear and apprehension, for though they had never seen anything like it before, they, too, knew precisely what it foreshadowed, and they bowed their heads in despair.

They knew that when the rains came, it was a sign.

When the rains departed, it was a sign.

When the winds rose, it was a sign.

When the winds fell, it was a sign.

So there was no doubt at all that a new star in the sky was a sign of a particularly spectacular order.

And each new sign signified the same thing—that the Princes of the Plains and the Tribesmen of the Cold Hillsides were about to beat the h*ck out of each other again.

This in itself wouldn’t be so bad, except that the Princes of the Plains and the Tribesmen of the Cold Hillsides always elected to beat the h*ck out of each other in the Forest, and it was always the Dwellers in the Forest who came off worst in these exchanges, though as far as they could see it never had anything to do with them.

And sometimes, after some of the worst of these outrages, the Dwellers in the Forest would send a Messenger to either the Leader of the Princes of the Plains or the Leader of the Tribesmen of the Cold Hillsides and demand to know the reason for this intolerable behavior.

And the Leader, whichever one it was, would take the Messenger aside and explain the reason to him, slowly and carefully, and with great attention to the considerable detail involved.

And the terrible thing was, it was a very good one. It was very clear, very rational and tough. The Messenger would hang his head and feel sad and foolish that he had not realized what a tough and complex place the real world was, and what difficulties and paradoxes had to be embraced if one was to live in it.

“Now do you understand?” the Leader would say.

The Messenger would nod dumbly.

“And you see these battles have to take place?”

Another dumb nod.

“And why they have to take place in the Forest, and why it is in everybody’s best interest, the Forest Dwellers included, that they should?”

“Er, yes.”

And the Messenger did understand the reason, and he returned to his people in the Forest. But as he approached them, as he walked through the Forest and among the trees, he found that all he could remember of the reason was how terribly clear the argument had seemed. What it actually was, he couldn’t remember at all.

And this, of course, was a great comfort when next the Tribesmen and the Princes came hacking and burning their way through the Forest, killing every Forest Dweller in their way.


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