"The South Africans." Something strange came into her eyes. It might
have been awe, or even hatred; he could not tell. "The Pan-Orientals
eventually conquered all the world, except for North America--the
last remnant of the American World Empire--and southern Africa. The
Afrikanders had been partly isolated for several centuries then, and
they had developed technology while the rest of the world lost it. They
had a tradition of white supremacy, and in addition they were terrified
of being encircled." She sighed. "They ruled the next world empire and
it was founded on the slaughter of one and a half billion human beings.
That went into the history books as the War of Annihilation."
"So many? How?"
"They were clever with machines, the Afrikanders. They made armies
of them. Armies of invincible killing-machines, produced in robot
factories from robot-mined ores.... Very clever." She gave a little
shudder.
"And yet they founded modern civilization," she added. "The grandsons
of the technicians who built the Machine Army set up our robot
production system, and today no human being has to dirty his hands
raising food or manufacturing things. It could never have been done,
either, before the population was--reduced to three hundred million."
"Then the Afrikanders are still on top? Still the masters?"
* * * * *