        In his lifetime, war had gone from something that was a part of human nature to something that was best avoided.  While it was true that America was currently engaged in two futile conflicts in the Middle East, the population of the country in general no longer seemed to favor war as a reasonable way to settle differences.  He hoped—oh, how desperately he hoped—that this was the case with these aliens.  After all, it was possible that they were taking the month to draw up papers for Earth’s unconditional surrender.  Maybe it took time to get them through the democratic order of planets, or whatever kind of organization it was that the spacefaring races had.  What if they were just an early survey team, getting an idea of the value of the planet?  He’d certainly dealt with the human equivalent—even though he hated thinking of lawyers as human—when he’d sold his machine shop.