‘Many of their people become physicians to great leaders, and with medicines and treatments that seem like magic to the comparatively primitive people they’re dealing with, ensure that a great and good leader has a better chance of surviving. That’s the way they prefer to work; offering life, you see, rather than dealing death. You might call them soft, because they’re very reluctant to kill, and they might agree with you, but they’re soft the way the ocean is soft, and, well; ask any sea captain how harmless and puny the ocean can be.’
