Get out of my Mind!
What’s the trick, Chuck? What’s the clever plan to get out out of this?
Plan 9 From Outer Space
Star League?! A refuge for weak worlds not ready to be our equals!
You understand what the Federation is, don’t you? It’s important. It’s a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada…
Until, that was, Elizabeth Adrienne Samantha Annette Winton, Grand Commander of the Order of King Roger, Grand Commander of the Order of Queen Elizabeth I, Grand Commander of the Order of the Golden Lion, Baroness of Crystal Pine, Baroness of White Sand, Countess of Tannerman, Countess of High Garnet, Grand Duchess of Basilisk, Princess Protector of the Realm, and, by God’s grace and the will of Parliament, Queen Elizabeth III of the Star Kingdom of Manticore, and Empress Elizabeth I of the Star Empire of Manticore, swung lithely out of the boarding tube at Duchess Harrington’s heels.
With all this manure around, there’s got to be a pony someplace.
You can shovel shit, can’t you?
Dear Buddha, please bring me a pony and a plastic rocket.
You know, I know another little boy who has a horse. His name’s Edward. The boy, not the horse.
I couldn’t say about that; I’ve never been a race horse.
I never said it was your mistake.
From the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success.
Listen, are we helpless? Are we doomed to do it again and again and again? Have we no choice but to play the Phoenix in an unending sequence of rise and fall? Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Carthage, Rome, the Empires of Charlemagne and the Turk: Ground to dust and plowed with salt. Spain, France, Britain, America—burned into the oblivion of the centuries. And again and again and again. Are we doomed to it, Lord, chained to the pendulum of our own mad clockwork, helpless to halt its swing? This time, it will swing us clean to oblivion.
Did you have one of those days today, like a nail in the foot? Did the pterodactyl corpse dropped by the ghost of your mother from the spectral Hindenburg forever circling the Earth come smashing through the lid of your glass coffin? Did the New York strip steak you attacked at dinner suddenly show a mouth filled with needle-sharp teeth, and did it snap off the end of your fork, the last solid-gold fork from the set Anastasia pressed into your hands as they took her away to be shot? Is the slab under your apartment building moaning that it cannot stand the weight on its back a moment longer, and is the building stretching and creaking? Did a good friend betray you today, or did that good friend merely keep silent and fail to come to your aid? Are you holding the razor at your throat this very instant? Take heart, comfort is at hand. This is the hour that stretches. Djan karet. We are the cavalry. We’re here. Put away the pills. We’ll get you through this bloody night. Next time, it’ll be your turn to help us.
What you need is a gramme of soma.
The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It’s the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.
Joel: Is there any risk of brain damage?
Howard: Well, technically speaking, the operation is brain damage, but it’s on a par with a night of heavy drinking. Nothing you’ll miss.
Strokes, thromboses, blood clots, aneurysms, Miles supposed that was what this translated to. Oh, joy.
“Inter arma enim silent leges.”
“‘In time of war, the law falls silent.’ Cicero. So is that what we’ve become-- a twenty-fourth century Rome? Driven by nothing more than the certainty that Caesar can do no wrong?”
Ross doesn’t answer. He just picks up his combadge and puts it back on.
“This conversation never happened. You’re dismissed.”