“This interview is over. I can’t keep you from forming a government. Send me your list of ministers. I want it by noon tomorrow. I will act upon it immediately. But—remember this day. You’re right, My Lord. I’m not a dictator, and I refuse to act like one simply because of your own stupidity and arrogance. But I need not be a ‘dictator’ to deal with the likes of you, either, and the time will come when you—when all of you—will rue this day!”
They were called the sinews of the Imperium–not the brains of the Imperium, he noticed.
Perhaps I’ll cure Frank and every other alcoholic if I can solve the mystery of Donovan’s Brain.
Our best physicians examined them. They couldn’t agree on a cause. They couldn’t find a germ or virus.
“Your Grace. you stated in your report that Lieutenant Meares was attempting to resist some sort of compulsion the entire time he was killing people, including your own armsman.”
There is no end
To what a living world
Will demand of you.
So here we were, fifty men and fifty women, with IQs over 150 and bodies of unusual health and strength, slogging elitely through the mud and slush of central Missouri, reflecting on the usefulness of our skill in building bridges on worlds where the only fluid is an occasional standing pool of liquid helium.
prof: Forever War; nice
In play:
“There’s no mention of her in my file, is there? That’s lesson number one, junior. The map is not the territory. The man is not the file.”
The full cosmos consists of the physical stuff and consciousness. Take away consciousness and it’s only dust; add consciousness and you get things, ideas, and time.
“You heard what Ed Piazza and his teachers told us. Somehow—nobody knows how—we’ve been planted somewhere in Germany almost four hundred years ago. With no way to get back.”
The Unexpected always comes at the most awkward times.
Perhaps that was why our own composure was so manifestly smithereened and scattered to the four winds.
What’s that screaming? A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.
Longer than you think, Dad! Longer than you think! Held my breath when they gave me the gas! Wanted to see! I saw! I saw! Longer than you think!
Look at my eyes, churl. No power–yours or anyone’s–can stop me.
No one’s ever meant to have that power.
With great power comes great responsibility.
“Don’t you ‘but’ me! You didn’t know—you couldn’t know—if they’d come up with some kind of fire control fix we’d never heard of before. You had no right, not one shred of a moral justification, to risk the lives of personnel under your command just because somebody on the other side had done something suicidal! Your responsibility is to your people, not theirs! It’s your job to neutralize an enemy before he kills them, and you’d damned well better do it if you’re going to be worthy of the uniform you wear!”
Never start a galactic war at a cocktail party by accident.
“The instant any Solly warship crosses the Spindle hyper limit inbound, the gloves come off. There won’t be any preliminary surrender demands this time, and despite whatever Admiral Crandall may be thinking, we’re not going to be thinking in terms of a fighting retreat, either. I think it’s about time we find out just how accurate our assumptions about Battle Fleet’s combat capability really are.”