“Gentlemen, my only aim is to save the tunnel and this is the plan that I put before you.”
Burckhardt followed him through an empty office, to another door—a closet, probably, because it was unmarked.
But it was no closet. Swanson opened it warily, looked inside, then motioned Burckhardt to follow.
It was a tunnel, metal-walled, brightly lit. Empty, it stretched vacantly away in both directions from them.
Burckhardt looked wondering around. One thing he knew and knew full well:
No such tunnel belonged under Tylerton.
Then it turned its eyes in my direction and lay still.
“It would have been so fine,” it said softly, “to eat a Prince of Amber. I always wondered—about royal blood.”
Then the eyes closed and the breathing stopped and I was left with the stink.
I rose, back still against the wall, staff still before me, and regarded it. It was a long while before I could bring myself to retrieve my blade. A quick exploration showed me that I was in no tunnel, but only a cave.
There’s something to be said for hunger: at least it lets you know you’re still alive.
I got a squirt of Popsie from the fountain by punching my combination — twenty-five cents checked off my payroll. The squirt wasn’t quite enough so I had another — fifty cents. Dinner was drab as usual; I couldn’t face more than a bite or two of Chicken Little. Later I was hungry and there was the canteen where I got Crunchies on easy credit. The Crunchies kicked off withdrawal symptoms that could be quelled only by another two squirts of Popsie from the fountain. And Popsie kicked off withdrawal symptoms that could only be quelled by smoking Starr cigarettes, which made you hungry for Crunchies . . .
Remember, popcorn can feel pain. (Munching) Ah! their tiny screams.
I’ve heard the screams of the vegetables (Scream… scream… scream)
Watching their skins being peeled (Having their insides revealed)
Grated and steamed with no mercy…(Burning off calories)
How do you think that feels? (That it hurts really bad)
“I am a great soft jelly thing. Smoothly rounded, with no mouth, with pulsing white holes filled by fog where my eyes used to be. Rubbery appendages that were once my arms; bulks rounding down into legless humps of soft slippery matter. I leave a moist trail when I move. Blotches of diseased, evil gray come and go on my surface, as though light is being beamed from within. Outwardly: dumbly, I shamble about, a thing that could never have been known as human, a thing whose shape is so alien a travesty that humanity becomes more obscene for the vague resemblance. Inwardly: alone. Here. Living under the land, under the sea, in the belly of AM, whom we created because our time was badly spent and we must have known unconsciously that he could do it better. At least the four of them are safe at last. AM will be all the madder for that. It makes me a little happier. And yet … AM has won, simply … he has taken his revenge …
I have no mouth. And I must scream.”
I saw thousands of them. A sea of the dead that roared like an ocean! You would have heard them screaming toward you. It would have taken days to steer them away. Killing them? I don’t think killing them would have been possible.
nm
Not Earth’s feeble thirty-six hundred Stars visible to the eye; Lagash was in the center of a giant cluster. Thirty thousand mighty suns shone down in a soul-searing splendor that was more frighteningly cold in its awful indifference than the bitter wind that shivered across the cold, horribly bleak world.
Space Academy, USA, in the world beyond tomorrow. Here the Space Cadets train for duty on distant planets. In roaring rockets, they blast through the millions of miles from Earth to far-flung stars and brave the dangers of cosmic frontiers protecting the liberties of the planets, safeguarding the cause of universal peace in the age of the conquest of space!
While some of you undoubtedly have your suspicions, I will begin by telling you what is behind what you have been put through during the last five years. Feel perfectly free to break in with questions at any time. You know that every year one million eighteen-year-old boys of Earth are chosen as cadets by competitive examinations. You know that during the first year, before any of them see Wentworth Hall, that number shrinks to less than fifty thousand. You know that by Graduation Day there are only approximately one hundred left in the class.
Space Cadets, salute!
Greetings, Starfighter. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan armada.
“Attention Krill ship, this is the USS Orville. Cease fire immediately or we will respond.”
“In the history of space battles, has that ever worked?”
“They have ceased firing upon the planet.”
“Does the Little Doctor work against a planet?” Mazer’s face went rigid. “Ender, the buggers never attacked a civilian population in either invasion. You decide whether it would be wise to adopt a strategy that would invite reprisals.”
“I’m a doctor, not a mechanic.”
“You’re a medical professional. You do medicine.”
“I am,” Cainen said. “I specialize in genetics.”