“I’m not insane, sir. I have a finely calibrated sense of acceptable risk.”
Most thing worth doing come with their fair share of risks.
If you can’t take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It’s not safe out here. It’s wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it’s not for the timid.
Listen, rich girl. You wanted out of that port. We left even though they couldn’t ensure our safety. That’s breaking the law, honey. You think they’re going to give us clearance and implicate themselves?
“Maybe you don’t call it cheating, and frankly I don’t care. As far as I’m concerned you could have your suit lined with aces and electromagnets in your boots. As long as you won. I’m not here to discuss moral points with you. I said I had a proposition.”
“So that’s why you make such a fiendishly effective diplomat!” she said with something very like an air of triumph. "I couldn’t believe how well a total novice was reading us. Now I know—you were cheating! "
The last word came out in something very like a laugh, and Honor nodded back.
“Where diplomacy’s concerned, according to my mentors in the Foreign Office, there is no such thing as ‘cheating,’ Madam President. In fact, one of those mentors quoted an old axiom to me. Where diplomacy is involved, he said, if you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying hard enough.”
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong with armistice. It’s a coward’s way out, that’s what it is. It’s all right for you to suggest it, you’re from off-world and don’t know any better. But do you honestly think I could entertain such a defeatist notion for one instant? When I speak, I speak not only for myself, but for all of us here. We don’t mind fighting, and we know how to do it. We know that if this war was over, we could build a better world here. At the same time, if we have the choice of continued war or a cowardly peace, we vote for war. This war will only be over when the enemy is utterly destroyed!”
I let fear drive my hope away. I let war become me, and my men followed.
“They fight the world and they fight each other. Hundreds of thousands of years of genetic weeding-out have produced things that would give even an electronic brain nightmares. Armor-plated, poisonous, claw-tipped and fanged-mouthed. That describes everything that walks, flaps or just sits and grows. Have you ever seen a plant with teeth that bite? I don’t think you want to.”
The carnivorous flower’s first warning that all was not well was received when Stevens’ steel-shod feet landed squarely upon its base and one sweeping cut of his sword lopped off the malignant blossom and severed the two tendrils that still held the unconscious Nadia.
I had so much to learn. We knew that Pax was a billion years older than Earth. On Earth, plants had separated from animals less than a billion years ago. Probably Pax plants had more time to evolve. The greenery around me held secrets I would never learn.
As soon as the thought hit him, he looked up - not a moment too soon. The great forms were drifting through the trees, closing in on him. When he shot two, the others snarled with rage and sank back into the forest. They didn’t flee. Instead of being frightened by the deaths they grew even more enraged.
He sat with his back to the tree and waited until they came close before he picked them off. With each shot and dying scream the outraged survivors howled the louder.
None were unscathed. But most found a way to survive, as they had for so long alone. They rediscovered their families; they attended school and church; they attended counseling sessions. They walked through shopping malls in wonder. They were occasionally seen to break down crying in the middle of a grocery store.
“Don’t you want to be free and men? Don’t you even understand what manhood and freedom are?” Rage was making him fluent; the words came easily, in a rush. “Don’t you?” he repeated, but got no answer to his question. “Very well then,” he went on grimly. “I’ll teach you; I’ll make you be free whether you want to or not.” And pushing open a window that looked on to the inner court of the Hospital, he began to throw the little pill-boxes of soma tablets in handfuls out into the area.
Looking around us, we can say with pardonable pride that we have been about as thoroughly liberated as it is possible for a race and a planet to be.
. “Freedom of conscience, Commander Caslet!” he said, and laughed out loud at Caslet’s expression. “You’re in such deep shit now that it can’t possibly get any deeper, son,” the ex-CNO told him, “so the only thing that matters now is what you choose to do. It wasn’t something we ever encouraged you to do when we were running the Republic, and Pierre and his people would sure as hell never, ever want you to do it now. But between us, we’ve shoved you into a corner with your back flat to the wall, and in some ways a man with nothing to lose has more freedom of choice than anyone else in the universe. So use what we’ve given you, Commander.” There was no humor in his voice now, and he leaned forward in his chair, brown eyes dark and intent. “You’ve paid a hell of a price for it, and it’s a gift that can kill you in a heartbeat, but it’s yours now—all yours. Make up your own mind, choose your own course and your own loyalties, boy. That’s all the advice I have left to give you, but you take it … and you damned well spit in the eye of anyone who dares to fault whatever decision you make!”
For one second he was tempted, savoring the thought of what it would be like. Then came the realization that it would be a half answer, and a poor one at that. If these people had the strength they wanted, their first act would be the attempted destruction of the city men. The result would be bloody civil war that would probably destroy them both.
Many fought for us to get here. Many died. We have lost people we loved, and have suffered. We would be justified to seek vengeance. But instead, we will choose peace We must choose peace. For we have arrived at the dawn of a new era, and are witness to an event unlike anything else in the history of our species. But peace is a fragile thing. So I’m asking you to join me and join hands with our brothers and sisters throughout the system Earth, Mars, and the Belt And dedicate ourselves to being one people with a shared purpose.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking the last day or two, searching for the answer. The very first thing I realized was that the perfect and logical solution wouldn’t do at all. I’m afraid the old ideal of the lion lying down with the lamb doesn’t work out in practice. About all it does is make a fast lunch for the lion.”
“A scientist doesn’t know all the answers. Nobody does, not even teachers. But a scientist keeps on trying to find the answers.”