“I’ve heard of them, but I’ve never seen one. They were built during the last wave of galactic expansion. Really nothing more than gigantic metal containers, put together in space. After they were loaded with people, machinery, and supplies, they would be towed to whatever planetary system had been chosen. These same tugs and one-shot rockets would brake the S. T.'s in for a landing. Then leave them there. The hull was a ready source of metal and the colonists could start right in building their new world. And they were big. All of them held at least fifty thousand people.”
“Despite the honor of being remembered as the first colonist to set foot on Deanna, he was also credited with discovering crabby-grass, the aforementioned life-form that disliked being stepped on. However, this also led to the unintended consequence that Mr Lupini also set the record for being the first person to actually swear on Deanna. He still lived on Deanna, and attended the Founder’s Day Ceremony every year, in safety boots.”
I am sure, in the miserable annals of the Earth, you will be duly enshrined.
But all this labor, all this research, would be utterly in vain. Perhaps the proud and lonely figure on the screen was smiling sardonically at the scientists who were starting on their age-long fruitless quest.
Its secret would be safe as long as the universe endured, for no one now would ever read the lost language of Earth. Millions of times in the ages to come those last few words would flash across the screen, and none could ever guess their meaning.
A Walt Disney Production.
Wasn’t it true that both ends of the artistic scale were dominated by simplicity? The untutored aborigine made a simple expression of a clear idea and created beauty. At the other extreme, the sophisticated critic rejected overelaboration and decoration, and sought the truthful clarity of uncluttered art.
I saw you playing with yourself last night.
Ten minutes later Gallegher was singing a duet with his can opener
I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
“Could you possibly tell me why?”
“Of course. You will have to go through the same training that our children take. It takes them six years. Of course it’s their first six years of life. So you might think that you, as an adult, could learn faster. Then again they have the advantage of heredity. All I can say is you’ll go outside these sealed buildings when you’re ready.”
“The Camiroi schedule is challenging to the children, but it is nowhere impossible or discouraging. Everything builds to what follows. For example, the child is eleven years old before he is given post-nuclear physics and universals. Such subjects might be too difficult for him at an earlier age.”
Well he’s probably spelled “library” with one “R” again, poor bastard.
“We have no resources, John! The library’s gone.”
Lead and I’ll follow. Where’s library?
“It seems unlikely but we could ask Poli. He lives here somewhere and is in charge of the library - filing new books and tending the machinery.”
The single door into the rear of the building was locked, and no amount of pounding could rouse the caretaker.
“If he’s alive, this should do it.”
He pressed the out-of-order button on the control panel. It had the desired effect. Within five minutes the door opened and Poli dragged himself through it.
Arthur Dent: What happens if I press this button?
Ford Prefect: I wouldn’t-
Arthur Dent: Oh.
Ford Prefect: What happened?
Arthur Dent: A sign lit up, saying 'Please do not press this button again.
“Tell me, My Lady,” Mateo Gutierrez said over his private link as the Solarian stormed away, “do you think there was anything less diplomatic you could’ve said to him?”
“I certainly hope not,” Abigail replied. She turned her head, glancing back over her shoulder as Kristoffersen disappeared down the corridor, then returned her attention to Gutierrez. “I tried not to miss any of his buttons, anyway.”
“Oh, I’d say you got most of them,” Gutierrez said judiciously. “I thought twice he was going to go ahead and go for his gun, anyway.”
“In which case he’d be dead…and the universe would be a better place.”
He was fast with a gun - his life had depended on it more than once - and this was the first time he had been outdrawn. It was the offhand, unimportant manner it had been done that irritated him.
Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid
“Just take a frickin’ flechette gun, if you really need to splatter people wholesale,” growled the StateSec sergeant, plucking a hand pulser out of the locker himself. “At least that way you won’t blow any essential hardware apart, too! Or have you forgotten how to aim at anything smaller than a moon?”
I was watching the news when the change came, like a flicker of motion at the corner of my eye. I turned toward the balcony window. Whatever it was, I was too late to catch it.
The moon was very bright tonight.
I saw that, and smiled, and turned back. Johnny Carson was just starting his monologue.