There was no objection when he said: “I’m going after it.” Nor did he expect there to be; his life was now his own, to do with as he pleased. He.
He had already decided that X rays, sonic probes, neutron beams, and all other nondestructive means of investigation would be brought into play before he called up the heavy artillery of the laser. It was the mark of a barbarian to destroy something one could not understand; but perhaps men were barbarians, beside the creatures who had made this thing.
Because each of us is the sum of all we have ever experienced. Only the very young have a clean slate.
Now that so many of its psychological problems had been removed, humanity was far saner and less irrational. And what earlier ages would have called vice was now no more than eccentricity – or, at the worst, bad manners.
Someone once said that for every problem there is a solution that is simple, attractive... and wrong.
God was just this black void that we cried into.
They had not yet attained the stupefying boredom of absolute omnipotence;.
This had not endeared him to exobiologists such as Dr Perera, who took exactly the opposite view. To them, the only purpose of the Universe was the production of intelligence, and they were apt to talk sneeringly about purely astronomical phenomena, ‘Mere dead matter’ was one of their favourite phrases.
Suppose, in their altruistic passion for justice and order, they had determined to reform the world, but had not realized that they were destroying the soul of man?
Civilization and Religion are incompatible” and “Faith is believing what you know isn’t true.
There could be no ghosts upon a world that had never known life.
After the struggle for sheer existence, they had no energy left for a civilization.
Naturally, the system would have to be rigidly closed, recycling all food, air, and other expendables. But, of course, that’s just how the Earth operates – on a slightly larger scale.
Only Time is universal; Night and Day are merely quaint local customs found on those planets that tidal forces have not yet robbed of their rotation.
In a rare flash of humor, she had replied: “Woody, a commander can be wrong, but never uncertain.
It was the mark of a barbarian to destroy something one could not understand; but perhaps men were barbarians, beside the creatures who had made this thing.
You can’t have action without reaction.
All that had gone before was not a thousandth of what was yet to come; the story of this star had barely begun.
Now they were lords of the galaxy, and beyond the reach of time. They could rove at will among the stars, and sink like a subtle mist through the very interstices of space. But despite their godlike powers, they had not wholly forgotten their origin, in the warm slime of a vanished sea.
Many scientists flatly denied the possibility. They pointed out that Discovery, the fastest ship ever designed, would take twenty thousand years to reach Alpha Centauri – and millions of years to travel any appreciable distance across the Galaxy. Even if, during the centuries to come, propulsion systems improved out of all recognition, in the end they would meet the impassable barrier of the speed of light, which no material object could exceed.