Colonization is the key to our race’s survival. It’s as simple as that. We must colonize or be closed off and contained by other races.
I’m not sure I like their plan for converting us to their religion, seeing as it involves dying and all.
I was just talking about you,” Cardenia said, coming up to him. “To your imaginary friends, I see.” “They’re not imaginary. They’re just not real.” “Very subtle distinction.
It’s not a bad idea.” “It’s a terrible idea,” Oi said. “It just has the advantage of being better than the other option.
The recruiting office was a small storefront in a nondescript strip mall; there was a state liquor authority store on one side of it and a tattoo parlor on the other. Depending on what order you went into each, you could wake up the next morning in some serious trouble.
How much did you love her?” Jane asked. “Your wife. Kathy. When people are married for a long time, maybe they stay together out of habit.” “Sometimes they do,” I said. “But I loved her very much. All the time we were married. I love her now.
The diagnostic said there was nothing wrong with the threep, which may have meant there was something wrong with the diagnostic.
Well, life is like that sometimes”, Isabel said. “We learn things too late, and then we don’t get to use them.
You have doubted me. Doubt me no longer. You have come to destroy me. I am not destroyed. You have come to burn me. I am the consuming fire. You will feel what it is to burn.
Teenagers can be idiotic and stupid, but teenagers also model their behavior from the signals they get from adults.
The supply transport’s on autopilot most of the way down anyway. I’m just on board so that if it crashes, they can say someone died.
Destiny gets compressed, you know, into just that small fraction of a second you have right in front of you at any one time. And there’s nothing romantic about keeping your head down to avoid getting shot, or trying to save a friend who’s been injured, or coming face to face with a creature who is as smart and mean and as terrified of dying as you are, and who wants to make sure that if someone is left on the ground there, it’s you and not it.
Again I ask permission to be blunt.” “Ambassador Abumwe, at this point I cannot imagine you being otherwise.
Lovely,” Wilson said, looking at the display. “And by ‘lovely,’ I mean ‘Oh, crap.
Leon had attached himself to me in Chicago like a fat, brat-and-beer-filled tick; I was amazed that someone whose blood was clearly half pork grease had made it to age seventy-five.
What is it like when you lose someone you love?” Jane asked. “You die, too,” I said. “And you wait around for your body to catch up.” “Is that what you’re doing now?” Jane said. “Waiting for your body to catch up, I mean.” “No, not anymore,” I said. “You eventually get to live again. You just live a different life, is all.
Hey, you know what, basing an entire system of social, political and economic control on the vague, all-too-easily misinterpreted words of a single person claiming divine inspiration is probably not actually all that smart, now, is it.
At least one tribe, the Geln, strongly opposed attacking the Colonial Union, since humans were reasonably strong, distressingly tenacious and not especially principled when they felt threatened.
I said ‘not so much,’” Dr. Russell said. “Not so much as what? Having your head stepped on by an elephant?” “Not so much as when the sensors connect to each other,” Dr. Russell said. “The good news is that as soon as they’re connected, the pain stops. Now hold still, this will only take a minute.” He tapped the PDA again. Eighty thousand needles shot out in every direction in my skull. I have never wanted to punch a doctor so much in my life.
Weren’t we having a mutiny?