You will,” said Vorkosigan wearily, “sit in that fortified palace that half the engineers are going to be tied up constructing, and party in it, and let your men do your dying for you, until you’ve bought your ground by the sheer weight of the corpses piled on it, because that’s the kind of soldiering your mentor has taught you. And then send bulletins home about your great victory. Maybe you can have the casualty lists declared top secret.” “Aral, careful,” warned Vorhalas, shocked.
It was a curious insight into Vorkosigan that he should so automatically accept her bare word as binding; he evidently thought along the same lines himself. The.
And right or wrong, what I also saw was that you made an enemy, and left him alive behind you. Great charity. Bad tactics.
The one thing you can’t trade for your heart’s desire is your heart.
Not only was Ivan an idiot, but he generated a telepathic damping field that turned people nearby into idiots, too. He would point this out to Barrayaran Intelligence, who would make of his cousin the newest weapon in their arsenal – if.
Welcome to mine, Joen of Jokona,” said Ista. “I am the Mouth of Hell.
Good God, Enrique was writing poetry to her? Yes, and why hadn’t he thought of poetry? Besides the obvious reason of his absence of talent in that direction. He wondered if she’d like to read a really clever combat-drop mission plan, instead. Sonnets, damn. All he’d ever come up with in that line were limericks. He.
He claims that the gods, and we, are both right here all the time, a shadow’s thickness apart. We’ve no distance to cross at all to get to each other.
She opened her mouth once to speak, closed it, then finally ripped out, “Why aren’t you on your way home? I gave you an order, Lieutenant!” Stuben, anticipating a warmer reception, was momentarily nonplussed. “We took a vote,” he said simply, as though it explained everything. Cordelia.
People are the only mirror we have to see ourselves in. The domain of all meaning. All virtue, all evil, are contained only in people. There is none in the universe at large. Solitary confinement is a punishment in every human culture.
I was so afraid for you, I forgot to be afraid for your enemies. I should have remembered. Dear Captain.
He laughed. “I was the youngest admiral in the history of our fleet – I might end up the oldest ensign, too. But no.” He sobered.
I admit, he has far too much on his mind at the moment. Suppressed panic turns him into a prick every time; it’s what he does instead of running in circles screaming. A way of coping, I suppose.
Save me from that! To pour your life into sons for eighteen or twenty years, and then have the government take them away and waste them cleaning up after some failure of politics – no thanks.
Divide the infinite future into five-minute blocks, and take them one by one.
There are a lot of senseless things in the world, but not all of them are sorrows. Everybody knows some light, even if they forget when they’re down in the dark. Something everyone else thinks is stupid, but you know is wonderful.
You have more years ahead of you now than Pejar, half your age, whom we buried outside these walls these two days past. Stand before his grave and use your gift of breath to complain of your limited time. If you dare.
You looked a god in the eyes and bore witness for me, by which alone I am preserved.” She took a deep breath, through his mouth. “You looked a god in the eyes. And spoke for me. There is nothing in my power that I will ever refuse you, after that.
Achievement is devastating, or at least disorienting, and they don’t warn you in advance. It’s the sudden change of momentum and direction, I think.
His further study of humanity had revealed just how much people could convince themselves that their own needs were those of the gods, and not the other way around.