[...] In the end, glorification of splendid underdogs is nothing other than glorification of the splendid system that makes them so. [...]
“My race is very old,” Ketho said. “We have been civilized for a thousand millennia. We have histories of hundreds of those millennia. We have tried everything. Anarchism, with the rest. But I have not tried it. They say there is nothing new under any sun. But if each life is not new, each single…
“My world, my Earth, is a ruin. A planet spoiled by the human species. We multiplied and gobbled and fought until there was nothing left, and then we died. We controlled neither appetite nor violence; we did not adapt. We destroyed ourselves. But we destroyed the world first. There are no forests l…
"[...] e’re ashamed to say we’ve refused a posting. That the social conscience completely dominates the individual conscience, instead of striking a balance with it. We don’t cooperate—we obey. We fear being outcast, being called lazy, dysfunctional, egoizing. We fear our neighbor’s opinion more th…
They were face to face now, but they had not touched.
“Is it what you need, then?”
“Yes. The bond. The chance.”
“Now—for life?”
“Now and for life.”
Life, said the stream of quick water down on the rocks in the cold dark.
