Planet of the Damned quotes

A single figure on skis cut a line across the empty plain; nothing else moved. The depression of the ultimate fatigue fell on Brion and everything changed, as if he looked in a mirror at a previously hidden side.

He saw suddenly⁠—with terrible clarity⁠—that to be a Winner was to be absolutely nothing. Like being the best flea, among all the fleas on a single dog.

What was Anvhar after all? An ice-locked planet, inhabited by a few million human fleas, unknown and unconsidered by the rest of the galaxy. There was nothing here worth fighting for; the wars after the Breakdown had left them untouched.

Go back to your books. In exactly the same era democracy and self-government were adopted by former colonial states, like India and the Union of North Africa, and the only violence was between local religious groups.

Change is the lifeblood of mankind.

Everything we today accept as normal was at one time an innovation. And one of the most recent innovations is the attempt to guide the societies of mankind into something more consistent with the personal happiness of individuals.”

“Dis,” Ihjel said, consulting a thick file, “third planet out from its primary, Epsilon Eridani. The fourth planet is Nyjord—remember that, because it is going to be very important.

Dis is a place you need a good reason to visit and no reason at all to leave.

Too hot, too dry; the temperature in the temperate zones rarely drops below a hundred Fahrenheit. The planet is nothing but scorched rock and burning sand. Most of the water is underground and normally inaccessible.

“That’s the norm.

Earth is a reservoir of tired genes.

Weak backs, vermiform appendixes, bad eyes. If they didn’t have the universities and the trained people we need I would never use them.”

There are many foolish and dangerous things that can be done, such as smoking next to high-octane fuel and putting fingers into electrical sockets.

Just as dangerous, and equally deadly, is physically attacking a Winner of the Twenties.

Two men hit Brion together, though this made very little difference.

“Bring the ship down!” There was a thin note of hysteria in her voice. “We can’t stay here alone. We don’t know where to go or what to do. With Ihjel dead, the whole thing’s spoiled. We have to get out. …”

There are some things that can’t sound gentle, no matter how gently they are said.

This was one of them. “I’m sorry, Lea, but the ship is out of our reach right now. Ihjel was killed with an ion gun and it fused the control unit into a solid lump. We must take the car and get to the city.

“The fools here think it disgusting but I call it fascinating. They have found ways to join a symbiotic relationship with the life forms on this planet. Even a parasitic relationship. You must realize that living organisms will do anything to survive.

Castaways at sea will drink their own urine in their need for water.

Disgust at this is only the attitude of the overprotected who have never experienced extreme thirst or hunger. Well, here on Dis you have a planet of castaways.”

He is like a man glancing across the open pages of a tableful of books. He can see that the type, words, paragraphs, thoughts are there, even without focusing his attention to understand any of it.

Then how does the man feel when he glances at the open books and sees only blank pages?

The books are there—the words are not. He turns the pages of one, of the others, flipping the pages, searching for meaning. There is no meaning. All of the pages are blank.

It was an impossibly strange sentence.

Brion had never realized before how much of the content of speech was made up of emotion.

If the man had given it a positive emphasis, perhaps said it with enthusiasm, it would have meant, “Success! The enemy is going to surrender!” This wasn’t the meaning.

“No. Wait there—we’ll get in touch with you after dark.” The carrier wave went dead.

Thirty-five hours to the end of the world⁠—and all he could do was wait.

They always thought his ideas were crooked, like him. Growing up alone in the hill camp, with his back too twisted and too old to be fixed when he finally did come out. Ideas twisted the same way. Made himself an authority on war. Hah!

War on Nyjord⁠—that’s like being an ice-cube specialist in hell.

But he knew all about it, though they never would let him use what he knew. Put granddaddy Krafft in charge instead.”

“Dawn,” Telt said. “Lotta rain on your planet? Didn’t you ever see the sun come up before?”

“Not on the last day of a world.”

“Lock it up,” Telt grumbled. “You give me the crawls. I know they’re going to be blasted. But at least I know I did everything I could to stop it. How do you think they are going to be feeling at home—on Nyjord—from tomorrow on?”

Maybe not. In any case, you have to forget about that. You have contact now with the rest of the galaxy, for better or for worse. You’ve got a problem to solve, and I’m here to help you solve it.”

Seconds ticked by as Ulv, unmoving, fought with questions that were novel to his life.

Could killing stop death? Could he help his people by helping strangers to fight and kill them? His world had changed and he didn’t like it. He must make a giant effort to change with it.

Strapped under the clothes, around the man’s waist, was the familiar collection of Disan artifacts. This could have significance either way. Human or humanoid, the creature would still have to live on Dis. Brion threw it aside, along with the clothing.

Nude, pierced, bloody, the corpse lay before him.

In every external physical detail the man was human.

After drinking the water she seemed stronger, and could stand without holding onto the table with both hands. Placing the tip of the scalpel just below the magter’s breast bone, she made the long postmortem incision down to the pubic symphysis.

The great, body-length wound gaped open like a red mouth.

Across the table Ulv shuddered but didn’t avert his eyes.

His words snapped the thin strand of her strength, and she staggered back to the couch and collapsed onto it.

Her bloodstained hands hung over the side, making a strangely terrible contrast to the whiteness of her skin.

“I’m sorry, Brion,” she said. “But there’s nothing, nothing at all. There are minor differences, organic changes I’ve never seen before—his liver is tremendous, for one thing.

Now they are faced with a problem that is too big for their half-destroyed minds to handle. Their personal policy has become their planetary policy—and that’s never a very smart thing.

They are like men with knives who have killed all the men who were only armed with stones.

Now they are facing men with guns, and they are going to keep charging and fighting until they are all dead.

“Can they be corrected by midnight tonight?” Krafft broke in. He was abrupt and sounded almost angry.

Even saints get tired.

“No, of course not.” Brion frowned at the microphone, realizing the talk was going all wrong, but not knowing how to remedy it. “But it won’t take too long. I have evidence here that will convince you that what I say is the truth.”

There were a lot of ways you could have stopped it. You didn’t do any of them, and now it’s too late. You’ll destroy Dis, and in turn this will destroy Nyjord. Ihjel said that, and now I believe him.

You’re just another damned failure in a galaxy full of failures!

”

As the technicians worked, their attitude changed from shocked numbness to anger.

Right and wrong were forgotten.

They had been killed—the invisible death of radiation must already be penetrating into the caves—but they also had the chance for vengeance. Swiftly they brought their work to completion, with a speed and precision they had concealed before.

“Will you stop them?” Ulv asked. He had his deadly blowgun in his hand and his face was an expressionless mask.

Brion almost smiled at the irony of the situation.

In spite of everything he had done to prevent it, Nyjord had dropped the bombs. And this act alone may have destroyed their own planet. Brion had it within his power now to stop the launching in the cavern. Should he?

Brion had it within his power now to stop the launching in the cavern. Should he? Should he save the lives of his killers? Or should he practice the ancient blood-oath that had echoed and destroyed down through the ages:

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

It would be so simple. He literally had to do nothing. The score would be even, and his and the Disans’ death avenged.

“Will you stop them, Ulv?” he asked.

How large was mankind’s sense of obligation?

The caveman first had this feeling for his mate, then for his family. It grew until men fought and died for the abstract ideas of cities and nations, then for whole planets.

The man in the light wore a protective helmet, thick boots and a pouch-hung uniform.

The realization was almost impossible to accept.

Brion had heard the bombs fall. Yet the Nyjord soldier was here. The two facts couldn’t be accepted together.