Star Born quotes

And, although it was still but midafternoon, Dalgard pointed the outrigger into the promised shelter, the dip of his steering paddle swinging in harmony with that wielded by Sssuri in the bow of their narrow, wave-riding craft.

The two voyagers were neither of the same race nor of the same species, yet they worked together without words, as if they had established some bond which gave them a rapport transcending the need for speech.

Dalgard Nordis was a son of the Colony; his kind had not originated on this planet.

Thus the explorers from Homeport went out by ones and twos and used the fauna of the land as a means of gathering information.

Hoppers could remember yesterday only dimly, and instinct took care of tomorrow.

But what happened today sped from hopper to hopper and could warn by mind touch both merman and human. If one of the dread snake-devils of the interior was on the hunting trail, the hoppers sped the warning.

… life of the stars and the wonders which might lie just beyond the big jump, had been honestly sick on the day he had shouldered his bag aboard and had first taken his place on this mat and waited, dry mouthed and shivering, for blastoff.

One lost all sense of time out here.

They ate sparingly, slept when they could, tried to while away the endless hours artificially divided into set periods. But still weeks might be months, or months weeks. They could have been years in space—or only days.

Lablet got out of the flitter and walked to the edge of the roof, leaning against the parapet to focus his vision glasses on what lay below. After a moment Raf followed his example.

Silence and desolation, windows like the eye pits in bone-picked skulls.

There were even some small patches of vegetation rooted and growing in pockets erosion had carved in the walls. To the pilot’s uninformed eyes the city looked wholly dead.

Raf grinned mirthlessly. Should he now accuse Soriki of prejudice?

What did it matter if a thinking creature was clothed in a space suit, silken bandages, or natural fur⁠—it was still a thinking creature.

And he was sure that those had been intelligent creatures he had just seen blasted without a chance to fight back.

And as they stood by the Terran flyer, they held their weapons ready, facing out into the dusk as if they half expected trouble. After the earlier episode that day, Raf did not wonder at their preparedness.

Terror begets terror, and ruthlessness arouses retaliation in kind.

“Kurbi! Soriki!” Hobart’s voice sounded out of the shadows. “Stay where you are for the present.”

Panting, Dalgard leaned against the opposite wall. Just as a protest formed in his mind he heard something else, the pad of feet, many feet, echoing down the corridor. And somehow he was able now to look.

Round spots of light, dull, greenish, close to the ground, as if someone had flung a handful of phosphorescence into the dark.

But this was no phosphorescence! Eyes! Eyes—he tried to count and knew it was impossible to so reckon the number of the pack that ran mute but ready.

“Man is intelligence.” The com-tech was answering the question Raf had almost forgotten that he had asked the moment before. Yes, the proper conventional reply. Soriki was not going to be caught out with any claim of prejudice.

Odd⁠—when Pax had ruled, there were thought police and the cardinal sin was to be a liberal, to experiment, to seek knowledge. Now the wheel had turned⁠—to be conservative was suspect.

To suggest that some old ways were better was to exhibit the evil signs of prejudice. Raf grinned wryly. Sure, he had wanted to reach the stars, had fought doggedly to come to the very spot where he now was.

The small beast had been frightened almost out of coherent thought, and Dalgard had had to spend some time in allaying that terror to get a fractional idea of what might be going on in this countryside.

Death⁠—the hopper’s terror had come close to insanity.

Killers had come out of the sky, and they were burning—burning—All living things were fleeing before them. And in that moment Dalgard had been forced to give up his plan for an unseen spy ring, which would depend upon the assistance of the animals.

But to leave now, just when we are on the verge of new discoveries—That anti-gravity unit alone is worth our whole trip! Imagine being able to return to earth with the principle of that!”

“Imagine being able to return to earth with our skins on our backs,” was Soriki’s whispered contribution.

“If we had the sense of a Venusian water nit, we’d blast out of here so quick our tail fumes’d take off with us!”

He pushed the ring up his arm, and the words which reached the prisoner were coldly remote, as if the captive were no longer judged an intelligent living creature but something which had no right of existence in a well-ordered universe.

“Beast friends with beast. As the beasts⁠—so shall you end. It is spoken.”

One of the guards tore the bracelet from Dalgard’s arm, trying not to touch the scout’s flesh in the process. And those who once more shackled his wrists ostentatiously wiped their hands up and down the wrappings on their thighs afterwards.

The other laughed.

“You are living back in history. Pax has been dead and gone almost two centuries. I’m of the Federation of Free Men⁠—”

“Will the stranger use his fire now?” The question formed in Dalgard’s mind. The mermen were growing impatient, as well they might. This was no time for talk, but for action. Could Raf be persuaded to aid them? A Federation of Free Men—Free Men!