The Black Star Passes quotes

Anyone want to bet that people will be living in the same general circumstances then? That the same general social and cultural and material standards will apply?

I have a hunch that the history books are a poor way of planning a life today⁠—and that science-fiction comes a lot closer.

There’s another thing about science-fiction yarns that is quite conspicuous; it’s so difficult to pick out the villains.

tales of Crusaders who were always right, and Saracens who were always wrong. (The same Saracens who taught the Christians to respect the philosophy of the Greeks, and introduced them to the basic ideas of straight, self-disciplined thinking!)

Life’s much simpler in a thatched cottage than in a dome on the airless Moon, easier to understand when the Villains are all pure black-hearted villains, and the Heroes are all pure White Souled Heroes.

Just look how simple history is compared with science-fiction! It’s simple—but is it good?

High in the deep blue of the afternoon sky rode a tiny speck of glistening metal, scarcely visible in the glare of the sun.

The workers on the machines below glanced up for a moment, then back to their work, though little enough it was on these automatic cultivators. Even this minor diversion was of interest in the dull monotony of green.

The taller of the two seemed to be doing most of the talking. In the positions they had assumed it would have been rather difficult to be sure of which was the taller, but Robert Morey was a good four inches taller than Richard Arcot.

Arcot had to suffer under the stigma of “runt” with Morey around⁠—he was only six feet tall.

The chosen occupation of each was physical research, and in that field Arcot could well have called Morey “runt,” for Arcot had only one competitor—his father. In this case it had been “like father, like son.”

“Wrong—no gas—practically nothing at all, in fact.

What more appropriate for christening a space ship than a bottle of hard vacuum?

“We can’t have a pretty girl christen this ship, that’s sure. A flying bachelor’s apartment christened by a mere woman? Never! We will have the foreman of the works here do that.

Now they were well below orbital speed, falling under the influence of the planet. The struggle was over—the men relaxed.

The ship ran quietly now, the smooth hum of the air rushing over the great power units coming softly through the speaker to their ears, a humming melody⁠—the song of a new world.

As though awaiting this maneuver, a battery of hissing, flaming swords of white light flashed upward, a few hundred feet from the ring of molten rock. As the titanic plane rolled, side-slipped out of the way, they passed, harmlessly, barely missing a monstrous wing.

“Which?” Arcot demanded. “I say the city. No one should destroy anything so magnificent.”

Not a dissenting voice was raised, so Arcot sent the Solarite nearer.

As the men passed through the crowd, a peculiar sensation struck them very forcibly. It seemed that everyone in the crowd was wishing them the greatest success—the best of good things in every wish.

“The ultimate in applause! Morey, I’ll swear we just received a silent cheer!”

exclaimed Arcot, as they stood inside the airlock of the ship once more. It seemed home to them now! In a moment they had taken off the uncomfortable ventilating suits and stepped once more into the room where Wade and Fuller awaited them.

“I wish Terrestrian orators spoke like that,” remarked Morey as they returned to the ship. “He said all there was to say, but he didn’t run miles of speech doing it. He was a very forceful speaker, too!”

“People who speak briefly and to the point generally are,” Arcot said.

It was nearly noon that day before the theoretical discussion had been reduced to practical terms. They were ready to start work at once, but they had reason to work cheerfully now.

Slowly he turned, gazing now out across the great plaza, where rested long rows of slender, yet mighty ships. Thoughtfully he stared at their dim, half-seen shapes.

Taj Lamor was not human.

Though he was humanoid, Earth had never seen creatures just like him. His seven foot high figure seemed a bit ungainly by Terrestrial standards, and his strangely white, hairless flesh, suggesting unbaked dough, somehow gave the impression of near-transparency.

His eyes were disproportionately large, and the black disc of pupil in the white corneas was intensified by contrast.

Yet perhaps his race better deserved the designation homo sapiens than Terrestrians do, for it was wise with the accumulated wisdom of uncounted eons.

He turned to the other man in the high, cylindrical, dimly lit tower room overlooking the dark metropolis, a man far older than Taj Lamor, his narrow shoulders bent, and his features grayed with his years.

Decadence. A race on an ages-long decline from vast heights of philosophical and scientific learning. Their last external enemy had been defeated millennia in the past; and through easy forgetfulness and lack of strife, ambition had died.

Adventure had become a meaningless word.

Strangely, during the last century a few men had felt the stirrings of long-buried emotion, of ambition, of a craving for adventure. These were throwbacks to those ancestors of the race whose science had built their world.

Hundreds of miles apart, yet near enough so that no ship except perhaps a one-man craft could pass them undetected; and behind them were ships with delicate apparatus that could detect any foreign body of any size whatever within a hundred thousand miles of them.

The Solar System was prepared to repel boarders from the vast sea of space!

Momentarily Taj Lamor’s gaze followed the retreating figure of Tordos Gar, the Elder; a figure with stooped shoulders and bowed head. His quiet yet vibrant parting words still resounded in his ears:

“Taj Lamor, remember what I tell you. If you win this awful war⁠—you lose. As will our race. Only if you lose will you win.”

With a frown Taj Lamor stared down at the vast metal hulls glistening softly in the dull light of far-off stars, the single brightly beaming star that was their goal, and the dim artificial lighting system.