The Jewels of Aptor quotes

Waves flung themselves at the blue evening.

Low light burned on the wet hulks of ships that slipped by mossy pilings into the docks as water sloshed at the rotten stone embankment of the city.

Geo smiled. “I was, until a short time ago. But funds are low and I have to get through the summer somehow. I’m going to sea.”

“I am a poet, ma’am; they say poets are fools. Besides, my friend here says the sea will make a man of me. To be a good poet, one must be a good man.”

“More honorable, less foolish. What sort of a man is your friend?”

Urson and Geo glanced at each other.

“There are an infinite number of theories for every set of facts,” said the Negro. “Rule number one: assume the simplest; that includes all the known conditions to be true until more conditions arise for which your theory no longer holds. Rule number two: then, and not until, change it.”

“Then we go on into the jungle,” Geo said.

“This is changeable country,” Urson muttered.

“Men change into animals,” said Geo, “jungles turn to mountains.” He reached around and felt the stub of his arm in the dark. “I’ve changed too, I guess.”

“Change is neither merciful nor just. They say Leonard of Vinci put his trust in faulty paints: Christ’s Supper turned to dust.”

“Hey, what about that nest of vampires down there,” Urson said, thumbing viciously toward the black behind them. “They said they worshiped Argo. What have you got to do with them? I don’t trust anything on this place very much.”

“The nature of the Goddess is change,” said the woman, looking sadly toward the slope, “from birth, through life, to death,” she looked back up at them, “to birth again. As I said, Argo has many faces. You must be very tired.”

“Then come with me. Please.” She turned, and began to walk back along the rim. Snake and Iimmi started after her, and then came Geo and Urson.

“It was a pretty lizard,” said Iimmi.

“Going around expecting things to be what they seem can get you in trouble⁠—especially on this island,” Geo commented.

The angle at which they walked made one of the clumps of tree before them seem to fall apart. A man standing in the center raised his hand and said briskly, “Stop!”

“We’ve got it,” she said to him before they started down. She breathed deeply. Then she checked in her palm to see if it was still there; it was, and again she looked out over the people below.

Light on the upturned faces made them look like scattered pearls on the dark floor.

An exaltation suddenly burst in her shoulders, flooded her legs and arms and for a moment washed the pain away. Snake, with one hand on her shoulder, was grinning also. “We’ve got it!” she said again.

It was the old adage, convince a slave that he’s free, and he will fight to maintain his slavery.

Why does a poet sing? Because he likes music; and because silence frightens him. Why does a thief steal? To get the goods from his victim; also to prove that his victim cannot get him.

”

“That’s right,” Hama said. “But something else was learned when these jewels were invented. Or rather a lesson which history should have taught us thousands of years ago was finally driven home.

No man can wield absolute power over other men and still retain his own mind.

For no matter how good his intentions are when he takes up the power, his alternate reason is that freedom, the freedom of the people and ultimately his own, terrifies him.

For no matter how good his intentions are when he takes up the power, his alternate reason is that freedom, the freedom of the people and ultimately his own, terrifies him.

Only a man afraid of freedom would want this power, would conceive of wielding it.

And that fear of freedom will turn him into a slave of this power. For this reason, the jewels are evil. That is why we have summoned you to steal them from us.”

“No,” said Argo. “I don’t think you could. I watched the last time somebody tried. And I don’t think you could.”

Late morning flopped over hotly in the sky and turned into afternoon.

The jungle became damp, and bright insects plunged like tiny knives of blue or scarlet through leaves. Wet foliage brushed against their chests, faces, and shoulders.

“

Nothing is ever lost in the sea, and when the evil has been washed from them with time and brine, they will be returned to man.

For then time and brine will have washed away his imperfections also.

The rain had swelled the river’s mouth to tremendous violence. It vomited surges of brown water into the ocean, frothed against rocks, and boiled opaquely below them. It was nearly half again as wide as Geo remembered it.

Although the sky was clear, beyond the brown bile of the river, the sea snarled viciously and bared white teeth in the sun.

It took another fifteen minutes for the boat to maneuver through the granite spikes toward the rocky embankment a hundred yards away.

That one there was like a bull’s head half submerged; those two flat ones together on the sand looked like the stretched wings of eagles.

The waves, measured and magnificent, followed one another onto the sand, like the varying, never duplicated rhythm of a good poem, peaceful, ordered, and calm.

He tried to pour the chaos of Urson drowning from his mind onto the water. It flowed into each glass-green wave’s trough in which it rode, suddenly quiet, up to the beach.