Don Berry

“ He could not control his body, and the realization nurtured the tiny seed of panic that lay heavily in his belly.
Dump it....
What did that mean? Dump it ... go home now, baby ... I had a true ...
Decision ... there was a decision he had to make, but he was too frightened to know what it was.
He had been born in fear and lived in fear and his body was full of it, quivering to the lover's touch of fear. Falling, darkness, the fear of dying, the unknown, the unimaginable always lurking just out of the corner of his eye. ”

“ The thin man laughed. "The old man means to say he is a coward."
"No," said the man stubbornly, without taking his eyes away from Wolf. "I am not a coward. But your mission means death for many people, people I call my friends. I do not like that."
"There is a necessity," said Wolf, quietly.
"Perhaps, perhaps," said Joseph Carroll, shaking his head dubiously. "I do not pretend to understand the political complications. I know only that, whether you succeed or fail, our village is lost. Our people will suffer for what you do. Many will probably die. ”

“ Pointed out into loneliness, riding the two graceful arrows, Cressey heard the Communicator rasp, "Gentlemen, you are on an intercept to an Outspace ship. The safety of your world rides with you. Do your job well." The hypocritical son-of-a-bitch, thought Cressey angrily, sitting in his snug control room telling us to do our job! Well, maybe it made an impression on the first-timers, he couldn't remember. This was his third, and he could no longer remember any farther back than when he climbed into the cockpit. ”

“ Johnny looked absently out the window at the gleaming needle of Ship II beside the flimsy-looking gantry. Full power was a lot of power.
The psychologist followed Johnny's eyes. "Beautiful," he said, and the word brought to Johnny's mind the wide-eyed pale face of Mitch's wife, staring at him.
"That Ship is the best we can make her," Lambert said. "Engineering is as certain as they can be that there was no structural failure on Ship I."
"So?" Johnny said, still staring at the Ship. Even at this distance, he could almost believe he could see his own lean face reflected in the shining metal. ”

“ His vision fogged again, and he knew it was not from acceleration this time, it was something else.
Something else.
What's it like out there?
His belly told him. Fear.
He reached out his hand to touch the control panel, and his arm did not respond. It was shaking, uncontrollably, and moved off to the right of where he wanted it to go. When he tried to correct, it swung too far to the left, waving as if it were alive. It hung there before him as in a dream, oscillating back and forth. ”

“ Do you know what happens to the money you pay the Terran Federation in taxes?"
"No," admitted Carroll. "No one has dared ask."
Wolf laughed. "And yet they say the Federation is a republic? When the citizen does not dare ask what happens to the taxes that are ground out of him? I'll tell you, my friend Joseph. It is used for administration. Simply that. Administration of a space empire is an expensive project, and you must pay for it. It costs a great deal of money, our treasured Empire. ”

“ He opened his eyes, delicately probed with his mind ... and the headache had lessened.
He glanced up at the console, to see what he had done. A red bulb glowed over the label AIRLOCK. He had thrown the airlock switch, then. And it had been the "proper function" for him, because the headache had lessened. But the out-of-range whispering had not diminished.
The airlock? He shook his head in puzzlement. But the technique seemed to be working. What now?
He closed his eyes again, and this time the delay was shorter. He knew before he looked what had happened. He had lowered the landing ladder. ”

“ Machinery to collect taxes. It is like a snake that feeds on its own tail, Joseph. Taxes are increased in order to have enough money to collect more taxes. It never ends."
"This is one thing," said Joseph. "The killing of people is another."
"How many do you know who have died in Debtor's camps, or died because they could not work hard enough? Joseph, this is no life for a man. The Colonies cannot develop under the Federation. They must be free to govern themselves. Otherwise, we have simply a great, cancerous tumor, spreading through the universe, calling itself the Terran Federation." ”

“ Then it disappeared, and the fire-ball climbed suddenly into the night sky, rolling and twisting in on itself. A gantry tipped and fell out of the flame with ponderous slowness, twisted and melted before it crashed to the pad. ”

“ Cressey was silent for a moment, and Mackley continued in a softer voice. "Look here, son. I don't have to tell you all this. I could just as easily shoot you full of starry-eyed patriotism and send you out to save the world from the Bug-Eyed Monsters, but the military isn't doing things that way any more. There is a possibility that we've made a mistake, I'll admit that, but we're stuck with the consequences of the original action. We're defending our planet with everything we've got. The Hornets are the only weapon that has proven even remotely effective." ”

“ Not until Phoenix II came home. Then they would need him.
Colin spoke, quietly, as if thinking of something else.
"I didn't hear you," Banning said.
"Quoting Emerson. The essay on Nature I mentioned."
"What did he say?"
"'But if a man would be alone,'" Colin quoted, "'let him look at the stars.' Good night, General."
"Good night."
Colin walked outside into the cold desert air. The night was clear and crisp, and the Milky Way hurled itself like a mass of vapor across the sky.
... if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars ... ”

“ Quietly, Wolf edged forward to the street, automatically noting that his men were doing the same. Several of the guards had turned, were running back toward the source of the excitement, and others were turned toward it. But those around Mayne Landing had not responded. They were keeping their eyes fixed on the crowd. They were too well trained to be drawn off, and Wolf cursed under his breath. ”

“ That what you mean?"
"Well—basically this kind of regression is a denial of responsibility. 'I'm not a man,' he says. 'I'm just an unborn child. Take care of me.' The individual wants no part of the problems and responsibilities of adulthood. Harkins came out of that, or he never could have got the ship back. But he couldn't face being a man. The only way he could carry out his responsibilities, and survive, was to abolish the category, man."
Colin leaned back and sighed. "You know," he said thoughtfully, "Harkins must be the loneliest human being that ever lived. ”

“ The Hornet actually only skims the atmosphere, entering at a very shallow angle. The entire delta-wing of the ship is a control surface. That much area, even at such extreme heights, gives a certain amount of control, and the pilot can pull up out of the atmosphere again before heating has become too extreme. He has also been considerably slowed by the same friction which causes the heating. Do you follow me?"
"Yes, I suppose so, but it seems pretty tricky."
"It is tricky, Cressey, and you never want to forget it. It takes a very considerable amount of piloting skill, but it can be done." ”

“ She had large eyes, slightly almond shaped, that regarded him solemnly as she gave the information she had gathered.
"He will come to inspect this village in two days," she said. "He will visit four farms, picked at random, and then there will be a procession down the main street."
"That would be our time," Wolf mused. "Crowds about."
"Some will be killed," Daimya objected. "His guards will not take this thing lightly."
"I am sorry," Wolf said sincerely. "It is our best chance of success."
Daimya shrugged. "You are the killer, not I," she said, with obvious distaste. ”

“ We know what was wrong with Ship I, and why it killed Mitch. We know—hell, we don't even begin to realize what we have at our fingertips now. It's so big it's impossible to evaluate."
"What? I don't—"
"Sound, Johnny, sound. Or rather, vibration. It's something we're just beginning to learn about. We know a few things; we know you can boil water with sound if the frequency is high enough. And you can drill metal with it—and it does things to the human body.
"There are frequencies of sound which can act directly on human nerves, directly on the human brain. ”

“ Colin went on, ticking the points off on his fingers, "partial disorientation. Loss of perception of a single class of objects, human beings."
"Even that isn't entirely true," Banning said. "He felt people."
"That's right. And I think this is our opening wedge. Of the possible means of avoidance I named, partial disorientation is the least successful of all. It involves too many contradictions. He was disturbed by the microphones, for example. Why? Because they are meaningful only in a context of human beings. Communication. ”

“ Home as a hero, as a king. At twenty-one he would never have to worry about anything again. The pension Mackley had mentioned was so high as to be inconceivable. And that was just from the government. Being a hero had other, less official compensations. A shack in Beverly Hills, worth a hundred thousand or so? Hell, they'd force it on him, just for being a hero. A woman? What woman could resist a five-mission Hornetman? ”