G. C. Edmondson

“ When machines fail, their people die. We have no machines."
"What would you do if this sun were to nova?"
"We can serve you. We are not unintelligent."
"Willing to work your way around the galaxy, eh? But what if we refused to take you?"
"The race would go on. Kung Su tells me there is no life on planets of this system, but there are other systems."
"You're whistling in the dark," Griffin scoffed. "How do you know if any of the Rational People survive?"
"How far back does your history go?" Joe inquired.
"It's hard to say exactly," Griffin replied. ”

“ Hagstrom laughed suddenly. "You aren't going to con me into eating pickled fire bombs for four months."
"If I lived on prune soup and codfish balls I'd make no cracks about Mexican food," Aréchaga grunted. "You squareheads don't appreciate good cooking."
"You won't get any good cooking in zero gravity," the general said. They got up and filed out the door, putting on their caps and military manners.
Outside, trucks clustered at the base of a giant gantry. Aréchaga shuddered as a fork lift dropped a pallet of bagged meat on the gantry platform. ”

“ He ate a banana and wondered guiltily if his salsa had anything to do with it. He decided it didn't. The other crews had died the same way without any non-sterile food aboard. He floated back into the pantry and stared at the mounds of provisions until the mugginess drove him out.
Three more days passed. Hagstrom and van den Burg grew steadily weaker. Aréchaga waited expectantly but his own appetite didn't fail. He advanced dozens of weird hypotheses—racial immunity, mutations. Even to his non-medical mind the theories were fantastic. Why should a mestizo take zero grav better than a European? ”

“ On the third day van den Burg put bags of steak and string beans into the hi-fi oven and strapped himself into a chair. He used chopsticks to snare the globules of soup and coffee which escaped from hooded cups despite all precautions.
"How is it?" Hagstrom asked.
"It'd taste better if you'd come down and sit on the same side of the ship."
Human Factors had recommended that table and chairs be situated in one plane and resemble the real thing. The sight of one's fellow man at ease in an impossible position was not considered conducive to good digestion. ”

“ It's pretty well garbled but I remember something about the Son of Heaven bringing the early settlers from a land of two moons on the back of his fire-breathing dragon. The dragon got sick and died so they couldn't ever get back to heaven again. There's a lot of stuff about devils, too. ”

“ Since the hydrant was fed from a sea water still there was no need for purification.
The last load of provisions went up and an asepsis party rode the gantry, burdened with their giant vacuum cleaners and germicidal apparatus.
"They'll seal everything but the control room," the general said. "When you go aboard there'll only be one compartment to sterilize."
"I still think it's a lot of hog-wash," Aréchaga said.
"They can't have us carrying any bugs with us," van den Burg said tiredly.
"The Martians might put us in quarantine," Hagstrom added sourly. ”

“ Extensive research did not reveal any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
BLESSED ARE THE MEEK
Every strength is a weakness, and every weakness is a strength. And when the Strong start smashing each other's strength ... the Weak may turn out to be, instead, the Wise. ”

“ The speaker's tinny voice read off numbers which they transmuted into turns of two wheels with axes at right angles. Since the weight of the remaining reaction mass could not be calculated with exactitude they spun by trial and error the last few turns until a telescope parallel to the thrust axis zeroed on a third magnitude pinpoint whose spectroscope matched the tinny voice's demands. ”

“ The meat was irradiated and sealed in transparent plastic, but the habits of a lifetime in the tropics do not disappear in spite of engineering degrees. All that meat and not a fly in sight, he thought. ”