L. Ron Hubbard

“ I saw great, intricate fabrics of nations come tearing down to dust and rubble and death; hatred was the cause of this, a hatred bred by politicians against politicians, creeds battling senseless creeds. In the last years I have found what peace could mean and I am not anxious for war."
"We do not come speaking of war," said Johnson, aghast.
"The first step in any war is the landing of armed forces. A plane overhead, marines out there on the landing, a cruiser off Sheerness—"
"Sir," cried Frisman, "the United States of America is a peace-loving nation. ”

“ The Saturnians would be too clever for that. But he could no longer trust himself to wait, and he used his time by examining the whole of this cell. The walls were huge, unyielding plates and there was no window; but, passing back and forth, he repeatedly felt the roughness of a grate underfoot. This he finally investigated, a gesture more than a hope. For this served as the room's only plumbing and was foul and odorous and could lead nowhere save into a sewage pipe.
For the space of several loud and shattering drops De Wolf stood crouched, loose grate in hand, filled with disbelief. ”

“ The English could not, because of the quarantine against soldier's sickness, go home. Once they had had sweethearts, wives and families. But no one had heard for so long—
They had survived whole divisions of replacements. They had been commanded by more officers than they could count. They had been governed by more creeds than they could ever understand.
Here was their world, a shattered wood, an empty fortress, a breakfast of crumbs and hot water, each man hard by his rifle, each existing for the instant and expecting the next to bring danger and death. ”

“ It was difficult to believe that these weird metal things were containers for human beings.
In ages to come, in scenes like these, men would sicken and madden and die just as the crews of tempest-driven barques have gripped insanity in the ages past.
Angel plowed through pumice and climbed the final bastion of the emplacement.
The great pilotless missile was shielded by an overhanging cliff against all but a freak meteor. Through a small opening this sleek white tube could fly, rushing to the execution of perhaps a million human beings. ”

“ Flight Officer Morrison licked overly dry lips. He was young. He had heard many stories about the treatment, even the torture, the Saturnians gave their prisoners. And he knew that as a staff officer the Saturnians would know his inadvertent possession of the battle plan so all-important to this campaign. Morrison flicked a scared glance at his captain and then tried to assume a blustering attitude.
Captain de Wolf spoke calmly—a little surprised at himself that he could be so calm in the knowledge that as aide to General Balantine he knew far more than was good to know. ”

“ Both Swinburne and Carstair were aghast at the wanton execution of the shore officers, not because men had died, but because of the result which was inevitable. Every man available, every gun which could be fired would be rushed to this place to wipe them out of existence. Such a maneuver would outnumber them and make it quite impossible to effect a landing. For once it was obvious that the Lieutenant's luck was not holding, or else that his hopes of being received peaceably had gone glimmering with the replacement of rage for wisdom. ”

“ Not until Morrison had been gone an hour or more did Captain de Wolf begin to crumble within. The irregular, loud drop, the continued shocks of a body sweating in the hot air and then touching the icy metal, the fact that Morrison—
The man was not a regular; he was a civilian less than a year in the service. Unlike Captain de Wolf, he was not a personality molded into a military machine, and a civilian, having earned a personality of his own through the necessity to seek for self, could not be drawn too far down the road of agony without breaking. ”

“ The lieutenant slid into his shirt and was about to speak when the smallest whisper of a challenge sounded some two hundred yards away. Instantly the clearing was deserted, all men instinctively taking cover from which they could shoot with the smallest loss of life and the greatest damage to the foe. There had been a note of anxiety in that challenge.
The lieutenant, pistol in hand, stood with widespread boots, playing intelligent eyes through the misty woods. A bird call sounded and the camp began to relax, men coming back to their fires and again addressing their synthetic tea. ”

“ The landscape was a study in Old Dutch cleanser and broken basalt. A mountain range thrust startlingly sharp and high to the west. A king-size grand canyon dived away horribly to their south. A great low plain, once miscalled a sea, stretched endlessly toward Tycho.
Two miles away a meteor landed with a crash which made the pumice ripple like waves. A great column of the stuff, stiffly formed in an explosion pattern, almost stroboscopic, stood for some time, having neither gravity nor wind to disperse it. ”

“ But I learned long ago that there is only one way to rule, and that is for the good of all; that the function of a commanding officer of a company or a state is to protect the rights of the individual within the bounds of common good, but never to trifle with the actual welfare of any man or to attempt to carry any man beyond his own ability and strength, for to do so weakens the position of all and is not for the common good. A state, gentlemen, is not a charity institution. ”

“ It sounded, thought the captain, horribly melodramatic. But he continued: "You haven't had the grind of West Point. A company, a regiment or an army has no thought of the individual. It cannot have any thought, and the individual, therefore, cannot fail, being a vital part of the larger body. If either of us break now, it would be like a man's heart stopping. We're unlucky enough to be that heart at the moment."
"I've heard," said Morrison in a gruesome attempt at jocularity, "that getting gutted is comfortable compared to some of the things these Saturnians can think up." ”

“ Here and there stone walls showed brokenly in the undergrowth; less frequently the gashed sides of a house stared forlornly with its gaping windows. A city had once flourished here. But the lieutenant's only interest in it was to see that the squirrels, rabbits and birds, those Geiger counters of the soldier flourished through it with the ease of familiarity. It was not radio-active then. Nevertheless the rubble made the walking hard. And they clung to the outskirts, choosing rather an old battlefield than the tomb of the civilians. ”

“ In the dank corridor behind the second airtight men were standing around in various stages of relaxation and undress. They kept halting to gloat over the supplies which left one Russian still in helmet but without pack or gloves, another stripped to underwear, a third in pack and all. Nobody glanced at them.
Their guard shoved them into another tunnel and they wound down a gentle grade between basalt walls until they came to another series of airtights. At the end they were shoved into a chamber walled all in metal, a sort of giant strongbox with doors at each of the five sides. ”

“ A new influx of population now will restore that chaotic stupidity which your civilian friend calls 'culture.' The only good government is that government under which a people is busy and, as an individual, is valued for himself. Such a government exists. We want no machines, no colonizers, no foreign 'culture.' We are not an exhausted people, but a small, compact band that was strong enough to survive bullets and bombs, starvation and disease.
"I am neither a politician nor a statesman; I am a soldier. ”

“ Typical corporal-made-good, Slavinsky had been Moscow's favorite peasant. About as cultured as a bull, he was quite proud of his refinement. And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.
It was here that dictatorship displayed its weakness. Bred by force out of starvation, the Russian state had very scant background of tradition. And trustworthy military forces are trustworthy only by their tradition. Slavinsky owed no debt to anyone but the Russian dictator. The Russian people would not know one dictator from another. ”

“ It was all quiet now. Not even a rat scuttled in the dead gloom. These voices which should have called out a welcome were forever stilled, these faces were decomposed in some common grave out in the endless leagues of mud. Only the ghosts were here, crying a little, naked and cold and forgotten—or was it just the wind?
The runner tiredly indicated a door and slumped down on the bench outside as though the effort had been too much. Mawkey entered and finally found the trap which opened the helio-mirror.
The apartment was littered with scraps of baggage, Gladstones and locker trunks and valises. ”

“ Half hidden by the persistent underbrush were several dark holes; down awry steps lay the abandoned depths of a once-great fortress, garrisoned now by skeletons which mildewed at their rusty guns.
Though not yet wholly awake, the attitudes of the men were alert through long practice. Each man with half himself was intent upon each slightest sound, not trusting the sentries who lay in fox holes round about. ”

“ No less than nineteen frail, charming and truly startling young ladies, all professing undying passion and future faithfulness, had turned up one after the other and it was something of a task making each one unaware of the other eighteen and confirmed in her belief in his lasting fidelity. ”

“ A few madmen gripped rifles, but were so obviously blinded that no one wasted ammunition upon them but merely wrenched their weapons away and pushed them into the crowds.
"Clear the chimneys," said the lieutenant. "Anyone who happens to have a mask, go below and clear the grates."
"I would never have surrendered," said the leader, groping toward the voice of command. "But they were going out down there! For the love of Heaven, don't kill us! We are friendly. Truly we are friendly. We shall show you the storehouses, give you beds, women, anything, but don't kill us!" ”

“ It seemed that all men with nerves had died of them, leaving a strange corps of beings above such things as human weakness and death, men who had evolved for themselves a special art of living. Malcolm had no hopes for the mercies of the lieutenant; they did not exist. And he was thinking to himself, following that cape, that the race of fighting men, while laudable in many ways, had degenerated in others. ”

“ He was slender and hard and good-looking, having yet to celebrate his thirty-second birthday. His tunic was blue, faded but well pressed and clean, innocent of any bright work other than the simple insignia of his rank. He wore, as a habit too old to break, cross-belts of dull leather, to which was bolstered an automatic pistol. His small blue fatigue cap sat a little over one ear, but his helmet, with visor raised, was close by upon his desk. His cape, patched where a hundred and more bullets had struck, lay over the back of his chair. ”

“ It was just enough to carry the fog of marshes continually up to London. The flotilla made no effort, today, to be quiet. Booms creaked and canvas slatted and sweeps groaned. In the foggy dark, they offered no targets, though the shore troops began to light up the world before the sun with a wild fanfare of shooting. They had gotten their batteries moved again and now the air shrieked as slugs and rocks and pieces of pipe sought blindly for a mark. A mosquito boat was hit and sunk without casualty beyond its ammunition and food, for the crew grabbed hard to the next boat in line. ”

“ Hastily snatching their packs and trying not to breathe, the Fourth Brigade leaped into the corridor. Gian whiplashed the carriers into moving guns and caissons. Men were already beginning to gag and vomit.
Pollard's bellow brought eyes to him. He sorely missed his lieutenant but it was up to him and he had to act. He pointed up the least defended incline and they sped along it. Behind them Carstone's pneumatics were covering their retreat by hammering back the mob of garrison soldiers.
When the last of Gian's artillery rumbled by, Carstone began to have his machine guns shifted at intervals. ”

“ The lieutenant, accompanied by Mawkey, came from cover and joined him.
"I smelled fresh earth," said Bulger, "and here it is. But where the seven devils is the trail?"
"There," said Mawkey, slightly disdainful. The tunnel looked as if it would refuse to admit anyone larger than a rat terrier, but Mawkey's eyes had seen a broken twig and so had been directed to this covered hole in the undergrowth.
"If they got energy enough to plow, they must have something to eat," reasoned Bulger with his usual single-mindedness. ”