Laurence M. Janifer

“ Professor Lightning tried everything, but it wasn't any good. "Fame," he said, and Charley pointed out, calmly and reasonably, that the kind of fame he'd get from being an experimental subject was just like being a freak, all over again—except that it would wear off, and then, he asked, where would he be? Professor Lightning talked about Man's Duty to Science, and Charley countered with Science's Duty to Man. Professor Lightning tried friendship, and argument, and even force—but nothing worked. Incredible as it seemed to the professor, Charley was content to remain a freak, an Armless Wonder. ”

“ Haenlingen said. "Because you're thinking of the Confederation, not the people who compose the Confederation, all of the people on Mars, and Venus, the moons and Earth. The Confederation itself—the government—really doesn't care. Why should it? But the people do—or would."
"Oh," Norma said, and then: "Oh. Of course."
"That's right," Dr. Haenlingen said. "They hear about freedom, and all the rest, as soon as they're old enough to hear about anything. It's part of every subject they study in school, it's part of the world they live in, it's like the air they breathe. ”

“ Wladek said. "The voice tells me—even now it continues—to go to an employment agency, to accept work ... and the voice is not of my making."
"Whose voice is this?" the gypsy woman said.
"It is my own voice," Mrs. Wladek said. "The voice is my own, but I did not tell it to speak. Inside my own head, I can hear my own voice as if someone else put it there."
"Ah," the gypsy woman said. "And who is the witch who has put this curse upon you?"
Mrs. Wladek sighed. "At the office of the social workers, there is one, a young woman. She has done this to me."
Marya Proderenska nodded. Her eyes closed. ”

“ Cadnan said, with the air of a person trying to bring reason back to the discussion. "We do not look like masters, and we do not know what they know."
"You want to learn," Marvor said. "Then learn what they know."
"They teach me," Cadnan said. "But I am still a slave, because they teach me. I do not teach them."
Marvor hissed and at the same time shook his head like a master. The effect was not so much frightening as puzzling: he was a creature, suddenly, who belonged to both worlds, and to neither. "A master is one who does what he wants," he said. "If I do what I want, am I a master?" ”

“ He listened again. There was silence ... not quite silence ... a movement ... a rustle—
Breathing was faint but unmistakable. It gave him a new direction. Breathing couldn't be faked.
He pictured the Psi Operative, in one flash of imagination, trying to get through the shield, sweating as he strained helplessly against the force shield, the binder field, the mask, the blindfold—oh, there was no way out for the poor superman, no way at all.
And Psi Operatives didn't carry weapons or anything else. They depended on their powers, and that was all. ”

“ And you've killed off the Armless Wonders and the Legless Wonders, professor. You've done it, all at once."
Professor Lightning shook his head. "I don't see—" he began.
"Anybody can grow new arms," Charley said. "So the man without arms—he's not an object of pity any more. He's just some guy who doesn't want to work. Nobody wants to go and see him; let him grow arms, if he doesn't want to be called a lazy bum. See?"
There was a little silence.
"I see," Professor Lightning said slowly. "Without pity, without a strong sense of identification, there is no audience." ”

“ Gloria smiled. Oh, she was going to show Mr. Fredericksohn, all right! He just wasn't sure she could handle Mrs. Wladek—and the old woman certainly did represent a problem. Her folder was full of notations by case worker after case worker. But Gloria's smile broadened just a trifle.
My goodness, everything was going to be all right. She was sure Mr. Fredericksohn would be happy with her work.
Though the important thing wasn't her own success, but the people themselves. If you could help them to be bright, and happy, and successful, then that was the best job in the world. ”

“ Unhappiness, she told herself, was her portion in this life; in the Life Above, things would be different.
Jonas had met the type before, and was uninterested in going further. But Ilse Scharpe was something else entirely. She did not say a word to him, coming into the house that evening, a pace behind her mother, like an obedient slave. She was about seventeen, and her mind was as fresh and clean and pretty as her face and figure. Jonas started musing on Heroes again, but he never had the chance to make a move toward her. ”

“ Dara looked at him innocently. "Go?" she said.
"You must go as Marvor has gone. The masters do not take you for punishment if you go."
"There is nothing for me to do," she said, and her eye closed. "No. I wait for you, but only to tell you this: there is nothing I can do."
"Marvor is gone," Cadnan said slowly. "You, too, can go. Maybe the masters do not find you. If you stay you are punished. If you go and they do not find you there is no punishment for you." It amazed him that she could not see so clear a point.
"Then all can go," she said. "All can escape punishment." ”

“ Professor Lightning said sadly. "Never mind; I've had my one discovery—how much an accident, no one may ever know. But I neglected to widen the scope of what I had done; I generalized too rapidly, my boy." He took a deep breath. "The method, the technique, is very complex," he said. "But imagine it this way: a man comes to New York. He explores it. Later, when he goes home, he is asked to draw a map of it—and he can do so, because he has the experience. He has the memory of New York, locked in his mind."
Charley nodded. ”

“ In the old country, one still heard the old stories, the streets paved with gold and the food waiting for such as yourself; oh, the war had not changed that in the least. Now the Voice of America was heard in the old country—she had a letter, smuggled out, from her own second-cousin Marfa, telling her all about the Voice of America—and that was only another trap. They wanted to make you leave your own land and your own country, and come far away to America and to the United States, so that you would have no friends and you would be defenseless. ”

“ Claerten transmitted the entire picture in one sudden blow: the chance that Jonas would not be killed immediately, but would be discovered; the chance that the Inquisitor would get from him the secret of the Brotherhood—
"That's impossible," Jonas said.
Claerten sounded resigned. "Nothing's impossible," he said. "And if the secret is let out—why, the Brotherhood is finished. Finished before it's barely started. Because you can read a man's mind doesn't mean you can defeat him, Jonas." ”

“ I find Marvor after the fighting, once only, and I ask him what it is that is so important about this fighting. The Confederation—the masters we now have—are only masters like the ones we know. Marvor looks at me with a look as if he, too, is a master.
"Freedom is that important," he says. "Freedom is the most important thing."
I know that Marvor is not right, because I know the most important thing: it is the dead. For me Dara is most important, and I remember Puna, who is dead in the fighting: the rest does not matter. ”