Ross Rocklynne

“ You wish to create, to die. But now you will be unable to do either. Nor can you reach the band of decision, for you believe it lies within the forty-eighth band. Yes, you've changed—changed!"
Paralyzed, he hung in space, the resplendent mindless giants of the universe seeming to fling her words back in brassy echoes.
She began drifting away, her thoughts roaring into his thought swirls, tripled in volume and strident with their connotations. "Only green lights remember the moments of their birth, Devil Star! Else how could they know their way back to the forty-eighth band when the time came?" ”

“ Some of the passengers looked anxious, some excited, and some just leafed casually through magazines.
Now the brown-clad Miss Eagen was speaking from the head of the aisle.
"Those of you who haven't been in a rocket before won't find it much different from being in an airplane. At the same time—" She paused, quiet brown eyes solemn. "What you are about to experience is something that will make you proud to belong to the human race."
That again! thought Marcia furiously; and then all emotion left her but cold, ravening fear as the rumble heightened. ”

“ To Dark Fire, it made no difference. Her wisdom, her destroying hate, as with all green lights, must have its source in blind instinct. There had been outrage. He must die.
A cruel incisiveness claimed him as he dropped down the terraced spaces of the universe. Here and there, he plucked small suns from the heavens, converted them to seething energy. When she burst through after him into the second band of space, he was ready for her. All the quivering excess energy his swollen body held was channeled into a concentrated sword of destruction that smote her point-blank. ”

“ Unterzuyder took off his glasses. There were red marks around his eyes where the glasses had taken hold. He had inherited the famous thin nose and receding chin of the Unterzuyders. His pale thin lips worked nervously.
"I work alone, Mr. Bailes," he said haughtily. "And I work best when such as you try to set your pitiful little traps! Threaten me as you will, nothing can keep me from my purpose. And now good-day."
Bigger's voice was filled with disgust. "Your purpose being, of course, to find asteroid X and free your ancestors so they can go to work on the Solar System again!" ”

“ DRINKING IMPOSSIBLE
"I did that, yes," said Olduk quietly. "Many people will die. Tantalus, yes? But there is a Tantalus on Mars, too."
The iron-gray man struck him harshly across the mouth.
"How did you do it?" he rasped.
"A water-tight ship lies buried ten miles beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. A simple radio signal started the mechanism that eventually released the force."
"What force?"
"The force that will make it impossible for people of Earth to drink, honorable sir."
"What signal will make the mechanism stop?" Again Olduk was struck across the face, harshly, brutally. ”

“ I was determined to save baby. Baby cried!
We got some chairs and sat there for ten minutes close together while baby played with the invisible monster. "I don't know what to do!" I said. "It's alive. Maybe it's poisonous. But it's friendly. Maybe it's another baby!"
"From another dimension," said Mabel.
"Rot," I said; I think I picked that up from the detective in the Saturday Evening Post serial. "Let's keep our heads."
"If baby keeps his," said my friend Mabel.
That got me. "I've got to call Harry," I chattered. "They don't like him to be called at work, but I've got to call him." ”

“ Marcia blurted. "Jack can do it. You think he can, don't you? Don't you?"
"He can do anything any space skipper has ever done, and more," said Sue Eagen, and her face glowed. "But it isn't easy. Right this minute he's working over the computer—a small, simple, ship-board computer—working out orbital and positional and blast-intensity data that would be a hard nut for the giant calculators on Earth to crack. And he's doing it in half the time—or less—than it would take the average mathematician, because he has to; because it's a life-and-death matter if he makes a mistake or takes too long." ”

“ Tenderly, remembering the naming of her youngest, she renamed her oldest. "To us, you shall be known as Oldster."
She left him with his thoughts....
—I thought to master destiny. But destiny masters me. I cannot exclude the universe which continues to give me life.
—There is space, and there are stars, and of the things to know about them I have little to seek out. I have traveled the star-lanes for eons, filled with my longing, and the search for knowledge has only been the disguised search for my life's completion. ”

“ Pedro Morestes, the handsomest man in the world, and the most perfect physical specimen by the Olivar Test, is about to break the world's diving record of all time. Four hundred feet lie between him and the glistening surface of this world-famed pool! ”