Alfred Coppel

“ It is war or the threat of war that gives a politician his power. Sweyn Erikson wanted power above all else. And so he founded a religion.
He became the Prophet of the Fanatics. And since a cult must have an object of group hate as a raison-d'etre, he chose the androids. With efficiency and calculated sincerity, he beat the drums of prejudice until his organization had spread its influence into the world's high places and his word became the law of the land. ”

“ Merrick warned. "The crystal can catch a human being faster than it can them. This is hypnotic engineering. The rhythm of the syllables and their proportion to the length of word and sentence are computed to correspond to typed encephalographic curves. Nothing is left to chance. When they have reached this stage of conditioning they are almost ready for release and purchase by human beings. Only a severe stimulation of the brain can break down the walls we have built in their minds."
Erikson made a gesture as though darkness were streaking his vision. ”

“ Graves was saying placatingly, "that when we have shown you the Creche you will see that there is no menace."
Erikson scowled at Graves deliberately. "There is menace enough in the blasphemy of android life, my son. Everywhere there are signs of unrest among the things you have built here. On Mars, human beings have died at their hands!"
Merrick's face showed his disgust. "Frankly, I don't believe that. Androids don't kill." ”

“ After all, we all believe in human supremacy. Erikson calls it a robot-menace, we look at it from another angle, but our common goal is the betterment of the human culture we've established. People are on an emotional jag now. There has been no war for five centuries. No emotional release. And there have been regulations and conventions set up since the Atom War that only a very few officials have been allowed to understand. Erikson is no savage, Han, after all. True he's set off a rash of robot-baiting, but he can be dealt with on an intelligent plane, I'm sure. ”

“ Faces becoming blank and expressionless.
"Their minds are conditioned—enslaved," Merrick said bitterly. "Then they are primed with scientific facts. Those techniques we discussed. This is where they come from, Prophet. From the minds of your despised androids. Only will is suppressed, and emotion. They are shaped for the sociography of a sapient culture. They mature very slowly. We keep them here for from ten to fifteen years. No human brain could stand it—but theirs can."
Truth dangled before his eyes, but Erikson's mind savagely rejected it. ”

“ There were four cardinal precepts by which the membership of the Human Supremacy Party lived. First, Man was God. Second, no race could share the plenum with Man. Had separate races still remained after the Atom War, the HSP racism might have been more specific, but since there remained only humanity en masse, all human beings shared the godhead. Third, the artificial persons that streamed from the Creche were blasphemy. ”

“ There's a wrongness in what we are doing here that colors my every reaction and makes me incapable of acting on my own. Always the doubts and secret questioning. If the social structure of our world weren't moribund, I wouldn't be here at all.... ”

“ You can't keep Erikson out, and the Council of Ten has left us on our own. They don't dare oppose the Fanatics. But there's an old political maxim you would do well to consider very carefully since it's our only hope, Han," Virginia Merrick said, "'If you can't beat someone—join him.'" ”