Jack Vance

“ Jones ignored me. "You must make up your mind to cooperate. Otherwise—" he paused significantly "—we will be forced into a course of action that will detract from the dignity of us all."
"Nothing could detract any further from my dignity," I replied bitterly.- "I am hardly better than an animal in a zoo."
"That is neither your fault nor ours. We all must fulfill our existences to the optimum. Today your function is to serve as vinculum with the past." ”

“ I am trying to mask my euphoria. Dr. Jones is extremely sensitive; I would not care to start his mind working at this late date.
The time is noon. I keep my appointment with Hesperus in two hours and twenty-two minutes. The yacht is coasting easily over the water. Our position, as recorded by a pin-point of light on the chart, is only a few miles from our final position. At this present rate we will arrive in about two hours and fifteen minutes. Then I will halt the yacht and wait . . .
The yacht is motionless on the ocean. ”

“ It is a game in which they have all the advantages—a detailed knowledge of my psychology, corridors behind the walls from which they can observe me, and a host of technical devices. They are men of my own race, in fact of my own blood. ”

“ Jones' clothes are vastly fanciful. He wears a body mantle of green film and a dozen vari-colored disks which spin slowly around his body as an axis. The symbolism of these disks, with their various colors, patterns, and directions of spin, are discussed in a chapter of my History of Man—so I will not be discursive here. The disks serve also as gravity deflectors, and are used commonly in personal flight. ”

“ The Hesperus will drop into the Pacific Ocean at Latitude 0° 0′ 0.0′′ ± 0.1′′, Longitude 141° 12′ 63.9′′ ± 0.2′′, at 2 hours 22 minutes 18 seconds after standard noon on January 13 of next year. It will strike with a velocity of approximately one thousand miles an hour, and I hope to be on hand to absorb a certain percentage of its inertia. ”