Governments exist on confidence. Not on liberty. Not on righteousness. Not on force. They exist because people believe that they do. Because they don’t ask questions.
God might not care about financial standing, but He was the only one.
Figure two-, three-hundred-kilometer-an-hour winds, lightning, torrential rains. You’re far enough inland to avoid the three-kilometer-high tsunami. Basic wrath of God package, minus drowning,
Excuse me, ma’am. Did you just instruct me to spy on Admiral Nguyen? No, I just asked for a comprehensive audit of all network traffic, and I don’t give a fuck about any results besides Nguyen’s offic...
Everywhere, all through the city, space was at a premium. Extended families lived in decaying apartments designed for half as many. Men and women who couldn’t escape the cramped space spent their days...
During his time as a graduate student, he had done data collection for a study of Pinus contorata. Of all the varieties of pine to rise off Earth, lodgepole pine had been the most robust in low-g envi...
Doors and corners are always dangerous, because you’re moving into something without being sure what’s there. By the time you see the enemy, you’re exposed to them. Sir? Havelock
Don’t have them to spare, and that galley doesn’t have crash couches. Everyone in there is pasta sauce, but the El Tee says look anyway.
Did he kill anyone? Erich asked. When neither guard answered, he said, Then he’s still being polite.
Could we please not assault the patient with the crushed spinal cord, she said as she did, because this makes me very uncomfortable.
Clanking softly through the massive space, that was the thing that haunted him. Not his sins, not even the people he’d killed, but the thought that if he’d killed just one or two more it might have be...
Chapter 21 : Elvi We could always mutiny, Fayez said brightly.We wouldn’t stand a chance, Travon said. I did the nav analysis. Tiamat's Wrath
But pacifism only works when your enemy has a conscience.
But listening to people bitch? Yeah, that’s sorta your job. It’s why you make the big money. We make the same money. Then I guess you’re doing it for the fame and glory. I hate you, Holden said.
But all the stories about the devil making a deal and then cheating missed the point. The real horror was that once the bargain was struck, the devil didn’t cheat. He gave you exactly and explicitly a...
But Holden suspected there was a lot more to Prax than that. There was a relentless forward motion to the man. The universe might knock him down over and over again, but unless he was dead, he’d just...
Becca found something, and it is sufficiently weird to make my balls creep up. We’re getting the hell out of here.
Anyone who had not had his determination, ruthlessness, and luck deserved pretty much whatever shit he handed to them.
And that’s the point I keep trying to make with her, my friend. In a fight like this, unless you’re willing to lose everything to win, you lose it all by losing.
An unshakable faith in humanity. It’s true, he said, shaking his head. Or maybe nuzzling a little. Against all evidence, I keep thinking the assholes are outliers.