Startide Rising

He wasn’t afraid of dying, only of having not done all he could, and not properly spitting in the eye of death when it came for him. That final gesture was important.

“Where there is mind, there is always solution,” Keneenk taught. All problems contained the elements of their answer.

What point was there in pursuing an ever-elusive popularity?

Words penetrated the tank from the outer room. They were tantalizing, like those ghosts of meaning in a great symphony—hinting that the composer had caught a glimpse of something notes could only vaguely convey and words could never even approach.

It was better to imagine a sacrifice being for something.

You don’t have conversations with microprocessors. You tell them what to do, then helplessly watch the disaster when they take you literally!

Petals floating by, Drift through my woman’s hand, As she remembers me.

Blatant idiocies had been tried by early men and women—foolishness that would never have been considered by species aware of the laws of nature. Desperate superstitions had bred during the savage centuries. Styles of government, intrigues, philosophies were tested with abandon. It was almost as if Orphan Earth had been a planetary laboratory, upon which a series of senseless and bizarre experiments were tried.

He read about humanity’s age-old racial struggles. Had it really been less than half a millennium since humans contrived gigantic, fatuous lies about each other simply because of pigment shades, and killed millions because they believed their own lies?