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Logic was good, but too much logical analysis inhibited action. Darya had heard it seriously suggested that the original human cladeworld, Earth, had degenerated to an ineffectual backwater of a planet because computer trade-off analysis had increasingly been used as the basis for decision making. On purely logical grounds, no one would ever explore, invent, rejoice, sing, strive, fall in love, or take physical and psychological risks of any kind. Better to stay in bed in the morning; it was much safer.

He was a professional trouble-shooter. That was a fancy name for an idiot.

It was improbable for him to meet his old friends here? Fine, so it was improbable; but it had happened. “Improbable” was something you could only apply to future events.

Violence is never the only solution.

Never get involved in a venture with a man who inherited his money and didn’t earn any himself. He’ll assume he’s smarter than you are, just because he’s rich and you’re not, and he’ll expect you to bow down to his greatness because for all his life people have.

It had been designed for “peacekeeping,” which meant that it had been fitted out from stem to stern with the most hideous weapons of war that the human mind could conceive.

He realized a profound truth: there is no one so generous as a bureaucrat spending other people’s money.

What I found was worse than diversity—it was insanity.

The answers come pat and fast. You see, what the downsiders want isn’t an explanation; it’s a catchphrase they can use instead of an explanation.

If you win too easy, better ask what’s going on that you don’t know about.

Are we perhaps guilty of temporal chauvinism, believing that our own time is uniquely important, as all generation tend to think that their time is of unique importance?

“To a logical entity, such as myself, the behavior of organic intelligences such as yourself, provides many anomalies. For example, the history of humanity, the species concerning which my data banks have most information, is replete with cases where humans, on little or no evidence, have believed in impossibilities. They have accepted the existence of a variety of improbable entities: of gods and demons, of fairies and elves, of ‘good luck’ charms, of magic potions, of curses and hexes and evil eyes.”

“Tally, if you’re going to blather about—”

“But at the same time, humans and other organic intelligences often seem unwilling to accept the implications and consequences of their own legitimate scientific theories.”