Read Online Imperial Stars 2-Republic and Empire by Jerry Pournelle - Free Book Online
Authors: Jerry Pournelle
Tags: Science-Fiction
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Good-by, Jacob, he thought, good-by to a way of life a thousand years old.
But Man must have the Overdrive.
Jacob ben Ezra watched the green disk of Toehold slowly recede. Hidden on the outer side of the planet now, was the Outward Bound .
By now, he thought, Peter will have decided to build an Overdrive.
He laughed softly to himself. We old foxes understand each other. We both have our excuses—Peter his profits, me my duty.
But when it comes down to it, we're both in space for the same reason, and neither of us can put it into words.
So Earth will be satisfied. They'll have the body of poor Ching. Little will they know, little will they know, until it's too late.
There are planets out here that will ask few questions. Peter has the force field to sell, and for that, he can get his Overdrive built. And after that—
After that, in the short run, who knows? Ben Ezra shifted his gaze to the vast, multi-colored cloud of stars that is the center of the Galaxy.
In the short run, who knows, he thought. Who cares? But in the long run—
In the long run, Man will have the Galaxy, perhaps not to himself, certainly not to himself, but have it he will.
The admiral put out his half-finished cigarette. I've been in this business so long that I'm a legend, he thought. How ironic that the thing I can be most proud of is something that, once the Overdrive is a reality, will be called a failure.
He looked at the cloud of stars. They seemed to be looking right back. Come on, they seemed to say, we've been waiting.
A failure— Maybe you could call it that—
He grinned at the far glow of the Center.
"Coming!" he said.
Editor's Introduction To:
In The Realm Of The Heart, In The World Of The Knife
Wayne Wightman
Robert Conquest's important book, Harvest of Sorrow (1986, Oxford University Press), tells how Lenin, and later Stalin, deliberately murdered more than ten million people by inducing an artificial famine in the Ukraine. Their cruelties knew no bounds: the Red Army even took the shovels, so that peasant children not only could not plant food, but could not bury their parents after they had starved.
Conquest opens this way: "Fifty years ago as I write these words, the Ukraine and the Ukrainian Cossack and other areas to its east—a great stretch of territory with some forty million inhabitants—was like one vast Belsen. A quarter of the rural population—men, women, and children—lay dead or dying, the rest in various stages of debilitation with no strength to bury their families or neighbors. At the same time (as at Belsen), well-fed squads of police or party officials supervised the victims."
Lenin probably believed he was helping mankind. It is doubtful whether Stalin believed in anything at all. Both were singularly effective not only at killing people, but at staying in power.
Acton tells us that all power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Others have not been so certain. Thomas Carlyle welcomes the hero as ruler, one whose "place is with the stars of heaven. To this man death is not a bugbear; to this man life is already as earnest and awful, and beautiful, and terrible, as death."
In The Realm Of The Heart, In The World Of The Knife
Wayne Wightman
Obese and sweating, Errit Stattor strolled smiling through his outer office, reviewing those who served him. He tried to be humble. The archaic incandescent lighting made his aides look paper-yellow, hollow-eyed, and slack. When he entered those immense and weirdly anachronistic stained-glass doors, all voices ceased, all movement stopped, and in a single motion, everyone stood. They bowed, and as he passed by them, he smiled and nodded.
"Please," he said, "please sit—these formalities . . ." But they remained standing and bowing. Stattor sighed. "Your devotion impresses me," he said, "but . . . please . . ." No one sat, and he was impressed, but today, as he reviewed them, smiling, the fat of his cheeks pushed up in
But Man must have the Overdrive.
Jacob ben Ezra watched the green disk of Toehold slowly recede. Hidden on the outer side of the planet now, was the Outward Bound .
By now, he thought, Peter will have decided to build an Overdrive.
He laughed softly to himself. We old foxes understand each other. We both have our excuses—Peter his profits, me my duty.
But when it comes down to it, we're both in space for the same reason, and neither of us can put it into words.
So Earth will be satisfied. They'll have the body of poor Ching. Little will they know, little will they know, until it's too late.
There are planets out here that will ask few questions. Peter has the force field to sell, and for that, he can get his Overdrive built. And after that—
After that, in the short run, who knows? Ben Ezra shifted his gaze to the vast, multi-colored cloud of stars that is the center of the Galaxy.
In the short run, who knows, he thought. Who cares? But in the long run—
In the long run, Man will have the Galaxy, perhaps not to himself, certainly not to himself, but have it he will.
The admiral put out his half-finished cigarette. I've been in this business so long that I'm a legend, he thought. How ironic that the thing I can be most proud of is something that, once the Overdrive is a reality, will be called a failure.
He looked at the cloud of stars. They seemed to be looking right back. Come on, they seemed to say, we've been waiting.
A failure— Maybe you could call it that—
He grinned at the far glow of the Center.
"Coming!" he said.
Editor's Introduction To:
In The Realm Of The Heart, In The World Of The Knife
Wayne Wightman
Robert Conquest's important book, Harvest of Sorrow (1986, Oxford University Press), tells how Lenin, and later Stalin, deliberately murdered more than ten million people by inducing an artificial famine in the Ukraine. Their cruelties knew no bounds: the Red Army even took the shovels, so that peasant children not only could not plant food, but could not bury their parents after they had starved.
Conquest opens this way: "Fifty years ago as I write these words, the Ukraine and the Ukrainian Cossack and other areas to its east—a great stretch of territory with some forty million inhabitants—was like one vast Belsen. A quarter of the rural population—men, women, and children—lay dead or dying, the rest in various stages of debilitation with no strength to bury their families or neighbors. At the same time (as at Belsen), well-fed squads of police or party officials supervised the victims."
Lenin probably believed he was helping mankind. It is doubtful whether Stalin believed in anything at all. Both were singularly effective not only at killing people, but at staying in power.
Acton tells us that all power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Others have not been so certain. Thomas Carlyle welcomes the hero as ruler, one whose "place is with the stars of heaven. To this man death is not a bugbear; to this man life is already as earnest and awful, and beautiful, and terrible, as death."
In The Realm Of The Heart, In The World Of The Knife
Wayne Wightman
Obese and sweating, Errit Stattor strolled smiling through his outer office, reviewing those who served him. He tried to be humble. The archaic incandescent lighting made his aides look paper-yellow, hollow-eyed, and slack. When he entered those immense and weirdly anachronistic stained-glass doors, all voices ceased, all movement stopped, and in a single motion, everyone stood. They bowed, and as he passed by them, he smiled and nodded.
"Please," he said, "please sit—these formalities . . ." But they remained standing and bowing. Stattor sighed. "Your devotion impresses me," he said, "but . . . please . . ." No one sat, and he was impressed, but today, as he reviewed them, smiling, the fat of his cheeks pushed up in
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