Short Story Writers From Wales

"“I don’t trust you.” “Of course you don’t. I know I wouldn’t. And I’m not asking you to. I’m not putting you in a situation in which your trust of me is even remotely relevant. I’m just pointing a gun to your head and giving you orders.”"

"Am I that fascinating to you, or are you just more bored than I imagined?"

"“Tanner, are you insane?” “Very probably several kinds of insane,” I said. “But I’m afraid it doesn’t change anything. I’m perfectly happy with my current delusional system.”"

"“That’s how it went, wasn’t it Zebra?” “It might,” she said. “If I happened to be colluding in your own delusions.”"

"“Is there anyone in Chasm City she hasn’t deceived?” “Possibly, somewhere, but only as an extreme theoretical possibility.”"

"“Is he dangerous? “Anyone who lies for a living is dangerous.”"

"By and large these attempts to rewrite history were not taken seriously, but it was disconcerting to hear that they had gained even a toehold."

"Just because something had spawned a myth did not automatically mean it had to contain anything of substance."

"“Don’t tell me you aren’t the slightest bit curious, Norquinco.” “I hope you burn in hell, Sky Haussmann.” “I’ll take that as a yes.”"

"“Is there anyone or anything in this city which can’t be bought?” I said, slipping him a note. “Yeah,” the man said, laughing quietly. “But I’m not it.”"

"It was one of the oldest tricks of mob-management: give them a hate figure."

"“You seem upset by the fact that we’re hated and feared.” “It does give one pause for thought.”"

"He had never lost that mingled combination of awe and terror that welled up in him when confronted by the routinely huge distances of space."

"The battle sunk towards the horizon. Presently it would be gone, leaving a sky unsullied by human affairs."

"Volyova did not like planets at the best of times, and gas giants struck her as an unreasonable affront to human scale and frailty. In that respect, they were almost as bad as stars."

"“What happened?” “Let’s just say my efforts to reprogram the weapon were not an unqualified success, shall we, and leave it at that?” She hated discussing failure almost as much as she hated the thing itself."

"It was his experience that crises in space fell into two categories: those that killed you immediately, usually without much warning, and those that gave you plenty of time to ruminate on the problem, even if no solution was very likely."

"This gets better, it really does. The odd thing is, I actually think you might be telling the truth. If you were going to lie, you’d at least come up with something that made sense."

"In Clavain’s experience, it was the less comforting possibility that generally turned out to be the case. It was the way the universe worked."

"It was a numbers game, not a guaranteed method of avoiding being killed, but Clavain had been a soldier long enough to know that this was, ultimately, what most combat situations boiled down to."

"Relativity distorted classical expectations in a way that Clavain still did not find entirely intuitive. Slam two objects towards each other, each with individual velocities just below light-speed, and the classical result for their closing velocity would be the sum of their individual speeds: just under twice the speed of light. Yet the true result, confirmed with numbing precision, was that the objects saw each other approach with a combined speed that was still just below the speed of light. Similarly, the relativistic closing velocity for two objects moving towards each other with individual speeds of one-half of light-speed was not light-speed itself, but eight-tenths of it. It was the way the universe was put together, and yet it was not something the human mind had evolved to accept."

"“How are the internal complications, anyway? Aren’t the other branches of government getting a little suspicious about all these machinations?” “Let’s just say that one or two discreet assassinations may still have to be performed,” Khouri said."

"Either you are a man of unusual ability, Thorn, or a man with a rather inadequate grasp of human nature. I just hope it’s the former."

"I don’t question your loyalty, Skade. I just wonder exactly what it is you’re loyal to."

"Don’t overestimate your familiarity with technologies you barely understand. It could be your undoing."

"They had been in love, desperately in love, but the universe cared nothing for the vicissitudes of the human heart."

"But make no mistake. My counterpart is capable of a great deal of ruthlessness in pursuit of a just cause. He believes he has right on his side. And men who think they have right on their side are always the most dangerous sort."

"“I’m not a bad man, Ilia. I’m just someone who knows exactly what needs to be done.” “Like you said, always the most dangerous sort.”"

"She would worry, just as you worry. It’s the people who don’t worry—those who never have any doubts that what they’re doing is good and right—they’re the ones that cause the problems."

"Clavain felt little in the way of regret; more a sense of quiet relief that they were past the negotiating stage and into the infinitely more honest arena of actual battle."

"“Can I still wish you good luck?” “You can wish me what the hell you like. It won’t make any difference. If it did, it would mean I hadn’t prepared well enough."

"And even if what they showed you is true, that doesn’t begin to make it right. The cause might be just, Felka, but history’s littered with atrocities committed in the name of righteousness."

"Clavain saw it all with sudden, heart-stopping clarity: all that mattered was the here and now. All that mattered was survival. Sentience that bowed down and accepted its own extinction—no matter what the long-term arguments, no matter how good the greater cause—was not the kind of sentience he was interested in preserving."

"There were choices to be made, harder choices than I would have liked, and I realised that I had been neglecting them because of their very difficulty."

"Memo to himself: the one way to make people panic was to warn them not to."

"All machines knew what would happen to them when their masters lost faith in their infallibility."

"To feel oneself so tiny, so fragile, so inherently losable, was at first spiritually crushing. But, by the same token, this realisation was also strangely liberating: if an individual human existence meant so little, if one’s actions were so cosmically irrelevant, then the notion of some absolute moral framework made about as much sense as the universal ether. Measured against the infinite, therefore, people were no more capable of meaningful sin—or meaningful good—than ants, or dust. Worlds barely registered sin. Suns hardly deigned to notice it. On the scale of solar systems and galaxies, it meant nothing at all. It was like some obscure subatomic force that simply petered out on those scales."

"But sanity, Vasko decided, was like the pattern of lights he could see through his cabin window. In almost any direction the only way to travel was into darkness, and there was a lot more darkness than light."

"Rashmika could tell when anyone around her was lying. But seeing through her own deceptions was another matter entirely."

"The virus was not helping. He had hoped that it would, but the feelings it brought were too superficial. When he most needed their succour he could feel them for the paper-thin façades they were. Just because the virus was tickling the parts of his brain that produced feelings of religious experience didn’t mean he was able to turn off the other parts of his mind that recognised these feelings as having been induced artificially. He truly felt himself to be in the presence of something sacred, but he also knew, with total clarity, that this was due to neuroanatomy. Nothing was really with him: the organ music, the stained-glass windows in the sky, the sense of proximity to something huge and timeless and infinitely compassionate were all explicable in terms of neural wiring, firing potentials, synaptic gaps."

"The church-sponsored archaeologists were the only ones who had any kind of overview of the entire haul of relics, and they were under intense pressure to ignore any evidence that conflicted with Quaicheist scripture. That was why Rashmika wrote them so many letters, and why their infrequent replies were always so evasive. She wanted an argument; she wanted to question the entire accepted view of the scuttlers. They wanted her to go away."

"Maps had never really been his thing, even during his days under Scorpio in Chasm City. There, it had hardly mattered. Blood’s motto had always been that if you needed a map to find your way around a neighbourhood, you were already in trouble."

"“Personally,” Scorpio said, “I think it’s time to stop thinking chivalry and start thinking artillery.”"

"“But of course, you don’t believe in the existence of sin, do you?” “I believe in the existence of reckless stupidity,” Rashmika replied."

"I’m fed up with everyone being lied to just because the administration thinks it’s in our best interests not to know all the facts."

"He’s not really a religious man, but he knows which side his bread’s buttered on. The churches pay his salary, so he doesn’t want anyone rocking the boat with unorthodox rumours."

"“That would require an unprecedented leap of faith.” “I don’t do faith,” Scorpio said."

"It was a glaring omission, a sign of cosmic sloppiness. Not even that, Vasko corrected himself. It was a sign of cosmic obliviousness. The universe didn’t know what was happening here. It didn’t know and it didn’t care. It didn’t even know that it didn’t know."

"“Until recently we were a trio. Before that, a quartet. Perhaps it’s just me, but I’m beginning to detect a trend.”"

"“I thought debate was supposed to be healthy,” she countered. “It is,” Auger replied, “so long as you don’t disagree with me.”"