Gregory Feeley

“But such indifference to doctrine accompanies a lassitude toward all progress. The commonfolk still tolerate appalling injustices, because to them social evils are merely steps on the pathway to moksha. How can you help people who think the wretchedness of their poor is divinely appointed?”

““People were killed,” Galvanix said wonderingly.“That doesn’t bother anyone,” said Rajee bluntly. “Among twelve billion, international relations are too important to be threatened by skirmishes.””

““Altruism can be surprisingly gratifying,” it remarked. “No wonder humans dabble with it.””

“You older types are mired in the minds you grew up with, a real handicap in a rapidly changing universe. The future is a game for the young and the hungry—I’m five months old myself, and on the cutting edge.”

““You are enjoying the present disruptions a good deal less than I. That is because I recently restructured my cerebral architecture—that skill is my raison d’être, I should explain—and have adopted an egocentric consciousness, which certainly changes one’s view of the world!” The creature laughed, a shocking sound. “I’m presently as selfish as any human; probably worse, since I am not used to this heady wine. As any infant.””

“The universe comprised strife between forces, and there was no use seeking a benign still center to mirror the unfolding peace of a mother’s love.”

“Yasuhiro had studied and thought long about combat, which he knew always deteriorated into chaos whatever the battle plan.”

“You may regard this as an outrage of the spirit, but it is that or die, and I decline to offer you the choice.”

“Data security was a proprietary concern, the obsession of those who saw knowledge as commodity, or who had something to hide.”

“Humans are deceitful, enthralled to the sexual strategies that drove their animal ancestors and drive them just as blindly. They jostle and kick for social supremacy and mating opportunities, fitfully aware of how this appears yet unable to transcend it. They injure their societies in the interest of those few with whom they share genes, and will injure them in pursuit of opportunities to breed further. They are suspicious, irrational, and destructive, eventually to all but most immediately to those unlike themselves.”