Tuf Voyaging

by George R.R. Martin

“I concede that the Ark is indeed a large ship, but fear this has little bearing on matters, unless it is customary for you to charge by the square meter rather than by the hour.”

He was so huge he made her feel petite—her, who’d been called a giant half her life.

I am but a hopeless slave to my own curiosity, and always eager to improve my meager store of knowledge,

“Chaos has departed on mysterious errands of his own, as cats are wont to do.”

“the actual caloric content of this meal approximates what the average citizen consumes in a week.”

“Curiosity is my sad affliction, madam,” Tuf said, “and I sought merely to solve the puzzle that was S’uthlam, with perhaps the vaguest hope that in study I might come across some means of resolving our present impasse.”

We’re a civilized people, Tuf, you said it yourself. So goddamned civilized you wouldn’t believe it. Cooperative, ethical, life-affirming, all that bladder-bloat.

Say the word and we’ll name the goddamned planet after you.” “An interesting notion,” said Tuf. “Yet, my vanity notwithstanding,

Perhaps I might venture to suggest an obvious solution to your difficulties? If it proves efficacious, I would be pleased to allow you to name a city or a small asteroid after me.”

We’ve heard that before, they say, and damned if they haven’t.

We must evolve, the church says, evolve through higher and higher states of sentience and genius into eventual godhood, and we must achieve that godhood in time to avert the heat-death of the universe.

We’ve got Erikaners, Old Christers, Children of the Dreamer. We’ve got Steel Angel bastions

“During our last private discussion, I was set upon by men with nerveguns, verbally pummeled, cruelly deceived, deprived of a beloved companion, and denied the opportunity to enjoy dessert.

In many ethical systems, possession is the key, indeed oft times the overriding determinant of ownership.”

To feed ourselves, of course. To avoid the famine, to solve the problem, to work a puling biological miracle. To multiply the loaves and fishes.”

“This is our analysis of the thing he calls omni-grain,”

“If it lives in the goddamned ocean, it’s a puling fish as far as I’m concerned.”

don’t look back over your shoulder, unless you want to turn to goddamned salt.”

“A selective memory is not among my capabilities,”

“Your actions are not in accord with policy. They have not been approved by High Council.” “High Council’s actions haven’t been approved by me,” the Portmaster said.

He’s not a bad man, Tuf. He’s not evil. None of them are evil. They’re decent men and women, doing their best. All they want to do is to feed their children.”

Power corrupts, it went, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

You were willing to lose the whole thing for her.” She pointed at Havoc. “For a cat.

“You know what they say. Curiosity makes you hungry.”

“Of course,” said Haviland Tuf, dabbing his lips. “Sea monsters can be most vexing,”

“How distressing,” said Haviland Tuf. “Here I sit in an illusion. No doubt, now that you have told me my ship does not exist, I shall sink right through it and plunge into your atmosphere, where I shall burn up as I fall.”

“I shall name you Suspicion,” he said to it, “to commemorate my reception here. Your siblings shall be Doubt, Hostility, Ingratitude and Foolishness.”

“A Guardian uses no stimulants or depressants. We are a fighting guild. Substances like that pollute the body and slow the reflexes. A Guardian must be vigilant. We guard and protect.”

Doubt batted Foolishness soundly across the head,

Kefira Qay took her leave. Foolishness went bounding after her.

It is not just a problem. This is no game we are playing. Real people are dying down there.

Such are the fruits of hasty action, with insufficient study. There are grave risks should one move without understanding.”

“Biological weaponry, like other sorts of armament, comes in many forms and sizes. The best way to slay a human enemy is a single laser burst planted square in the center of the forehead. In biological terms, the analogue might be a suitable natural enemy or predator, or a species-specific pestilence.

From Old Poseidon came vampire eels and nessies and floating tangles of web-weed, transparent and razor-sharp and deadly. From Aquarius Tuf cloned black raveners, the swifter scarlet raveners, poisonous puff-puppies, and fragrant, carnivorous lady’s bane. From Jamison’s World the vats summoned sand-dragons and dreerhants and a dozen kinds of brightly colored water snakes, large and small. From Old Earth itself the cell library provided great white sharks, barracuda, giant squid, and clever semi-sentient orcas.

Kefira Qay habitually took Foolishness with her to the communications room so she could listen to the reports.

You have allowed yourself to be blinded by belligerence and fear. If you had removed yourself from the situation and paused long enough to think about it in depth, as I did, no doubt it would become obvious even to the military mind that your plight was no natural catastrophe.

in the days of the Great War, the soldiers of the Federal Empire struggled against enemies with terrible psi powers; Hrangan Minds and githyanki soulsucks.

“You mean that thing is reading our minds?” Lysan said sharply. “Insofar as you have minds to read,” said Haviland Tuf,

They are a slow, thoughtful, philosophic race, and they lived side by side in the billions, each linked with all the others, each an individual and each a part of the great racial whole. In a sense they were deathless, for all shared the experiences of each, and the death of one was as nothing.

Experiences were few in the unchanging sea, however. For the most part their long lives are given over to abstract thought, to philosophy, to strange green dreams that neither you nor I can truly comprehend. They are silent musicians, one might say. Together they have woven great symphonies of dreams, and those songs go on and on.

They had no inkling that you might be sentient, since they could no more conceive of a nontelepathic sentience than you could conceive of one blind, deaf, immobile, and edible.

“What do they want?” she asked nervously. “Chiefly,” said Haviland Tuf, “they want you to stop eating them. This strikes me as an eminently sensible proposal.

On Gonesh, the elephant priests had never actually seen an elephant.

On Karaleo, he had bested the Lord of the Burnished Golden Pride in a drinking contest,

The knights of St. Christopher, whose resort world had been robbed of much of its charm by the depredations of huge flying saurians they called dragons (partly for effect and partly due to a lack of imagination),

Fortunately, Haviland Tuf considered himself a master of disguise.

“Indeed,” said Haviland Tuf. “I will do my best to control his ferocity.”

“They’re soft and cuddly but they can rip your lungs out in the blink of an eye.”

“He was the ruthless lord of life and death, in a ship as large as the sun. She was the spider queen, torn between love and loyalty. Together they changed the world,”

When he disembarked, it was as if the car had decided to vomit out the overabundance of humanity it had ingested.