Tuf Voyaging

by George R.R. Martin

“Defecate or evacuate the chamber,

I had a feeling you’d be the punctual sort, Tuf.”

The idea of such a drama has an undeniable appeal to my vanity, but the execution left much to be desired.”

“No doubt they wished to emphasize the certainty of your mammalian evolution,”

At no point did she rip even a single security man apart with her claws, let alone six of them.”

“To my best recollection, at no point was carnal knowledge of your body included in my terms, Portmaster Mune.

“Surely you do not defend this grossly inaccurate vidshow,” he said flatly. The Portmaster laughed again. “Defend it? Puling hell, I wrote it!”

We share a certain rapport, and Dax is gifted with a psi ability that is far from rudimentary.”

Dax was purring; the Portmaster was perfectly sincere.

I have found that it is almost always a mistake to assume that any human being is ever satisfied.”

“The intelligent and efficient politician is a species virtually unknown in the galaxy,”

since all those famous romantic couples from ancient times—you know, Romeo and Juliet, Samson and Delilah, Sodom and Gomorrah, Marx and Lenin.”

the trite yet nonetheless eternally popular happy ending,

Chaos, a long-haired gray tom with imperious eyes and an indolent, dominating manner, was the lord of all he surveyed.

Doubt was noisy and fat, Hostility was aggressive and rambunctious, Suspicion was shy and liked to hide under Tuf’s chair.

My stock in trade does include species sometimes referred to as hooded draculas, wind-wraiths, lycanthropes, vampires, garghouls, witchweed, and other such terms, but these are not the genuine mythic articles, I fear.”

You worked the loaves and fishes miracle once. Can we get a second helping, Tuf?”

Perhaps I wish to show the S’uthlamese billions that I do not wear a mustache.”

I imagine, however, that meatbeast would taste very good to any starving man.”

Culinary variety is a luxury the S’uthlamese can no longer afford.

a distant analogue to better-known species such as the black banshee of High Kavalaan

You have a gift for colorful language and memorable terminology, First Councilor.”

Did you expect they’d give you a medal?” “A rousing hand of applause would have been sufficient.”

I have a decided personal aversion to death, I find entropy distasteful, and if invited to the heat death of the universe, I would most certainly make other plans.”

“Everywhere I visit, I find heroes to be an endangered species.

You didn’t say much that we haven’t said for years. You just said it louder.”

The sad truth of history has always been that the unreasoning masses follow the powerful, and not the wise.”

The cat was fully as large, compared to other cats, as Haviland Tuf was compared to other men.

Monsters are entirely mythological, sir, like spirits, werebeasts, and competent bureaucrats.

“Her name was Havoc, and she had been my companion for long years, sir. She has recently died, on a world called Alyssar that I had the misfortune to call upon, at the hands of a remarkably unpleasant barbarian princeling.”

Real beauty lies in killing-strength, I always say.”

The House of Varcour, for example, sprawls in the hot, swampy south, and they are fond of sending huge lizard-lions to the gaming pits.

“The House of Norn ranks last and least among the Twelve Great Houses of Lyronica,” he said, and Dax purred more loudly. “You know?” “Sir. It was obvious.

The Ark is an ancient seedship, designed by the Earth Imperials thousands of years ago, to decimate the Hrangans through biowar.

“A few thousand monsters!” Norn was excited again. “That is more than enough selection! Surely, among all those, we can find a beast for Norn!”

Jaime Kreen, a thin blond youth with drunken blue eyes,

Kindly do not belabor the obvious with statements that convey no meaningful information.

Mysteries disturb me. I desire some clarification.”

Gross hairless white giants are not exceptionally common, you know.”

Yet it is my feeling that it is unjust to judge a man by any laws save those of the culture in which he lives, or is presently moving.

I believe he is somehow associated with or related to Noah, whom my Ark is named after, in a fashion.

The Holy Altruistic Church teaches that salvation is obtained by living a simple life close to nature, by suffering and by self-sacrifice.

“I failed to remember that you are by training a bureaucrat, and thus good for virtually nothing.”

Kreen very quickly discovered that Haviland Tuf gave absolutely nothing away.

If you succeed, we will build a statue to you, and set it atop the city to be seen for kilometers.” “Passing birds would relieve themselves upon such a statue,” said Haviland Tuf. “The wind would abrade and erode it, and it would be placed too high for any to see its features clearly. Such a statue might tickle my vanity—I am a small man, for all my size, easily pleased by such things—but I would want it set in your largest public square, safe from all harm.”

“Oh, hell,” said Jaime Kreen. “Forty thousand then, and I hope that damned cat dies of gout.”

I am a holy man, not a stupid one.

How are you going to fight a frog? Stab it? Shoot it? How?”

“Fourth generation imperial screens, triple redundancy, frequency overlapping, all shield phasing coordinated by your ship’s computers. Duralloy plate armor on your hull.

“The next sarcasm you mouth may be your last, trader, so you had better take care to make it a good one.