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With Caroline he had found the contentment that is just as important as happiness, and longer lasting.
Men knew better than they realized, when they placed the abode of the gods beyond the reach of gravity.
Space itself was a realm of often overpowering beauty; unfortunately, Man’s hardware did not yet live up to it.
Prison and banishment, he had told his listeners, were splendid aids to creativity; not a few masterpieces had been born within the walls of cells, beyond the reach of the world’s distractions. For that matter, the greatest single achievement of the human intellect, the Principia itself, was a product of Newton’s self-imposed exile from plague-ridden London.
It was a claim that could never be proved—only disproved.
Nevertheless, when you did not know what you were looking for, it was important to avoid all prejudices and preconceptions; something that at first sight seemed irrelevant, or even nonsensical, might turn out to be a vital clue.
The captain barely paused before giving her answer. Floyd had often admired Tanya Orlova’s decisiveness, and had once told her so. In a rare flash of humor, she had replied: “Woody, a commander can be wrong, but never uncertain.”
Yet perhaps even that was possible; the route that humanity had taken was not the only one. There might be whole civilizations in the seas of other worlds.
There are some professions which have evolved unique and characteristic tools—the longshoreman’s hook, the potter’s wheel, the bricklayer’s trowel, the geologist’s hammer.
Astronomy was full of such intriguing but meaningless coincidences. The most famous was the fact that, from the Earth, both Sun and Moon have the same apparent diameter.
The human mind has an astonishing capacity to adapt; after a while, even the incredible becomes commonplace.
After their encounter on the approach to Jupiter, there would always be a secret bond between them—not of love, but of tenderness, which is often more enduring.
As Einstein had rightly said, the Good Lord was subtle, but never malicious.
The war between Sea and Space always ended in the same stalemate; the exposed water simultaneously boiled and froze, repairing the armor of ice.
What was more, they had taken the first step toward genuine friendship. They had exchanged vulnerabilities.
Of one thing, however, he was now sure. He was being used as a tool, and a good tool had to be sharpened, modified—adapted. And the very best tools were those that understood what they were doing.
I’m not saying there’s any connection, but—well, do you know the saying: Once is an accident; twice is a coincidence; three times is a conspiracy.”
When one spends months with a small, isolated group of people, one becomes very sensitive to the moods and emotional states of all its members.
Floyd made it a rule never to worry about events over which he could have absolutely no control; any external threat would reveal itself in due time and must be dealt with then.
“Put it this way, Dr. Floyd. Bowman tried to use force against Hal. I didn’t. In my language we have a word—ahimsa. It’s usually translated as ‘nonviolence,’ though it has more positive implications. I was careful to use ahimsa in my dealings with Hal.”
Some dangers are so spectacular and so much beyond normal experience that the mind refuses to accept them as real, and watches the approach of doom without any sense of apprehension. The man who looks at the onrushing tidal wave, the descending avalanche, or the spinning funnel of the tornado, yet makes no attempt to flee, is not necessarily paralyzed with fright or resigned to an unavoidable fate. He may simply be unable to believe that the message of his eyes concerns him personally. It is all happening to somebody else.
