Pebble in the Sky (Galactic Empire, #3)

by Isaac Asimov

There was the atom bomb, of course, and this somewhat lascivious talk about World War III, but Schwartz was a believer in the goodness of human nature. He didn’t think there would be another war. He didn’t think Earth would ever see again the sunlike hell of an atom exploded in anger. So he smiled tolerantly at the children he passed and silently wished them a speedy and not too difficult ride through youth to the peace of the best that was yet to be.

If it were a dream, the five seconds was going to stretch madly.

bête noire

It is a very ordinary world. It is more or less of a pigpen of a world, or a horrible hole of a world, or a cesspool of a world, or almost any other particularly derogative adjective you care to use. And yet, with all its refinement of nausea, it cannot even achieve uniqueness in villainy, but remains an ordinary, brutish peasant world.”

“To the rest of the Galaxy, if they are aware of us at all, Earth is but a pebble in the sky. To us it is home, and all the home we know. Yet we are no different from you of the outer worlds, merely more unfortunate. We are crowded here on a world all but dead, immersed within a wall of radiation that imprisons us, surrounded by a huge Galaxy that rejects us. What can we do against the feeling of frustration that burns us?

“Not a word, thank the Stars. If I even attempted to, I should bark like a dog for sheer pain of the intellect.”

There never can be a man so lost as one who is lost in the vast and intricate corridors of his own lonely mind, where none may reach and none may save. There never was a man so helpless as one who cannot remember.

Until, gradually, it passed, as all things did.

It is very difficult to be sure of anything, once you begin doubting your memory on principle.

Bel Arvardan, having showered and changed his clothes, promptly followed his original intention of observing the human animal, subspecies Earth, in its native habitat. The weather was mild, the light breeze refreshing, the village itself—pardon, the city—bright, quiet, and clean.

What was left, then, but short snorts, long naps, and slow madness?

Schwartz did, without comment, without caring. He would have gone to hell at that moment with as little emotion.

The Secretary, snub-nosed and wry-faced, preferred a short word to a long one, a grunt to a word, and silence to a grunt—at least in public.

“I am acquainted with a layman’s view of both.”

After all, a billion years ago we were all apes, yet we do not admit present-day apes into the relationship.”

At the moment Arvardan would cheerfully have undertaken to unseat the Emperor.

Like all common beliefs, however superstitious, distorted, and perverted, it has a speck of truth at bottom.

One might accept death reasoningly, with every aspect of the conscious mind, but the body was a brute beast that knew nothing of reason.

“You have my assurance that you will die horribly if you refuse. You will have to gamble on the alternative. What do you say?”

The memory of the next two hours was something no two of those that took part in the queer odyssey could duplicate.

Pola’s eyes were dark universes, moist and tear-filled. Somehow, for an instant, he was lost in them—they were universes, star-filled. And toward those stars little gleaming metallic cases were streaking, devouring the light-years as they penetrated hyperspace in calculated, deadly paths. Soon—perhaps already—they would approach, pierce atmospheres, fall apart into unseen deadly rains of virus—