Home Quotes

“It’s about being treated as a thing, isn’t it. Whether that thing is a hostage of conditional value, or a very expensively designed and equipped enslaved machine/organic intelligence. You’re a thing, and there is no safety.”
― Martha Wells, Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory

“It must be hard to respect other people’s privacy when you’ve had to fight and scheme for every minute of your own. Hard not to be paranoid when you remember all the times your paranoia was justified.”
― Martha Wells, Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory

“The Corporation Rim has always been a slave state, though it calls its institutionalized slavery “contract labor.” The production of human/bot constructs is just a more horrific twist, a mental slavery as well as a physical one. At least victims of contract labor are free to think their own thoughts. But we tell ourselves that constructs aren’t aware of their predicament. What SecUnit makes us realize is that this is not true; they are all aware of what they are and what’s been done to them. But the only choice they are ever offered is obedience or pain and death.”
― Martha Wells, Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory

“Along with the horror of what had just happened, there had been the dawning realization that they had fallen into thinking of their SecUnit as a faceless machine, a convenience, an interface with their security system. But it had taken a sentient being who understood fear and pain to talk its way through Volescu’s blind terror.”
― Martha Wells, Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory

“She knows SecUnit is not so much taunting her with its abilities as refusing to pretend to be anything other than it is. And that’s for the best, because being honest about that is the only way forward.”
― Martha Wells, Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory

“The Corporation Rim has always been a slave state, though it calls its institutionalized slavery “contract labor.”
― Martha Wells, Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory

“Even before her brain processes all that, she gasps. He says, “You are Dr. Mensah, aren’t you.” It’s not a question. He knows exactly who she is. She takes a step back and bumps into someone’s chest. Before she can panic, the words are in her feed: It’s me. It’s Murderbot — SecUnit — who was monitoring her feed or watching on a surreptitiously installed camera or had simply heard her gasp from down the corridor and through a room full of conversation.”
― Martha Wells, Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory

“It’s hard to make a proper argument when you’re both on the same side.”
― Martha Wells, Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory

“But it had taken a sentient being who understood fear and pain to talk its way through Volescu’s blind terror.”
― Martha Wells, Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory

“SecUnit is looking down at her. “You can hug me if you need to.” “No. No, that’s all right. I know you don’t care for it.” She wipes her face. There are tears in her eyes, because she’s an idiot.”
― Martha Wells, Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory

“But the only choice they are ever offered is obedience or pain and death.”
― Martha Wells, Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory

“She didn’t want a corporation’s excuse for a trauma support specialist poking around in her emotions.”
― Martha Wells, Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory

“She should go back to her family in her quarters soon. But it’s easier here, where everyone knows what happened and no one feels the need to ask questions or is trying to get her to tell them everything is fine and she is exactly the same as she was the day she left. Work is a good excuse.”
― Martha Wells, Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory

“At least victims of contract labor are free to think their own thoughts. But we tell ourselves that constructs aren’t aware of their predicament. What SecUnit makes us realize is that this is not true; they are all aware of what they are and what’s been done to them. But the only choice they are ever offered is obedience or pain and death.”
― Martha Wells, Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory

“You didn’t get the Retrieved Client Protocol?” They had offered it to Ayda on the gunship after the attack, standard for clients who survive traumatic incidents like being abducted and held hostage by corporate rivals. “No, no, I didn’t.” She didn’t want a corporation’s excuse for a trauma support specialist poking around in her emotions. She almost adds, I didn’t need it, which would be a dead giveaway. And then it occurs to her, a giveaway of what? What is she worried about giving away, here among these people she trusts with her life.”
― Martha Wells, Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory

“Because they are all refugees in the Preservation Alliance, descended from people who were left to die because rescue was deemed not cost-effective. Because they stand on this station built from the ship that saved their grandparents’ lives, that helped them for no other reason than because it was there and it could. Instead Ephraim asks her, “Can you separate that person from the purpose they were created for?”
― Martha Wells, Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory

“Bhawardwaj squints as she reads the message, and she laughs. “I don’t even know what that is.” Ayda looks at the catalog image. It’s the thing that fits on a backpack or harness, and has giant extendable spikes. She sends back, All right, I believe that it’s real, but it doesn’t look very practical.”
― Martha Wells, Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory

“As Ephraim gets up and Ayda can finally walk out of this damn room, she replies to SecUnit’s latest requisition form. It’s for a gunship nearly the size PortFreeCommerce’s transit ring: I think you made this one up.”
― Martha Wells, Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory