You're down in the jungle with death staring you in the face. There is nothing left but prayer. So you ask for your life. But wait! Are you sure that's really what you want above all else?...
What they want to do, just can't be done. The objectives they have in mind are unachievable and anyone with an ounce of brains can tell them so and give them good reasons. They are usually pretty sad cases and often land in the funny house. But then again, some of them go out and discover new worlds....
There is no predictable correlation between intelligence and ethics, nor is ruthlessness necessarily an evil thing. And there is nothing like enforced, uninterrupted contemplation to learn to distinguish one from another.......
This could well have been Montcalm's greatest opportunity; a chance to bring mankind priceless gifts from worlds beyond. But Montcalm was a solid family man--and what about that nude statue in the park?...
It is a sea, though they call it sand. They call it sand because it is still and red and dense with grains. They call it sand because the thin wind whips it, and whirls its dusty skim away to the tight horizons of Mars. But only a sea could so brood with the memory of aeons. Only a sea, lying so silent beneath the high skies, could hint the mystery of life still behind its barren veil....
Our civilization predates that of Earth's by millions of years. We gave of our far-advanced knowledge and science freely, so that Earth would be a better place. We asked nothing in return, but we were rewarded by having forced upon us foreign ideas of government, religion, and behavior. Our protests have been silenced by an armed-police and punitive system we've never before needed. Someday you will awaken to this injustice. On that day in your life, you have my sympathy and pity!...
Martian convicts and political prisoners developed an interstellar engine capable of traveling at superluminal speeds and deserted from Mars. Earth dictatorship fears invasion, so it surrounded the planet with protective belts. And then one day a ship hit the belt, on which there was a supporter of the rebels....
An hour later, a rocket from Earth will arrive on Mars. Martians were eagerly awaiting contact with Earth civilization, since Martian civilization was fading, and only 900 inhabitants of the planet remained on the planet. True, as it turned out, the rocket sent from the Earth was quite unusual ......
