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0f643cd
|
My love is a pure love," Alex said with a grin. "I wouldn't sully it by actually, you know, doin' anything about it." "The kind poets write about, then."
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James S.A. Corey |
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0535e11
|
The birds, on the other hand, were going crazy. They filled the air with chirps and trills and songs. It was probably sparrow for Holy shit, what's going on, we're all gonna die, but it sounded pretty.
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James S.A. Corey |
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fa4aaaa
|
He's using you as his external, aftermarket conscience.
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James S.A. Corey |
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4d6658c
|
We're not people," he said. "We're the stories that people tell each other about us." --
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James S.A. Corey |
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f5828a9
|
I love the period of rotation. Thirty hours. You can get in a full day's work, stay up getting drunk at the saloon, and still get a full night's sleep. I don't know why we didn't think of this back home.
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James S.A. Corey |
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64c61cc
|
The other Miller was different. Quieter. Sad, maybe, but at peace. He'd read a poem many years before called "The Death-Self," and he hadn't understood the term until now. A knot at the middle of his psyche was untying. All the energy he'd put into holding things together--Ceres, his marriage, his career, himself--was coming free. He'd shot and killed more men in the past day than in his whole career as a cop. He'd started--only started--to..
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James S.A. Corey |
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3d48829
|
You want a beer?" Amos asked. "You're having beer for breakfast?" "Figure it's dinner for you," Amos said. The man was right. Miller needed sleep. He hadn't managed more than a catnap since they'd scuttled the stealth ship, and that had been plagued by strange dreams. He yawned at the thought of yawning, but the tension in his gut said he was more likely to spend the day watching newsfeeds than resting. "It's probably breakfast again," Mill..
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James S.A. Corey |
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4e45762
|
Figure two-, three-hundred-kilometer-an-hour winds, lightning, torrential rains. You're far enough inland to avoid the three-kilometer-high tsunami." "Basic wrath of God package, minus drowning,"
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James S.A. Corey |
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10f1b1b
|
Did he kill anyone?" Erich asked. When neither guard answered, he said, "Then he's still being polite."
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James S.A. Corey |
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beef11e
|
That's what peace is, right? Postponing the conflict until the thing you were fighting over doesn't matter.
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politics
conflict-resolution
fighting
peace
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James S.A. Corey |
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8d1d6f4
|
and no one had so far been able to offer any scientific conclusions more compelling than Hmm. Weird.
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James S.A. Corey |
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bb778e9
|
It was strange how a person could be so vitally important in your life, and yet you had nothing to say to them when they weren't sharing the same air.
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James S.A. Corey |
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7dd98ff
|
It was easy to make fun of the marines when they weren't listening. In Holden's navy days, making fun of jarheads was as natural as cussing. But four marines had died getting him off the Donnager, and three of them had made a conscious decision to do so. Holden promised himself that he'd never make fun of them again.
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|
sacrifice
marines
military
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James S.A. Corey |
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c828496
|
The problem with living with miracles was that they made everything seem plausible.
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James S.A. Corey |
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4516949
|
That's what it's come to, Miller thought, rubbing a hand across his chin. Pogroms after all. Cut off just a hundred more heads, just a thousand more heads, just ten thousand more heads, and then we'll be free.
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|
killing
war
revenge
|
James S.A. Corey |
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8a662a2
|
I didn't switch sides. I stopped playing.
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James S.A. Corey |
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3fc2d02
|
For another thing, we're under martial law, so I can do very nearly whatever the fuck I want. Including march through your precious little ship there towing you along behind in a ball gag and lacy underwear. So your warrant bullshit? You can roll that up and fuck it. Now tell me why I'm here." "You know just 'cause you can do something, it doesn't mean you should. I don't look great in frills."
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James S.A. Corey |
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9f2a8cf
|
It's not I don't trust, it's that I don't trust blind. People are people. Fucked up like we all are, it amazes me when we can even make a sandwich.
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James S.A. Corey |
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a81337a
|
A person can fail the people they love just by being who they are.
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James S.A. Corey |
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27aa5c0
|
Captain," Amos said with mock surprise. "Have you actually learned from your past? Is this a new thing you do now?"
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James S.A. Corey |
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732b0fb
|
I keep warning you. Doors and corners, kid. That's where they get you. Humans are too fucking stupid to listen. Well, you'll learn your lessons soon enough, and it's not my job to nursemaid the species through the next steps.
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James S.A. Corey |
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7545ad9
|
He remembered the old-timers from his navy days. Grizzled lifers who could soundly sleep while two meters away their shipmates played a raucous game of poker or watched the vids with the volume all the way up. Back then he'd assumed it was just learned behavior, the body adapting so it could get enough rest in an environment that never really had downtime. Now he wondered if those vets found the constant noise preferable. A way to keep thei..
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navy
military
ptsd
trauma
|
James S.A. Corey |
|
54cb594
|
The circle of life on Ceres was so small you could see the curve.
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James S.A. Corey |
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a399952
|
Every great nation, they said, was founded on a knife and a lie.
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James S.A. Corey |
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c92dd40
|
Thing about civilization, it's what keeps people civil. You get rid of one, you can't count on the other.
|
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James S.A. Corey |
|
e81e917
|
When Holden pointed out that the Roci was already capable of accelerating fast enough to kill her crew and asked why they'd need to upgrade her, Amos had replied, "Because this shit is awesome." Holden had just nodded and smiled and paid the bill. Even"
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James S.A. Corey |
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ebe4607
|
Aw, you goddammed bastards! They're shootin' him while he's down! Son of a bitch!" The ship stopped moving, and Alex said in a quiet voice, "Suck on this, asshole." The ship vibrated for half a second, then paused before continuing toward the lock. "Point defense cannons?" Holden asked. "Summary roadside justice," Alex grunted back."
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|
space-combat
retribution
military
|
James S.A. Corey |
|
93c8f2d
|
Intellectually, he knew he wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice himself or his happiness to save everyone else. But that didn't stop the tiny voice at the back of his head that said, Fuck everyone else, I want my girlfriend back.
|
|
|
James S.A. Corey |
|
1a5fe31
|
Could we please not assault the patient with the crushed spinal cord," she said as she did, "because this makes me very uncomfortable."
|
|
|
James S.A. Corey |
|
3a1e146
|
Holden shot him in the throat. Somewhere in his brain stem, Detective Miller nodded in approval.
|
|
|
James S.A. Corey |
|
dd87f20
|
He'd read accounts of extravehicular euphoria, but the experience was unlike anything he'd imagined. He was the eye of God, drinking in the light of infinite stars, and he was a speck of dust on a speck of dust, clipped by his mag boots to the body of a ship unthinkably more powerful than himself, and unimportant before the face of the abyss.
|
|
|
James S.A. Corey |
|
eaab746
|
A guy I once knew tried to justify his life choices to me by comparing himself to Genghis Khan." "I take it you didn't find his argument compelling?" Murtry asked with a smirk. "No," Holden said. "And then a friend of mine shot him in the face." "An ironic rebuttal to an argument about necessary violence." "I thought so too, at the time."
|
|
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James S.A. Corey |
|
829f0d3
|
He felt the decision like a seed crystal giving form to the chaos around it, solid, hard, resolute. Desperation, mourning, and a million farewells, one to the other. The word quarantine came to him, and with the logic of dreams, it carried an unsupportable weight of horror. But within it, like the last voice in Pandora's box, the promise of reunion. One day, when the solution was found, everything that had been lost would be regained. The g..
|
|
|
James S.A. Corey |
|
d131240
|
The concrete replaces the forest. You get in its way, you get paved over. If you can find a way to live in the cracks, you can thrive anywhere. There were always cracks.
|
|
forest
|
James S.A. Corey |
|
bf59566
|
She preferred the times when she could pretend that she was in a gravity well to the little reminders that she was the puppet of acceleration and inertia.
|
|
gravity-well
spaceships
inertia
space-travel
gravity
|
James S.A. Corey |
|
29e603b
|
The moral high ground is a lovely place. It won't stop a missile, though. It won't alter the trajectory of a gauss round.
|
|
morality
missile
realist
morals
|
James S.A. Corey |
|
17a054a
|
Too many people with too many agendas, and everyone was worried that the other guy would shoot them in the back. Of all the ways to go and meet the God-like alien whatever-they-were that built the protomolecule, this was the stupidest, the most dangerous, and--for Bull's money--the most human.
|
|
|
James S.A. Corey |
|
dc50762
|
So are you conscious?" The alien robot--the skin the Miller construct was using--shrugged. It was strange how well the gesture translated. "Don't know. Seems like I'm acing my Turing test, though."
|
|
|
James S.A. Corey |
|
a55d4c9
|
Alex said. "This is Medina Station under occupation by a bunch of splinter Martian military expats. It's not Baltimore." Amos' smile was as placid as always. "Everywhere's Baltimore."
|
|
|
James S.A. Corey |
|
69b33f4
|
Trashy people puke," Tilly said. "Ladies are unwell."
|
|
puke
trashy
unwell
vomit
|
James S.A. Corey |
|
13aa3ee
|
The same beautiful bullshit that everyone told themselves. That they were special. That they mattered. That some vast intelligence behind the curtains of reality cared what happened to them. And in all the history of the species, they'd all died anyway. "Attention,"
|
|
|
James S.A. Corey |
|
0fb3fba
|
It's all fun and games till someone shoots back, Holden thought.
|
|
|
James S.A. Corey |
|
c0964de
|
Yeah," Chris said. "I lose a couple limbs getting drunk and falling into harvesting combine, I'm an idiot. I lose the same limbs because I happened to be standing next to the right door when the ship was damaged, I'm a hero."
|
|
humor
sarcasm
|
James S.A. Corey |
|
7b5ddd5
|
Rebecca Byers, the comm officer on duty, could have been bred from a shark and a hatchet.
|
|
|
James S.A. Corey |