The small launch bay was littered with debris. A powerful breeze tore at his black silk shirt as Kilroy made his way across it to the waiting shuttle, evoking a feeling like the fingers of fate were caressing his body. __he Hammer_ stepped over the body of one of his fallen crew without a trace of care or concern. The air was rushing past him, like a wind, out into space through the wounds in the side of his ship. Fatigued and desperate, the Hammer was running out of options. His ship was a mess, holed in a dozen places, the life support systems failing. Weakened hull sections were collapsing in pressure bursts. The vibrations that shook the deck beneath him now were not from the engines that once drove her forward, but now from the explosions down below, tearing her apart.

Magnus's ship would sail that night...His interest in the ship and his thoughts of an adventure to come made him regret his departure less, but even so, he stood at the rail as the ship departed into the night waters.

Many writers make the mistake of making their readers appear like Lazarus, without any iota of care, throwing down books to readers to crunch as if they are dogs.

It is easy to identify a shallow person by the attention he gives to what will do him absolutely no good.

I cannot here withhold the statement that optimism, where it is not merely the thoughtless talk of those who harbor nothing but words under their shallow foreheads, seems to me to be not merely an absurd, but also a really wicked, way of thinking, a bitter mockery of the most unspeakable sufferings of mankind.

Inevitably, though, there will always be a significant part of the past which can neither be burnt nor banished to the soothing limbo of forgetfulness_ myself. I was and still am that same ship which carried me to the new shore, the same vessel containing all the memories and dreams of the child in the brick house with the toy tea set. I am the shore I left behind as well as the home I return to every evening. The voyage cannot proceed without me.