There was no knowing whether they were going to attend a formal dinner tonight – or a firefight.

A cannon shot from a heaving deck and a dish of berries: both had caused the city to change hands.

the old man, who detested humans and every variance from tradition, was insatiably curious about what he deplored.

One should never, ever check the general mail just before bed. It only led to things one did not wish to know and questions that would keep one from honest sleep.

Court bores him, and boredom will turn him sour and warp him. I _know_ this boy . . . I _was_ such a boy.

The space program had brought letters from the certifiably confused, who were convinced that the atmosphere could be punctured, letting all the air out . . .

he was mad because he wanted the world rolled back several hundred years, before telephones, television, computers, and humans falling out of the heavens.

He had _so_ wanted a cat or a dog. Or a dinosaur. Just a little one.

One’s heart beat a little faster. Definitely. Even after a trip on a starship, these landings at the mercy of a planet’s unforgiving mass, involving so much support, involving weather, involving very high-velocity machinery, never became entirely routine.

The news service, we are told, has carried so much rumor about this agreement that truth about it will be news indeed.