"Of course, laws weren’t always just. Some rules outlawed a thing because it was intrinsically bad: child molestation, say. Other rules made harmless activities crimes only because someone wished them to be so. Take cohabitation on a religious holiday. On some worlds, it was legal on one day, illegal the next, and on the third, okay once again. Khadaji could see no moral dilemma there."

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“Could he use the same excuse as the Confed—the end justified the means? Sometimes it did, of course, but could one ethically justify using the same methods as a deplored enemy, in order to get it to stop?”

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“He had thought about it. Mostly, after the fantasies, he had let it go. It was done, history. No point in bumping into the furniture while looking back over your shoulder.”

“The loudest sound on a battle field was click! when you were expecting bang! It was a never-ending wonder: What was going to go wrong next?”

“Rich people seldom run amok; They hire somebody to do that for them.”

“Desire, she realized, was a thick fog that could completely obscure reality.”

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