There is mystery here, but a soft, sure mystery that is understood and only remains a mystery because I want it so. The mystery of the nighthawk agai… - Clifford D. Simak

Pues esto no es nada risible. Se trata sólo de un arco y una flecha, pero no es risible. Pudo haberlo sido en otro tiempo, pero la historia destruyó la comicidad de muchas cosas. Si el arco es un chiste, también lo es entonces la bomba atómica y lo mismo el polvo pestífero que barrió ciudades enteras, y lo mismo el cohete sibilante que se eleva y cae a quince mil kilómetros de distancia matando a un millón de personas.

"I can't go back," said Towser.
"Nor I," said Fowler.
"They would turn me back into a dog," said Towser.
"And me," said Fowler, "back into a man."

Ulysses, he thought, had not told him all the truth about the Talisman. He had told him that it had disappeared and that the galaxy was without it, but he had not told him that for many years its power and glory had been dimmed by the failure of its custodian to provide linkage between the people and the force. And all that time the corrosion occasioned by that failure had eaten away at the bonds of the galactic cofraternity.