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Can I cuddle up with you when you sleep?” Sma stopped, detached the creature from her shoulder with one hand and stared it in the face. “What?” “Ju… - Iain Banks
" "Can I cuddle up with you when you sleep?”
Sma stopped, detached the creature from her shoulder with one hand and stared it in the face. “What?”
“Just for chumminess’ sake,” the little thing said, yawning wide and blinking. “I’m not being rude; it’s a good bonding procedure.”
Sma was aware of Skaffen-Amtiskaw glowing red just behind her. She brought the yellow and brown device closer to her face. “Listen, Xenophobe — ”
“Xeny.”
“Xeny. You are a million-ton starship. A Torturer class Rapid Offensive Unit. Even — ”
“But I’m demilitarized!”
“Even without your principle armament, I bet you could waste planets if you wanted to — ”
“Aw, come on; any silly GCU can do that!”
“So what’s all this shit for?” She shook the furry little remote drone, quite hard. Its teeth chattered.
“It’s for a laugh!” it cried. “Sma, don’t you appreciate a joke?”
“I don’t know. Do you appreciate being drop-kicked back to the accommodation area?”
“Ooh! What’s your problem, lady? Have you got something against small furry animals, or what?” Look Ms. Sma, I know very well I’m a ship, and I do everything I’m asked to do — including taking you to this frankly rather fuzzily specified destination — and do it very efficiently, too. If there was the slightest sniff of any real action, and I had to start acting like a warship, this construct in your hands would go lifeless and limp immediately, and I’d battle as ferociously and decisively as I’ve been trained to. Meanwhile, like my human colleagues, I amuse myself harmlessly. If you really hate my current appearance, all right; I’ll change it; I’ll be an ordinary drone, or just a disembodied voice, or talk to you through Skaffen-Amtiskaw here, or through your personal terminal. The last thing I want is to offend a guest.”
Sma pursed her lips. She patted the thing on its head and sighed. “Fair enough.”
“I can keep this shape?”
“By all means.”
“Oh goody!” It squirmed with pleasure, then opened its big eyes wide and looked hopefully at her. “
English
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About Iain Banks
Iain Menzies Banks (February 16, 1954 – June 9, 2013), officially Iain Banks, was a Scottish writer. As Iain M. Banks he wrote science fiction; as Iain Banks he wrote literary fiction.
Biography information from Wikiquote
Also Known As
Alternative Names:
Iain M. Banks
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Iain Menzies Banks
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Additional quotes by Iain Banks
Sex was an infringement, an attack, an invasion; there was no other way he could see it; every act, however magical and intensely enjoyed, and however willingly conducted, seemed to carry a harmonic of rapacity. He took her, and however much she gained in provoked pleasure and in his own increasing love, she was still the one that suffered the act, had it played out upon her and inside her. He was aware of the absurdity of trying too hard to develop the comparison between sex and war; he had been laughed out of several embarrassing situations trying to do so (“Zakalwe,” she would say when he tried to explain some of this, and she would put her cool slim fingers behind his neck and stare out from the rambunctious black tangle of her hair. “You have serious problems.” She would smile), But the feelings, the acts, the structure of the two were to him so close, so self-evidently akin, that such a reaction only forced him deeper into his confusion.
Filhyn smiled. “Is it not always better to tell the truth though, Representative?”
Errun looked at her, shook his head. “The truth? No matter what? For good or ill? Are you mad? I do hope you’re having a joke with me here, young lady….Don’t pretend you are so naive, Filhyn. The truth is not always useful, not always good. It’s like putting your faith in water. Yes, we need the rain, but too much can sweep you away in a flood and drown you. Like all great natural, elemental forces, the truth needs to be channelled, managed, controlled and intelligently, morally allocated.” He glared at her. “You are having a joke with me, aren’t you?”
I might as well be, she thought. She wondered if she would finally be a real politician when she agreed with what Errun was saying.
I won't miss waiting for the next financial disaster because we haven't dealt with the underlying causes of the last one. Nor will I be disappointed not to experience the results of the proto-fascism that's rearing its grisly head right now. It's the utter idiocy, the sheer wrong-headedness of the response that beggars belief. I mean, your society's broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No let's blame the people with no power and no money and these immigrants who don't even have the vote, yeah it must be their fucking fault.
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