She was a student of history, valued the lessons of it. The worst atrocities began with half-measures, with apologies, compromising with the wrong si… - C. J. Cherryh

The worst atrocities began with half-measures, with apologies, compromising with the wrong side, shrinking from what had to be done.

A lot of new money — paid out in the least educated provinces, to elect fools who’ll take orders, who can only see ways to entrench themselves and make sure contracts go to the right companies. Some of these fools are evident, and shrewd country-folk keep voting them in because the powers in their districts might buy one ten times worse and far more subtle.

He had no wish to be killed by a bogle in which he resolutely did not believe.

What the probe had found was a star with reasonable possibilities for encouraging life; a belt of debris, including particles, planetoids, irregular chunks somewhat under planet size with interesting implications for systemic formation, and a planetary companion with its own system of debris and moons...A planet desolate, baked, forbidding. It was no Eden, no second Earth, no better than what existed in the sun’s own system, and it was a far journey to have gone to find that out. The press grappled with questions it could not easily grasp itself, sought after something to give the viewers, lost interest quickly. If anything, there were questions raised about cost, vague and desperate comparisons offered to Columbus, and the press hared off quickly onto a political crisis in the Mediterranean, much more comprehensible and far bloodier.