“Bear in mind, I do not say this strategy is feasible. That we must find out. For example, will Stedman cooperate fully? His nerve may fail him when he imagines facing his God. If he or somebody else becomes unreliable, what can we best do about them? In any event, how do we explain and justify the fact that so many in the Council, in higher echelons everywhere, were not notified and consulted at once? What evidence can we manufacture, what particulars can clever men invent for us?
“The advantage of creating invaders from the stars is that we can then easily attain our objective, a guard at both T machines to wipe out any alien ships the instant they appear. Public opinion will support this, yes, require this, and an end to exploration. But we do risk failure and exposure.
“Maybe the safest course is to destroy Faraday with the rest and make everything look accidental. Or, Inn, we could throw some of the blame onto terrorists. In that case, we must find a different political route, more slow, toward our goal.
“The whole point, Sr. Quick, is that whatever we do, it must not be done timidly. We must have the balls to accept great hazards. Believe me, the danger in shilly-shallying is grossly greater.
“Yes, I must certainly stand by you in these next hours,” Makarov closed.
“You’re saying terrible things,” Quick protested. “Why, some of those you’d kill have been freely helping us.”
“I have heard another English proverb,” Makarov retorted. “`You cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs.’ Is an excellent saying.
“In the past I have found it necessary to sign death sentences of followers who had been valuable. I judged they were beginning to follow me too independently; or they had questionable associates; or – Well, I had a state to rebuild from chaos. How could I investigate every single case?
“For our separate reasons, Sr. Quick, we deem it vital that the human race stay home, carry out its natural tasks, and shun outsiders … at least until it is properly organized to cope with them. Vital. Now in days before cell therapy, what woman hesitated to have a cancerous breast cut off? That harmed her beauty, but she had no choice if she would live, did she?
“Furthermore, Sr. Quick.” Makarov leaned forward. “Furthermore. You are committed. Our whole little organization is. We had an ideal, we stumbled toward it, we made missteps as people always do, and today we are close to ruin. Is our ideal not correct regardless? How well can we continue to serve mankind from a prison?
“Prison it will be, if any strong hint of the facts ever comes out.
Publicity will lead to investigation. Subordinates of ours will seek to save their own hides by tattling on us. Chinook is forcing us beyond the limits of any legal technicalities. We are quite clearly conspiring to violate the Covenant rights of her crew. We have already violated them, by deliberately causing a groundless warrant to be issued for their arrest. From this will spring countless further charges of malfeasance in office. We will be locked away for a long, long time – unless we strike the right blow at once, and strike it hard!”
A part of Quick recalled an essay he had read years before, on how intellectuals are chronically fascinated by violence as an instrumentality –
drawn, repelled, drawn back, as they might be to the idea of sexual relations with a barely pubescent girl or with a sentient nonhuman; it is a kind of xenophilia, and when a conifict of which they approve (and they approve of most) Side 105
Anderson, Poul – Avatar, The does erupt, they take the lead in cheering on the warheads and calling for more soldiers to feed the furnace. At the time he had thought what reactionary nonsense this was. Later, cultivating his fairmindedness, he had had to admit there might be a limited amount of truth to the thesis. Yonder son of a bitch is right in the present context. You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.
Why, you can’t maintain an orderly everyday society without breaking an occasional head.