“On a scale from one to ten,” Captain Krasnitsky muttered, “I give this trip a negative four hundred.”

“This just gets worse and worse," Rob Pierre sighed as he skimmed Leonard Boardman's synopsis of his latest gleanings from the Solarian League reporters covering the PRH. "How can one person—one person, Oscar!—do this much damage? She's like some damned elemental force of nature!""Harrington?" Oscar Saint-Just quirked an eyebrow and snorted harshly at Pierre's nodded confirmation."She's just happened to be in the right places—or the wrong ones, I suppose, from our perspective—for the last, oh, ten years or so. That's the official consensus from my analysts, at least. The other theory, which seems to have been gaining a broader following of late, is that she's in league with the Devil.”

“Oh, hell," Thandi muttered, her heart lower than ever. "I really blew it, didn't I?""Don't be silly," Berry scolded. "It's just your first lovers' spat. You accused of him of being an inhuman fiend, and he got a little miffed. No big deal.”

“Your Grace," she said, "I have only one question. Do you wish this man crippled, or dead?”

“I have been to the speed of God, sir...and I discommend it.”

“Shall I show him in or tell him to go find a short and unpleasant route to hell?”

“Oh, bother!,” said Pooh, as Piglet came back from the dead.”