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“She said, “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you? The Great Judge always orders the death of the leaders of the territory he takes over. I want you to know that I am ready for death, but I wish to make one request of my conqueror.” It was not the moment to disillusion her about her fate. But there was no doubt that she was in a melodramatic state. He guessed he was about to have some sort of emotional appeal made to him. He said, in an even voice, “Any reasonable request, which does not conflict with my instructions, will be granted to your highness.” She came toward him, swaying a little, and there was a hint of imminent tears in the way she held her mouth, and in her voice, as she said, “General, to you this conquest of Jorgia may only be an episode, but for me it is the end of an era. In my death throes, I have wild thoughts about many things. To me, being the conquered is laden with symbolic meanings, and somehow the conqueror is interwoven into these symbols. I am woman, conquered, and you are man, conqueror. Although I had no more than a fleeting glimpse of you . . . earlier . . . I had then the feeling of fear and hate . . . and love.” He didn’t have to lock the door. That had been done automatically on his earlier instructions. He lifted the woman lightly into his arms and carried her into the bedroom. The fire that was in her made her reach for him. She had strength, this woman, at this moment, as she grasped at him and pulled him down. In the pale light of dawn, they lay side by side, exhausted but not asleep, and she said, “You’ll never forget me, will you?” “Never,” said Marin. “You may kill me now,” she said, sighing. “I feel a rightness in me. The defect is consummated.” And he thought, wonderingly, Perhaps it had been two condemned people clutching at a last fling of life. For, unless he could find a solution to his problem, he was really condemned. And she thought she was.”

FateCondemnationRape Is Not Death
Book:The Mind Cage
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“Morton came up out of the depths of his chair. ‘And what about this basic human characteristic, of which religion is merely an outward expression ?’ The stranger made a gesture. ‘Silkey, exhibiting freaks, was really exhibiting himself. Religion is self-dramatization before a god. Self-love, narcissism — in our own little way we show ourselves off . . . and so a strange being could come into our midst unsuspected.”

ReligionHuman Nature
Book:The Far-Out Worlds of A. E. van Vogt
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“Wait!” he told himself, “give it time. After all, a human being is complex and probably responds slowly.” He was still thinking that when a voice said right into his ears, “Emergency report: power be now used by a not known unit.” Marin jumped involuntarily and turned his head. The shock of that voice was throbbing inside him as he twisted his head and looked around wildly for the speaker. Except for the silent form, on the floor beside him, the laboratory was empty. Before he could think about that, a second voice said, “Directional find —did be find interfere unit—Group 814 area.” There was a pause, and once more Marin gazed around the room. It was still deserted. His mind began to work. He thought, Why, they’re speaking straight into my brain. Mental telepathy. But how—what? That was as far as he got. A third voice said, “No contact be possible. Receiving unit be human person. Further operation command be now necessary and include more data.” Other sensations—not verbal—were coming now. They seemed to be more on the level of automatic processes, partly below consciousness. Marin could feel a tugging at what seemed to be the base of his brain, and then, vaguely, stirrings inside his body: changes taking place, readjustments of functions, tiny manipulations of his glands and cells. The contact was as deep and thorough as that.”

PatienceTelepathyTranshumanism
Book:The Mind Cage
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“Hypnosis, mental control from a distance, weird use of electronic circuits directly onto the brains of human beings—we just couldn’t take any chances with most of the people who were connected even indirectly. I could tell you how many people were killed, but you wouldn’t like the figures. They sound unpleasant in the very total. But even as it was, we took pity on some of them, and merely keep an eye on them, or otherwise control them or their descendants.” Marin thought of Riva, and now the picture was clear indeed. Her story and his account fitted rather well. The only thing was that she would never know how narrowly she and her mother had escaped death. It would actually have been simpler to destroy them. The number of dead must be large for two men like the Great Judge and Slater to have finally paused in their executioner’s role and made alleviations.”

MercyTyrannyHumanitarianismMind ControlTranshumanism
Book:The Mind Cage
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“His mind drifted oddly. . . . . . . Hard to imagine what moment would be right for a rebellion against so powerful an adversary as an immortal dictator. The group in Jorgia might delay their action too long; he couldn’t wait. Marin frowned sleepily. “Did I think that?” He had not ever before even considered rebellion. And what was that about a Jorgian group? Could it be that, just for an instant, here at the edge of sleep, a Trask plan had slipped through to his consciousness? But why rebellion? It didn’t fit. A man who could shift his awareness and his identity from one body to another didn’t need revolutions. Besides, it would be impossible. The group idea, combined with free enterprise, and pregnant with great ideas, was just beginning to take hold. Like a giant, it strode over the land, crushing all resistance and simultaneously inspiring hope. At such moments men did not listen easily to voices that warned against faraway disaster or urged the possibility of even greater creativity. Again his mind wandered. If they don’t act, he thought, I’ll have to act on my own. He felt relieved that he hadn’t told anyone of his invention. And so, all by himself, he was able to act—on the greatest scale. Marin slept uneasily, and his dreams were vague yet purposeful. He seemed to be permeated with secret plans that were not his own.”

ActionRebellionDictatorshipMind ControlThe Secret Of Evil
Book:The Mind Cage
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“The effect of that was startling. Tears came into his son’s eyes. Silently, the young man shook his hand. Afterward—after the interview was over— Marin thought, What kind of future will we have, with an entire generation of over-emotional young people just now coming of age? He visualized future groups filled with adults who had been virtually fatherless in their childhood and youth—tearful people by the million influencing the pattern of group law on the basis of their own inner need for the missing male parent. Was that a true picture? he wondered. If it were, it did not augur well for the future of the land. While he waited for take-off time, he found himself uneasy and unhappy. The fact was he didn’t know what had been happening during his absence. They would unquestionably have turned on the pain circuit, the moment they discovered the connection between Trask and Group 814. The area covered would gradually be extended; better get drugs he could take when the rocket ship landed. He’d stand the pain until his arrival. He didn’t wish to appear doped before the officers who would meet him. As it turned out, the ship was already past the apex of its climb when, abruptly, he felt the stab of pain through his shoulder. As he silently fought the agony, one thing was clear to Marin: the crisis had arrived.”

CrisisSimulationBoomersMillenialsSentimentalismFather FiguresOver Emotive
Book:The Mind Cage
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“For Marin, the city had an almost medieval look. The effect was belied by the swarms of hopjets, and Taxi-Airs, and other aircraft, large and small. But his training had sharpened his ability to shut out extraneous material and to see essentials; and so, he saw a city pattern that had a formal, oldfashioned beauty. The squares were too rigid, but their widely varying sizes provided some of the randomness so necessary to achieve what was timeless in true art. The numerous parks, perpetually green and rich with orderly growth, gave an overall air of graceful elegance. The city of the Great Judge looked prosperous and long-enduring. Ahead, the scene changed, darkened, became alien. The machine glided forward over a vast, low-built, rambling gray mass of suburb that steamed and smoked, and here and there hid itself in its own rancorous mists. Pripp City! Actually, the word was Pripps: Preliminary Restriction Indicated Pending Permanent Segregation. It was one of those alphabetical designations, and an emotional nightmare to have all other identification removed and to find yourself handed a card which advised officials that you were under the care of the Pripps organization. The crisis had been long ago now, more than a quarter of a century, but there was a line in fine print at the bottom of each card. A line that still made the identification a potent thing, a line that stated: Bearer of this card is subject to the death penalty if found outside restricted area. In the beginning it had seemed necessary. There had been a disease, virulent and deadly, perhaps too readily and too directly attributed to radiation. The psychological effects of the desperate terror of thousands of people seemed not to have been considered as a cause. The disease swept over an apathetic world and produced merciless reaction: permanent segregation, death to transgressors, and what seemed final evidence of the rightness of what had been done: people who survived the disease . . . changed.”

PandemicsMarginalizationGhettoesApharteid
Book:The Mind Cage
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