Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [90]

Can he believe that any microorganism living in or on her body would have a prayer of surviving and going native in that cold, thin, lethal ghost of an atmosphere? Maybe he can. Secretaries of Astronautics don’t have to know much about science. They have to know about politics. … Theirs is the youngest Cabinet department, and already it’s fighting for its life. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 90

Note

The Mars atmosphere is dismissed in a heap of adjectives that do the work of an argument — ‘cold, thin, lethal ghost’ — and the dodge ‘Maybe he can’ lets contempt land without a raised voice. The whiplash from irony to institutional fact is the whole pattern of Lauren’s thinking.