"How, O Scanners, are habermans made?"
"They are made with the cuts. The brain is cut from the heart, the lungs. The brain is cut from the ears, the nose. The brain is cut from the mouth, the belly. The brain is cut from desire, and pain. The brain is cut from the world. Save for the eyes. Save for the control of the living flesh."
"And how, O Scanners, is flesh controlled?"
"By the boxes set in the flesh, the controls set in the chest, the signs made to rule the living body, the signs by which the body lives."
"How does a haberman live and live?"
"The haberman lives by control of the boxes."
"Whence come the habermans?"
Martel felt in the coming response a great roar of broken voices echoing through the room as the Scanners, habermans themselves, put sound behind their mouthings:
"Habermans are the scum of Mankind. Habermans are the weak, the cruel, the credulous, and the unfit. Habermans are the sentenced-to-more-than-death. Habermans live in the mind alone. They are killed for Space but they live for Space. They master the ships that connect the earths. They live in the Great Pain while ordinary men sleep in the cold cold sleep of the transit."
"Brothers and Scanners, I ask you now: are we habermans or are we not?"