I gather we’re not the most craven species in the galaxy, but we’re not the most angelic by a long shot. - Robert Charles Wilson

Times like this, with the wind moving the grass and curling around her like a huge cool hand, Tess felt the world as a second presence, as another person, as if the wind and the grass had voices of their own and she could hear them talking.

[There was] only one news channel, overseen by a bland and complexly multicultural board of advisors. It broadcast in fifteen languages and was, as a rule, interesting in none of them.

Some things are taken away from you, some you leave behind—and some you carry with you, world without end.