Venus was a machine for making bad weather. - Alastair Reynolds

Hallucination doesn’t preclude a rational response to that same hallucination.

You owned the world when you were a young man, felt it like it was fashioned to fit your hands. You could do anything with it you wanted to. But the world kept changing, and sooner or later there came a day when it didn’t feel like you were the one the world was interested in any more.

Still don't trust us?" "First rule of complex systems," I said. "You can't tell friends from enemies.