I understand so very little. But I am not afraid to look: I am a good observer at last. My eyes are open, and I am not afraid. - Robert Charles Wilson

To whom had he retailed his conscience, Sandra wondered, and what was the going price these days?

Goddamn you," Jacob said.
"There's no damnation, Jacob. No Heaven but the forest and no God but the hive.

His fertility cycles meant little to him. In his lifetime, he knew, he might make only one or two real contributions to the City’s genetic continuity, his viral gametes combining with others in the bodies of the night feeders to become morphologically active. It was abstractly pleasing, though, to realize he had cast his own essence into the ocean of probability, where it might come floating back unknown to him, as a fresh citizen with new and unique ideas and odors.