Creation.… It is its own nemesis. Success is temporary, and idolization will not make the ephemeral permanent. Decay is implicit in the birth of any … - Jack Williamson

Two weeks passed, by the time of the ship—physiological time, that measured by heartbeats and all bodily rhythms, in which the span of life moved relentlessly toward its end, regardless of motion backward or forward along the time dimension.

He certainly didn’t feel insane, he reflected—but then did any lunatic, ever?

“I go where I wish,” Horn had said, there at the base of the cliff.
And the ancient Mr. Wu had replied, “So we think, so we think. In the middle of things we see no pattern. But as we look back and view the picture whole, we realize how men are moved about by forces they do not suspect. The pieces fall into place. The pattern is clear.”
In other words, when somebody moves, something has pushed.
Choice. Where had there been choice?