They had hardly ever spoken of her life before the the day they met in Belém. It was what they had both agreed on, a relationship built on a solid fo… - Alastair Reynolds

We were sowing so much misinformation that some of it came back and bit us.

The universe always feels old, though. That’s a universal truth, a universal fact of life. It felt old for her, already cobwebbed by history. Hard for us to grasp, I know. Human civilisation, it’s just the last scratch on the last scratch on the last scratch, on the last layer of everything. We’re noise. Dirt. We haven’t begun to leave a trace.

Clavain felt little in the way of regret; more a sense of quiet relief that they were past the negotiating stage and into the infinitely more honest arena of actual battle.