I’m just saying that right now we could all use a degree of perspective. Because this is not the end of the world. - Alastair Reynolds

By and large these attempts to rewrite history were not taken seriously, but it was disconcerting to hear that they had gained even a toehold.

I worry that it's me they're really after." "You don't exist. At the risk of wounding your ego, not everyone in the known universe is obsessed with you and your secret history.

Once, they would have meant something to Svetlana, but now all she felt was a faint prickly of recollection. Fluency with mathematics—in the context of any kind of engineering discipline or physical science—was a use-it-or-lose-it skill.