If my years as a shatterling had taught me anything, it was that not all questions had answers. Societies had reduced themselves to radioactive dust … - Alastair Reynolds

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.

I wish there was something we could do. But organised structure is the most precious thing in the universe. When it is lost, it is truly lost.

There had been a human soul in that skull only a few hours earlier, and now no authority in the universe could bring her back. We were like monkeys sitting around a fire that had just extinguished, wondering why the warmth and light had gone away.