Paul J. McAuley

“Many people were bitterly puzzled that the first truly intelligent aliens to be found should be so immediately, unremittingly hostile, but the astronomers shrugged it off. The universe was at best a marginal place for life.”

“Things are simply what they are, neither good nor bad. The potential for evil is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

““We must remember that they are alien.”“That’s hardly a basis for speculation now. It explains everything and nothing.””

““They’re following one bunch of herders. Marta has this idea that she can work out their social behavior.”“Fucking mostly,” Andrew said evenly. The boss female controls the group by choosing which males fuck her, and the males fuck each other, too, to establish their dominance. Rather like the Navy.””

“Zithsa hunter claim they sometimes see man-shaped creatures in the lowlands. Mist demons, the hunters call them, and say that they are the ghosts of the fabled lost race. I say they are half vodka, half imagination.”

“We wish not to be alone in the universe, Dorthy, and this drives people to invent things that are not really there.”

““I read in some of it (the reference is to Shakespeare). It’s not so bad when you get used to it, pretty archaic though. Why do you like old stuff like this?”“It has everything in it, if you look hard enough,” Dorthy said, taking the sheaf. “Love, jealousy, avarice, loyalty, murder, madness...I find it reassuring that human nature is so constant.””

““And now you have had to alter your theory.””Well,” Andrews said, smiling, “that’s science.””

“It was both true, and not the complete truth, like so much of his talk.”

““I didn’t know that you were into politics.”“Anyone with money has to be. Real money, I mean. Even criminals need to keep a politician in their pockets these days.””

“Stay the same and after a while you come to think that nothing will ever change.”