Pushing Ice

The existence theorem says that it is always much easier to find a solution when you can be confident that one exists.

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.

“Is he going to be okay?” Svetlana asked.

“He was dead, Svieta,” Axford said patiently. “Anything else has to count as an improvement.”

“We’ve never lied to you,” McKinley said.

“No,” Bella said, “but you’ve done a damned good job of not correcting any of my assumptions.”

Hallucination doesn’t preclude a rational response to that same hallucination.

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.

Such hopes now seemed ludicrous in their naivety, like trying to stop a bulldozer with a feather.

Some promises are best broken. Trust me on this: I’m a politician.

“There’s still hope.”

But a small, private voice said: there’s hope, and there’s desperation.

“Then all this,” Chromis said, gesturing at the vista before them, “everything we’ve lived for and made, everything we’ve dreamed into existence—you firmly believe it won’t always be here?”

“It’d be egocentric to think otherwise. Almost every sentient being who ever lived belonged to a society that doesn’t exist any more. Why should we be any different?”

“But our deeds will remain.”

“If we’re lucky. There’s every chance they won’t survive either.”

“That’s so bleak, Rudd.”

“Bracing, I prefer to think.”

“But if nothing we do here has any guarantee of lasting, if even the best gestures have only a slim chance of outliving us—is there any reason not to just give up?”

“Every reason in the world,” Rudd said. “We’re here and we’re alive. It’s a beautiful evening, on the last perfect day of summer.” He turned and nodded at the waiting cauls. “Now let’s go down there and make the most of it, while it lasts.”

“Even godlike aliens have to act rationally—don’t they?”

“I wouldn’t know,” she said. “I can’t recall ever meeting any.”

There are certain truths that, in themselves, are as dangerous as any advanced technology.

“The question is: do you trust me?”

“Sometimes.”

Bella smiled. “That’s exactly the right attitude: trust your leaders, but be careful not to trust them too much.”

That was the universe: you could beat it once, you could float a message in a bottle across half of eternity, but the universe would always find a way to have the last laugh.

It was astonishing how quickly friendship could turn to enmity, she thought, like a compass needle swinging from one pole to the other.

They’d been excellent friends. They’d make excellent enemies as well.

There’s a lot here we don’t understand. Adding one more thing to the list doesn’t strike me as the worst crime imaginable.

“You always did think like an engineer, Svieta.”

She nodded. It was only hours later that she realised he had not necessarily meant it as a compliment.

It’s always easier to hate than to forgive, isn’t it?