We are created for precisely this sort of suffering. In the end, it is all we are, those limpid tide pools of… — Dan Simmons

Sol remembered the dream, remembered his daughter’s hug, and realized that in the end—when all else is dust—loyalty to those we love is all we can carry with us to the grave.

It was a dramatization of total chaos, a functional definition of confusion, an unchoreographed dance of sad violence. It was war.

The Great Change is when humankind accepts its role as part of the natural order of the universe instead of its role as a cancer.