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Darya had a few moments of wild hope before logic intruded.

Darya was beginning to understand why she might be ruined forever for academic life. Certainly, the world of ideas had its own pleasures and thrills. But surely there was nothing to compete with the wonderful feeling of being alive, after knowing without a shadow of doubt that you would be dead in one second.

Old habits did not just die hard. They refused to die at all.

Trouble comes in a thousand different ways. Not usually anything you expect, either. That’s why it’s trouble.

Theories were a dime a dozen. The partition that separated science and wishful thinking was evidence: observations and firm facts.

Kallik’s explanation was neat, logical, and complete. Like most such explanations, it was, in Hans Rebka’s view, almost certainly wrong. That was not the way the real world operated.

Darya found the logic of her thought processes so compelling that it never occurred to her that others might have a different reaction. But they did.

“How did you do that?”

The Hymenopt inclined her head. “With respect, Professor Lang, great intellectual power, even at the level you possess it, is not always a substitute for humble practical experience.”

Don’t confuse caution with cowardice.

That’s why we want it. Impossible gadgets are always the most valuable.

Once you were committed to a course of action, you didn’t waste your time looking back and second-guessing the decision, because every action in life was taken on the basis of incomplete information. You looked at what you had, and you did all you could to improve the odds; but at some point you had to roll the dice—and live or die with whatever you had thrown.

“Professor Lang’s important work, with all due respect, does not answer that question.”

The knife, sliding in hidden behind the compliment. “With all due respect” meant “with no respect at all.”