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Civilisations beyond number had risen from obscurity, considering themselves masters of all creation, before fading back into the footnotes of history.

Auger could not help marvelling at the experience of being inside the ALS sphere and seeing her world as it should have been. This was an earth that had never known nuclear war, or runaway climatic catastrophe, or smart weather, or a Nanocaust. The sight of it made her want to weep. No image had ever come close to the heartbreaking beauty of this small blue world, a beauty all the more acute now that she knew how exquisitely fragile it was. It was the beauty of a butterfly’s wing.

“I’m hearing a lot of reasons why someone wouldn’t hold a grudge against us,” Campion said.

Betony looked sympathetic. “Then you misunderstand human nature, my dear fellow. People will hate us simply for being what we are: a force for good, for benign non-interference. The mere fact that we haven’t dirtied our hands, that we’ve maintained an unblemished reputation—that’s enough to make someone detest us.”

“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.”

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.”

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.”

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 because they could not accept that single unpalatable truth.

People lived and died and did strange, pointless things to themselves. So did societies, be they city-sized states or galactic empires encompassing thousands of solar systems. Everything came and went, everything was new and bright with promise once and old and worn out later, and everything left a small, diminishing stain on eternity, a mark that time would eventually erase.

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.