A Closed and Common Orbit

Life is terrifying. None of us have a rule book. None of us know what we're doing here. So, the easiest way to stare reality in the face and not utterly lose your shit is to believe that you have control over it. If you believe you have control, then you believe you're at the top. And if you're at the top, then people who aren't like you... well, they've got to be somewhere lower, right? Every species does this. Does it again and again and again. Doesn't matter if they do it to themselves, or another species, or someone they created.

All of you do this. Every organic sapient I’ve ever talked to, every book I’ve read, every piece of art I’ve studied. You are all desperate for purpose, even though you don’t have one. You’re animals, and animals don’t have a purpose. Animals just are. And there are a lot of intelligent – sentient, maybe – animals out there who don’t have a problem with that. They just go on breathing and mating and eating each other without a second thought. But the animals like you – the ones who make tools and build cities and itch to explore, you all share a need for purpose. For reason. That thinking worked well for you, once. When you climbed down out of the trees, up out of the ocean – knowing what things were for was what kept you alive. Fruit is for eating. Fire is for warmth. Water is for drinking. And then you made tools, which were for certain kinds of fruit, for making fire, cleaning water. Everything was for something, so obviously, you had to be for something too, right? All of your histories are the same, in essence. They’re all stories of animals warring and clashing because you can’t agree on what you’re for, or why you exist.

At the core, you’ve got to get university certification for parenting, just as you do for, say, being a doctor or an engineer. No offence to you or your species, but going into the business of creating life without any sort of formal prep is . . .’ He laughed. ‘It’s baffling. But then, I’m biased.

I love learning. I love history. But there's history in everything. Every building, everybody you talk to. It's not limited to libraries and museums. I think people who spend their lives in school forget that sometimes. -Tak

Are we going for an anchor or a compass? A memory to ground you, or a spark to guide you forward?

And seriously, anybody working in a job that doesn’t let you take a nap when you need to should get a new job.

Owl had said it was important to know how swearing worked, and it was okay under the right circumstances, but that Jane shouldn’t swear all the time. Jane definitely swore all the time. She didn’t know why, but swearing felt fucking great.

The planet was beautiful. The planet was horrible. The planet was full of people, and they were beautiful and horrible, too.

There are few better ways to get to know how a species thinks than to learn their art.

Owl had been good to her. She stayed on the screen by the bed all day, and she taught Jane about something called music, which was a weird bunch of sounds that had no point but made things feel a little better.

You are all desperate for purpose, even though you don’t have one. You’re animals, and animals don’t have a purpose. Animals just are. And there are a lot of intelligent - sentient, maybe - animals out there who don’t have a problem with that. They just go on breathing and mating and eating each other without a second thought. But the animals like you - the ones who make tools and build cities and itch to explore, you all share a need for purpose. For reason . That thinking worked well for you, once.

It was hard to play it cool when you wore your heart on your face.

When I see the ocean, I feel calm. It makes me want to’ – to keep eating candy – ‘to keep going. To keep trying new things. To keep living.

There were dozens of stars. Dozens of dozens, way too many to count, just like her questions.

in that moment, she could feel a bridge stretching between her as she was right then – giggling and gasping in a spaceship kitchen – to her at four years old, sucking algae gunk from her nails in the dark. She felt as though she could reach out to that little girl and pull her through the years. Look, she’d say. Look who you’re gonna be. Look where you’re gonna go.

Possessing knowledge and performing an action are two entirely different processes.

She was glad to have met someone who liked to read.

As long as I have food in my belly and can buy dumb stuff to decorate my house with, it doesn’t matter whether people are paying me the same amount every time.

You break rules all the time.’ ‘I break laws. That’s different.

So, tattooing . . . you’ve got a picture in your mind, then you put it on your body. You make a hazy imagining into a tangible part of you. Or, to flip it around, you want a reminder of something, so you put it on your body, where it’s a real, touchable thing. You see the thing on your body, you remember it in your mind, then you touch it on your body, you remember why you got it, what you were feeling then, and so on, and so on. It’s a re-enforcing circle. You’re reminded that all these separate pieces are part of the whole that comprises you.

All of your histories are the same, in essence. They’re all stories of animals warring and clashing because you can’t agree on what you’re for, or why you exist.

I love learning. I love history. But there’s history in everything. Every building, everybody you talk to. It’s not limited to libraries and museums. I think people who spend their lives in school forget that sometimes.

Everybody’s history is one long slog of all the horrible shit we’ve done to each other.

I do.’ Pepper nodded seriously. ‘I’d like the left side of the menu, please.

If I'm nothing more than a tool, then I must have a purpose. Tools have purposes, right? But I'm more than that...I know that I'm more than a tool. I know I'm a person, even if the GC doesn't think so. I have to be a person, because I don't need a purpose and not having one drives me crazy.

I don’t care about your task. That’s not what’s important. That should never have been the most important thing. What’s important is that you were good girls who – who found out how wrong things are. And you died, and you were probably scared when it happened. That’s so unfair, and I am so, so angry about it. I wish you had been here so we could’ve helped each other. I wish we could’ve been friends. Maybe we could’ve gotten out of here together.

They'd strapped themselves into this explosive hunk of scrap and aimed for the sky. How was this a good idea? How had anyone ever thought this was a good idea?