Words&Dirt

“The ‘Blight,’ that was the other common name for the Perversion, and closer to Old One’s view. For all the Perversion’s transcendence, its life style was more similar to a disease than anything else. Maybe that had helped to fool Old One. But now Pham could see: the Blight lived in pieces, across extraordinary reaches of time. It hid in archives, waiting for ideal conditions. And it had created helpers for its blooming…”

––A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge, loc. 6189-97

“She turned a head to Steel, and her voice was joy. ‘I soar!‘ She ran through the cowering workers, ran toward the south and the west walls. She was everywhere, spreading and spreading. These seconds would make memories that would outlast her soul, that would be legends in the minds of her descendents a thousand years from now.”

––A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge, loc. 6475