“Blessed are the lazy,” said Joseph Synczlowieczy, the so-called messiah of the Thirteenth Colony, “because they don’t fight wars, they love the idleness of reading, and indolence feeds the ingenuity necessary to preserve it.” Somebody laughed from the aisles, but others hung around to listen to him willingly, rolled up like doughnuts on their gravity-controlled gurneys in the rehabilitation ward....

For the third trial, AmaBaba flies me and John to their Seattle headquarters. That way, he and their boxing computer will have the same lag between conducting a virtual maneuver and a bot actually performing it. I suppose they could have brought the computer and us to the warehouse, where the lag would be minimized, but AmaBaba probably wants to maintain a home field advantage—as well as not go all the way to Bessemer, Alabama....

The moon shone green below us. It wasn’t far now. I really ought to have prepared for insertion, but I had difficulty tearing myself away from that powerful vista. There was something captivating about the unending forests. At the same time, I was aware of what awaited us there....

Yellow is the breath of the dying. On the seventh day after Dandan drank the paraquat—a pesticide that had recently become tragically popular for suicide attempts, as well as the cause of too many accidental ingestions by children—her skin grew sallow and her breathing grew rapid and weak....

The Third Incubation of Peacocks, afternoon. I write this from a lily pad floating on the North Pole. I came here to ponder mushrooms; I find it helpful to think about dark things in bright places. Kaida has scolded me for wading in the algae pools, and I understand how important they are to our oxygen cycle....

So, after my grandfather conquered Belloq IV, and my father subjugated the entire Karolian Empire, it was my turn. Of course, I’d known it for years. You don’t grow up as the eldest male in the bloodiest family in an entire galactic sector and not have some notion of what the future holds for you....