The Long Game (The Far Reaches, #4)

by Ann Leckie

“Some people die because they’ve been too badly injured to heal. Some people die because monsters eat them. Some people just . . . get crazy and mean and have trouble talking and moving, and eventually they just curl up and scream for a long time and then they die.”

“We got here, found you. And we found, not just life, but intelligent life. Not that the company cared about that—or even the government. But word got back to earth that not only was there intelligent life here, but it was squishy knee-high creatures in pretty colors that ate plants, and so it became a question of publicity.”

Go back to your colony. Build your algae pools, forage with your friends, and play with the infants. That’s what you’ve got; that’s all anyone gets in the end.

“The humans have a thing they call the long game. Most humans, just like people, are usually just thinking of today. What can they eat today? How can they stay safe today? But then sometimes they’re thinking way ahead, thinking of things too big for them to do here and now. It’s how they’ve done things like go into the sky or read the instructions of life.”