Diaspora

by Greg Egan

Conquering the galaxy is what bacteria with spaceships would do – knowing no better, having no choice.

“I understand.” He let the partial model of her which he’d acquired as they’d made love fade from his mind, leaving only an ordinary, guesswork-driven Elena-symbol, much like those he possessed for everyone else he knew. Paolo took the responsibilities of intimacy seriously; his lover before Elena had asked him to erase all his knowledge of her, and he’d more or less complied – the only thing he still knew about her was the fact that she’d made the request.

“The wonderful thing about hope is that it has absolutely no effect on anything.

“Everything they’ve done has seemed bizarre or ambiguous at first – and then obvious and transparent once we’ve made sense of it.