Strange Dogs (The Expanse, #6.5)

by James S.A. Corey

Bright-blue dots like fireflies fluttered and spun in the air as the first of the doglike things came out of the trees.

All names were like that. A shorthand so people could talk about things. Laconia was only Laconia because they called it that. Before they’d come, it had been nameless. Or if not, the things that had named it were all dead now, so it didn’t matter.

A sense of peace crept over her, and it felt like the world had sat beside her, opened its own lunch bag, and was just being with her.

Going away from a point, there were any number of paths, and all of them were right. Going back to the point, most paths were wrong.

like every muscle that fired had been thought about for a fraction of a second first.