I miss it every minute, and I have no wish at all to go back.

Cecil flashed a grin. "Quite. Plus your rather irritating habit of treating your superior officers as your, ah..." Cecil paused, apparently groping again for just the right word. "Equals?" Miles hazarded. "Cattle," Cecil corrected judiciously.

When the souls rise up in glory, yours shall not be shunned nor sunderered, but shall be the prize of the gods' gardens. Even your darkness shall be treasured then, and all your pain made holy.

Any communitys arm of force - military, police, security - needs people in it who can do necessary evil, and yet not be made evil by it. To do only the necessary and no more. To constantly question the assumptions, to stop the slide into atrocity.

Endure pain, find joy, and make your own meaning, because the universe certainly isn't going to supply it.

My dinner party,' Miles grated. 'It's just breaking up.' And sinking. All souls feared lost.

Adversity does teach who your real friends are.