It's just the way things are." she shrugged. "It's no one's fault." "Or everyone's.

The world rests upon a turtle, which itself stands on the back of an elephant!” Alek tried not to laugh. “Then what does the elephant stand on, madam?” “Don’t try to be clever, young man.” She narrowed her eyes. “It’s elephants all the way down!

Suddenly a pair of searchlights lanced out from the frigate. They swept across the dark expanse - bright knives slicing the night into pieces.

Maybe she still was a pretty-head, making up irrational stories about the empty forest. The longer she stayed alone out here, the more Tally understood why the Rusties and their predecessors had believed in invisible beings, praying to placate spirits as they trashed the natural world around them.

We're not freaks, Tally. We're normal. We may not be gorgeous, but at least we're not hyped-up Barbie dolls.

She looked at David closely, and the feeling was still there. She could see that his forehead was too high, that a small scar cut a white stroke through his eyebrow. And his smile was pretty crooked, really. But it was as if something had changed inside Tally's head, something that had turned his face pretty to her.

When she awoke, the world was on fire.