Even the straightest path has two directions.

The multiverse, she said, was like an old library whose shelves were packed with books arranged by a cataloguing system that ranked them according to similarity, each book containing within its covers a story that varied only slightly from the stories of its immediate neighbours, but by increasing degrees from those of increasingly distant books.

Keeping the human race in check must require a lot of multitasking.

The tug of the lodestar slowly grew stronger until, with an abrupt quantum jump, it was a physical force prying at her mind. She felt everything else fall away, felt the same out-of-body swoon she’d experienced on First Foot when she’d stared too long at the star at the edge of the Badlands. Felt as if she was expanding beyond her body the room the ship into everywhere …

We go in there and we work on altering those ideas and in many cases go in different directions.

To go north, you must go south. To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward, you must go back. To touch the light, you must pass beneath the shadow.