J. Mauldin’s Reviews > The Foundry > Status Update

“You what?” I pressed. “What do you replace?”
“Each starfaring species who reaches the Foundry is given new, most often better ships to replace their individual creations. We cannot guarantee the safety of all sentient life in the galaxy unless each species is given no advantage.”
“So, a species shows up in their old, busted tin hooptie,” Esteban mused, “and you give ‘em a Porsche?”
“Colloquialism not found.”

“Amigo!” Esteban took a step forward. “You don’t have to do this.”
I couldn’t look back at them.
“We used to be beautiful,” the Jalek mused over my shoulder, raising one of its frail, pink arms in reflection. “So very beautiful.”
The doors hissed shut.

"As far as I knew, a second was always a second, a minute always a minute. But were they really? Were they somehow unequal, our passage of time controlled by the number of thoughts we had during a measurable period? Was this phenomenon like the quantum universe, where time only truly existed when observed? There was either time or no time. Schrödinger’s cat, alive or dead."