The pain lessened. With relief, she fell into darkness.
Emma Stoney:
You know, I think I always knew we couldn’t manage to live together. But I think I always dreamed we would get to die together.
But it’s been quite a ride. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, Malenfant. For all the worlds.
Of course there is another possibility. Maybe I should go with the Daemons, off into the manifold. If this really is a manifold of infinite universes, anything is possible. No, strike that — anything that can happen will happen, someplace.
And so there must be one reality where you’re waiting for me. There must be. A whole universe, just for us. Kind of romantic, don’t you think?…
I’m still blown away by what I’ve learned of the Old Ones.
The Old Ones created infinite possibility — infinite opportunities for life, for mind. What higher mission could there be? And what really overwhelms me is that they may have been us. Or at least humans from some variant of our future history. Us: we did this. Think of that.
You’d have loved it, Malenfant. But of course, maybe you already know about it all.
To redesign an infinite ensemble of universes: what terrible responsibility, what arrogance… Maybe they really were us. It sounds just the kind of thing your average Homo sap would do for a dare.
An H. sap like Reid Malenfant.
Is it all your fault? Malenfant, what did you do, out there in the forest of realities?
Time to go. Goodbye, Malenfant, goodbye.
Maxie:
The people walk across the grass. Maxie’s legs are walking. He is following Fire.
The sky is blue. The grass is sparse, yellow. The ground is red under the grass. The people are slim black forms scattered on red-green.
The people call to each other.
“Berry? Sky! Berry!”
“Sky, Sky, here!”
The sun is high. There are only people on the grass. The cats sleep when the sun is high. The hyenas sleep. The Nutcracker-men and the Elf-men sleep in their trees. Everybody sleeps except the Running-folk. Maxie knows this without thinking.
There is a blue light, low in the sky.
Maxie looks at the blue light. The blue light is new. The blue light is still. It watches him. It is a bat. Or an eye.
Maxie grins. He cares nothing for the blue light.
He walks on, across the hot crimson dust.
