“Go. In time you will know why I have done this.” She does not move. She seems rooted to the dirt.

“Go!” I cry out. “Save our specimens! We are done here!”

Chant-to-Green retreats, slowly at first, and then at a run.

Her research vessel rises, streaks up through the sky toward the keyship’s command station.

“Lifespeed,” I whisper. “Eternity for you all.”

* * *

I spend a day and a night on the ground, after Bornstellar’s massive carrier ship unceremoniously arrived. In order to be disassembled and reconfigured, this vessel required my presence and oversight—at least during the initial stages. It is a worthy time, a sad time. Animals approach. Gazelles and wildebeest, buffalo and ibexes, come to inspect me. They have little fear; humans have been removed. A two-meter high brontothere nuzzles my hand, gentle but forceful, telling me I am out of place, perhaps I should move off somewhere and not bother this peaceable realm.

“How Riser’s people would love to hunt you,” I whisper.

The wind rises, and I huddle in my armor as night falls, and with it, I see the sky is full of huge ships and star roads.

* * *

With sunrise, he appears before me, and along with him come three of his warriors. They stand between me and the orange sun. I am not sure they are real, solid, but I am not imagining them; that my armor assures me.

This is Forthencho, Lord of Admirals. And there is only one way that can be. The Gravemind is playing another cruel trick.

“Librarian,” he says. One look at him, as he steps forward, and then around me, into the full light, confirms my suspicions. His face is contorted by deep pain, ravaged, darkened by blotches; his flesh is rotting from within.

Composer-gathered essences have been imprinted over living humans; and those essences are now rotting the bodies from within, maligned by the Flood parasite. Despite this fact, I’m shocked that he can communicate.

“We have been allowed to come here to die. The Gravemind…” He coughs and can barely recover his voice. “The Gravemind is on its way to the secret Ark, preparing to devour whatever hope you’ve laid up there. But it has sent us to you with a final message, Great Mother.”

They gather around me. I am at once touched and horrified. They will indeed die soon. Such is the cruelty of the Composer; such is the barbarity of the Flood.

“This we were told by the Gravemind, the greatest of them, who has consumed ten thousand planets and brought entire galaxies to an end. This we were told…”

His warriors kneel at my feet, and I wither inside with shame as I recognize that, through their imprinted bodies, they look upon me as a last and redeeming vision, regard my face as equal to that of their own mothers, a face their descendants will see at birth and in all their deepest dreams …