“They believe they have been transported to a better place,” she says, in the same tone of voice she used to describe the Domain: reverential, but with a shadow of deeper guilt.

I can barely discern the luminous edges of the environment projected to keep them calm. “An afterlife?” I ask.

“They believe so. I came to all of them at birth. They believe when they see me next, I will lift them from trouble and pain. In a way, that is true.”

A light appears over her head. The humans in the hold turn as one and behold the Librarian. Their faces transform. The hold is filled with echoes of wonder as they crowd forward, trying to communicate their joy, their hope.

The light above the Librarian dims. The fields return, separate the humans, and again numb them, at this high moment of joy, to their plight.

“Life is resilient—particularly human life,” the Lifeshaper says. I can barely hear her, she speaks so softly. “They will be taken to the Ark.”

I cannot stifle a sense of awe and even affront. Such power—such hubris! And yet, without the Lifeshaper’s intervention, all humans would have died long before.

She does what she can.

“They feel no pain, no distress. Composers are no longer used by any of our teams. Their memories and genetic patterns will be carried in the flesh of all their descendants, when Erde-Tyrene is repopulated. In that way, they will touch eternity. But their existence here is ending.”

The humans rise like bubbles in a pond and swing around an immense, glowing blue flower, undergoing deep examination. Their faces go slack. The bodies are then consumed by brilliant purple flares, and the remains compacted to be returned to the oceans of Erde-Tyrene—not as ashes, burned and degraded, but rich nutrients that will feed minute organisms in the sea during the great sweep of Halo radiation.

When the hundreds of thousands of humans collected in the last few hours are processed, she lifts us from the hold and wraps us both in cooling darkness.

“I pity future scholars. They will notice nothing here to explain what happened—neither an increase in the fossil record nor any other evidence of a great die-off. Now … the time has come to describe what I found in Path Kethona. May I tell that story?”

No permission is necessary. I am Catalog.

I listen.

THE LIBRARIAN

Things did not improve after my husband vanished.

The Master Builder regarded my partnership as a liability. To maintain our status, such as it was, and to uphold our few remaining privileges, we needed to remain essential to both the Council and Builders.

I proposed to the Council that we seek out the truth about the Flood: its origins, its vulnerabilities, its motivations—if any.