The ship instituted a full search of its computational and storage substrates, just in case, but with no real hope it would find any sign of the Zoologist. Sure enough, there was nothing. Apart from this ersatz, abandoned lab and its own memories of its departed colleague, the Zoologist had left without a trace.

The Caconym was about to calm the squawking, screeching animals in their cages, but then grew instantly tired of the whole absurd conceit, and with one command abolished the entire castle and everything in and around it, closing down the whole scenario with a single thought.

Twenty-four

(S -0)

In the end he went with everybody else.

There had been a time there when he thought he must have gone mad, for he had been thinking of staying behind, of not going at all, and perhaps – once it had all taken place – of putting himself into the hands of some authority, to be tried and judged and accept whatever punishment might be decreed for what he had done – for all the things he had done, but especially for this last thing.

But that had been just a passing fantasy, a mood, something to be indulged. In the end he knew he had to go, and he told himself that not going, and indulging in this masochistic orgy of justice and repentance, would be the truly selfish thing for him to do. Finally, at long last, it was not all about him. He was, he would be, just another humble Enfoldee, taking his place along with everybody else for the step off the cliff that bore you up rather than causing you to fall …

The Presence that had hung over the parliament building for so long had swelled a little, become a dark sphere. In the last few hours, more and more Presences had appeared, sliding into existence throughout the whole of Gzilt space, wherever there were people: in homes and communes and barracks, in ships and sea ships and aircraft, in squares and piazzas, in public halls, lecture theatres, auditoria and temples, markets and malls, sports venues and transport stations and in all the places where the Stored had recently been resting, before pre-waking.

The aliens who had come to wish the Gzilt farewell, and those who had come to profit from their going, had, by convention, withdrawn for the moment, leaving those about to depart to themselves.

Time-to devices and public clocks and displays spread throughout the Gzilt realm ticked down the last few hours and minutes, and people met at pre-arranged places and ate last meals and said last things and, sometimes, told others secrets they’d been keeping. Or decided not to.

Generally, as people tended to, they got together in groups of family and friends, then joined with other groups to form gatherings of dozens or hundreds and – again, as people usually did, though the exact expression of such emotionality depended both on the physical as well as the psychological make-up of the species concerned – they held hands.