(Depart? Where to? Why? The answers were -- awesome; beyond his comprehension.)

On its completion the cube -- with its guardian, the antiXeelee, and with a million others -- had been sent on an impossible voyage, forging back through the unfolding ages to the birth time of the Xeelee themselves. The Xeelee would erupt fully developed from the cubes, shaking out the wings of their beautiful spacecraft and ready for their huge projects. Paul sought human words to capture the vast concepts sailing around him. Vacuum diagrams! The cube worlds were antiparticles, moving back through time to initiate their own creation. The whole of Xeelee history was a single, vast vacuum diagram, closed and complete of itself.

But... what of me?

Now Paul sensed a monstrous amusement. He was cupped within gigantic palms for an unmeasurable period; the time engines surged steadily into the past--

And then he was lifted up and released like a captive bird.

He looked down. He was outside the Sugar Lump, falling towards it. Spline ships converged. There was the City, still alive with the hopes of Taft and the rest, spreading over the meteorite debris. On the rim of the debris was a fallen figure, a young man in a soiled spacesuit lying facedown on the glowing surface.

Understanding came at last.

I have no beginning. I have no end. My lifeline is caught up in the vast Xeelee expedition into the past. I am a vacuum diagram, too, closed on myself. He remembered the absurd refrain: "We're here because we're here because we're here..."

He tumbled into the head of the fallen man. Skull darkness hit him like a physical shock, and he felt the pieces of his understanding shatter like a dropped vessel, his memories seep away.

In the end he was left only with a vast amusement. Then even that fell away.

Paul opened his eyes.

His body ached. He lay facedown on a surface that glowed with white light. Grass, or fine hair, washed over the surface.

What is this place? How did I get here? And...

What's my name?

His face grew slick with sweat; his breath sawed through his mouth. He perceived the shape of answers, like figures seen through a fog. He writhed against the shining ground.

The answers floated away.

A meaningless jingle ran around his mind: "We're here because we're here because we're here because we're here..."

The grass vanished. He waited, hollow.

A hundred heroes, a hundred fragments -- but understanding did not come: What was the goal of the Xeelee? Why were they trying to rebuild their own history?

And what was the significance of Bolder's Ring? -- why were the Xeelee trying to escape from the Universe itself?

Like leaves, the centuries fell away. Humanity's growth in power and influence grew exponentially. But the legend of Xeelee achievements -- the manipulation of space and time, the Ring itself -- grew into a deep-rooted mythology.