The event spread like a soft blue dye through the linked quantum phenomena which comprised Paul's being. At the site of Earth there was a human once more: but a human alone, weak, tired, close to dissolution. Paul, godlike, pondered the implications for an unimaginable interval.

Then he came to a decision. He reconstructed his awareness; a quantum jewel danced against the clear walls of the Eighth Room.

History had resumed.

"Allel was right," I said. "The defeat, the imprisonment, by the Xeelee was complete. Unbearably so. What a humiliating scenario."

"Perhaps. Humans as Eloi, to the Xeelee's Morlocks."

"...Eloi?"

"Never mind. Another prophecy, much older than mine..."

Inside the hypersphere cage, the human story seemed over. But the rhythms of life persisted, and with them the unwelcome urge to survive...

The Baryonic Lords

The Baryonic Lords

A.D. 4,101,284

Erwal pushed out the greased flap of the teepee. Hot, humid air gushed into the blizzard, turning instantly into fog.

Damen, dozing, grunted and burrowed more deeply into his pile of furs.

Erwal pulled her mummy-cow furs more tightly around her neck and stepped out into the snow -- it had drifted some three feet deep against the teepee's walls -- and smoothed closed the flap. Clutching her slop pail she looked about in bewilderment. The world seemed to have collapsed to a small, gray sphere around her; rarely before had she seen snow so heavy. The flakes clung to her eyelids and already she could feel the down on her upper lip becoming stiff with cold. Dropping her head she began her struggle through the blizzard.

Somewhere above the clouds, she thought wistfully, was the Sun, still winding through its increasingly meaningless spiral between the worlds.

Already the snow had soaked through her leggings and was beginning to freeze against her skin. With a sense of urgency she forced her legs through the snow, dragging the slop pail behind her. Soon she was out of sight of the teepee; the rest of the village remained hidden by walls of snow, so that she had to make her way by memory alone.

At last she reached the village's central stand of cow-trees. She leaned against a tree for a few minutes, sucking at air that seemed thick with the snow. Then she began to dig with her bare hands into the drifts at the base of the tree, finally exposing hard, brown earth. She dumped the contents of her slop pail against the roots of the cow-tree and stamped the waste firmly down against the wood. Then, wearily, she straightened up and began to select some of the tree's more mature buds, filling her pockets. The meat buds were small, hard, anemic; she bit into one, tasting sourness.

A villager approached through the storm. At first Erwal made out only a blur of rags against the snow, but the villager noticed Erwal and leaned into the wind, making towards her.

Erwal shouted: "Good day!"