The antiXeelee had left the Universe at the launch of the Sugar Lump seed fleet. It had traveled back in time with its fleet, and -- simultaneously, and without paradox -- had dissolved into countless melting fragments of awareness. So the antiXeelee had gone... but Paul inhabited a quantum Universe in which nothing was ever final. With patience and watchfulness he maintained his call.

...Fragments of the antiXeelee replied. It was like an echo of a lost voice. A pale outline of the awareness of the antiXeelee was reconstructed in response to the demands of Paul, and again Paul was surrounded by its vast, passionless humor. He responded as best he could, endeavoring to strengthen the presence of the antiXeelee.

He sensed confusion in the hierarchy of the Qax, but Paul ignored them.

At last the response he was waiting for came. Spectral ships miles wide coasted through the Jovian's system.

The presence of the antiXeelee might signify to an alert observer that the Xeelee had returned to the cosmos, and -- as Paul had hoped -- the Xeelee nemesis, the dark matter photino birds, had come to find out what was going on.

Paul, straining, maintained the illusion/substance of the antiXeelee. At length the dark matter ships departed with, as Paul intended, a new purpose.

He relaxed and the antiXeelee outline subsided into the quantum hiss of the Universe.

The photino birds, convinced that the Xeelee might reinvade the Universe from which they had been driven, would abandon their projects and focus their energies on Bolder's Ring. They'd already set in place long-term mechanisms to destroy the Ring. But now the closure of that gateway had to be accelerated; the Ring must be closed before the Xeelee could use it to return.

...But if the Ring were closed the Qax would be trapped in a dying Universe, their dream of species immortality threatened. So, Paul calculated, the Qax would have to get to the Ring and stop the photino birds from destroying it. With a sense of amusement and fascination he watched the urgent debate of the Qax, data and propositions chattering across all the scales of space and time.

Forgotten, Paul allowed himself to exult. His scheme seemed to be working. If so he had not only afforded the remnants of humanity a chance: he had also changed the species imperatives of two great races.

He slid along the quantum net to his little band of humans.

Across the Universe vast forces began to converge on Bolder's Ring.

The Friend had returned. And the visions were so vivid she could hardly see.

...A place, unimaginably far away, where a Ring, sparkling and perfect, turned in space; a place where all the starlight was blue...

"Erwal? Are you all right?"