Tod had thrown it. ‘You can save the world, but you can’t catch me!’
‘Oh, yes?…’
The four of them ran, and their laughter echoed from the banks of the drying Martian canal.
So Earth died but did not die. So Symat died, but did not die.
I did not die, of course.
How could I die? I had completed this project, but I have completed projects before, and history just keeps on piling up, whatever I do. So here I am, in the dark, alone.
Waiting for what comes next.
I remember so much, yet so little. I have seen mankind rise and fall – quite a story! But what stays with me are the faces, the endless torrent of faces, from Symat the ragamuffin whom I loved, to Symat the idealistic messiah-boy whom I bred to die. Each face blossoms like a flower and fades to dust, leaving me alone once more. Each face is a betrayal. Yet they are all I have.
Sometimes it feels as if it has all been a dream, from the instant I put Gemo Cana’s pill into my mouth. Perhaps in a moment I will wake to find myself under the shining domes of Conurbation 5204. And then, with my cadre siblings, I will run, laughing, in Sol’s yellow light.