A long time afterward Mouse and Ciaran and Bas the Immortal stood in the opal-tinted glow of the great room of the crux ansata. Outside the world was normal again, and safe. Bas had left full instructions about controlling and tending the centrifugal power plant.
crux ansataThe slaves were freed, going home across the f*******n Plains—f*******n no longer. The Kalds were sleeping, mercifully; the big sleep from which they would never wake. The world was free, for humanity to make or mar on its own responsibility.
Mouse stood very close to Ciaran, her arm around his waist, his around her shoulders. Crimson rags mingling with yellow; fair shaggy hair mixing with black. Bas smiled at them.
“Now,” he said, “I can be happy, until the planet itself is dead.”
“You won’t stay with us? Our grati
