End And Beginning

The Avatar.

"JUMP.

"Blackness, nothing, blind and absolute. Folk moaned in a kind of terror." (XLIII, p. 359)

Chinook has jumped futureward into a period when:

the universe has expanded to four or five times the size that mankind knew;

clusters of galaxies have receded too far away to be seen;

the Milky Way and its neighbour galaxies are disintegrating cinders;

the dimmest stars are dying;

but one black dwarf has a planet with life because the Others have transformed its moon into a nuclear reactor which is an artificial sun that should last for five or six billion years;

that single planet has white clouds, sapphire and lapis lazuli oceans and green continents.

Should Chinook continue futureward or turn back?

Caitlin argues that the living planet shows that the Others are pro-life and anti-death. Therefore, an outpost of theirs should be found at the very end.

"JUMP.

"Light, everywhere light. It was as if space had become a dewdrop in dawnlight, and they at its heart." (XLIV, p. 366)