It demoralizes and defeats me and I wish it never to end. —Winston Churchill, Jenny In Space The shadow of the being called Chesmarul enveloped Cooper like the sea swallowing a sinking ship. He felt like wind and starlight in an airless non-place that could never feel a breeze or a single stray photon. The city that rushed up to meet him was a distant dot in the jeweled abyss below, just a glint in the pinwheel of light that Cooper recognized was the worlds—themetaverse. The worlds spun like a mobile, suspended from an invisible point above and anchored from below by the lick of space that was the City Unspoken. Between the unseen apex and the urban nadir shivered a span of creations, light whirling about light in an endless braided dance. Among the lights of creation, Cooper saw teeming trillions—the syncopated fireflies that were mortal lives and, much fewer, the emeralds hidden among costume jewelry that were the slow-burning gemmed hearts of the First People.
