65 million years ago, the Solar System
Cynthia had "died," and her consciousness had unexpectedly passed into the Golden Deer.
Vinu put on an oxygen mask, cradled Cynthia's cold body, and made her way to a sunny hillside.
After burying her beloved daughter, Vinu listened to the fawns calling. She felt a little comforted, but her sorrow remained.
She had lost so much. It seemed she had been unable to hold on to anything. She couldn't keep the cozy little fishing village, and she had been powerless to save Venus.
She had lost her daughter on Venus, then failed to keep her daughter a second time on Earth.
Vinu picked up a handful of sand. As it slipped through her fingers, she sighed. She couldn't even hold on to sand!
She found a stone and carved it into a headstone for Cynthia. The mother, who had once been an accountant, engraved a single number on it:
"0."
The river flowed on, its waters still merrily rushing by.
The fawns were much livelier than the clones, and they roamed farther, too. Once they lost their clone companions, the cave was no longer their only home.
Vinu often raised a hand to call the herd, shouting like an old mother, "Slow down! Don't run off!" But the Golden Deer sometimes leaped into the river and sometimes wandered along its banks.
Vinu was an ordinary woman: a wife who loved her husband dearly and a mother who did her best to protect her children. Yet she had endured upheavals that shook the world and repeated, agonizing separations from those she loved.
What comforted Vinu a little was that Cynthia hadn't left the world entirely. Vinu believed her daughter would continue to live on, generation after generation, in another, freer and more romantic form.