Master Maff wore the disgusted expression of someone who had just been slapped with a dead fish. Next to him, Dr. Iliqualoti was silent, hunched over in his seat, and not only because he had no bones to support him. He had sucked in his soft lips and his eyes protruded more than ever.

  Attan Ze did not spare them looks of sincere regret, even going so far as to wink in a conciliatory nod, but his efforts were met with a wall of hostility. Just because he had been forced to interrupt the tentacled scientist's presentation...

  Was it his fault that the audience booed him? If, after almost two hours of theoretical and metaphysical blather, the merchants, city councilors, and business representatives had had enough of philosophy, physics, or other wacky sciences, especially considering the short time left for everyone to get to safety?

  The doctor had presented a parade of suggestions, each more artistic than the last, all accompanied by suggestive images drawn in crayon, not as sinister as the Eggs Sower, but just as absurd and surreal.

  Transparent boxes for the inhabitants to hibernate in. What would be the point of sleeping? According to him, a strong enough oniric mental field —of four hundred thousand souls synchronized to dream the same dream— could overcome matter and form a barrier capable of blocking the narrow crack and carving out an inviolable space in the rock for Nelatte.

  Nice, but how to get out?

  A cushion of artificial clouds to support the walls of Faspath, temporarily, to buy more time to evacuate the city.

  Too bad it would take at least three months to create.

  And Attan Ze Kosh felt his attention, though constantly nudged by his sense of responsibility, slip away, drawn into a vortex by those very explanatory drawings. For some reason, the scientists, or their illustrators, had adopted the same style as the infamous painting. There were always those damned backgrounds: unreal gardens, artificial peace under a milky white sky, immense spaces that could only exist in a timeless land.

  Yes, time...

  That was the point, right? Time was missing, rolling back on itself, behaving like a crazy variable. Disobedient. Altered. As if some irresponsible deity was playing with it.

  He remembered paths and a bronze statue. A female figure, small and slender, on a low pedestal.

  His secretary had to nudge him.

  After Dr. Iliqualoti hastily concluded his speeches to the general discontent, there were a few moments of indecision about who should speak and for what. A brief, trivial intervention by the university librarians to recall what cultural heritage was at risk was followed by another silence.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  This was going nowhere.

  The Palvi monks took advantage. Their spokesman, an earth-colored stick man, chirped his sepulchral message in a bass voice.

  “The Rift gives and the Rift takes. If Faspath has chosen to consume our lives, all efforts will be in vain. Nelatte has long defied gravity and the laws of nature. She cannot escape it forever.”

  Master Maff roared indignantly, his braids fluttering on his bearded cheeks.

  “Was it worth interrupting the exposition of our proposals to listen to defeatist messages from a religion that has laziness as a central point of doctrine!”

  The stick man stretched out his skeletal limbs on the bench before him, branches burnished by smoke.

  “To accept what Faspath has in store for us is not laziness. To rebel against it, against what nature itself demands of us, is folly. It would be like wanting to hate the rain because it makes us wet.”

  “But in the meantime we take cover,” muttered Dean Massimari.

  The monk tried to reply, but his weak voice was drowned out by the Samavorian technician's protests.

  “We are the only ones who have tried to find a solution, a remedy other than 'let's all run away and it's every man for himself'!”

  “Your plans are truly enlightening! Clear and affordable, and above all, safe and proven,” President Scalpi exclaimed between coughs.

  “But what do you expect from us, a miracle? It would already be a wonder if we could come up with anything with the meager resources we have!” thundered Maff, shaking his large fists in the air.

  But the councilors were right, the mayor had to admit. What they had heard was a string of shameless nonsense. That's all we needed was for them to suggest pulling the gommite tendons that formed Nelatte like the elastic of a slingshot to launch the inhabitants into orbit!

  Nonsensical nonsense...

  Well, all but one.

  Attan Ze Kosh finally used the gavel. The dry sound of wood on wood managed to penetrate the heated heads and dispel their fumes of rage. In a few moments the litigants fell silent, still standing in the heat of the moment, hands raised in gesture, folders and papers under their arms, jackets opened, ties undone, hats thrown to the floor.

  “Gentlemen, you may have noticed that the people of Nelatte have already begun to leave their homes of their own accord. Our role at this point is to provide them with as much assistance as possible so that they do not create situations of danger... of greater danger. Any vehicle that can assist in moving people and property must be made available to the community. The same goes for automata, even specialized ones, that can make themselves useful. For now, gentlemen, I am asking you, trusting in your civic sense.”

  The barely sweetened announcement of the confiscation of expensive assets unleashed a chorus of complaints and mutterings that Attan Ze had to face. Rising from his pew, he signaled the end of the troubled meeting.

  As he descended from the pulpit, however, he made sure to pass the group of scientists and motioned with two fingers for one of them to approach.

  “Dr. Iliqualoti, we need to speak privately,” he murmured, his voice an octave lower.

  The scientist gathered his papers and followed him.