PROLOGUE

Our planet, once the only azure dot in our galaxy, is now the colour of ash.

Nothing lives.

No Saviours.

No souls.

No Dolphineros.

No Leviathans.

No immortal works.

No breaking news.

Certainly, no Paradise.

(Or atoms.)

It’s as dense as the Universe was after the Big Bang.

Only a neutron or two lies in a dry riverbed and dream of plants, habitats, music, stories, paintings, sculptures, animals, insects and children.

Shortly those neutrons, too, will be shadows in stones.