Bianca: This means another one could be made now, right? Since the Mouse was . . . destroyed.

Rosen: Who can say? The world has changed in other ways. Even the battle-spaces have ruins in them now. The human population has grown thirty-fold since the last Being was made. Perhaps our power is divided too thinly for fewer than thirty of us to make another.

Cohen: Probably for the best. We’re not great at taking care of the ones we have already.

Timothy: It’s as if we made them to need the kind of connection that some humans get from a relationship with God . . . and then put ourselves in that role instead. When we get it right, they’re happy, but of course we can’t help falling short sometimes.

Jany: I thought the point of this story was that there is no God. Or at least, not anymore. Now there’s just us.

Timothy: Yes, but that part is depressing, so I’m trying not to think about it yet.