“But all peoples go,” Oramen said gently, as though explaining something to a child. “No one remains in full play for long, not taking the life of a star or a world as one’s measure. Life persists by always changing its form, and to stay in the pattern of one particular species or people is unnatural, and always deleterious. There is a normal and natural trajectory for peoples, civilisations, and it ends where it starts, back in the ground.
