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Chapter 13: To Lose Everything She Knew Lyrics by John C Wright

The Far End of History: A Tale from the Last Days of the Seventh Mental Structure

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Penelope was older than Ulysses. Parts of her, the oldest archival strata in her memory systems, still recalled the Old Earth of the Golden Oecumene.
Like many Cerebellines of her school, in youth she had been a quintet of two men and two women, and one phaen, a member of a third positive sex invented by the biosculptors of the late Fourth Era; and her auxiliaries were leopards, golden lion marmosets, and saber-horned antelopes with beautiful, dark eyes.
She had walked the slopes of Mount Fuji, whose loveliness is recalled forever in verse and image, and swam in the waters of the Caspian Sea, into which the Volga, celebrated in song, once flowed; and terns and gulls and seals who never saw the ocean swam and dived and soared. Beneath the waters, shining and magnificent, she saw the thousand diamond towers of Hyrcanianople, that drowned metropolis of legend, ablaze with artificial moons and stars, built by amphibious Warlocks who, prompted by a dream, anciently foreswore the surface of Old Earth and sought a return to the primal sea-life they claimed their blood cells and genetic introns yet recalled. That submerged Persian city, that lofty mountain of Japan, the terns and seals and white-winged gulls, were lost.
Where had she been when the news of Old Earth’s destruction came? She could play the scene for him in her memory, and write it into his, so that, in effect, it happened to him.
He found himself on a hundred ships, each weighing less than a pound, trailing behind star-sails thin as gossamer, wide as continents. Penelope was sailing to Canopus. During the centuries while the Renunciant Diaspora were still under way, the small golden star called Sol had flickered, and all signals from Venus, Earth, Mars, and Demeter were lost, and from the Jupiterian moons, the capital of the Solar System.
With the mother world destroyed, the simulation of Earth in the dream libraries seemed mere mockeries. Radio broadcasts from Tau Ceti (more than a thousand years old by the time they were overheard) spoke of a Second Earth that the Shakudo Oecumene there had built, a replica meant to serve as a mortuary mask of the great, lost world.
The Orichalc Oecumene at the yellow star 72 Ophiuchus made a similar announcement. Even the grim and laconic commonwealth at Lalande 21185, called the Hepatizonic or the Black Corinthian Bronze Oecumene, broke radio silence to announce it had also reconstructed, molecule by molecule, an Earth in tribute to the lost Earth, from one ice cap to the other, with each famous mountain and many- mythed rivers in place. The Electrum Oecumene at Delta Pavonis, the Molybdochalkos Oecumene at Mu Arae, and the warlike Prince Rupert’s Metal Oecumene at 61 Cygni all followed suit.
Even the humble and poverty-stricken Alpha Brass Oecumene at Proxima attempted a re-creation. Their Luna-sized replica held nothing but Fourth Era Australia, surrounded by a little world-ocean slightly bigger than the Antarctic Sea, so that sea-vessels could sail across an Eastern hemisphere uninterrupted from the Brain-Hives at Brisbane to the Great Glass Cube at Perth.
By the time the Diaspora of the Renunciation had reached Eta Carina, and tens of thousands of years had witnessed the foundation of many more colonies in the near neighborhood of Sol, there were twenty known replicas of Earth, restocked from biotic libraries.
While the rest of the ships sailed the beam from Canopus to Eta Carina, Penelope’s gossamer ships, leaving the beam-path of the Diaspora, lingered on the far side of the Great Carina Nebula, straining to catch the ever-weaker signals of the interstellar radio chatter. Whole libraries of information were passed to and fro, including the gene patterns for all earthly life still in record, images, sensations, smells, and noumenal memories of Earth, all locked in fractal format. The Earth- makers were comparing notes, confirming and correcting. Penelope, because she tarried and heard, became the custodian of their local version of Earth.
Credits
John C Wright

John C Wright

About “Chapter 13: To Lose Everything She Knew” by John C Wright

Read the complete lyrics to "Chapter 13: To Lose Everything She Knew" by John C Wright from the album "The Far End of History: A Tale from the Last Days of the Seventh Mental Structure ". On Lyrks you can follow along with the full text, explore the artist's discography, and discover related songs. The track is often categorized under Non-Music, Literature.

"Chapter 13: To Lose Everything She Knew" is performed by John C Wright. from the album "The Far End of History: A Tale from the Last Days of the Seventh Mental Structure " This page provides the full lyric text for fans who want to sing along, study the songwriting, or compare versions across releases. Lyrks organizes lyrics by artist and song slug so you can bookmark and share a stable URL. Music lyrics help listeners connect with emotion, narrative, and rhythm in a track. Whether you are learning English, researching a favorite chorus, or preparing for karaoke, having accurate line breaks and section labels (verse, chorus, bridge) makes the experience easier. We link to the official artist profile on Lyrks where available, including biography snippets, top songs, and chart placements when we have that data. If you enjoy "Chapter 13: To Lose Everything She Knew", explore more songs by John C Wright using the links below. Chart and trending pages on Lyrks highlight what listeners are searching for this week. For copyright or correction requests, see our DMCA and contact pages.

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"Chapter 13: To Lose Everything She Knew" is credited to John C Wright. Songwriting credits may include additional writers listed on the release; check the credits section on this page for linked collaborators.

"Chapter 13: To Lose Everything She Knew" appears on "The Far End of History: A Tale from the Last Days of the Seventh Mental Structure ".

Visit the John C Wright artist page at /artist/john-c-wright for biography, popular tracks, and links to more lyric pages.