"Look at the middle," Axford said.

Bella complied. Many spokes of light -- each of which was a thick braid formed from hundreds of individual strands -- pushed inward from the inner face of the torus, as if they were meant to connect with each other, or form a bridge to some other knot of strands in the middle of the torus.

But there was nothing there. The braids splayed apart, ragged as the branches of a lightning-struck tree.

"Something's missing," Bella said. "It looks as if it wasn't finished."

"Or it was finished but something was destroyed. Perhaps that's the answer to the question, Bella."

"The question?"

"About where the Spicans went. Perhaps the animals revolted, and stormed the zoo."

"Then the Spicans are dead."