If the designers of the Gnomon had intended to make the anti-Cradle, they could hardly have done better. It had the long wicked curve of a katana—the better to follow the curvature of the Earth—combined with the translucent delicacy of an insect’s exoskeleton. Indeed, it seemed to be unfolding, reshaping itself as it rose into the air, an origami praying mantis molting into a larger body. Its manifold corrugations and arching carapaces spoke of a million Jinns toiling in cubicles for centuries to build the strongest thing they could imagine with minimum weight.