It was supposed to mean something important, that’s why it was in every story. The word means that which is perpendicular to everything else, something that stands apart. It is the part of a sundial that casts a shadow—the thing that gives meaning to the clockface. It is that which, added to something, produces a new entity similar to the original. Is that a hint? Was Gn m n my salvation of self, at the end of this? A way back past the brain damage to something I would know as being fundamentally me?