Struggling through the choking dust, and stopping to take supplemental oxygen from a respirator, the courier struggled through the salt flat and through the entrance to the Doomsday Vault.

The Actuary sat there, on a throne of bone and petrified wood. “What have you brought me?”

“An endling,” said the courier. “The final parsnips, in particular.” He held out the vegetables, which were seedless but might still be propagated vegetatively to rejuvenate their kind.

“Deliver them unto me.” As the courier handed them over, the Actuary’s touch made them crumble to dust, not even a DNA sequence remaining.

“I am pleased.” A cylinder of oxygen and a bag of coins landed at the courier’s feet. “Continue your search for endlings that we may extinguish their light.”

“Yes, my liege,” the courier said, eagerly collecting the reward.

“Remember,” the Actuary added. “If another should bring a…parsnip…in after this, your light is forfeit for its.”

“Y-yes my liege,” the courier said.

“It is the price for the great gift that you have been given. The honor…of perishing last.”

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