Beatrice dies on Titan at age 74, Constant buries her and Chrono mourns her loss with a flock of Titanic bluebirds. Salo surprises Constant, who thought his repairs had not worked. Salo offers to take Chrono and Unk to Earth, Unk accepts. Unk is dropped off at a bus station in Indiana, where he dies. In Unk’s final visions – induced by Salo’s hypnosis – Stony Stephenson appears in a starship to reunite Unk with Beatrice in paradise.

Themes

• The nature of sanity – Beatrice writes her book, which she knows is absurd.
• The nature of free will – humanity existed to serve Tralfamadore.
• The nature of reality – with Salo’s hypnotism of Unk.
• Life after death – again, Salo’s hypnotism of Unk.

Plot Summary of the Epilogue of the Sirens of Titan

• “There isn’t much more to tell.” – Page 308
• The three live out their lives on Titan; the good luck part appears to fit, but with Salo no longer alive, there is no one to fly his complicated spaceship.
• Bee and Malachi don’t want to return to Earth, but they want Chrono to be able to do so – he has slowly gone mad integrating his life into those of the Titanic Bluebirds.
• After burying Beatrice, Constant finds Salo alive. Chrono and a flock of Titanic bluebirds mourn his mother. Salo will deliver his useless message and offers to give him and Chrono a ride to Earth.
• Constant asks Salo to take him to Indiana, where he is left at a bus stop in the snow and dies.
• The book closes with Stony appeared in a starship to take Unk to Paradise, where Beatrice awaits, because “Salo had hypnotized him so that he would imagine, as he died, that he saw his best and only friend, Stony Stevenson.” – Page 325

Begin – Page 308

“Only the Titanic bluebirds know for sure what happened, finally, to Chrono, their son.” – Page 308, Beatrice and Malachi live to the age of 74 on Titan and die within a day of each other.

Break 1 – Page 308

“The good-luck piece conformed to close tolerances and surrounding clearances in a way that would have pleased a swiss machinist.” – Page 309

Break 2 – Page 309

“By the time Constant was seventy-four, however, getting young Chrono back to Earth was no longer a pressing problem.” – Page 310

“The cries were for nothing and nobody on Titan.”
“They were for Phoebe, a passing moon.” – Page 310, Chrono’s life from age 17 onwards was with the Titanic bluebirds.

“Chrono made hundreds of these shrines.” – Page 311

“Tidying up the shrines was as close, spiritually, as Constant could get to his son.” – Page 311

“Constant may have thought his god or gods were doing it.” – Page 312

“At least,” she would say, “he isn’t a mama’s boy. And at least he had the greatness of soul to join the noblest, most beautiful creatures in sight.” – Page 312

Break 3 – Page 313

“Beatrice had plenty to eat and drink, and always would have.” – Page 313

“Beatrice did no cleaning, so Constant got rid of the worst of the refuse whenever he paid her a visit.” – Page 314

Break 4 – Page 314

“She was probably a little crazy. On a moon with only two other people on it, she was writing a book called The True Purpose of Life in the Solar System. It was a refutation of Rumfoord’s notion that the purpose of human life in the Solar System was to get a grounded messenger from Tralfamadore on his way home again.” – Page 314

“Worked into the tufts of the bedspread was the message, God does not care.” – Page 315 – Their clothes are formed from remnants of the palace, the palace was furnished with goods from the church.

“Ever since Constant had taken over maintenance of the pool, the algae had been building up.” – Page 315; while Beatrice talks about humanity’s free will, the absence of Salo leads to decay of the property.

“The pool’s bottoms and sides were lined with a blanket of viscid slime, and the three statues in the middle, the three Sirens of Titan, were under a mucilaginous hump.” – Page 316

“The worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody,” she said, “would be to not be used for anything by anybody.” – Beatrice on Page 317

“She could eat with one hand and write with the other – and, more than anything else in life, she wanted to get everything written down.” – Page 317

Break 5 – Page 318

“Thank you, Mother and Father,” he shouted, “for the gift of life. Good-by” – Chrono’s farewell amongst the Titanic bluebirds after Malachi buries Beatrice. – Page 318

Break 6 – Page 319

“You did it right,” said Salo. “I just couldn’t make up my mind whether or not I wanted to peep.” – Page 319, Chrono finds that their attempts to repair Salo were successful.

“Anyone who has traveled this far on a fool’s errand,” said Salo, “has no choice but to uphold the honor of fools by completing the errand.” – Page 320

“I would say, ‘Is there anything I can do?’ – but Skip once told me that was the most hateful and stupid expression in the English language.” – Page 320

“It took us that long to realize that a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.” – Page 320

Break 7 – Page 320

“Salo wanted to let him off by a shuffleboard court in St. Petersburg, Florida, U.S.A., but Constant, after the fashion of old men, could not be shaken from his first decision.” – Page 321

“The kind of people who’ll hang a white man for murdering an Indian – ” said Constant, “that’s the kind of people for me.” – Page 321, Constant on why he wants to go to Indiana.

“You are tired, so very tired, Space Wanderer, Malachi, Unk,” said Salo. – Page 322, Salo hypnotizes Unk.

“He pressed a bright red button.” – Page 323 – Salo’s ship is similar to those of the Martians.

Break 8 – Page 323

“Good luck,” whispered Salo.
“We don’t say that down here,” whispered Constant. – Page 324

Break 9 – Page 325

“Salo had hypnotized him so that he would imagine, as he died, that he saw his best and only friend, Stony Stevenson.” – Page 325

“Everybody’s happy there forever,” said Stony, “or as long as the bloody Universe holds together.” – Page 326

End – Page 326