Delia rubbed the itchy bump on her skull. “Earth?” Her eyes brightened. “We’re back?”

“In a manner of speaking. Please proceed to the chart room.”

She stood in front of the hatch for a moment before opening it. Why, she thought, did she feel as if there was a constant undercurrent of chatter going on? Is it the same schizophrenic roar described by… by…? She frowned, trying to remember something about a blond man with green eyes. Something about angels, and poor, dead Jord.

She shook her head wearily and opened the hatch.

At the far end of the room, the surface of Earth moved across the viewing port. She recognized Africa, though something appeared to be dreadfully wrong with the continent. A slash through it marked a new ocean, and the northern edge of the continent was rimmed with sheets of ice. She wondered if there could possibly have been that much damage during the Earth-Belt war. Then her eyes focused on the two dozen wraiths within the room.

They floated, impassively scrutinizing her with black dot eyes that could have been painted on their bulbous heads. They looked like bleached octopii trailing gowns instead of tentacles.

Death Angel meets Nightsheet, and I get to watch.

She took a startled breath of air and sneezed. The musky smell seemed thick enough to grasp. Several of the creatures hissed and shot backward. A few emitted a high pitched, soft giggling noise. All of them had raised their hands to cover the ear holes on the sides of their heads.

One smaller ghost broke away from the group and jetted forward. It zipped back and forth across the room, arms bent at an angle and pumping up and down. It twirled about, stopping, starting, spinning, and shaking like an enchanted handkerchief. In the center of the room it halted, bent at the middle, then looked up at Delia and opened its toothless mouth in a broad crescent smile.

Delia laughed and clapped her hands. The diminutive creature’s smile vanished; it made an embarrassed flatulent noise and shot toward the overhead, hitting it with the sound of wet clothes slapping. It turned and drifted deckward, cradling its soft head in its hands. The other beings bent over double, the air filled with gentle, hysterical giggles. It looked back and almost turned transparent.

“Delia,” the computer whispered. “Please avoid any further sudden motion or loud noises. The People have unusually sensitive hearing. The world they come from is a Dyson shell completely enclosing a dying star. They are used to very low light. And they have not lived under gravity for hundreds of millions of years.”

“I’ll be careful,” she whispered back. “What should I do next?”

“Do you feel comfortable around them?”

She smiled. “Well, of course. They’re sweet.”

Sweet. I hope she doesn’t start using baby talk.

“Good,” the computer urged. “Move slowly toward them.”

“It’s just that it stinks in here.”

“It is their means of zero-gee locomotion, similar to squids.”

“Squids don’t smell up the air.” She floated forward, using the railing near the star chart console. The small one fluttered away and ducked behind the crowd. A few thin filaments clung to Delia’s face.

“What’s this?” she whispered, brushing the stuff out of the way.

“Metabolism by-products. Excreta. Another reason not to scare them.”

She wrinkled her nose and kept moving. One of the wraiths- the fattest one-moved toward her, too.

“Remember, Delia, they cannot hurt you. They are very fragile, and you are more likely to injure them. Be careful.”

“I’m… straight with that.” She stood less than a meter away from the other. It raised one of its tentacles, manipulating array splayed. It shook it at her urgingly. She raised her own hand and the creature grasped it. Delia returned the light squeeze with equal gentleness. Its touch felt like warm, animated putty.

“Bleezthed do beed oo,” whispered a soft soprano.

Delia cocked her head for a moment, then smiled and answered. “I am pleased to meet you, too.”

The ghost smiled and let go her hand.

“That is about all they have had time to practice,” the computer whispered. “They spent most of their time modifying the transfer unit.”

Delia looked out the viewing port at Europe. Italy was missing. So was the rest of the Mediterranean. A glacier-crusted mountain range rose in its place.

Something’s wrong with Earth, but just try telling her.

She ran a hand through her hair and smiled. “What next, you overgrown calculator?”

“Nothing. We shall complete the mapping orbits around Earth, pick up the shuttle that carried to the surface a few hardy explorers in anti-gravity suits, then return to the Sphere.”

“Have they met with representatives of Earth?”

“There are none.”

She was silent for a moment. She had not realized that the war had been that bad.

“How about the Belt? Trans-Plutonian orbit? The Öort layer?”

“Delia-” For once, the computer had to pause to search for the right words. “Delia, when Virgil connected the random number generator to the coordinate plotter, he transferred Circus Galacticus to several distant loci. I could not shut down the board because of reprogramming by Jord.”

Jord? she thought. Virgil?

“When we appeared inside a debris belt surrounding the Sphere-the only remnants of the People’s planets after they constructed the shell-micro-explosions damaged the transfer board and I was able to incapacitate Virgil. During those transfers, we had traveled a very great distance.”

“All mankind couldn’t have died! There have got to be human beings somewhere!”

“You are looking at them, Delia.”

“What?” The image of the wraiths before her began to swim, to drift as sinuously as they.

“We transferred over a billion light years. As near as the People and I can determine, they are indeed a race evolved from Earth settlers. One of many, according to them. They are very grateful to me for finding their cradle world.”

She began to smile and cry at the same time. Some of the beings moved toward her, concerned, their hands rising and falling helplessly.

“Then it’s all right,” she said through a sob. “That means we made it out after all. To the stars… to-”

“Did you ever have any doubt, Delia?”

“A billion years!” Some of the People covered their ears. “We’re alone. Where’s… Where’s-His name, his name-you said it once.”

“Virgil?”

“Yes! Virgil! The one I took from DuoLab. The one who saved me from Jord. Jord was… Where’s Virgil?”

Right here.

She whimpered and grabbed at her head. “No God no please no.” She propelled out of the chart room, blinded by tears.

“You killed him,” the computer said.

“No.”

“I leeched the RNA and picotechs out of his body and injected them into you.”

“No.” Yes. “Why?”

“I could predict no certain end to this slaughter in which you three indulged, so I exercised the option of consolidation. And while the picotechs were outside Virgil Baker’s brain, I endeavored to-”

“I’m alone. Alone!” She raced through the corridor, her arms straining to pull her and guide her. She breathed in labored, sobbing gasps. Her head thundered. “A billion years away from anyone!”

“It does not matter. There are new worlds to see, and the People will care for you.”

“As a fossil!” Something roared inside her ears. A kaleidoscope of colors shimmered at the center of her vision, spreading outward. She no longer felt the handholds, nor the bulkhead against which she slid to a stop.

Alone in blackness, she thought. I am alone.

No.

I hear you, but you’re not part of me.

I am, Dee. You have to learn that as I learned.

Jord?

I am Jord and I am Virgil. After the first day, I was never two separate entities. It was merely an insane battle against the truth. One that kept proving fatal.