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Page 1.

PROLOG

Enigma: countless tiny twinkles of light spattered the black canvas of space.

On a planet in a system in a galaxy in another universe, Larth Atuuinl lay beside his sleeping mate Ramtha, gazing up at eternity and infinity in a black sky filled with stars.

The two Vellallan bipeds, male and female, had finished their evening love rites. Larth, exhausted and still glowing from their passions, wondered if anyone was up there in those frozen whirlpools of light.

Here on Vellallo, under that endless night, stretched a flat plain of wind-rippled grass in a fragrant wind, on which Larth and Ramtha lay together—she, blissfully satisfied from love making and asleep with a smile on her sweet features; he, with one arm around her waist, and the other propping up his head as he gazed at the heavens.

Nearby, in a valley shaded by night and sleep, was his world’s new space launch facility. Tomorrow, at dawn, he would become the first of his race to ride into the heavens atop a flaming rocket booster at exactly the velocity needed to put him into orbit, to make several rotations around the globe, and if all went well, to land back here in a parachute-assisted descent. If anything went wrong, he and his ship would become yet another short-lived, flaming golden meteor in the sky. He didn’t want to think about it, if only because a sad vision rose in his imagination. He imagined Ramtha’s tear-filled eyes and grieving face as she looked upward hoping for something else to happen—but that would be it, the end, his final signature scrawled across the stars. She and his people might build a monument with his name on it, and the age of exploration would continue, but in a melancholy alternate reality where he would never know it, and she would be alone.

Don’t even think about it. Be positive. Everything will go well…

So he thought, shaking his fears and worries away. He looked at her as she slept. Ramtha, love of his life, continued smiling in her innocent sleep, dreaming of how they would be reunited when he returned from his great adventure as the first of their race to touch the stars.

But what is this?

Something was wrong, but what? A new feeling filled him, as if a ghost ship from far away among the stars were rushing across the world, enveloping him in a fantastic vision. It was the inside of a space vessel whose cockpit was peopled by alien beings. Their feelings of passion and joy filled him as if they were his own. He glimpsed the interior, with its myriad rippling indicator lights, and a gloved finger reaching for some control switch or other, while joy and wonder radiated out to capture Larth’s senses in its glowing aura.

He rose, holding his head with both hands, and almost hollered at the overwhelming terror and beauty of this vision—not to mention melancholy, because the pilots of that vessel from far away were all dead…

Ghosts in a ghost ship, streaking through time and space…