The Ghosts of Earth

Thus did these matters unfold as the planet and its sun, indeed the whole system, sped through immeasurable space. And then, from out of its depths, came nemesis; a massive rock that had been hurtling towards this point in space and time for millions upon millions of years, to keep finally its fateful and violent appointment. Mass collided with mass, and the whole was reduced instantaneously to a frame of flaming debris, which exploded back into the night, each fragment bearing its own lone message into the void.

Again and again, across the empty reaches of space, in millions upon millions of galaxies, on worlds more numerous than the sands of a billion seashores, life struggled to gain a foothold in this all but sterile wasteland, relentlessly bea