"Lyssna på Brahms" av Suzy McKee Charnas , först publicerad i september 1986 Omni (skannad kopia här ), reprinted under < a href="http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/titlecovers.cgi?41202"> dessa omslag .
Om en kille som strandsat i en kretslopp (?), är en främmande planet efter mänskligheten utplånad.
Berättaren (och ett par andra astronauter) var i cryosleep, som kretsade jorden när utlänningen Kondrai kom:
I sit looking through the viewplate at Earth, such as it is. I know what the lizards say is true, but I don't think I really believe it. I think mostly that I'm dead or having a terrible dream.
Utlänningar tar dem tillbaka till sin hem planet:
Entry 3: Captain Midnight says now that we're all up he would be honored beyond expression if we would consent to come back to Kondra with him and his crew in their ship. Kondra is their name for their world. Chu says she's worked out where and what it is in our terms, and she keeps trying to show me on the star charts. I don't care. I came up here to do studies on cryogenic nutrition in space, not to look at star charts.
Mot slutet av berättelsen finner du att det finns en "kult" som springer upp bland den främmande ungdommen att mänskliga själar från den förstörda jorden sänder ut till utlänningen och reinkarnerar där.
Entry 20: They are saying that the reason there's so much crime and violence on Kondra isn't because of the population explosion at all. Some snake who calls himself Swami Nanda has worked out how the demographic growth is only a sign of the underlying situation.
According to him Kondra made an "astral agreement" to take in not only us living human survivors but the souls of all the dead of Earth. Earth souls on the astral plane seeing that there were soon going to be no more human bodies on Earth to get born into, sent out a call for new bodies and a new world to inhabit. The Kondran souls on the astral plane, having pretty much finished their work on the material world of Kondra, agreed to let human souls take over the physical plant here, as it were. Now the younger generation is all Earth souls reborn as Kondrai on this planet, and they're recreating conditions familiar to them from Earth.
Mannen lyssnar också mycket på klassisk musik - ingenting med mänskliga röster men.
Entry 5: Sibelius, Symphony No. 2 in D, Op. 43; Tchaikovsky, Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33; Rachmaninoff, Symphonic Dances, Op. 45; Mozart, Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K581; Sibelius, Symphony No. 2 in D, Op. 43; Sibelius, Symphony No. 2 in D, Op. 43