«My Swan Song» was the thought echoing in a mind diluted in the limbo of near-consciousness.

«Swan Song? No,» responded the mental specter of a familiar voice. «Inaugural hymn, the most magnificent of overtures, actually.»

«Swan Song...» the first thought returned insistently, tenacious in its struggle for concreteness.

«It wasn't your Swan Song, Flavio, but your cry of rebirth,» said Clyella.

The music that enveloped the environment took definition in Flavia's ears. Even before she decided to open her eyelids, she felt it caress her heart and fill her lungs with notes, an effusion of notes, so delightful as to compete with the very oxygen that was giving her, once again, life. She quenched her thirst deeply with that air, infused with the scents of the sky, of flowers as delicate as a perfume eternally rarefied in a vastness she could never have imagined, until the moment she opened her eyes.

Lying down, she saw the peach-colored light filtering from the vaults of the transparent ceiling, so high that it made her think of an illusion. Beyond it, pink swirls marked the base of crystal spires soaring toward a dawning sky.

She sat up and observed the interior of what appeared to her to be a temple dedicated to the contemplation of ecstasy and the unattainable. From the edges of the pink and vanilla ceiling, the circular wall seemed as if made of water, extending in placid waves to the turquoise mantle on the ground. She focused to see it more clearly: the turquoise mantle was a meadow of velvety grasses and small plants. Inside the entire liquid expanse that served as a wall, she saw a coral garden where creatures more similar to butterflies than fish swam. The colossal glass-less aquarium enclosed the environment, bathing it in aquamarine light.

From the intersections of the distant vaults of the ceiling, descended four, eight, no... at least twelve columns of pink coral. From the ground, they spiraled upward, light as silk braids, in spirals too slender and elongated to support any weight, yet to Flavia it seemed there was nothing else holding up the ceiling that loomed over her and the five people beside her. Five very young people who, like her, were not wearing any clothes.

Flavia rose from the bed she was lying on. Beneath her feet, the turquoise grass was a soft, cool carpet. She wiped away the residual tears from the cry she had begun in a previous life and set her gaze on Clyella's face. She barely had time to glimpse the emotion in her eyes when she found herself wrapped in her embrace.

«You had told me it wouldn't be possible...» she whispered. She felt stunned by the astonishment, overwhelmed by the magnificence of what was around her, and experienced an irresistible sense of well-being, the origin of which she couldn't understand.

A muscular and tanned young man with very light blonde hair stepped forward, breaking away from the group. He looked at her with such intense admiration and respect that it seemed to transcend into adoration. It was a gaze similar to Clyella's, always so full of affection. A gaze that was equally alien. He spoke to her in Italian with a raw and struggling accent.

«You can't imagine your luck, boy,» the young man hinted with a smile towards Clyella. «You've had a top-notch guardian messenger.»

«Angel,» Clyella corrected him, amused. She was still holding Flavia closely.

«Of course, guardian angel,» the young man with the very blonde hair smiled. «Call me Sleeld, so that I may serve you. Welcome to the Planet of the Interdimensional Assembly.»

Clyella broke the hug and held Flavia by the hands. «Every now and then,» she explained, «things can turn out better than expected.»

Flavia saw the other three strangers smile in silence at her, their gaze as alien, affectionate, and respectful as Clyella's and Sleeld's. Although they appeared undeniably human to her, she noticed that each of them had something not entirely earthly about their appearance.

A slender young man, whose toned figure suggested extraordinary agility, sported a shadow of a beard unnaturally dense, like his raven-black hair no longer than a few millimeters. His intensely ruby-red lips were so pronounced they seemed the work of a cosmetic surgeon.

To his left, among the three, there was a slightly shorter boy with oriental features and bronzed skin. He had such neat hair, such a clean face, such a balanced and harmonious build that, according to Flavia, he could embody the physical perfection of Greek gods.

The third was a girl, with equally wondrous proportions, whose gaze was enhanced by the graphite and steel black of her skin. Like a mother-of-pearl ornament on the mantle of a panther, her smile shone with the charm of a spell.

They exchanged some words in a language that was unknown to Flavia, entirely incomprehensible despite the distinctly syllabic sounds and well-defined vowels. They turned their gaze to Clyella who uttered a few words into the void.

An androgynous voice vibrated in Flavia's ears with the delicacy and discretion characteristic of a lover's whisper.

«The requested translation service has been activated.»

Clyella pulled her forward by one hand. «These friends of mine are members of our Executive Council.»

She introduced the Asian boy as Kidhe, then Wilol and Nyark, who in turn greeted Flavia in impeccable Italian. Flavia recognized the same voices that she had heard speaking in the alien language just moments before, yet she noticed that the lip movements did not match their words. Thinking of the translation service, she remembered the computer Clyella had mentioned, which served the entire planet of the Assembly. The Executive was clinging to her, and with one arm she encircled her side.

Disoriented, Flavia looked around and wondered if she was truly herself or a copy of the person she believed to be. She questioned what she was doing in this alien building and what perspectives on her future lay ahead for her.

«I promise you'll be fine from now on» Clyella reassured her.

Kidhe caught her circumspect gaze, thirsty for explanations.

«Putting you at risk is the last thing we want» he clarified. «Clyella has negotiated for your soul.»

«Soul?»

«Your neuro-genetic identity,» Clyella whispered to her.

Kidhe flashed a smile and pointed to an arch that stood out on the aquarium-wall. «For now, we should get moving; you must be starving with that empty stomach. We've arranged a breakfast for you, a welcome feast. What do you say?»

Flavia couldn't even imagine any objections. Not only because her stomach was indeed starting to growl, but also because she was utterly lost. Uncertain about her future, she wasn't even sure of her past or her identity. Emotions had the taste of an illusion, a taste similar to when she had first awoken in Claudia's body.

And yet, despite her life being upended once again, her sense of anxiety was overshadowed by a strange well-being, a sense of accompaniment that was nudging her toward euphoria. As they walked toward the perimeter of the turquoise-grass hall, Flavia began to discern the shadows of other people who occasionally passed behind the bluish water wall, outside that environment.

Beyond the arch, protecting the entrance was an enormous column of water, populated by butterfly-shaped fish, and without any glass or material to contain it. Past that, Flavia could hear the music of strings and choirs becoming more intense and vivid; in that moment, her sight was engulfed by a cyclopean gallery. Curved ramps and helical twists led from one level to another, from one terrace to another, among gardens, other aquariums, pools, fountains, and gigantic trees whose white trunks seemed to support an architecture of divine proportions.

The corridor they had emerged onto ran along one side of the gallery, on one of the upper levels. Flavia could only see a portion of those below. She then approached the balustrade made of carved coral and glass and leaned her body just slightly forward, over the void that separated her from the bottom of the immense building. She was left breathless.

«We are in Coral City» announced Kidhe, «this is the main gallery. The nave is about two and a half kilometers high and a little over four kilometers long.»

Flavia cast her eyes to the ends of the gallery. From the nearer one, she could see a large arch that opened onto lush vegetation; from the other, much farther away, an intense and uniform blue.

«The ocean,» Kidhe further explained. «The west side of the gallery is submerged in the sea.»

The president waited for Flavia to step back from the railing and invited her to continue. They took a few steps along the corridor until they reached a point where the pattern of the balustrade appeared different. Clyella stayed by Flavia's side, holding her hand, while the other four executives walked a bit ahead. They stopped, and the balustrade in front of them opened onto the void of the gallery.

Flavia's heart jolted as, one after another, the executives vanished into the precipice. Clyella gently held her. «From here we go down, don't worry.»»

They approached the edge, and Flavia noticed that a blue glow rippled where the grassy corridor floor ended. Clyella stepped onto it and, floating on the blue cloud, smiled at Flavia. She extended her hand, which Flavia immediately grabbed and clutched tighter than usual before joining her with an uncertain but excited step.

Clyella embraced her by the waist. «See? From here we can cross to the corridor on the opposite side or to any other floor in the gallery. Ready?»

Flavia nodded, and then saw the floors rush upwards as they approached the eastern entrance of the gallery, as if they were launched on a long, invisible slide. Within a handful of seconds, they had joined the other executives on the ground floor.

The city's entrance, which led to a sort of fairy-tale grove, was now within walking distance. The gallery looked like a park with open spaces, hosting ornamental trees here, precious stone or crystal monoliths there, and fountains mixed with colorful light in between. Flavia estimated it to be about a hundred meters wide. Above her, she saw the two and a half kilometer-high nave close at the apex of a pointed arch.

Around her, she saw other groups of people mostly walking toward the mouth of the gallery. She could perceive the vitality in their laughter, as if they were enthusiastically heading for a day of leisure, almost as if they were going to the beach. A nudist beach. Not a single person was wearing what could properly be called clothing. It was a planet of nudists, and this realization comforted Flavia about the fact that her wardrobe had been left light-years away.

Sleeld interpreted the curiosity in her gaze at once. «Clothing culture becomes obsolete when you have other means to protect yourself from temperature swings or rough terrain,» he told her.

As they headed for the exit arch, Kidhe explained to Flavia how to use the Assembly's computer. She could call it in any language and from any point on the planet's surface. The audio-telepathic sensors would always be ready to receive her requests—precise, discreet, and foolproof.

Flavia nodded, although she was overwhelmed by the vast possibilities that suddenly opened up to her. The information was coming at her fast and furious, like a raging river, and if she wanted more, she would have the computer at her complete disposal. However, something else was nagging at her curiosity, and she preferred to ask her guardian angel directly. «Clyella, what does it mean that you had to negotiate for my soul?» she asked.

Without going into details on how she had found out, Clyella told her that in the Elohim's Book of Judgment her status was noted as "temporarily unworthy" and "awaiting evaluation from Earthlings." Best case scenario, she might have found herself returning to life not before three or four decades. And not in some social paradise of a civilization as ancient as the Assembly or the Elohim, but on Earth. That is, provided that someone had appealed for her, and that, Clyella said, was unlikely.

«Why unlikely?» Flavia objected. Her friends wouldn't forget her that easily, she hoped. Sleeld updated her on the vegetative state of the body that had taken the bullet on Earth. To everyone, that girl was Claudia who went by the name Flavia, not a "second Flavio" reborn in Claudia's body. Flavio, with whom she shared a genetic signature, on the other hand, was not at risk of dying, and the chance that someone would appeal for his life or anyone sharing his genetic material didn't exist. As things stood, the gunshot had torn her brain to shreds, but no one except Flavia herself knew whose that brain really was. Despite her own will, Flavia had taken Claudia's life, and then Claudia had claimed Flavia's death. A Dantesque retribution.

«Your journey from Earth was more comfortable than mine, I presume. A cozy spaceship instead of bullets,» she winked at Clyella.

The Executive caressed her shoulders gently. There was no need to tell Flavia that she, too, had experienced death, specifically with the perspective of not being able to resurrect. «More or less,» she smiled.

Thus, her companions also remained silent about the ploy she had devised to protect the information of the third mental resonance, about the fact that, until Clyella's return to the planet of the Assembly, Flavia's memory had been carefully stored in Claudia's body.

They reached the edge of the city structure. The forest outside was so well-maintained and colorful that it seemed artificial to Flavia. Clyella had once told her that more advanced civilizations design and create the forms of life they intend to introduce into their environment; now Flavia could see it in the curved shapes of trunks and branches, in the foliage rich in shades of pink, violet, and dark blue.

The concepts of artificial and natural lost their definition in Flavia's mind. The vegetation in front of her didn't look any less artificial than the palace city on whose threshold she stood. And the structures of the city were no less natural than the flora and fauna before her.

Yet something distinct indicated to her that the point where she stood was a threshold between the ground of a construction and that of the planet. For the first time, she realized she was about to step onto the soil of an extraterrestrial, alien world. The weight of the solemnity stopped her.

Kidhe turned to look at her. «Flavio, are you alright?»

«I need just a second. This is such a... special moment. This may be a small step for me, but...»

«Oh, cut it out!» Wilol interrupted her. «Right now, you're not even exactly a man.» He patted Flavia on the back, who stumbled over the threshold, staggered forward, and heavily stepped onto the alien soil.

Sleeld furrowed his blonde eyebrows and ran a hand through the back of his head. «It doesn't matter,» he said to Flavia, sympathetically. «Besides, humanity has already been here for ten millennia.»

Until that moment, Flavia had not worried about it, but then she wondered why they had brought her back to life in Claudia's body instead of his own.

Clyella took her by the hand. «Come on, let's go.»