em> tells the story of Numen and Sephia, two powerful spirits who accept the responsibility of managing Earth's afterworld, the "Astral," where the dead go. This is not a religious book. Their adventures grow out of a secular research background that points to survival of death as a natural and near certain fact. One's character, not beliefs, is the only yardstick determining one's destiny, a destiny not written in stone, but open to change as one navigates the new environment.

Numen and Sephia, from different planets in the Milky Way galaxy, learn to overcome their mutual strangeness and work effectively to improve conditions for the Earth's 9 billion astral citizens, all with histories on the planet that range from the saintly to the demonic and the wealthy to the destitute.

These histories impact the Astral environment in many ways. War breeds violent death and overwhelms the receiving stations. Exclusivist religions have to be abolished. Brutes and terrorists must be quarantined, then rehabilitated if possible. Orphaned children cut off by death need to be loved and educated. Suicides must be nursed back to health. Spirits roaming the Earth and sewing confusion everywhere must be stopped. Aliens threatening invasion must be reasoned with. Music and the arts must be regulated to some degree.

The power of Gaia, the soul of the Earth, needs to be harnessed for good and away from destruction. Earth's wild animals, harvested for sex and fashion, must be preserved. Earth's terrible poverty, killing babies by the millions and overwhelming afterworld resources, can't be allowed to go unchecked. Individual grievances must be heard and adjudicated. These problems and a thousand others confront the Guardians. Their powers are limited, but they were hero and heroine on their planets, and they have now accepted a more challenging role as servants to a planet not their own. A final challenge was learning how to love each other, their personalities as different as ice from ember.