"Kind of?" he says after a puzzled pause, drawing the words out slowly. "I'm - I'm energy, basically. And I did it, well. I did it because I didn't really have much choice at the time."

It was Ascend or never see home again, and the thought was unacceptable, still is unacceptable. He's not dying permanently in a universe he doesn't even belong to. He hasn't made a habit of doing that yet, and he's certainly not about to start now. Never mind that he sort of already has.

'Ghost' isn't a good word for it, but neither is 'god'. But neither, he notes miserably, is 'human'.