On Aeneas, "...our sister galaxy..." is "...in the Ula..." (p. 79). In other words, the galaxy that is in Andromeda as seen from Earth is in a constellation called the Ula as seen from Aeneas. And what is an ula? On p. 102: "An ula flapped by." There is a good chance that Anderson created an Aenean ecology that included a flying organism called an ula but also that this organism made it into the text of The Day Of Their Return as little more than the animal after which a constellation is named.
The Day Of Their Return is a hard sf novel in which many of the characters subscribe to different kinds of religious and mystical beliefs. Appropriately, there is just one hint of fantasy. Ivar thinks that he sees lights on the dead sea bottom but it is too early for anyone to be out there. Tired and at the end of his tether, he imagines:
"...lanterns on ghost ships, sailing an ocean that vanished three million years ago..." (p. 80)
- but this thought is instantly forgotten as the action of the novel continues. We are not reading a ghost story. If we were, then, of course, the ghost ships would come again, and they might be out there anyway...
(The attached image shows Aeneas in the underworld.)
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