by Mark Kraver
“We should be reaching the outer event horizon now,” Numen announced.
“A journey of a thousand lightyears begins with the first step,” Yahweh whispered to himself.
The station began to shine in a burnt-orange glow as it slipped into bent space-time. Everything on the command deck seemed to switch into slow motion. The great wall monitor that displayed the red glowing Earth below began to flicker, and then failed all together because the planet was now lightyears away. Reeze, who was standing next to the front monitor vanished first; Zenith, with a worried look on her face, went next.
Numen turned his head to his master and twitched. A jolt of alien programming had spontaneously translated from deep inside his sequestered Armilus memory, and he involuntary locked onto Yahweh with a dedicated telepathic link. The link was so overwhelming, it polarized the neurons in his master’s telencephalon, focusing his psychic abilities into a more linear timeline through his lamina terminalis. Yahweh, at the last moment before he too disappeared into funneled space-time, looked at Numen, mesmerized.
The physical reality of having one side of the brain advance an astronomical distance from the other was beyond comprehension. Many years later, Reeze would describe it as looking at herself through the wrong end of a long telescope lens, in a mirror, backwards.
Jerusalem passed into the Halo as if it was being dipped into a gigantic bucket of black paint, disappearing into interstitial space-time.
The planetary solar array in the sky that had been lighting the planet twinkled and then went dark, plunging the surface of the Earth into the fiery glow of the expanding red giant. The people of the moon were now all alone, at the mercy of the fireball racing toward their adopted home at the speed of light.
For the first time, Joop fully recognized how foolish he had been to disrupt their exodus by following Armilus. Pained thoughts began twisting through his mind: If he had delayed their exodus much longer, they would have perished in a planetary fireball. Were they all dying on this planet in the middle of a doomed star system because of him? Maybe his wife would have been a better leader than him? At least his daughter Reeze would be saved, he thought —his final thought as the planet was swallowed up by the Halo. The sky turned coal-black and his mind's eye slipped through a psychedelic meat grinder of past, present and future timelines.
Chapter 75
To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.
Albert Einstein, 1879-1955, Earth
Library of Souls
Timeline
Psychedelic memories swirled through the minds of everyone on the command deck as their brains streaked across the universe. Memories of childhood, school, family and friends replayed in Reeze’s mind as her thoughts caught up with her physical body. Her hallucinations wandered through subterranean lunar tunnels of her hometown, passing familiar smiling faces that inflated into balloons transforming into fish floating in weightless coalescing bubbles of water. She swam with the fish in the aquaponic farms under the constant glare of artificial lights.
Huge leaves of collard-kale-chard hybrids hung from a forest of tall dripping columns. Hydrogen/oxygen-powered exhaust dripped rain into the pools of tiny air-breathing fish eating the bubbles off her skin. She spun around with her arms outstretched in an explosion of warm sunshine, somewhere deep in a smelly jungle she had never known. Colorful butterfly birds flew around her head and strange six-armed monkey creatures above jumped from one tree to the next, in a dream that swirled in her head like a beautiful wave of emotion.
Zenith had visions of her birth, her mother Logan, and of her earliest childhood memories growing up in a world full of strangers. Elderly humans reached out their ancient hands to touch her bald head as the dead piled up around her. She was ushered from one graveyard to another by her entourage of angelic cherubim beating their tiny wings over her head, pausing at one to lay her mother to rest in an unmarked grave.
Scrolling through her thoughts, Zenith could visualize her elderly half-brother, David, his daughter Aurora, and their descendants of the subsequent thousand years, all wearing the same crooked little smile as they bounced around the moon. She moved through dead, decaying cities, recycled back into the Earth, replenishing and rectifying runaway ecology that was never meant to be. Witnessing the collapse of a once-dominant race of hominin, as another race, hers, replaced the natural order of the universe with technological explosions.
Yahweh flashed back to his home world Omega Prime, to before he was chosen to lead the rescue mission to Earth. He sat in a communications pod deep in the heart of the Elohim Academy, transfixed on the runes and pictograms streaming past his eyes at dizzying speed on the four-dimensional galacticNet display screen.
Yahweh had been taught from his earliest days at the academy that information from the net existed everywhere at the same time across the entire universe. It was a gift from Eos to her chosen people. The galacticNet was detected by a compact particle accelerator/collider that produced a constant supply of red, blue and green quarks that vibrate with the background hum of the universe in an ancient but decipherable language—the language of God.
Yahweh was no stranger to the galacticNet. Every minute not spent in class or visiting his covert family of humans, he spent studying the net.
“Yahweh.” He heard his name spoken by a gentle woman’s voice. “What are you looking for inside the galacticNet?” It was Zenn, his elderly academy headmaster.
Yahweh did not answer. His mind was engaged in quantum entanglements trillions of parsecs away. Mumbling to himself, he tapped communication input relays and was unaware of anything outside his tunnel vision.
Zenn spoke again. “There is a mission for you.”
Yahweh’s thoughts blinked at the word ‘mission.’ He was the only one in the academy double majoring in both galactology and galactic networking. The latter was because he spent all his free time studying the net’s nuances, its expanse, its wonderments.
“Why do you study the net so?”
Yahweh blinked again, fully realizing someone was questioning him. Not just someone, but the headmaster. “Ma’am?” he asked.
“Who are you talking with on the net?”
“Eos, ma’am. I am trying to talk with God.”
“Interesting. I wondered in my own mind about God when I was younger,” she said. “But today is not about the subject of is or is there not a Goddess of the Universes. It is about you.”
Yahweh turned to face Headmaster Zenn. Her ancient, knowing eyes always reflected a sparkling youthful soul that kept him captive to her every word.
“Me, ma’am?”
“The Nasi summons you,” she said, sensing his innocence.
“The Nasi? They need me?”
“Yes, for a mission. A rescue mission.”
“Rescue who?”
“I am not at the liberty to say, but it is of some importance.”
“Aren’t there more qualified persons than I?”
“Yes, that was my consensus, but I was not consulted. Come, time is of the essence. You will need to be introduced to your new seraph.”
“Seraph? I thought only Creators got a seraph.”
“Peculiar indeed.”
Stepping into the gravilator tube with Headmaster Zenn, Yahweh felt her thoughts. Was that excitement? Floating up the spiraling arm of the Mingus Tower, Yahweh looked down at the academy’s sprawling campus. He could see the infirmary where his mother worked as a transitional nurse with new Elohim children separated from their human families for the first time. He could remember his own transition from living life with his sapient parents to establishing his new home in the academy’s neophyte section. He could see the maintenance compound where his father worked, and in the distance, he could make out the northern edge of the sapient complex where his younger sister attended school.
At the top of the tower, projected out over a clear
floor, in a star-shaped circle, sat the supreme council of elected Elohim called the Nasi. They governed the planet Omega Prime with absolute authority. Each of their five seats represented a section of the Elohim society: Creator, pioneer, proletariat, engineering and service, with the Prime Proletariat standing at the center as liaison to the people of the planet at large.
“Enter,” Prime Prole Braniff said, waving his arm to move the Nasi’s seats into a semicircle with Yahweh at the center. “Leave us,” Braniff gurgled to Zenn as if he were drowning in his own phlegm. She bowed and exited without a word. Braniff gave a faint nod towards Yahweh without actually looking at anyone. It was as if he were sleepwalking, pausing to catch his breath between each sentence. “We have been following your progress since the beginning of your anton of life, young graduate—You have distinguished yourself.”
“At what have I distinguished myself enough to warrant this honor?”
“Everything,” Braniff announced, smiling a distorted grin. “Yours is the brightest point of light this academy has ever ignited—We now call upon you to serve.”
“Service to the Elohim is all I live for, your eminence,” he said, bowing his head. “Headmaster Zenn told me of a rescue?”
With this revelation the other Nasi communicated telepathically, looking back and forth with unfocused eyes, mouths hanging slack, reacting to the young graduate’s gut response.
“This is correct,” Braniff said, pausing for a moment to stared off into the distance, “a mission of utmost secrecy.” The Prime Prole stood perfectly still as if asleep before finally asking, “What else did Headmaster Zenn enlighten you with?”
“That I was to get my own seraph.”
“If you accept this mission,” Braniff slowly answered.
“I accept the mission,” Yahweh said without hesitation, causing another round of telepathic chatter and head tilting.
“Very well—You are given the classification of pioneer—so not to alert suspicion.”
“And I get my choice of seraph?” Yahweh pressed. He was negotiating to see how important this mission was to them.
“Any you wish—Your complete mission plans will be preprogrammed into your seraph—You should not review them until your arrival at your destination—For security purposes, of course.”
“And as a pioneer, I get claim upon any undeclared assets?”
“According to the laws of the universe,” Braniff said. He paused and projected another thought only to the young graduate: “Watch your back.”
With a wave of Braniff’s limp arm, the semicircle closed again into a star, and Yahweh was dismissed by the Prime Prole slowly turning his back to the young graduate. Slightly confused about what to do next, Yahweh turned to go back to the gravilator transport, but stopped to look out over the city of his birth when a thought gripped his guts like a claw. Halo! What have I done?
The gravilator tube opened, and Zenn stood inside. She waited until he entered to speak.
“You accepted the mission?”
“Of course, you knew I would.”
“Was there anything peculiar?”
“It is all peculiar to me. They made me a pioneer.”
With an act of kindness uncharacteristic to her office, Zenn placed her hand on Yahweh’s shoulder until the ride was over.
“This way to the seraphim station. What will you call your new seraph?”
Before this day, the idea of having a seraph had never occurred to Yahweh, much less what he would name one.
“Come now, you must have thought of something?”
“I do like the name Fred.”
“Fred?” Zenn laughed.
“I like the way it forces from my mouth. F-red-da.”
“I’ve never heard of a seraph named Fred.”
“No?” Yahweh asked. He replayed the name in his head. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a good name to live with for the rest of his life.
“What will you tell your parents?”
A cold chill shot up his back, and his face heated up with excessive blood flow at the thought that the headmaster knew about his parents.
“What do you mean?”
“Ah, here we are,” Zenn said. A human man was waiting expectantly as they stepped out of the transport tube and into the seraphim station. “This is Pioneer Yahweh,” she said to the human. “He is in need of your finest seraph.” Then Zenn put a gentle hand on Yahweh’s arm. “I will leave you in the station’s capable hands,” she said. “I am very proud of you.” She nodded to the station staff member and smiled once more at her accomplished pupil before leaving for the gravilator tube.
“I’ll alert the chief engineer about your arrival,” the man said, quickly leaving Yahweh standing alone.
Yahweh looked at the personnel working in the shop. He noted most of them were Elohim, but there were a few humans being used for physical labor and other menial tasks.
“Hiss, pop!” exploded as a sapient worker opened a large hibernation storage pod.
“What was that?” Yahweh exclaimed.
“Don’t be alarmed. It’s safe,” the worker said, smiling. “It is a hibernation storage unit used to keep biological interfaces fresh.”
“Don’t pay any attention to him. He must feel it is amusing to startle every new customer,” said an Elohim stepping forward. “I’m Dexter, the head engineer. I have your order over here.” Dexter pointed to a newly-tested seraph in a long row of partially assembled seraphim.
Yahweh smiled back at the worker to let him know he thought it was funny too.
“Are you ready to spend the rest of your life with one of these?” Dexter asked.
Yahweh looked at the deactivated, emotionless face of the seraph and thought, Fred? “What else do you have?”
Dexter shrugged. “All seraphim are the same.”
That was what Yahweh feared. Growing up in the academy he saw sameness everywhere. The same lessons, the same tests, the same instructors, the same students, the same equipment. His only escape from sameness was the galacticNet and his covert sapient family.
At least, he had thought they were covert. He’d always assumed that if Zenn knew about his frequent visits to his old sapient home, she would assign them to a different province, or worst, a different planet. Elohim children were expected to forget their Homo sapiens surrogate families, as they assimilated into their Homo superior heritage. But his mother always made him feel warm, welcomed, and safe inside with her constant hugging and kissing. Father loved to play games with him and on him. His father brought home a pet terrapin for him and his sapient sister Nina to play with; Yahweh had named him Numen. Father had an unusual sense of humor that rubbed off on him more than he dared to admit. He never wanted to forget them. He loved them dearly.
“Do you have one that is a little different?” he asked Dexter.
“Different? The only way you can get something different is to alter the programming, and that is not allowed.”
“Prime Prole Braniff said I could have any seraph I wanted, and I assumed that meant special orders included.”
“Special orders are highly irregular, and only experimental,” Dexter said, not hiding his objection to the idea. “I’ll have to check.” He clicked a communication device implanted in his posterior tooth.
Yahweh watched Dexter walk away asking for the special-order verification. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a seraph being tested by a female Elohim technician. He approached her, pretending to casually look at the assortment of seraphim parts strewn in her work area. He noticed all the parts moved away slightly when he approached. He reached, curious to touch one, and it stopped moving.
“This must be monotonous work?” he asked her.
“What’s your point?” she answered, appearing to be annoyed by the boy pioneer as she slapped a disarticulated arm and hand pulling itself across the counter towards her.
“My point is that all these seraphim are the same. No differences. Like something a machine could reproduc
e. Why do you do it?”
She ignored him, turned her back and asked a seraph body without a head, “B4d, would you mind bringing my part 32937?”
Without a word the headless automaton walked over to a large shelf of parts and retrieved a round shiny object, turned and walked back to the workstation and presented it in its hand.
“What is your name?” Yahweh asked, examining the mechanics of a detached arm socket.
“Flora.”
“That’s nice. I like flowers. So does my pet terrapin,” he said snapping the arm into hips of a two-legged lower half seraph’s body. The two legs began to walk around waving its one arm.
She ignored his question and gracefully removed the arm from the legs and set it back down on her workbench.
“How long until this one is ready?” he asked, indicating the seraph she was working on.
“Each seraph goes through a six point six-six sexton diagnostic test before activation.”
“Interesting— but these parts all seem to be already functioning on their own.”
“They all have independent programming. It is the mitochondrial-core processor that coordinated all the pieces,” she said stooping to look under her work table for something she must have dropped.
“Really? B4d, please disassemble B4e,” he said looking at the number of the seraph standing next in a long line of headless seraphim.
The automaton turned abruptly and pulled off B4e’s arms and proceeded to pull apart the torso. Yahweh resisted flashing a triumphant smile and instead looked to Flora with a winking tug of his earlobe.
“B4d stop doing that,” she said. She gave Yahweh a look of disapproval, so her superior wouldn’t think she was derelict of duty.
“I see there is no prime directive of protection between seraphim,” Yahweh noted.
“At this point in their programming it is basically, what you see is what you get. The mitochondrial-core—”
Yahweh interrupted, “core processor coordinates all the pieces, yes.” He’d heard this reason a minute ago and was already bored with the same answer.