“In the early second period human interstellar travel, humanity was able to spread with increased speed and permanence to new worlds. Advances in atomic fusion drives and the extended life span experienced in the Age of the Return, opened the nearby sector of the galaxy to them. These new worlds were not Eden’s as they were portrayed to be, rather man found the terrible truth that some worlds already contained —
— in this environment the echo wells began to deepen in clarity. Through keen observations, they learned the secret: In distance lay refuge from the eyes of the Light.”
— The Omega Accords
—
Ellium had never traveled this far. Not even close.
His family, for as long as they had kept records, and those went back nearly five centuries, had lived humbly within the coastal bounds of New Rio. They were survivors, those born of the age that came after the Return.
And yet here he was.
As he stepped onto the upper platform, Ellium paused, shading his eyes with a gloved hand. The blue sky above him was cut by a line. A straight, glimmering tether rising impossibly into the heavens. He had seen it in books, models, and training renders; he had even toured it once in an immersive experience chamber. But nothing compared to standing at its foot, watching it disappear into the blinding canopy of the upper atmosphere.
Jacob’s Ladder.
One of four massive struts connecting Earth to the sky-borne capital of New Jerusalem, and the only one that could carry cargo, pilgrims, and planetary personnel without atmospheric burn.
“Ellium,” called Hazen, already ahead. “If you don’t get moving, we’re going to miss the kettle!”
He blinked and broke from his daze. How long had he been standing there? The muscles in his neck ached from craning upward and he rubbed at them absently. He looked down to the bulky device strapped to his left wrist. The blue screen came to life, and, after authenticating with Ellium’s facial match, expanded its projected a new screen 4 inches away from his wrist to show its menu.
His eyes instinctual navigated to the top right corner of the now 8 inch wide screen, where, as he naturally, would find the date and time.
07/12/754 | 5:54PM
“What in the world are you doing now hotshot” Hazen was now having to shout since the distance between the two friends had now doubled. “We have 6 minutes till she goes!” he cried. The urgency was palpable in his voice and Ellium silently cursed at this absent mindedness as he jogged to the loading entrance of the Ladder.
The door to the elevators entrance was as large as anything he had seen before. Angular in its design, it reminded him of willingly walking into the mouth of a very well lit whales mouth. The 3 angular struts covered 3 turn style stations where the, following the prompting of the security guard, Ellium stepped into line waiting for the scan.
After two minutes it was Ellium’s turn.
The guard gestured him forward without looking up. Ellium stepped onto the circular plate at the center of the station and felt a faint vibration settle through the soles of his boots as the platform calibrated to his weight.
“Stand still,” the guard said, already turning away.
A thin line of blue light snapped to life at floor level and began its ascent. It climbed him slowly, deliberately, tracing the outline of his body as it rotated in a full circle. The air hummed faintly as the scanner passed his wrists, his chest, the external rig mounted along his temple. A soft chime sounded as the system paused, verifying serials, permissions, exemptions.
For half a second the light lingered at his eyes.
Ellium resisted the instinct to blink.
The scan completed with a dull tone. The platform released its grip and the light collapsed back into the floor as if it had never been there.
“Clear,” the guard said.
Ellium stepped off. His wrist unit vibrated once displaying a confirmation message from the transit authority. Ahead, the inner doors slid open to reveal a short corridor sloping downward into the structure of the tether itself.
Hazen was already waiting at the threshold, rocking back on his heels.
“It’s not always this empty,” Hazen muttered as they boarded the elevator transport.
“This is it?”
The inside of the kettle was somehow more surprising to Ellium than the massive structure it was connected to. The interior of the room was strictly utilitarian: slate gray walls, reinforced seats, a white lighting coming from cracks in the ceiling. As he scanned the kettle, he noted the six rows of chairs that stretched roughly 20 spaces deep. each ended with a small cargo hold on the end of the room, where larger items were being secured by the stewards.
The shock mostly came from the banality of it it all. The main gateway from Earth to New Jerusalem (outside of orbital shipping couriers) and pilgrims were greeted with bare walls, reinforced chairs that pinned travelers shoulder to shoulder, and white lights that you would find in a disciplinary facility. The one redeeming factor for the kettle was the famed window that stretched across the entirety of one wall.
Of course, with only three of the six rows actually facing the window, the rest of the passengers were blessed with the view of the slate wall, behind which, held that machinery that connected the kettle to the Ladder itself.
Hazen clearly had the same thought as he pointed to the first row of seats that might have been called ‘window seats’. As they sat down he muttered, “I didn’t come all this way, to stare at the back of some dudes head and see another guy watch the show.”
He continued as they both strapped into their seats. “We honestly got lucky and caught a window between the festivals.”
Almost as if the kettle operator were waiting for them to strap in, the ascent car hummed to life, its magnetic couplers engaging beneath their feet. ”Here we go!” the lady next to Ellium said. Ellium could have sworn her left eye twitched in a wink as she said, “Always my favorite part.” With that, their bodies were gradually pressed deeper and deeper into their seats as outside the thin sheet of titanium that held together the kettle, the world began to fall away.
Nothing prepares you for Jacob’s Ladder. Ellium had studied its specs like every curious earth boy does. Miles of anchored tether woven from alloys that he couldn’t even pronounce which were running from the Mount of Olives to the underside of the orbital city. But knowing the measurements didn’t make the climb easier. He clenched on to the sides of the reinforced chair as his stomach began to turn.
He took a moment to gaze of the window and then quickly over to Hazen; and in a brazen attempt to distract himself he offered, “Just as He ascended?”
“And descended,” Hazen added. “They say the tether is as deep as the crevice that split when He returned.”
The kettle shook slightly as it passed through turbulence in the atmospheric strata. His weak attempt at distraction was quickly overcome by the shaking, and, as Earth began to recede under them, Ellium closed his eyes and whispered, “I hope it’s deeper than that.”
—
Exactly ninety minutes later, the kettle docked into Terminal B—Earth-to-Orbit Transfer Zone. If it had seemed empty below, the terminal was the opposite.
As the pair was hustled out of the kettle, Ellium was greeted with a site that even in new Rio he had never seen before. The sheer number of travelers was staggering. Pilgrims, redeemed citizens, technocrats, merchants, archivists, engineers, beast-bearers, and watchers moved through multi-tiered corridors in ordered chaos. He noted that many wore the soft-gray robes of citizens of the Reign. Others, like himself and Hazen, wore more basic travel wear with modular tech components strapped to their temples or wrists.
He wanted to take time to awe in the vast quantities of people but the crowd was already bearing down on them. The space in which they were forced into as they exited the kettle was apparently only the waiting area for those who were taking the return trip to earth. They had arrived at the end of one of the major honored days where the King himself would come and fellowship among the worshipers.
Ellium scoffed as noticed many sharp glances of disapproval from the not so patiently waiting pilgrims. He thought, Even after all that time with they King these people didn’t get the message that patience was still a virtue.
Regardless, it was necessary to get moving, the kettle was only the first leg of the trip. Ellium initialized his external rig, which consisted of meta-retinal filters and a bone-conductive hearing link. This, through the careful order of buttons he pressed on his wrist watch, highlighted their path in faint yellow overlays. His eyes scanned now crowd now pressing towards them and parsed it down into a singular line.
He nodded to Hazen and they began to work their way through the crowds. Tunnels, walkways, and the high, but bare metaled ceilings made it clear that they were no longer on earth. The white lights that lined the ceilings as walls made sure that everything was clean and proper, but as did the kettle, the utilitarian nature of it all was somehow off putting to Ellium’s much higher expectations for New Jerusalem.
The pair of travelers had made their way through the throngs of people to the SkyLink, which, as the mapping software on his wrist denoted to Ellium, connected terminal B to the extra-solar chutes that would lead to their destination.
With a jerk sharper than expected, the travelers swayed in their seats in the SkyLink began to move.
“Little sharp, little sharp. No?”
“Ellium you always got something to complain about.”
“Look all I’m saying is that for being the literal city of God I would have expected to not be jerked around in my —.”
To Hazen’s delight Ellium was forced to pause his cutting remark as the sides and ceiling of the SkyLink car transformed from a slate bare metal into a transparent window to the world they were now traveling across.
Ellium’s eyes quickly scanned now vast openness that they were subject to.
New Jerusalem was more sprawling than even the lower platforms suggested. With the structural limitations of earths gravity gone, the city extended in columns and wings like a golden coral reef in the void. Square in nature the vast station spread miles in all directions, protected from the void of space by the artificial atmosphere created by some otherworldly energy source. Towers twisted upward without weight, glinting in the artificial sunlight provided by the light-lens core.
As they sped through the transportation tubes that laced the landscape, he was able to see the fabled houses of the redeemed. Littered throughout the cityscape were houses and buildings as large as the wealthiest homes he had ever seen in New Rio. Some large, most smaller, but all impressive in their own rite, with Ellium being able to make out impressive details of the ones closest to the car.
Unmistakable however, was the mountain at the center that dominated the landscape by a long shot. The top of which a citadel, larger than an other buildings, that hosted no doubt the defining source of attention.
The Light.
Seated atop the mountain-throne, the King himself sat, his light providing an artificial sun that the landscape gloried in. Now visibly aware of the light, it became clear to Ellium’s mind that the banal beauty in the buildings and streets, the jewels and gold all reflecting and refracting in their own unique was the source of it all. Somewhere in that light was the King. The same King who once walked Galilee. The same who died. The same who returned.
As his brain processed the splendor, he began to take note of the unique properties. Firstly, no shadows stretched from it. Hazen pointed under the seat and noted that though not in direct contact eye sight of the mountain, there was still no darkness. The throne illuminated even its own foundation.
“I can’t look away,” Ellium whispered.
“You don’t have to,” Hazen replied.
Almost more impressively, the second one property was that the Light didn’t burn. Even unaided by filters and without the shielding of his ocular rig, Ellium could gaze into that Light and not flinch. Not because it was dulled, but because it was pure. Living light. Agape incarnate.
He had seen it in glimpses before. All who lived on Earth had, during the Feasts, when the Light swept the horizon. But here, under the throne itself, it didn’t just shine; it knew you. And it fully loved you.
Time resumed as the SkyLink abruptly switched from the transparent view back to the bare metal sheets, and Ellium was forced to leave the almost mythical world of New Jerusalem behind. Within a moment the hurtling car threw its breaks on and the passengers all swayed forward in a more violent stop that the initial launch.
Hazen noticed the smirk forming in his friends eyes and held up a quick hand as they stood, “Don’t…”
With a raise of the eyebrows Ellium did the mental calculation that all quick-witted labeled comedians do and decided it was best to keep his remark to himself.
With that, both travelers shuffled out the car and into the familiar metal white-lit platform where, as usual at this point, crowds of people were waiting on either side to pour into the soon empty SkyLink car. Ellium took point as the path of travel, again overlayed on his retina rigs, guided them through layers of walkways, vendors, scribes and gatewatchers to final destination here, Terminal Issachar, Gate 7.
They made it just as the final boarding horn sounded and, after a brief ticketing delay, the pair boarded the ship.
The placard above the ramp read:
DAWN’S LIGHT – KEPLER MISSION / 242 DAYS
Hazen started, “Would you look at the size of this ship.”
“Ha! I think this is more than a ship man. This is one of the new colony-class arks”
“You would think, that with all this space they wouldn’t have charged me extra for the size of my bag.”
“Oh its just an extra few credits, I don’t think ops will care. We can submit the reimbursement afterwards”
He shuffled the bag from one shoulder to the other, “Yeah but its the principle.”
“Right. Yeah I’m with you.”
They entered the passenger chamber. Another room with 3 columns of chairs and 2 walkways on either side of the center isle, all facing the same direction.
“Sir, you were told not to bring” Hazen cited in a mocking voice still sore from the holdup. The pair now was now sitting down on the 8th row on the right side of the tube, their smaller bags now stored above them in the compartments that sat above them.
“Dawns Light” Ellium stated, putting emphasis into each word.
“Dude what a name right? Whoever is in charge of that department needs to get a raise.”
“Yeah but like, the real thing, I cant believe we got to see it.”
“I can’t believe people ever doubted that He existed.”
Ellium settled into his seat, and as he did so, the intercom above them buzzed:
“Uhh Ladies and gentlemen this is your captain speaking…” Static flow through the unseen speakers as the monotone captain drew a breath.
“…Please make sure all your belongings are stowed above you and are safe and secure…”
More static.
“Uhh flight control has us out of here early for a change… looking at a clean flight pattern until the Arcadian system. From there the jumps will be a little turbulent…but we will do our best to keep you informed as we navigate the jumps…
“Uhh 242 days is the… estimate… we’ll see if we can’t make up some time in the later leg of the trip.”
A longer static.
“As always thank’s for flying with Arrow Lanes…Flight attendants and crew, prepare for FTL transition…Gate 7 activation in progress.”
Ellium’s eyes shifted to man seated next to Hazen, closest to what would have been a window seat if this were a atmospheric plane. His face looked no different than the rest of the travelers. Fair skin, a clean shaven face with trimmed brown hair that, though short, was lifted with a unseen gel and pushed to the far side. His robe was simple and he wore no augmentations or any noticeable tech.
As he turned to meet Ellium’s now overtly long gaze, it was clear who, or better yet, what they were sitting next to: A Redeemed.
Now with eye contact firmly, but awkwardly established, Ellium noted that his brown eyes were clear and although somewhat sad, looked like anyone else’s eyes.
He struck up cordial conversation with Hazen and to Ellium’s surprise, proved to be a polite, unassuming, even jovial character; hardly representing one of the mythic beings Ellium had imagined. Redeemed were rare to encounter, especially outside of the Earth zones. These were the saints of the previous age: raised, judged, and glorified. Their bodies hummed with power. They could walk through walls, defy inertia, disappear.
And yet, for all that, they could not outrun the stars. Even the Redeemed were bound to sub-light velocities. Whatever infused them, the Spirit, the Light, the Presence, it could not accelerate past the ever-expanding distances of space.
From the stories he had heard, Redeemed always seemed demigods next to survivors, capable of teleport like abilities on planets due to their speed of travel. But in situations like this, when the scale of the galaxy is at hand, even near light speed transportation makes a trip to the Kepler system take 7 old-earth lifetimes. Those untouched by the resurrection, the survivors, were on equal footing with the redeemed here.
The Redeemed man now smiled at him. “First time through the Gate?”
Ellium nodded. “Yes sir. Never left orbit.”
The man laughed. “You’ll like this one. The Issachar corridor is well established and shouldn’t have any bumps till we get past Arcadia.”
The vessel shuddered as clamps connecting them to the station released and for the first time, the travelers were no longer connected to Earth. The cabin lights dimmed and vibration rolled beneath their feet.
Kepler was 1,500 light-years away.
Ellium had never seen it. He had heard of the recently colonized world, but for the last five weeks, he had dreamed of it. Always the same place and always the same feeling. Something was there for him and he shuddered with the superstitious thought that somehow it knew his name.
Ellium tapped the console connected to the chair in front of him and his window to the outside was established. The tilted the controls in such a manner to display outside of the ship.
Behind them was Earth; blue and streaked with strands of white clouds. Above it sat New Jerusalem, aglow with a brilliance that no artificial light could mimic, connected to Earth by an impossibly thin tether.
Maneuvering the view to point ahead of them, through the archway of the great hangar, was the opening of the Issachar Gate. The light was pearled, rippling like fabric underwater. The wormhole’s edge shimmered with anti-light; something that looked like nothing but seemed to hum with the force of controlled gravity.
The ship inched forward. Past the wall. Past the gate housing and into the tube.
The Issachar Gate collapsed behind them, and the Dawn’s Light ignited its Alcubierre field.
There was no flash or great roar. Just a hum that climaxed with a brief jolt.
And then they were gone.
In a single instant, Ellium had traveled farther than any of his ancestors. Beyond the cradle of Earth. Beyond the bounds of the solar system. Beyond Light’s reach.