by Gethsemane
Kahn cut Thall off. “Thall, shut the hell up. It’s enough that I have to see you mound-kickers every day. I’m not going to talk to you, too. Just do your gawddam job and keep your mouth shut.”
Thall shut up. Keeler of course, did not. “If you are so certain that you can go to Heaven without dying, why haven’t you left?”
“There are still a few hundred of us here, and we will wait until the last day. I want to make sure all of my people are safe before I leave. That’s leadership.”
“Unh-huh,” Keeler nodded. “So, could I see this gate in action?” Kahn had been growing steadily more pissed as the conversation had progressed. Now, she looked like her reflex reaction was to deny their request, but this impulse was over-ridden by her want to overcome their skepticism. “We’re sending the last personnel from the Office of Sustainment through this hour. If you are willing to follow our conditions, you may observe.”
“This I got to see,” Keeler said.
Without looking at Thall, Kahn ordered, “Major Thall will take your party to the Embarkation area. I will join you there. But first I need to speak to him in private.” The three from Pegasus excused themselves, and Thall closed the door behind them.
Almost immediately a tirade, barely muffled by the heavy wooden door, erupted. Kahn’s voice was shrill and hectoring. “This is the kind of mound I have to put up with while I’m trying to evacuate an entire furking planet! If I ever want your gawddam opinion I’ll ask you for your gawddam opinion. And don’t think that’s likely to happen, buddy, because you are a furking idiot. You’re here to guard my ass and open the gawddam doors and aside from that, you keep your gawddam mouth shut.”
This went on for several minutes longer than was necessary. Alkema turned to Kitaen and saw that his face was red. “Are you embarrassed?” Kitaen looked down at the floor and nodded.
“I’m sure Mr. Thall can take it,” Alkema offered.
“I’m embarrassed for her,” Kitaen clarified.
The door opened again and Thall exited. His face was stony. Apparently, he was long accustomed to being on the receiving end of Kahn’s tirades. “Follow me, gentlemen,” he said politely, and led them to the far side of the building to a kind of tram station where a pair of monorail pods waited for them.
The twenty minute trip took them across an arid, rocky landscape of mildly interesting desolation. Most of Gethsemane’s land area was semi-arid desert, with vegetation confined to bands along the rivers and the coasts of its shallow seas. Though eroded hills rose in the distance, there was nothing on this flat plain like the grandeur of the coasts.
Once past the open plain, the monorail ran between two of the rays of the Ziga. Kitaen looked over the side of the tram and admired the workmanship that went into the beams radiating out from the circle. Thall explained helpfully. “The beams are made of a cobalt-molybdenum alloy. Inside of them are rods of super-conductive material. They direct energy in toward the center of the circle.”
“What is the source of the energy?” Alkema asked.
“Zero point energy derived from quantum fields in subspace,” Thall answered.
“Very advanced,” Kitaen observed.
Thall admitted, “It is Kariad technology. We did not invent it.”
“It taps into the magnetic field of your planet, doesn’t it?” Alkema asked.
“I think so,” Thall answered. “I don’t really understand how it works.” Alkema turned to Kitaen. “That explains why we detected an EM distortion field covering most of the planet’s surface. The planet Fallon had something similar, but it was localized and not nearly as powerful.”
“I remember,” Kitaen assured him.
The Tram dove underground, passed through a tunnel, and finally pulled up to a docking ramp. The station was part of an enormous, cavernous space notably larger than one of Pegasus’s hangar decks. Only one other of the huge docks was occupied, this by a long train of twenty empty cars.
Keeler realized after a moment that he was standing at the dock, staring up into the dome of rock with the slack-jawed, eyes-wide expression of a yokel seeing a Republic megacity for the first time.
“The other six lines aren’t used any more. We parked the trains in their tunnels.” Kitaen explained. Another tram pulled up behind his and Kahn emerged, surrounded by a coterie of aides and guards. She ignored the landing party and went her own way.
“The control room, let me show you it,” Thall said. He led them away from the boarding dock, down a short corridor, and up two levels to the control room.
It was a surprisingly small room, an eighth the size of Pegasus’s Main Bridge, and a lot of it was taken up with banks of technology that blinked and hummed. Four men sat at desks in the front of the room, looking into old-style monitor screens. A smaller display in the center console was counting down:
Next Gate: 00:03:52
A sort of enclosed balcony protruded out from the rear that overlooked that vast round parade ground that surrounded the Gateway itself. Thall offered Keeler a set of binoculars, the better to scan the huge space, but Keeler declined. “Built in Zoom feature on our Spex,” he explained.
“Spex?” Thall asked.
“A kind of vision augmentation built into … the gear we wear when visiting planets,” Alkema explained further.
“Really? How interesting,” Thall said.
The center of the circle of the Ziga enclosed a space larger than the groundball stadium at the University of Sapphire at New Cleveland (which held 214,000 screaming Armpit Avenger fans and drunken alumni.) A metal ring of pure gold marked the interior circumference, forming a wall two-meters in height. The floor had once been white, but was scuffed and warped by the passage of millions of evacuees.
In the center of the circle was a tall parabolic arch two hundred meters tall.
Thall pointed toward the arch. “The departure party should be assembling by the gateway arch about now.”
Keeler, Alkema, and Kitaen zoomed their vision. There were about thirty people standing on the parade ground in front of the arch. They were dressed in white robes and dark glasses and alternated expectant glances between the arch and each other Alkema asked one of the men working the controls about one of the displays. The man was happy to explain. “These show the capacitors holding energy. It takes them about four hours to build to a one hundred percent charge.”
As the clock reached one minute, lights began flashing and a recorded voice that sounded a lot like Hildegard Kahn’s announced. “One minute to gate activation.” A shield began sliding over the viewing windows at the rear of the control room. Thall indicated a display screen on the far wall, “You can observe the rest of the activation from here.”
When the clock hit 00:00:00, light appeared on the golden ring and in less than a second it traveled all the way around it, making it glow with bright white light. The moment it completed its circuit, the arch emitted a lightning flash of brilliant white light that seemed to penetrate their eyelids, bones and souls.
The afterimage blinded them for several long moments. Keeler willed his eyes to clear and stumbled toward the viewing window as the shield slid aside. Out on the parade ground, the entire group of people had vanished without a trace.
“Neat,” Keeler said.
“It isn’t over,” Thall told them. “We’re receiving an envoy from New Gethsemane. He will transport at the completion of…”
Before Thall could finish, the light circled the ring again, and there was another over-bright flash of light. When the afterimage faded, a man stood in the middle of the ring, dressed in a colorful robe and looking happily disoriented. He was tall and dark skinned, with a thatch of tightly curled black hair going gray. Though elderly, he looked well-fed and robust.
“I’d like to talk to him,” Keeler said.
“The Passage through the Gate leaves you disoriented,” Thall warned, but he led them down a flight of stairs and across the parade ground in the center of the ring, which had a strange ozone-like sting i
n its air. Hildegard Kahn and one of her co-councilors were already greeting the envoy.
“Minister Oberth, the Five Welcomes of Unity extend to you,” said Kahn.
“I like pudding!” The man exclaimed at the top of his voice.
“We’ll see that you get some,” Thall promised the man.
“Who?” the man demanded in a loud voice. Thall carefully unpinned a folded sheaf of papers that was attached to the front of the man’s robe and handed them over to Hildegard Kahn, who snatched them away and held them jealously close.
“Because we can’t rely on memories of the Afterworld, reports have to be written and passed through an envoy,” Thall explained.
The tall man blinked at him, and as he became accustomed to his surroundings, a look of disappointment set in.
“What’s wrong?” Keeler asked.
“Oh, you know, it’s just that it’s such an adjustment to be back in here,” Oberth said patting his groin. “The bodies we have in New Gethsemane are so young and vigorous, nothing of the infirmities of age. You can play stickball and Buck-Buck and Johnny-on-the-Pony all day long and you never get tired. But then you gotta come back to this old body and your pubes are going all gray and all you can say is…” He broke into a shout, “‘What the Hell! My pubes are gray!’”
“Thall, take Minister Oberth to his chambers before he embarrasses himself,” Kahn ordered.
“Too late, I peed my pants!” Oberth declared.
“You aren’t wearing pants,” Thall reminded him.
“I peed something!” Oberth insisted.
“Now!” Kahn insisted. She turned over to Commander Keeler. “Regrettably, the journey between worlds confuses the mind. He will be all right and a day or so. If you are satisfied, I think you should leave now.”
“May I see it?” Keeler asked. “New Gethsemane. May I travel through your ‘Heaven’s Gate’ and get a look at the AfterWorld for myself?”
Kahn looked as if she were about to say no, but Oberth piped up with enthusiasm.
“Why, of course you can.”
“I’ll take that as an affirmation, then,” Keeler replied.
Chapter 02
Pegasus – Keeler’s Quarters (24 hours later) – As he prepared to return to the planet, Commander Keeler found himself in a conundrum: What was one supposed to wear when journeying to the AfterLife. On the one hand, it seemed something light and dressed-down would be in order, but on the other hand, what if he ran into the Allbeing? Shouldn’t he try and dress up a little?
Eventually, he decided on a combination of jacket and trousers in Navy blue with a gold shirt that he had often worn to the North Shore Yachting Club in New Cleveland back on his home planet of Sapphire. It came with a jaunty sailing cap, but Keeler decided he was too old to pull off that look and left the hat in its drawer.
“What do you think, Pops?” he asked of Dead Keeler.
The ghost (sort of) of his deceased ancestor Lexington Keeler hovered nearby in a gray mist of ectoplasm. “You look like a Delta City funny-boy.” Live Keeler took another look at himself in the holo-mirror and preened. “That’s what you always say.”
“You are, by the way, a damned fool for doing this,” Dead Keeler added. “You really think the Almighty lets folks just sashay on into the Afterlife.”
“Sashay?” Live Keeler replied, checking the side-view in his mirror. “In this outfit?”
“I don’t know what sort of fool contraption they got down there,” the Old Man fumed.
“But it ain’t no Gateway to no Afterlife. Probably some weird science fiction euthanasia deal, where they trick you into think you’re going to heaven, then they kill you.”
“Neg, we’ve already ruled that out,” Live Keeler said. “It is a Kariad device, and that alone is enough to intrigue me. Everywhere they go, they leave chaos and decay in their wake.”
“I see why it’s so imperative that you risk your life jumping through a giant Kariad death machine then,” Dead Keeler… um, deadpanned.
Live Keeler smiled and raised his index finger. “Aha! That’s exactly the point! Who are these Kariad? Are they aliens, or are they one of the human races left behind. Why do they feel the need to screw with all the human colonies on this end of the galaxy. It’s important to know that, I think. Worth a risk of seeing what’s on the other side of that gateway.”
“What a load,” the Dead Guy scoffed. “We both know the real reason you’re going through that hellmouth is…”
They were dramatically interrupted by the commander’s door chimes. Live Keeler exited his sleeping chamber and passed into the main room of his quarters, a large and comfortable space dominated by a fireplace, large beige couches, and a wall of shelves filled with archaeological knick-knacks and souvenirs from the various worlds Pegasus had called up. He signaled the hatch to open.
Waiting outside was Keeler’s former Tactical Officer, Philip John Miller Redfire, who, ever since losing his memory three years previously, had been keeping bar in Pegasus’s Officers Club. “Greetings, old friend,” Keeler bade him enter into his quarters and make himself comfortable on this couch.
“You seem especially jolly,” Redfire observed.
Keeler offered Redfire a drink, which he declined. “To what do I owe the honor of your company? Does it have to do with the colliding planets? Have you recovered your childlike sense of joy and wonder at mass destruction?”
Redfire looked out through the virtual window at the sandy-brown and turquoise planet turning beneath the ship. “From what I understand of his journals, the old me would have enjoyed this immensely. Now, it just seems a horrible, tragic waste. When that planet explodes, no human artifact will survive, barring a miracle. Of course, miracles happen with a frequency that defies attempts to declare the universe random and meaningless. Nevertheless, a thankless waste.”
“But it will look really cool,” Live Keeler argued. He offered Redfire another drink, which Redfire again politely refused. Commander Keeler had already poured the drink, and was in no mood to let it go to waste, so he downed it himself.
“Do you really think the Gethsemanians found a way to access the Afterlife?” Redfire asked.
Keeler all but snorted his answer. “Neg. I honestly don’t know what kind of scam they’re playing here, but I’m curious to find out.”
“You think it’s some kind of hoax?”
“Some kind, za. I don’t believe for a minute they’re going to the Afterlife, but Dave Alkema’s has a team scanning, and probing, and studying the reports of those who’ve gone into and come back from the other side.” He gestured dismissively toward a datapad that had the report displayed on it. “He doesn’t think they’re killing people, or putting them inside some sort of weird virtual environment.”
“How does he know that?”
Keeler picked up the pad that contained the report Alkema had summarized for him and handed it to Redfire. “Dave told me that the energy signature the Gateway produces is similar to what happens when Pegasus enters or leaves hyperspace. I don’t know where they’re going or coming from, but they are definitely going somewhere, and Alkema tells me it could possibly be somewhere completely outside our universe.” Keeler smiled and added. “If so, this could be my big chance to get away from it all.” Redfire didn’t laugh. Even before his abduction, he had been a taciturn sort of man.
“Could it be a giant teleporter? Some speculate that the Commonwealth possessed teleporter technology.”
“Za, well, there’s lots of speculation about the Commonwealth,” Keeler countered. “The problem is, our forebears were prodigious generators of fiction and legends, and we don’t know what accounts are historical documentation and what are works of fiction. There are numerous accounts of teleporters in Commonwealth literature. But there are also well-documented situations in which use of a teleporter would have been a great asset, but they were not used. And even with the technology we salvaged from the Caliph probe, we’ve never been able to figure out h
ow to make matter-energy conversion work with enough reliability to teleport anyone. I need another drink.” And, with that pronouncement, he poured himself two glasses and set one nearer to Redfire on his drinks table.
Redfire set the datapad next to his drink, because he already knew what was in it. He changed the subject. “Have you studied this religion of NIM they follow on Gethsemane?”
“Not really,” Keeler replied. “And by not really, I mean not at all.” Religion, honestly, had always been a gray area for the commander. He had been raised a Theologian of Christian aspect, but never had gotten the hang of ‘belief.’ He always figured he would work on it later. Most Sapphireans spent their waning years in Retirement Monasteries in the Arcadia and Panrovia provinces, and while Keeler was fairly certain he didn’t want to do that, he expected to come to terms with the Allbeing ‘at some point.’ And he really meant it as long as no one pressed on when ‘at some point’ actually started.
Redfire had discussed the NIM religion in detail with Eddie Roebuck and General Kitaen. “NIM is a sort of Gnostic version of fundamentalist Iestanism.”
“If you say so,” Keeler interrupted.
Redfire pressed on. “The NIM believe that we influence Heaven as much as Heaven influences us. That we, all humans, are each one aspect of a celestial consciousness.
Humankind is simply materialized thought operating on the 42nd vibration, so say the Nims. They believe that their heaven is shaped by their collective consciousness.” Keeler took this in while nursing a long drink. Finally, he said, “Doesn’t that sort of diminish the Allbeing? I mean, that sort of makes God out to be some sort of politician, letting everyone vote on what heaven is. And the meaning of life just amounts to casting your vote. And what if the version of heaven that 50% plus one vote on is Hell for the other 50% minus one?”
“It isn’t that simple,” Redfire told him. “General Kitaen tells me that many prophets have claimed to have seen visions of heaven, but that these visions were limited by their human capabilities of perception. And the Gethsemanians who have returned report the same thing, that passing back through the Gateway limited their ability to recall or convey what they had seen.”
