Steve Alten - Vostok

“Whoa, hold on. You’re asking me to sacrifice William and Brandy, now Jonas and his son, plus all the people that these bastards killed in D.C.? For what? For some alien race on a distant planet that died long ago? Why are you placing that burden on me? I mean, come on, isn’t that God’s will?”

“God has given you the will to choose.”

“Okay, so what happens if I choose not to go to this Da’at place? What happens then?”

“Then you’ll return to seven years ago to the ice tunnel, and whatever reality has manifested as a result of your decision. Of course, this time, instead of entering this vessel, you’ll simply come to a dead end.”

“In my last lucid dream, I was much older. Brandy and I were still together; William was a man. And the Yellowstone Caldera erupted… Was that real?”

“It was one reality among a multiverse of possibilities.”

“You know what I’m asking! Will it really happen, or did it occur as a result of my decision to enter Da’at?”

“Entering Da’at resolves nothing. It simply returns your soul to a past life.”

“You mean Avi Socha?”

“He is known on his world as a soul searcher. Once you enter Da’at, your consciousness will awaken to his reality. You will retain no memory of ever having been Zachary Wallace.”

“Then how do I get back to this life?”

“There’s no guarantee you will. The soul is immortal, of course, but the only certainty once you enter Da’at is that you will live and die as Avi Socha, and the course of action you take, or refuse to take, may determine the future of your species.”

The blood drained from my face.

There are times when life shits on your head, when reality unravels with a diagnosis of cancer or paralysis or the loss of a loved one. That’s the moment you realize your contentment was all an illusion, that you never had any control, that the money and notoriety and long hours and better job titles and great sex and the whole rat race chasing after the pursuit of happiness was all bullshit. Because if and when you do find yourself alone in that foxhole or on that surgical table, in a sinking boat or a hospice bed or trapped on a dying planet, and it’s just you and your fear — that’s the moment you realize the only thing you have left, the only thing of substance that life can’t strip away from you, is your faith in a higher power.

For me, Dr. Zachary Wallace, lord of the skeptics, I had to believe because the alternative — going back seven years to the ice tunnel — was a death sentence.

Sometimes, better the devil you haven’t met…

“Okay, Alien Joe, I’m ready. Send me back.”

I felt myself sinking feet-first through the floor, my body atomizing as my consciousness was inhaled into the center of the whirling electrogravitic rings.

I awoke on an alien world as another person .

Avi Socha — mated to three, father of ten .

Avi Socha — born into servitude, subcitizen of the Kohenim Tribe .

Avi Socha — discredited scientist and soul-seeker, now a prisoner of the state .

Avi Socha — a forgotten man on the verge of death .

Nearly one solar year had passed since I’d been arrested in a seaside cave by the Council’s secret police. My neighbor had turned me in, hoping to acquire “loyalty credits” for the lottery, a contest in which a thousand subcitizens would be chosen to board a transport vessel that was to safely orbit our doomed world, Charon, when the Miketz struck .

The lottery turned out to be another Council lie designed to stave off civil unrest .

Weak from hunger, I remained in my sleep sack until the midday sun beat down upon me. It shone through from octagonal openings in the two-story-high ceiling of my quarantine. Using my soiled tunic as a tent, I curled beneath the fabric to shield my light-sensitive eyes .

The prison cells were occupied by the dead and dying, but our jailers were gone. They had abandoned the facility three weeks earlier, when a massive earthquake had rocked the continent, spawning a planet-wide exodus thirty-nine days ahead of the anticipated doomsday event. Once the cartel and their military capos had gone, the republic’s infrastructure collapsed, chasing the vendors who had serviced the elite into the mountains — my jailers among them .

Hundreds of ships now orbited the planet, linking together to form clusters, their pods occupied by past and present Council members and their families. The rest of us were forced to remain behind, waiting for a volcanic eruption that would wipe out all traces of life .

Left alone to die, I was surviving on the rainwater that poured in from the ceiling and a solitary green leaf a day, taken from what little remained of my four-plant garden .

Being locked away in exile is a perception-altering experience. Initially there is pain. Pain comes in a variety of forms, from the physical agony brought about by incessant hunger, to the mental anguish of being confined to a small cell, to the emotional torture of being deprived of seeing your loved ones .

The first few weeks were by far the hardest, the darkness accompanied by nightmares, birthed by the screams coming from the other prisoners. I adapted by stuffing my earholes with torn fabric from my tunic. My stomach gradually adapted to starvation by shrinking, my mind to the tediousness of endless time by creating a routine .

Yet even that was not enough to slow the onset of madness .

Being held in solitary confinement brings waves of insanity, time melding into lucid dreams and waking delusions. The first episode happened one scorching day. As the heat baked me alive in my cell and the noonday sun reflected off my stone floor to blind me, I sank into a panting, heart-pounding delirium, muttering a long-forgotten mantra as I welcomed death .

It came with a blissful release of pain as my consciousness rose out of my body to the ceiling, my mind’s eye looking down upon a tortured being lying in a hammock. I had become so emaciated that at first I didn’t recognize myself .

My skin hung loose from my skeleton; my black eyes were sunken and red. Having left my body, my consciousness floated joyfully out an open vent to the prison courtyard .

At the time of my first passing, the facility was being abandoned by the guards. There was chaos and fear and uncertainty, the violet horizon laced with vertical rocket plumes from ships racing into orbit ahead of the mobs .

Moving over the prison walls into the city, I witnessed a crime spree evolve into a bloodbath, as decades of military rule gave way to the inevitable “whatever it takes to survive” mentality. Looting, murder, rape, intoxication — I could feel my species’ life force sink deeper into the mire as they turned on one another, trading morality for survival .

And then a force of energy summoned me, its white light intoxicating. I floated toward it and was enveloped in the love of my birth parents, both of whom had been put to death by the last regime eight solar years ago. Bathing in their aura, I wished only to join them; however, they told me it wasn’t my time. They said the upper worlds had tasked my soul with a mission — to lead my people off of our dying world .