The Traveler

The silo was a massive vertical cave with concrete walls. Years ago, the government had removed the weapons aimed at the Soviet Union, but he could see the shadowy outline of a missile platform about three hundred feet below him. A stairway spiraled around the silo from the base to the opening. And yes, there it was-a shaft of sunlight pushing through a gap in the silo cover.

Something splattered on his cheek. Groundwater was oozing through cracks in the concrete wall. Holding the lantern, Gabriel began climbing the staircase to the light. The stairs trembled each time he took a step. Fifty years of water had rusted the steel bolts that held the structure to the wall.

Slow down, he told himself. Got to be careful. But the stairs began to shiver like a living creature. Suddenly a bolt was ripped out of the wall and fell through the air to the shadows below. Gabriel stopped and listened to the bolt ricochet off the platform. And then, sounding like bullets from a machine gun, a line of bolts snapped out of the concrete, and the stairs began to peel away from the wall.

He let go of the lantern and held on to the railing with both hands as the upper part of the staircase fell toward him. The weight of the collapsing structure pulled out more bolts and then he was falling outward, only to slam back into the concrete, about twenty feet below the entrance ledge. Only one of the support brackets still held the railing.

Gabriel hung from the railing for a moment, overcome by fear. The silo yawned below him like a portal into endless darkness. Slowly, he began to climb up the railing, and then he heard a roaring sound in his ears. Something was wrong with the right side of his body. It felt paralyzed. As he tried to hold on, he saw a shadow arm composed of small points of light emerge from his body while his right arm fell motionless to his side. He was holding on with one hand, but all he could do was stare at the light.

“Hold on!” Sophia shouted. “I’m right above you!”

The sound of the Pathfinder’s voice made the shadow arm disappear. Gabriel couldn’t see where Sophia was standing, but a length of knotted nylon rope fell down and slapped against the concrete wall. He was just able to reach out and grab the rope as the support bracket ripped away from the concrete. The railing fell past him, smashing onto the launchpad.

Gabriel pulled himself up to the ledge, and then lay there for a while, gasping for breath. Sophia stood over him, holding her lantern.

“You all right?”

“No.”

“I was up on the surface when the generator shorted out. I got it going again and came down immediately.”

“You-you locked me in.”

“That’s right. There was only one more day to go.”

He stood up and headed back down the passageway. Sophia followed him.

“I saw what happened, Gabriel.”

“Yeah. I almost got killed.”

“I’m not talking about that. Your right arm went limp for a few seconds. I couldn’t see it, but I know that the Light came out of your body.”

“I’m not sure if it’s day or night, if I’m dreaming or awake.”

“You’re a Traveler like your father. Don’t you realize that?”

“Forget it. I don’t like any of this. I just want to have a normal life.”

Without another word, Sophia took a quick step toward Gabriel. She reached out, grabbed the back of his belt, and jerked hard. Gabriel felt as if something was ripping, tearing inside him. And then he felt the Light break out of its cage and float upward while his body collapsed facedown onto the floor. He was terrified, desperately wanting to return to what was familiar.

Gabriel looked at his hands and saw that they had been transformed into hundreds of points of light, each precise and glimmering like a star. As Sophia knelt beside the discarded body, the Traveler floated upward, passing through the concrete ceiling.

The stars seemed to move closer together as he became a concentrated point of energy. He was an entire ocean contained within a drop of water, a mountain squeezed into a grain of sand. And then the particle that contained his energy, his true consciousness, entered into a sort of channel or passageway that propelled him forward.

This moment could have lasted a thousand years or for only a single heartbeat; he had lost consciousness of time. All he knew was that he was moving very quickly, racing through darkness, following the curved edge of a contained space. And then the movement ended and a transformation occurred. A single breath, more fundamental and pervasive than lungs and oxygen, filled his being.

Go now. Find the way.

44

Gabriel opened his eyes and found himself falling through blue sky. He looked down and from side to side but saw nothing. There was no ground below him. No landing place or final destination. This was the barrier of air. He realized that he had always known of its existence. Attached to a parachute, he had tried to re-create this feeling in his own world.