The War in Heaven (31 page)

T
he sun had not yet risen out of the early morning haze as the Spirit hurtled skyward. Its departure aroused the group still busy with the issues of war. They stepped out into the dewy grass just in time to see the craft vanish into the low clouds.

“Tesla,” murmured Johann, who quickly moved to his telemetry room just off his main study. He activated the telesphere. An image of Tesla appeared in its depth. “What are you doing?”

“What needs to be done, my friend,” replied Nikola, only briefly looking away from the controls of the Spirit. “You know that this journey needs to be made. I was tired of pussyfooting around about it.” He glanced from the craft for a moment. “What a beautiful view this morning—billowing clouds from horizon to horizon. I’ll send you a continual telemetry stream in the event that I am able to communicate with you from the other side.”

“Is David with you?” asked Johann, glancing over at June who had just entered the room.

“No, he’s with the Father in the Holy Place,” replied Nikola. “I wasn’t about to take him on this journey. This is a one-man operation. He is more useful to you there. He was expecting to go, but I had other plans. Please offer him my apologies. I know he wanted to go with me.”

Johann nodded. He realized that he would be unable to convince Tesla to return. It was best to simply go along with his plan.

Spirit’s landing legs were fully retracted now, giving it the neutral aerodynamics of a perfect sphere. It accelerated quickly, yet silently. The sky around Nikola went from deep azure blue, to violet, and then black, as he
left the atmosphere behind, an ever narrowing arc of blue along the horizon of Heaven. He would need to leave the atmosphere if he were to make a successful dimensional jump. He glanced over at the telesphere still displaying the image of Johann. “I’ll try to bring the Spirit in on the daylight side of Hell. That way, I might not be readily observed. Then I’ll go into a high orbit to give the instruments a chance to scan the magnetic field strength, charged particle density, and space time density. I’ll try to identify that power source. If I can, I’ll send my observations back to you on the telemetry stream.” Again, Nikola looked away from the telesphere. “I’m preparing to make the jump…wish me luck.”

“With you, it’s never luck,” said Johann, concern on his face.

Nikola smiled slightly, but said nothing more. He had reached an altitude of 1,000 kilometers; it was time to make the jump. He would be running full power through the twin temporal capacitors, at more power than he had ever tested them. If something went wrong, he would briefly blaze with a brilliance twice as bright as the sun, as seen from the villages below. The hum of the drive grew in intensity as a flood of power surged into it. Then the craft simply vanished from normal space and into hyperspace, the tenuous essence that joined the 13 dimensions of the cosmos.

Brilliant ragged clouds of many colors contrasted against a background of inky blackness swept past him. Under normal conditions, the Spirit drew power directly from the wellspring of power that pervaded the entire universe, God’s own Holy Spirit. But where he was going, that Spirit did not extend. At some point he would have to switch to internal power—the temporal capacitors. In essence, it was the power of God’s Holy Spirit captured in a high-energy containment field. Lose control of it in the spiritual vacuum of outer darkness, the space surrounding Hell, even for an instant, and the resulting explosion would exceed the combined explosive power of every nuclear device ever detonated on Earth times three. It was not a comforting thought.

“I’ve gone to internal power,” said Nikola looking toward the telesphere displaying the now snowy image of Johann. “It’s a bumpy ride…rougher than the last time we came this way. My surroundings have faded to black. I should emerge from this wormhole in about thirty seconds, if all goes well.”

The Spirit hurtled across the dimensional barrier. Nikola watched with concern as the energy levels of the twin capacitors plummeted. His calculations as to the energy requirements were little more than a guess. What would happen if he miscalculated or ran out of energy before completing the transit? He had a pretty good idea. He would be adrift in the nothingness of hyperspace until the end of eternity—another unpleasant thought.

The power levels dropped below 50 percent—no turning back now, he was committed. Still, the gages dropped: 40 percent, 30 percent, 20…. Then, there was calm. The craft was flooded from behind with amber light from Hell’s red dwarf sun, Kordor. Ahead of him was the fully illuminated disk of the most terrible destination in all of creation—Hell. He had gated in right where he had planned to. This terrible world was predominantly a sphere of shades of brown, yellow, and red. No oceans of water or polar caps of glistening ice graced the ruddy orb, though much of the far side of this world was covered by an ocean of hot black oil.

He glanced at his fuel gauge. He had made it with 19 percent fuel remaining. Yep, that was about what he had figured. The onboard computer made the necessary calculations to place him in a 12,000-mile-high orbit. A large dish antenna and three other sensors emerged from the safety of their compartments just below the hull of the craft and sprung into action. The instruments were working fine; data was being gathered. Nikola turned to the telesphere—it was blank. Yep, he’d pretty much figured that too. It was time to get to work. The survey might well require the better part of two days. In about six hours he would be in position to communicate with Abaddon. Perhaps he would be able to conduct a tutorial session with
Victoria van Voth in the process. At least that was the plan. He really didn’t want to drop in unannounced.

The hours passed slowly for Nikola. There really wasn’t much to do. The data was being recorded automatically. He looked at the results from time to time, but nothing of particular note caught his eye. Suppose he was wrong? Suppose there was no power source here causing the increased dimensional density? Then there might be nothing that Abaddon’s people could do. He might be stuck here for a long time. In good company to be sure, but stuck nonetheless.

Then again, save for his deathbed conversion, this is the place where he might well have spent his eternity. He had tried to live a decent life on Earth. He had done a lot of good in his lifetime, made his mark for the better. He’d saved George Westinghouse, a good man, from financial ruin. He’d brought light to the streets of America. Still, he’d missed the mark for so much of his life, failed to realize what was truly important. Again he gazed down on the terrible orb. He knew so many people down there, both friends and adversaries. Might he have made a difference for them?

No, he couldn’t think in those terms. It was the melancholia that dominated this place, the melancholia that was the inevitable state of a mind separated from the Spirit of the living God. He’d experienced it on his last trip here, though he’d tried to put it out of his mind. He’d only been here for 13 hours that time. This time, he’d have to deal with it for a much longer period.

Then again, the last time he was here, he wasn’t alone. Again, he tried to make contact with Johann and the group at his home in the forest. If he could just talk to someone for a while, he might feel better. The telesphere displayed nothing but static. Two more hours and he would try to contact Abaddon.

Within the small cave, Tim Monroe dreamed. He dreamed of his last night on Earth—prom night. He was the youngest junior in the class. He had even been on the prom committee, decorating the gym for the big night. Yes, this was to have been his big night, the night he came out of the closet.

There were rumors about his sexuality, but that was what they were, only rumors. Most of his classmates didn’t take them seriously. He was a handsome youth, one of the best runners on the high school track team. His father was a Baptist minister, no, he was all right. He wasn’t one of them; after all, wasn’t he taking Gale Miller to the prom?

But that was the plan. His friend, Billy Nelson, was taking Sue Martin. In reality, Billy and he were the real couple, as were Gale and Sue. At the prom, they would switch partners. It was the perfect plan, or so they thought.

The four had been ejected from the prom after the third dance. But the night hadn’t ended then. They’d left the prom together in Billy’s car, not realizing that they were being followed by several irate homophobic classmates. What happened next was unclear. Tim remembered the pickup that had pulled up beside them at the light, the two guys in it. Words had been exchanged. There was a scream. He thought it was Gale. A shot had been fired, maybe two. Then he felt as if someone had driven a hot poker through his head. The next thing he knew, he was hurtling through a dark violet tunnel and dropped into a small dark cell in the depths of Hell. He had been forced to wear a gray ragged loincloth for his sentencing before the master of pandemonium—Satan himself. Satan had condemned him to the plunge for his sin of homosexuality.

In his mind, he experienced the sensation of standing before that terrible precipice for the first time, felt the taskmaster’s whip at his back urging him on. Then came the dizzying plunge.

Tim awoke abruptly in the small cave. There were tears in his eyes. He looked over to where his small friend had been lying, almost expecting to
find him dead. He’d been lying there for a day, barely breathing, but now he was gone. A surge of fear went through Tim. Then he lifted his head to find the small creature asleep, curled up in the middle of his chest. He was breathing regularly; he looked better. The small creature’s eyes opened, meeting Tim’s.

“Hi little one,” whispered Tim. “I was worried about you. Are you feeling any better?”

Tim was surprised when the small creature smiled slightly. Yes, he was better. Then his eyes closed once more.

“I’ll take good care of you,” vowed Tim, “I promise. We’re going to be great friends, I just know it.”

Tim’s comment elicited the slightest purr from the small creature and then it faded off to sleep. In that moment, Tim knew that his friend was going to make it. Tim wouldn’t have to be alone here, he had a friend. A moment later, he too drifted away to sleep. The bad dreams didn’t return.

Bedillia and Tom walked hand in hand across the frozen wasteland just beyond Refuge beneath an auroral display brighter and more colorful than any that Bedillia had ever seen. The aurora shifted in strange and wonderful patterns, like a multitude of curtains hung from the dark starless firmament, blowing in an ethereal wind.

There was not so much as a breath of wind, which made the 40-below zero environment slightly more tolerable, but only slightly. Their immortal bodies could feel the bone chilling cold just as well as a mortal one. The only difference was that they couldn’t freeze to death.

“I now understand how vital winning this war is,” said Bedillia. “We’ve both had a taste of eternal damnation, eternal suffering, but only a taste.
You would think that all of those years in a fiery furnace, having my flesh cooked like an overdone steak would have toughened me up. After that, taking a plunge off’ a cliff would have been easy, child’s play, right? But it wasn’t. Being released from the torments of Hell, only to return to it once more is horrible beyond belief.”

“You’ve got to quit thinking about it,” said Tom, stopping in his tracks and turning to Bedillia. “You’ve been going on about it for days, reliving it again and again. I can hardly imagine what you’re going through, but you need to hear some of your own advice, counselor. The first thing you need to do to get the healing started is to put it behind you. Don’t keep digging it up over and over again.”

Bedillia smiled. “Counselors and doctors make lousy patients.”

“Why not just enjoy the light show,” said Tom, pointing to the dazzling display.

It was then that Bedillia noticed that Tom’s eyes were affixed on just one point in the sky. A few seconds later, she discovered why. “Tom, that looks like a star. But there are no stars in outer darkness.”