Thorns of Immortality
by Patryk Rebisz

The Story - short version
Why did God give physical form to the universe rather than keeping it in abstraction of His thoughts? Capable of the sublime - reaching the infinites, why is the human limited by the brevity of body's existence? Can one understand God if to do so one must think beyond the universe and the structures of comprehension imposed by Him? 

Visiting one of Pluto's moon, the Poet witnesses the Event - a disturbance in time-space that makes humanity aware of the Others who reside in a star system 180 light years away. Though way beyond one's life, humanity sets out on a long-distance manned mission to the source of the signal.

92 years into their journey, the crew's sleep is interrupted. Their flight is canceled as advances in technology make the mission obsolete. The astronauts struggle to obey; inner demons rising within. The glory they thought would avait them, their fantasies of being the first ones to finally encounter aliens, is crushed…

Continuing their journey, they land on the planet exploring the Other's artifact - a Pyramid. Seeing how their physical presence changes the environment, the Poet ponders questions of time, space and mortality ultimately becoming one with the Pyramid that turns out to be the carcass of the Other who came from a universe without time and space. The Poet's body expands towards the edges of the universe, beyond infinity, becoming one with God.

In the book's last part, the Poet is back on Earth 364 years after takeoff. He's released from the asylum for long-distance astronauts who can't find themselves in the outside world into the hands of the Woman who's studying to become Human. He learns about the outside world based on perception rather than tangibility. He learns from her about the politics, economics, social relations and history that dramatically changed since his leaving. The book ends with their visit to a robot art collector who gathers future's trash: masterpieces of painting. The android laments how his existence by definition is detached from possibility of uniqueness, while humanity doesn't appreciate that gift.

The book ends with the Poet looking at the stars into the eyes of the reader.

The Story - long version
PART 1

The Poet, the protagonist of the book, is on a vacation to a moon around Pluto. He's taking time off from preparation to fly a long-distance maintenance mission to Alpha Centauri to replace a malfunctioning computer that has become aware of its own mortality. As he climbs a hill overlooking the moon's small outpost, he witnesses the Event - a signal from the Others. 

Humanity decides to send a manned mission to the Planet - the source of the signal - that is 182 light years away. Although his original mission became irrelevant, through skillful manipulation of his contacts, the Poet manages to secure a spot on the new mission to explore the source of the Event. Meeting the Others will guarantee the Poet's place in history, sparking a new desire for living. The mission will take 364 years - long past the standard average life expectancy - so he ponders what motivates humans, and specifically himself, to sacrifice life for a glimpse of immortality.

Unable to sleep the night before takeoff, as he reminisces about the media circus around the launch, the Poet decides to visit his father. On the way he witnesses the death of a dog. Perceiving many similarities, he ruminates about the meaning of the end. As a memento, his father puts together a time capsule with a letter to be read by the Poet after his return - four lifetimes away.

As the crew gets ready for the immortal sleep, the Poet considers how the history becomes fiction ultimately disappearing into oblivion.

PART 2
After 92 years in hibernation, the crew is awakened from their sleep, learning that their mission was cancelled due to spectacular advancements in technology. Around half-way point between Home and their destination, made irrelevant to history, they question if they should keep on going or return as requested by Mission Command. Having lost direction in life, the crew struggles with finding a new meaning. While looking at the data about the Planet, the Poet questions why people embark on such journeys in the first place, asking about the need for physical presence in discovering ideas. 

Faced with the need for spiritual rebirth, the crew starts exploring works of art seeking clues on the new reality they will be forced to form. The Poet looks at Japaneses prints of Mt Fuji where the mountain is a metaphor for God. He loads one painting in 3d simulator to help him understand the drive behind journey towards a spiritual goal. Disappointed with computer's interpretation, he decided to embark on his own climb within the simulator during which he imagines how over time mountains developed as powerful symbolic destination. He speculates on differences between the journey and the goal - how the two are reflected in people's preferences for the real freedom vs the imaginary one. He considers how dreams supercede reality and asks himself, against his beliefs, why anyone would ever want to abandon the fantasy to face the truth.

Close to the simulated mountain's top, the Poet studies other instances where individuals sought to touch God. He finds himself in the midst of some 3d music concert, visits the stage and studying the performer dancing for his large audience. The Poet merges with the performer realizing that from that vantage point, the masses of fans don't matter. Changing simulation, he witnesses a powerful Persian emperor crying at life's insignificance while observing his massive invading army crossing into Europe. The Poet admits to the contempt he feels for people who don't strive for the glory of history.

Considering their death, the Poet realizes that the crew will have to define their new reality - to start from the beginning, first answering who he is. He speculates that it was an identity crisis that inspired God to birth the universe. He realizes that boundaries defining anything are there only temporary thus in essence nothing exists and only through the temporary reality of bodies something can be. The body creates God by thinking up the infinity. The conflict between temporarity of body and possible infinity of mind gives birth to the soul. He studies how other thinkers sought meaning by turning to pure sciences, ultimately ending up with religious dogma. The Poet questions if it's possible to ever find out the outside of the God-Universe and if it isn't, how can one find ultimate meaning. 

As the crew gets ready for the sleep continuing the journey towards the Planet, the Poet gives up his quest to find out what's on the mountain's top as knowledge sometimes destroys passion. He speculates that God has lost passion by making himself eternal, then tried to fix this mistake by introducing the brevity of human life. By giving people the will through their Original Sin, God managed to create freedom that exists outside of this universe.

PART 3
The crew wakes up near the Planet and prepares for the landing. Due to his dispensability, the Poet becomes the first person to step on the surface. He considers that in the stars he'll be remembered as the "first man." They set up base camp and get ready to visit the Pyramid - the source of the signal as deciphered by the probes that researched the place long before their arrival.

Close to the Pyramid one crew member starts having breathing problems - astonished and against all their data, they discover an air bubble around the structure that lets them move without helmets on. They enter the Pyramid and walking towards the sphere at its center, notice that the walls change colors. A myst of black dots start surrounding them. They question if it could be a map and realise that their physical presence there affects its layout. 

Back in the spaceship, the Poet looks at the images from the Voyager probe sent into space centuries earlier, trying to see those as if through the prism of the Alien. Through that exercise, he hopes to find out what clues they might be missing reading the Pyramid.

Unable to immediately find any correlation between the known universe and the map from the Pyramid, the Captain orders to install instruments that can monitor changes. As they wait for the results, they fly around the planet observing the landscape and Jammers - massive flying "animals" made out of rock that are relatively unknown despite the years that the planet was studied before their landing. By luck they witness one crashing into the side of the mountain. They consider how to best study the immobilized creature, deciding to build a temporary camp around its carcass.

That night the Poet dreams about being his own parent giving birth to himself. As they travel over land from their spaceship to the jammer's carcas, the Poet tries to deduce meaning from his dream. He remembers how looking back towards Home planet he stopped relating as if the meaning of "home" has lost its original significance. 

They set up their temporary base. Unable to sleep, the Poet considers how through ages people's values have changed. He is awakened by Gasser - another of the planet's strange "animals" - floating nearby. He considers how it wasn't until the Renaissance that the idea of being in the moment gained in importance and how some cultures have words for certain states of minds while others find those states so irrelevant they even lack clear definitions. The Poet wonders if it's his attachment to old ways of thinking about meaning defined by a goal that forces him into depression.

The crew finishes setting up a structure around the crash Jammer and start the research. They are frustrated because the scans of the creature produce errors until they spot that something within its carcass is moving. They argue if they should cut the creature open to rescue the "baby." Pulling out the baby Jammer, they are starlet to find a few dozen grown creatures levitating in unison over the camp. As the weather worsens, they return the baby placing it a distance away from the camp and return to their mother ship to wait out an incoming storm in the Planet's orbit. The crew ponder the meaning of the Jammers' gathering talking about various death/birth rituals in human civilizations and animal kingdom. The Geologist proposes a curious conclusion, describing how according to the known data the Jammers were not known to produce an offspring, their baby rescue attempt might have produced a sort of miracle. The birth of the First.

Back in their mothership, the Poet dreams about accepting the reality of the Planet. He understands that just as their presence changes the Planet, the same happens to them, influencing them and their perception of reality. At night he meets the Archeologist who is losing his personal understanding of the self. Seeing his fragile psychological state, the Poet tries to calm him and helps him go to sleep.

The storm forces them to stay longer in the orbit. During one of the briefings, the Astronavigator exposes preliminary findings about the Pyramid's map, revealing that he started seeing some similarities only when modeling an abstract universe without time and space. This conclusion doesn't sit well with the crew who longs for certaintities defined by concrete rules governing their reality - they are not interested in speculations. The Poet realizes that meaning is also a function of the searcher - his or her ability to step outside of the experience. He goes back in his memory to a story of an explorer who through a simple gesture of giving a sick man a cup of tea fundamentally adjusted his perception of reality. He realizes that truth is contextual and the closer to a nirvan of understanding one gets, the more one has to adjust the truths that led one there. Using the "universe's watchmaker as a proof for God's existence" theory, the Poet considers how inability to think beyond obvious patterns of thinking limits human understanding and ability to look at an issue from another perspective. He concludes that reality is as much a function of perception as actuality of being. Context gives form. He considers the internal fight of body and mind - how each builds up boundaries. Mind's desire to run away from the body's imposition shapes infinites, that in turn give humanity God. 

Like the rest of the crew, the Poet is ordered to see the ship's Psychologist where he tries to define personal beliefs. They converse about why God chose to create something rather than bask in the glory of pure ideas. The Poet admits that his passion for discovering underlying structures is his way to subvert God. Pushed further, he speculates on reasons for human creation. The debate differentiates between being and non-being reaching the conclusion that the problem is only valid in this universe and outside of possibilities in the abstract universe, with no space and time, as defined by the map inside the Pyramid. Trying to discern the thought patterns of the Traveler from that other universe, their conversation moves to the sort of questions the Other might want to know. 

During landing, the Poet ponders the meaning of death through birth. He thinks how context is shaped by such simple factors as proximity and size. He goes back to the question why God created a tangible universe speculating about ideological beginnings of the universe - at first only existing in God's fantasy. He speculates how the idea-only cosmos wasn't enough for the Maker. The Poet thinks about his own beginning and how through the process of birth he gained his soul that, changed by his life, will revert back to the universe, in turn changing it forever.

Returning to the camp they start the cleanup after the storm. During the evening meal the crew is alarmed by the sudden departure of the Biologist who walks to the baby jammer location then dies unleaching his helmet. They try to retrieve the body but the robot is destroyed, crushing into one of the jammers. Looking for another method to decide to try anew the next day.

PART 4
Coming soon!