On the Wings of Hope: Prose (Recognized)

Sacrifice

"Commander, you, I do hope, clearly understand that you have been summoned here not by chance?" with these words the timeless leader of the Brotherhood looked over his subordinate, without interfering, however, with his psi-field. He clearly knew he would be able to read everything he desires only through facial expressions, and had no need for trained for the course of several thousands of years psionic skills. "The topic of this meeting will concern your last mission on the planet Earth."

His subordinate, second-in-rank "Alpha" team commander, was well-known in the ranks of the Brotherhood as the founder of strategy and tactics school, as well as the commander with one of the highest fulfillment success rates of planetary missions in the Visible Worlds. But the Earth... the Earth turned out to be much more difficult than it seemed before their embodiment there. And recent mission on its lands became a superfluous confirmation of that fact.

Commander stood up straight just as by command, looking how golden-colored eyes of the Brotherhood's leader were sliding through lines of the news bulletin, prepared by archivists following the results of their last assigned task. Lines in Another World's language were highlighted in the air just before his eyes, sparkling with silvery shade in the ether that was filling a room, and then gently thawed, being forever dissolved to once again remain hidden in endless storages of registrars.

Another World – that's how inhabitants of this world agreed to call it between themselves. Habitual for Visible Worlds laws of physics, chemistry, biology and a set of other so-called "sciences" didn't work here as usual. For its inhabitants, the world was a mystery and a science in itself. Another World was a unique kind of a binding knot between all visible worlds – both an entry and exit point from them at the same time. A vast set of portals, representing the rarest rifts of the fabric of time and space, connecting Another World with other ones, were generously scattered on inside it by a hand of the maker. The entering of one of such portals became a birth in the linked visible world, and during so-called "death" a return could be made through rifts-portals back to Another World. Such a transition was always followed by the embodiment in the external physical form that was common for inhabitants of each of the visible worlds, and only by parting with this shell it was possible to return back to a native, multidimensional Another World through the functioning rift.

Once, at the beginning of this world's exploration, when exact locations of these portals weren't widely known, pioneers of discovery often became involuntary victims of different incidents, related to these rifts, due to imprudence being transferred – and, thus, being born – in one or the other of visible worlds. Time in Another World was flowing in its own pace with its own grace, and trips to other worlds, even the longest ones, generally took no more than a single year in Another World – but, despite it, even such a temporary lack of presence of any of Spirits could give a birth to a horde of different questions from those fellows who knew them in person.

What would a wife of some humanoid from the Alpha Centaur star system say, for example, if her devoted husband came out to examine local surroundings, only to return back home a year later?

Inhabitants of Another World had no common for Visible Worlds divisions into social groups (otherwise the Brotherhood couldn't be born), and they lived infinitely longer, but random wanderings through visible worlds often weren't a part of their daily schedule. Therefore, after discovery and mapping of all currently found rifts, access to them was strictly limited only to members of the Brotherhood, Free Wanderers and representatives of the Supreme Council. And each such birth was associated with its own Mission.

"Regarding your last Mission on the planet Earth in the star system of the Milky Way galaxy, commander," the leader of the Brotherhood continued, "as you, certainly, remember, we have sent another group together with your own, one of the members of which was your both earth and spiritual brother. And you had to..."