A final leap and he slows, his consciousness staring at a spiral vortex of swirling stars so magnificent that its breathtaking brilliance, its scale, its omnipotence is almost too overwhelming to behold.

Mick feels his soul trembling as he gazes upon the Milky Way in its entirety, his mind drowning at the realization of his utter insignificance.

God … so beautiful …

Billions of stars, trillions of worlds, all part of a living cosmic organism—a churning island among the vast ocean of space.

Mick soaring above the galactic bulge, rising higher, until he is staring down upon the black heart of the Milky Way, a swirling vortex of unfathomable gravity, its orifice driving the galaxy as it inhales interstellar gas and dust into its monstrous mouth.

And then—in a blink of his mind’s eye—the galaxy is transformed, reappearing in a perspective totally alien to his species, a fourth dimension of time and space.

The black hole becomes a radiant emerald funnel, its mouth dropping beneath the galaxy, constricting, until finally breaking away into an expanding cobweb of gravitational strings—a latticework of fourth-dimensional highways that spread out over the Milky Way like a slowly revolving net, never touching the other heavenly bodies—yet somehow touching them.

The information becomes too overwhelming for his brain to comprehend.

Mick blacks out.

When he reopens his eyes, he is gazing down upon one of the arms of the spiraling galaxy, a pattern—a constellation materializing as he moves nearer. Another leap forward and three stars appear—three stars set at a familiar alignment.

Al Nitak, Al Nilam, Mintaka … the three belt stars of Orion.

Soaring ahead, he finds himself staring at a planet of behemoth proportions, its surface colored in a tapestry of deep greens and azure blues.

Xibalba. It is as if the thought is whispered into his consciousness.

A solitary moon orbits the alien world. As his consciousness passes over the lunar surface, he sees a transport ship rising from a small outpost, heading toward the planet’s surface.

His mind hitches a ride.

The vessel dips below dense layers of atmospheric clouds, revealing a molten ocean of pure energy. The silvery, mirrorlike surface reflects the planet’s magnificent cardinal red sky. Looming ahead on the southern horizon is a triple sunset, the blue-white binary star of Al Nitak the first to drop, its disappearance causing the seascape to meld into brilliant shades of lavender and magenta.

An exhilarating sensation washes over him as the transport ship races along the purple sea. Then he sees it—a mammoth continent of incredible beauty—soothing beaches surrounded by a lush tropical jungle, peppered with magnificent waterfalls, mountains, streams …

Moving closer, he sees a megalithic crystalline habitat of dazzling beauty. Sparkling alabaster pyramid-shaped structures dot the landscape, interconnected by winding walkways that weave through a futuristic, alien skyline. Below, lush, tropical gardens that would put Eden to shame grow amidst twisting rivers and cascading waterfalls of molten silver energy.