Shwartz uncoupled from his HoverHarness and slid into the Sleep chamber. With his apparati removed he was even more an aberration. He didn’t care if anyone saw him, but no one would like to, that much he knew.

The sleep gas mixed in as the shuttle approached the wormhole entrypoint. Shwartz began to drift. Existential questions overtook his mind.

What is power?

The incomprehensible dichotomy between the power of nature and the power of the individual. He believed that he already had ascended his individual in life as much as possible. He had many times overcome the power of nature.

How much can a man do?

It was he who took the podium when The Principality of New York had voted to separate from the bankrupt United States, following in Pacifica’s footsteps. It was his engineers, decades later that had solved the molecular recycling problem which had plagued old Earth. That discovery saved Earth’s ecosystem and changed the course of human history.

As he slipped away, he was ready to ascend beyond.