It was a landscape of dreams. Snowy peaks and clear skies all over. Immaculate lakes fit for emperors. Reminded me of the Garden. How I pictured Eden would look like. Minus the ice and snow. I shivered despite my winter clothes. The Garden stood in the desert. Would not have been so cold. But God had created ice and arctic wind. Though the reason eluded me. For drinking water, I guessed. Glaciers rested atop the mountains from which rivers that saved us all flowed. And not a single city in sight. No light bursts. Only hamlets on the coasts. Everyone would have thought it perfect. I didn’t. Because what was the point of all that beauty, if no one lived to see it? And though it speared my skin, what was the point of the arctic ice, if not a soul remained to brave it?

For a second there, when I gazed at the ice that veiled Baffin’s ridges, I thought evil did not exist. But it did. Even if it felt like it didn’t. Because only in Heaven evil did not exist. And I was not in Heaven. Despite the paradise that stretched ahead of us. Silaluk’s words echoed in my mind. I had given him that whole hope speech, and yet, I found myself doubting. And though I wanted to believe it, I could not completely guarantee that only the gravels had lapidated me.

Baffin had lived through war, its citizens saved, its mountains spared; only for evil to confront them once again; though this time, an enemy only resistant hope could free them from, an enemy that did not come from an ocean away, from a strait away, but from a bridge away, the bridge across the Éastanacsa. Peace and fear at the same time. Fear that froze more than the polar night, and peace that spiked more than war. A war perhaps caused because someone saved Eudora. Because someone spared Zielkkenhom. Was Silaluk right? Did he have a point?

I pictured Jesus. When he saved the soldier whose ear St. Peter sliced off. When He saved countless other enemies.

Silaluk was wrong.

I thought that realization would have comforted me, and it kind of did, but it did not thaw my veins. Nor reduced my shivers. And neither did the fact that a jet emerged in our radar. Military grade. Weapons attached even. Right out in the horizon, four minutes and ten seconds away. Had Silaluk warned them we’d break into their base? To protect Pang, I guessed. In another instance rage would have engulfed me, but it didn’t. I could understand why you’d do something that others could consider traitorous to protect your hometown, those you cared about. So I didn’t mind. We’d just have to deal with the consequences. Tranquility didn’t forsake Girgor’s face either. He must have been through worse. I had gone through worse.

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But before we could even change course as we had no weaponry and would have been no match for it, speed abandoned the military jet, as fish that dashed away from sharks, until it remained nothing but a void carcass of metal that would crash into the ground. And kill everyone inside.

We would not let that happen, even if they were enemies.

But the jet crashed before we could do something. Resonated throughout the plains. Ripples mantled the pristine lakes that surrounded us. And yet, it still felt in complete isolation. Majestic nature that would watch us perish, and continue without us. Away from civilization. Away even from tourists and explorers. Only ourselves to rely upon. Us and God. Just like the Bridge. Was that how those in the Rim felt? Was that how we had forced them to feel?

Thank God the jet didn’t explode in the icy waters, but fuel dripped. It could soon explode. And no one had emerged outside. So Girgor landed and I sprinted to the wreckage, praying it would not explode. Praying I would survive. And for the first time ever since Zee Gevangenis, eagerness, hope, descended upon me, as the light of the Holy Spirit. I guessed after saving people in the Bridge, rescuing others became routine, just another item in your checklist for the day. But the scenery change must have rekindled one of the reasons why I decided to become a bridger in the first place. To save people. To save everyone at risk. And ask the questions later.

I swam into the crashed remains, and instantly knew that my hope had arrived too soon. When I saw who was in that jet. When Girgor and I lifted debris from the pilot’s bruised legs and carried his unconscious body impaled by shrapnel back to our jet, and away from the smoking wreckage that threatened to decimate us. And forever ruin the Eden around us.

We had just saved Terrance Vilijoen.

We had just saved a Harmonist Limb.

We had just saved the one who annihilated my district. The one who had probably murdered my family. And threatened to start a civil war.

Silaluk’s words pounded me again, stronger than before, anvils against my soul. Bombs against my brain. And for the first time I thought that perhaps he was right.