11,000 Years

In 2169, the Terran Confederation research starship Hawking, under Captain Phelan Morgan, arrives at a black hole. After months of research, the companion star flares, and in a desperate effort to escape, the Hawking comes far closer than planned to the black hole's event horizon. The ship is flung into the future as far from now as the first level of Jericho is from us. They have to deal with ultimate loss, and then look for people in this far future, only to find that humans have fractured into four very different branches in a self-directed evolution.

Hammad bn Hammerskld lives a settled life as an inquisitor in the capital city of one of hundreds of planets making up the Society of Humanity that nearly a third of all humans live under. Then he meets J'dith, who leads him on a trail to discover that most of what he thought of the Society was false. From that, their path leads to something neither could imagine.

When Phelan and the people of the Hawking meet Hammad and J'dith, the course of much of humanity will change.