As a young man growing up in early twentieth-century Germany, Arthur Waldmann is introduced to the mysteries of the Jewish Kabbalah by his eccentric grandmother, and dreams of traveling to a Heavenly Academy of ancient sages in a distant galaxy.

When he discovers that he cannot achieve this goal by spiritual means, he decides he will reach for the stars through the emerging technology of rocket propulsion. Waldmann comes to believe that he is the chosen one to lead mankind's conquest of space, but soon discovers he must confront brilliant rivals with equal claim to the title, one of whom is the scion of a renown aristocratic family.

Despite misgivings about the rise of Nazism, he becomes a key figure in the successful development of the V2 rocket. This new weapon arrives too late to change the outcome of the war, however, and as German defeat approaches, Waldmann commits himself to a desperate project that would rewrite the history of spaceflight had not its unforeseen consequences brought about its erasure from the historical record.