TCI

True to Yeshua's word, Rebekah did not grow horns when she experienced the Change. Instead a bone cyst appeared at the back of her head that grew and eventually cracked open into a "D" shaped cup to reveal 55 black pins as fine as the lead in a mechanical pencil, and they were just as prone to growing back if they were broken off.

Yeshua supplied her with a cable ten feet in length of superior craftmanship, with each end terminated in a connector with 55 female receptacle pins. The idea was that a person changed in the way Rebekah was could connect directly to a machine through the cable, or even directly to another changed person. Rebekah called it the Purple Cable.

Another thing that happened to Rebekah was that she became, for all practical purposes, sexually irresistable to both sexes, though not absolutely irresistable. Rebekah was a walking assault on all the senses, but neither Hunky nor Dory looked up from each other, and Robyn was preoccupied with her baby girl. Gabriel, however, fell neatly and inevitably into her trap.

And a week after the first "flying lesson" Gabriel sprouted the same sort of bone cup that Rebekah bore, but as with her it remained hidden under hez pony tail. If Robyn knew, she didn't ask about it. And when Gabriel said che was going to take Rebekah up for flying saucer lessons again Robyn, as before, didn't object. But this time she said, "Kiss your daughter goodbye." Gabe thought that was weird, but che did as che was told.

The second lesson was no short day trip into the mountains but a week-long tour of the national parks in the American southwest. Robyn had given Gabriel an inch and now che took a mile.

They flew by night and settled to the ground at the break of dawn to keep flying saucer sightings to a minimum. Rebekah sat on the cushioned floor unwrapping the Purple Cable from around her waist, where she used it as a belt. She said, “There's plain vanilla sex, which you do with Robyn, and there's sex with me, which you already know about, and and there’s using the Purple Cable during sex, which is a whole different proposition. It’s something Yeshua built into us that you don’t know about yet. Perhaps he wanted us to have a taste of what it’s like to be a living star. But if you’re game, and if Yeshua wasn't lying to me, you have to know that you literally will not be the same person you are now when you come out on the other side of the experience.”

“What does it do? Erase memories?”

“Not at all. Everything you know, your personality, everything you are right now will still be there, but it will be diluted to an intensity of seventy percent to make room for me. I’ll mix in at thirty percent. I’m telling you this to give you a chance to chicken out.”

The natural born daredevil in Gabriel urged hem to go forward. Che smiled broadly and said, “Let’s do it.”

Before she handed Gabriel one end of the Purple Cable Rebekah said, “One more thing Yeshua told me: This is going to take hours, because it’s our first time. When we do it again, and trust me, you will want to do it again, it won’t take as long because only new memories have to be swapped to get each other caught up.”

When they were connected together Gabriel could simultaneous look at hemself with Becky's eyes and at herself with hez own eyes. Through the cable Becky could tell Gabriel wanted to see har without clothes on, and the feeling was mutual, so they both stripped. And Gabriel, after years of marriage, responded as che typically did in the presence of hez nude wife.

As before Rebekah gasped at the unfamiliar sensation. With a sudden hunger they clambered into each other.

Rebekah moved against Gabriel and worked her way to the orgasm that Gabriel expected to feel through the cable, just as she expected to feel Gabriel’s own orgasm. What neither expected was that the cable synchronized their orgasms to perfectly match, peak on peak, and lag of the cable put their mutual and doubled sensation of the first contraction on top of the second contraction, by Yeshua’s deliberate design.

Two became four. Four became eight. Eight became sixteen. Sixteen became thirty-two…

Something about physical intimacy while connected together this way seemed to flip a switch, something Yeshua intended to happen. During the cascading orgasm Gabriel’s memories and personality flooded in.

Rebekah’s self was pushed down and drowned out, but there was a hard limit and the beginning of a creeping return as the edges of Becky soaked back into the new memories of Gabriel standing firmly in the center of har mind.

The chemical trigger levels that existed between what used to be living brain cells were flushed of Becky’s values and set to Gabriel’s values. But this was not fully accomplished.

The neuron-analogues were even physically rerouted to reflect Gabriel’s long-term memories but this, too, did not become hundred percent complete.

Feedback went up the Purple Cable to Gabriel. A new person emerged within Becky’s body with twenty-nine percent of Gabriel’s brain wiring and seventy-one percent of har original wiring. When the sex was over a new composite person who was simultaneously Rebekah and Gabriel, in a 71-29 split, stared out at Gabriel.

Rebekah lay slightly apart from hem in the saucer while sha tried to sort through har feelings. Har first take was that the Sharing was both wonderful and terrible.

None of Gabriel’s inner thoughts, nothing that ever happened in hez life was hidden from har now, which was wonderful. But Rebekah discovered sha had to make a conscious effort to discern which memories belonged to Gabriel and which ones had always belonged to har, and sha thought that was terrible.

One of those memories was of Gabriel telling hez Kuwapi high school buddies, “You think about sex a hundred times a day but I could be having it that many!” Gabriel had stripped to back up hez claim and was passed between the boys like a marijuana cigarette, which Rebekah found wonderful. But sha also knew Gabriel was torn being both male and female in a time and place where only one or the other was accepted, and sha thought that was terrible.

Gabriel had also frequently conversed intimately with Robyn, although not directly, as through the Purple Cable. But she knew how future events assembled in Robyn's mind, and how the whole house of cards collapsed whenever Robyn mad an important decision. Rebekah thought the talent was wonderful. But sha also knew from pillow talk that Robyn hated this power to the point of despair, which Rebekah thought was terrible.

Robyn already knew her husband would be unfaithful to her, simply by remembering a future when he had the bone cup, but she had let it happen anyway. Robyn should have objected before Gabriel took her out on flying lessons, but she remained silent and Rebekah knew why that was true. The answer was simply that both Michael and Yeshua wanted things this way.

Rebekah had another memory now, of when Robyn had revealed to Gabriel something Michael had told her, “You alone among all the humans of Earth have the freedom to choose, because you alone can look ahead and go another way.” And Rebekah found the prospect of Robyn being the only person with real freedom to choose a terrible thing, because for all she knew even this act of rebellion, of seducing Gabriel, might be precisely what Michael or Yeshua wanted.

Knowing that sha didn’t have Robyn’s power of free will, Rebekah decided in that moment sha could carve out the second best thing and obtain a limited freedom for herself. She silently vowed, in that moment, to actively oppose Michael’s plan at every step for as long as she lived.

Sha said, “We’re carrying water and food and a little money. You have the power to multiply them, just like Yeshua did with the loaves and fishes.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Let’s not go straight home, okay? We’re already in big trouble with Robyn when we get back to Franklin, right? So in for a penny, in for a pound. Let’s fuck our way across all the national parks we still haven’t seen.”

The P51 Mustang fighter plane was a bomber escort that revolutionized the strategic bombing campaign over western Europe during the war. Bomber pilots called them, affectionately, their “little friends”. Jet aircraft began to come on line after the war, but for a time the P51 remained in service as the most numerous fighter in the US Army Air Forces.

In July, 1947 the USAAF was still a few months away from being split off into it’s own branch of the military called the US Air Force. Unfortunately for Gabriel and Becky, they were touring a part of the country that had large empty areas of land given completely over to military operations and no way to know when they crossed over the line into their airspace.

On Independence Day fireworks commenced. Gabriel and Becky became acquainted with a pair of P51s flying out of Alamogordo AAF base in New Mexico. They didn’t have a chance. During the war Mustangs shot almost 5,000 enemy aircraft out of the sky, and destroyed another 4,000 aircraft on the ground. Each plane sported six .50 caliber machine guns.

Several rounds penetrated the saucer. One hit Gabriel and passed right through hez leg. It was all che could do to get down to the ground without killing himself or Becky. It was more of a crash than a landing, and it took place on a hilly ranch about thirty miles west of Roswell.

This was to become the most famous UFO incident in history.

1302 By that evening the shock of what had happened to them faded. None of the Brown Beards, if any had survived, crawled up to the plateau to renew their attack. So the three sons of Lael began to dispute which one of they would take up Lael's office of high priest and chief.

1303 Jemuel sank to his knees and said, 'O living God of Abraham and Yishak and Yakob, if you will, make known what man of us shall be high priest and hear your voice on the Day of Atonement.' And in reply the graven sphinx decorating the cover of the Ark rotated to face Rosh.

1304 Then Rosh removed the cover of the Ark of the Covenant with his bare hands, yet Chokhmah did not smite him. And Rosh took the White Scroll and found the place where his father Lael had added his own words to the words recorded by Leliel, the daughter of Michael and Lilith.

1305 And Leliel had written upon the scroll in characters unknown to Rosh, but Lael the father of Rosh had written words in Hebrew where the writings of Lael broke off.

1306 Rosh read aloud the words of his dead father from the White Scroll, 'Once in the days of Josiah king of Judah I went to the Pool of Siloam to pray, and I was alone, for it was deep in the evening. There a man appeared to me from the water carrying a torch that cast white light but did not burn, and I sank to my knees.

1307 And the man said to me, 'Rise, for I am no seraph, but a mere erel called Jashen Shybear. The Seraph Michael has bid me to seek Lael of the Levites, the son of Joiakim.' 'I am Lael,' said I, and I rose to my feet as I was commanded. Jashen drew near with the light."

1308 'This was the weapon of Queen Lilith, the mother of my wife,' said Jashen as he held forth a relic. 'It is given to you to be a sign, but have a care. Crushing it firmly in your hand will cause it to send forth a black shaft that nothing can withstand. It will drink everything into oblivion, even the very air around it.

1309 'Know, Lael, the kingdom of Judah has become the vassal of enemies, and the living God has turned away from them. The last living children of Israel on Earth will soon be scattered from the land promised to Abraham by the unbelief of his descendants, yet God would preserve a remnant of the faithful from among them.

1310 'It is appointed to you, Lael, to take your wife Sariah, and your sons Elam, Jemuel, and Rosh, and Elam's wife Serach, and seek one family each from the tribe of Judah, and the tribe of Benjamin, and the tribe of Simeon, and bring them here to this very pool of water, where you will be taken to dwell in Kemen.'

1311 Then Rosh read the names of the remnant that Lael had gathered to himself from the kingdom of Judah, and he read of the many gifts given to them by their long-separated brethren in the kingdoms of Hamar and Nath, and how even the very Ark of God had been entrusted to them.

1312 'I will add to this scroll an account of last night's battle at the foot of the Wall of God,' said Rosh, turning eyes to his brothers Elam and Jemuel, 'and of the death of our father at the hand of enemies who would steal the Ark. We will fulfill the charge laid upon him.'

1313 Elam pondered this silently for a time, then he said to his younger brother, 'God favors you to be the High Priest, that is plain, and so the oracles of God shall be committed to you. But think you strangers will never again attempt to take from us the Ark of the Covenant?'

1314 Rosh shook his head. 'No, Elam, they will return, and I know of a certainty that you are the most warlike of Father Lael's sons. But when this yoke was laid upon our father it was the will of God that the office of both priest and judge should be in the grasp of one man.'

1315 'Let it never be said that I doubt our Lord God,' replied Elam, 'yet recall when this visitor Jashen had finished writing in that scroll, how he took the weapon of his wife's mother from the hands of our father. Had he not done this, mayhaps our father would be alive today.'

1316 Rosh thought to rebuke his brother for his words of faithlessness, yet wisdom prevailed and Rosh knew Elam spoke only from his grief. He said, 'I loved our father no less than did you, Elam, yet God is the giver of all life and God it is who can withdraw the gift once given.

1317 In like manner, I perceive that God makes alterations to his stated will according to the intercession of the men with whom he treats. We see this in scripture, do we not? Abraham tried to save the life of his kinsman Lot by negotiating with God to spare the city of Sodom.

1318 So let the offices of priest and judge be carried out by two sons of Lael according to our temperament. I will set my foot on the path marked out by the oracle of God, spoken or otherwise, but in all other things, beloved brother, I shall obey as though you were our father.'

1319 Then Rosh set the White Scroll of Leliel within its clay pot and set the pot within the Ark of the Covenant. When he set the cover upon the Ark to conceal them Yahweh did not strike him dead. Therefore Elam was persuaded that Yahweh had accepted the intercession of Rosh.

Too bright to look at, yet giving almost no heat, the shrunken welding-arc sun Rigilkent hung in the purple northern sky as bloated orange Toliman sunk in the west. The army truck driven by Sar Raziel topped a pass high on a terminal moraine. He saw a sheer wall of slowly retreating ice across a wide zone of freshly uncovered land still being carved by melt.

The new comet, of course, completely dominated the sky.

Thirty ji tall, the blue-white ice barrier stretched left and right to sink over the horizon. This was the edge of the awesome Northern Ice that covered almost half their world. Behind Raziel's truck lay a mere twenty-five hundred ji of unfrozen land and then the Southern Ice. It was slowly melting over the centuries. Only in one place, near the capital city, did the two ice packs come close together across the narrow equatorial belt of Lemnos and kiss. In the distant past, in the time of Talishi and the World War, there were three such bridges, dividing Gorpai into three lands.

The four-lane concrete ribbon wound down the other side of the pass and straightened out, a low elevated highway that disregarded the shifting waters under it on a beeline for the base of the wall. Raziel had been diverted from combat to a more sedate role in logistics, and in the supply world, after the self-reinforcing bravado of battle command fell away, he a healthy fear of death returned to him.

Raziel, with his wife seated next to him, drove closer to the blue and white wall until it grew to half their world. They could see the cliff was literally vertical, and even a little more than vertical. "If one of those overhangs decide to sheer off right now, he pointed out needlessly, we're dead."

A high ridge of ice and snow on both sides of the road attested to the constant clearing that was needed.

"Experimentalism," Erela said, "without the smallest sign of worry about the ice, contrary to popular belief, can, if implemented properly, allow one of the freest possible societies."

The dangerous period was short. Soon the highway entered a tunnel melted into the very base of the ice. The pale blue translucent walls grew darker until they were black. They were safe, but to Erela the tunnel was a kind of death anyway. The shrinking glow behind her could well be her last sight of Kemen. From now until they departed the planet she would know only caverns.

Raziel sighed. "Push for Experimentalism and you rank up there with King Metatron, who rallied his city under the banner of Lililith and killed thousands of his own people."

"I rather think it was your own Army of Keter did the killing."

"Suicide by Keter. You have to be pretty stupid and gullible and naive to think Experimentalism can work."

"Why can't everyone determine what is good for the public in Experimentalism?" Erela suggested. "You can have Democratic Experimentalism. What do we have now? Traditionalism. One person can determine what is good for many, but the many cannot determine what is good for themselves?"

"Erela, there is a fatal flaw at the heart of democracy. People are naturally lazy. They want free stuff. In a pure democracy, everyone will simply vote themselves sustenance from the commons and no one will contribute. The whole structure will come crashing down. This has happened many times before, which is why only Traditionalism has survived."

Construction in ice was simple; it needed only a source of heat and a flexible conduit to whisk the melted water away. Deep within the ice the road twisted this way and that, finally dumping out in a multilevel city of burrows, bristling with security.

"Look up tunnel 610 on the map, this isn't familiar to me."

"It's coming up on the left. Ugh, I'm carsick now. I never could read and ride."

I was thrown off by that sign for 601. This map has a blurb at the bottom that says, 'with apologies to Zelebsel.'"

"Who's Zelebsel?"

Probably some poor lan who trusted an earlier edition of the map."

Tunnel 610 was interrupted by a series of several checkpoints and it was only Raziel's credentials as a supply officer that got him through the gates with a long skinny gray box of ordnance strapped down on his flatbed trailer. His manifest was not in order. It would not do to allow even a quick glance inside the box.

The road dead-ended in a large illuminated cave that was the lay-down area for supplies coming in and going out of the facility. He was expected. The box was quickly forked off the truck and disappeared inside the bowels of the facility.

Raziel and Erela themselves were taken to a well-lit conference room deep within a maze of passageways carved into the ice. They were given warmer clothes to wear, because the chill was eternal and omnipresent. Space heaters would only melt the walls. Presently they were joined by three len and a yan, and Raziel was mildly surprised when the yan began speaking rather than one of the males.

The yan, Raziel noted, wore a decorative headdress with white horns, and she was mighty of frame, striking for a yan. She said, "My name is Tabaet. These yeng are members of my team. They are Malkiel, Senciner, and Xaphon."

"Your team?" Raziel gasped. "They answer to you? And Asmodeus permits this?"

She smiled. "Asmodeus permits much, because we do many things for Asmodeus that he could not have otherwise. The...equipment...you have delivered for us was designed and assembled right here."

Raziel took her awkward speech as a signal that someone might be listening to what was said in the room. And that presented a problem. It would be difficult conveying what had to be said while dancing around the actual words. He nodded his head to indicate he understood the situation.

Tabaet said, "I would extend a full welcome to you, but this is a classified project, and the yan with you is uncleared."

"I will not send my wife away away," Raziel insisted. "Where I go, she goes. You will have to get her a clearance. She must be...fully involved...in the project."

"That is impossible," Malkiel said. "You must be content to train one of us to operate the ...equipment. The project is of such a nature that only four people can be fully involved.

"I alone have the knowledge to fully prepare the equipment for us. If you do not accept that condition, then you'll have to content yourself with an inert mass."

"Time grows short," Senciner objected. "The comet is drawing near. With any delay the risk of failing grows."

Raziel smiled. "It is the unique nature of this...equipment...that any reasonable delay is irrelevant."

Tabaet sighed and came to a decision. "Very well. We have a simulator. Xaphon will instruct you in his role, and Malkiel will instruct your wife. I will retain Senciner on the team. When you are both fully involved in the project, there will be opportunity to discuss this further."

The len exploded simultaneously with loud objections but a glance from Tabaet quickly silenced them, and to Raziel that was an impressive thing to witness. Erela concealed a smile behind her hand.

1320 When the days of mourning for the High Priest Lael of the Levites had passed, Lael's third son Rosh took he the Table of the Covenant and held it forth in front of him. Then turned he in a slow circle until a sound like that of a shofar trumpet came forth from the relic. And Lael’s third son Rosh said, “Behold, I am constrained to go there.”

1321 And Elam, the chieftain of the Remnant, was compelled to follow his younger brother that he might be true to his word. Yet both he and Jemuel grew wroth with their younger brother by the day for the admonitions of their father that came out of his mouth at regular intervals.

1322 Their father was dead, may he rest in peace, but here was little Rosh spouting Laelisms as though the old man somehow lived on through his third son. It rankled, yet neither Elam nor Jemuel dared gainsay God, who had made the Director to point to Rosh as the new High Priest.

1323 Then Elam said to his brother Rosh, “Behold, the very Ark of God dwells in no tent. Would you have the snow fall upon our holy relic? Make you, therefore, curtains of fine twined linen. Adorn them with images of sphinxes, and link them with blue rings and gold clasps.”

1324 Then Rosh and his Benjaminite wife Sela toiled through the night to carry out the commandment of their chieftain Elam, but they could not even fairly begin to fashion the curtains before it was dawn and the Remnant broke fast to prepare for that day’s march north and west.

1325 But the twenty-three people of the Remnant could only travel away from the Wall of God for a single league by reason of the rough terrain and the thick undergrowth of dangerous flora, and the age of Lael’s widow Sariah, and the livestock they took with them.

1326 During the march Rosh recited from the White Scroll. “Grazing your animals in another man’s field, or burning his crops, is theft. The going rate for restitution for stolen oxen is five to one, and for sheep is four to one. If a thief cannot make full restitution, he becomes a slave.”

1327 While Rosh preached Elam and Jemuel grew angry again, but Elam could not order Rosh to be silent since his words were from the mouth of the God of the Remnant and they would have held him to be exceedingly impious.

1328 But when they made camp Elam had words of his own for Rosh. Elam said, “Make another tent from goats hair, to cover the tent of linen for the Ark of God, but this time the clasps are to be made from brass.”

1329 And Rosh persuaded his widowed mother Sariah to aid him and his wife in the mounting tasks, bending brass over a fire. Late into the night did Rosh and Sela and Sariah toil.

1330 The next day when the Remnant resumed their overland march, Rosh again recited the laws written in Leliel’s White Scroll. He said, “If you see your neighbor’s animals running astray, you shall gather them in.

1331 "Magistrates among you shall not accept bribery from the rich, nor shall they favor the poor in their judgments. But if the people are stirred to become a mob when they perceive a judge has made his ruling unfairly, you shall not join them in doing evil.”

1332 Elam knew it had become a test of wills. When the Remnant ate supper he said to Rosh, “Yet a third covering for the tent shall be made of ram skins dyed red, and over this you shall lay badgers’ skins.” Then Josiah and his son Tobiah left the camp to hunt through the night.

1333 Zethan the Benjaminite and Asher, son of Jabez, killed four rams from the flocks of the Remnant for their skins, while Zehan’s wife Atara prepared herbs to make the red dye, but Elam forbade his wife Serach from helping Atara, and Jemuel too held back his own wife Iscah.

1334 When the Remnant made ready to make the next march Josiah and Tobiah returned with the badgers they had killed but there were not enough to cover the Tent of Meeting. They pledged to continue seeking more until Elam’s commandment had been fulfilled. And the people moved out.

1335 There were many imperatives in the White Scroll, and Rosh was not nearly done reciting them. “Do not eat carrion like the vultures do. Do not cook a goat in its own mother’s milk. Keep you the the Feast of Harvest and the Feast of Ingathering.”

1336 And again Elam was annoyed, but a smirk ever graced his face as he contemplated the next series of hoops he would make Rosh jump through, he and any who would follow him.

1337 That evening Elam said, “Now to the woodwork. The boards get silver bars overlaid with gold. You shall make a veil to divide the tent into two parts. One part shall be just run-of-the-mill holy, and the other part shall be very holy. The Ark shall be left in the very holy part, but you shall make a table for showbread and candles and place them in the ordinary holy part.”

1338 And Abner came to the aid of Rosh to cut tenons in the boards for the Tent of Meeting, and to help build the table of wood overlaid with gold, with rings and staves to bear it like the Ark of the Covenant. His wife Tabitha prepared the dinnerware for the showbread.

1339 Again the people toiled late into the night to aid Rosh as he fulfilled the demands of their chieftain to prepare a tent for the Ark of the Covenant worthy of the God they served. On this evening the curtains with gold clasps and images of sphinxes were completed.

1340 During the next march Rosh said, “Kidnapping men and women to become slaves shall be punished by death. Maiming a slave shall be cause to set the slave free. If an animal kills a man and it was known to be aggressive in the past both the animal and the owner shall die.”

1341 At one point Jemuel discerned that Rosh had burned through the hundreds of precepts in the White Scroll, and had turned like a great wheel. Rosh was reciting them all over again. So he set his own mind working on more tasks to set for Rosh as a deterrent to his insufferable preaching.

1342 When they reached the fringe of Shaula Wood Jemuel in his annoyance gave Rosh instruction to prepare the Tent of Meeting. But Rosh was unmoved. He did not recognize the authority of Jemuel to command the smallest thing. But Elam told him, “What Jemuel said seems good to me.”

1343 Therefore Asa’s wife Jemima and Josiah’s wife Keturah offered up some of the gold that had been given to them from the Nathites. Tobiah’s wife Susanna and Jabez’ wife Keturah rendered up the onyx stones they received from the Hamari for Rimon to set in the edge of the table.

1344 Then too Dinah, wife of Rimon, prepared oil for the lamp, and Leah, wife of Asher, made ready pungent spices for the lamp oil and for sweet incense. The whole Remnant, save Elam, Jemuel, and their wives, labored long into the night to complete the tent for the Ark of God.

After the war when the reserves were being demobilized Michael came calling to Yad Mordechai to visit Judith before she could exchange her Major’s uniform for clothing more appropriate for a collective farm. Hy embraced Judith, then stood back a bit to regard the woman with a friendly but appraising gaze.

Hy said, “Your father Benjamin will not live forever.”

And Judith lost her smile. She knew what Michael had come to ask her to do. It was something Judith had dreaded for years.

“I’m not ready to tell him everything,” she said soberly.

“No, but you are, I think, ready to tell him something, and that is a vast improvement.” Hy held out hyz hand. “Come. Please.”

Then Michael whisked Judith back to St. Catherine’s lighthouse on the Isle of Wight in the same manner hy had whisked the girl to the kibbutz twenty-one years prior, as the calendar ticked, but only six years as Judith’s life went.

For years after the war her father was only allowed to work in the lighthouse weather station, but now, as Michael told her before they left Israel, he was back to living in the lighthouse and maintaining it, just as Judith remembered from her younger days.

She stopped walking, turned to Michael, and asked another question, the one she really wanted hym to answer. “Will you tell me what you really are?”

“You will know everything about me,” Michael assured her. ‘Everything! But only after you have first told your father everything about you.”

Judith stopped in her tracks. “Why, Michael? Why must it be so?”

“Have you not discerned by now that I am healing your soul?”

After a long pause, Judith nodded her head, then she resumed her walk.

Michael said, “Good! That too is a sign that what I have been doing is working.”

Somewhere between the place where Judith had paused and the front door of the lighthouse Michael had slipped away. Judith was quite alone when she knocked on the door of what had been her girlhood home. A woman Judith did not know opened the door. “Yes, what is it?”

“Is my — is Benjamin home?” ‘

“Who are you?”

Judith’s father hobbled up behind the woman to see who had come calling. At first, when he saw the Israeli uniform, he didn’t recognize who it was. Benjamin thought he was in some sort of trouble again. But he carried within his mind the memory of his daughter’s face and she hadn’t changed nearly as much in the twenty-one years of chronological time that he did. Tentatively, he asked, “Judith? Are you Judith?”

His daughter’s face crinkled up in a way that Benjamin could not mistake, and this time there were tears, perhaps the first tears she had shed over all that time. Judith sobbed, “Father, I’m so sorry!”

Benjamin pulled his daughter indoors. They embraced for a long time, and Judith wept as she had never done so in her life. She realized that her father had done nothing, nothing, to deserve the silence she had inflicted on him all those years. Judith had rationalized to herself that she was punishing her father for refusing to emigrate to Palestine, but that was nothing more than a huge lie she had made herself believe all that time, and Judith marvelled at her own capacity for self-deception.

When Benjamin and Judith separated from their long embrace, the strange woman held out her hand to Judith. “I am Laura,” she introduced her self. “I am your father’s wife.”

“Life goes on,” Benjamin offered, as though in explanation.

Judith was mildly shocked by the news. “Father. We have so much catching up to do, it seems.”

“Then let us do so, beloved daughter, over a cuppa.”

The three shared afternoon tea in the large common room of the lighthouse. It was the place that once held a Teletype, a machine that gave the family their orders directing the Clarinet antenna for a strategic bombing run.

Benjamin told Judith he was old enough to retire, but operating the lighthouse was not so physically demanding, and he still enjoyed making his meteorological observations and publishing articles from his field in various professional journals. At certain hours during the day he and Laura would guide tourists about the lighthouse grounds and even take them to the top, something Benjamin forced himself to do despite a bit of arthritis in his knees.

Judith, for her part, was necessarily vague on answering her father’s questions about how she managed to travel to Israel, since she herself didn’t know the mechanics of that. But everything else she related, in reverse order, starting from the recent Six Day War and going backwards to the birth of her adopted nation.

“And all this time, daughter, were there no gentlemen in your life? Have you never considered being married?”

Judith came to a dead stop. All the heroic accounts of an IDF Major the Arab-Israeli wars were over. Her father’s innocent question had dumped her directly into the pit of agonizing memories that smouldered yet in the core of her soul.

“How shall I proceed father? I am no stranger to the touch of man, but let’s call it conditioning, shall we? The thought of physical love inevitably takes me back to the camps. You may draw your own conclusions, but that, I think is a mental scar far more long lasting than any of the physical ones I bear.”

“I am so sorry, Judith!”

“Rather it is I who must apologize to you, father. At no time did you do or say anything that merited silence from your own daughter.”

“Once,’ he tentatively said, thinking of Judith’s mention of scars, “just once, I saw the damage on your back. Will you say anything about what happened to you?”

Judith lowered her head for a rather long time, gathering the painful memories into a narrative for the first time since it happened. This is it, she thought, and I dread it so, but Michael insists that I do this and I owe hym so much.

“One time,” she began, “near the very end, before we were liberated by the American army, the survivors — and this was a death camp so there were not very many of us — the survivors were mustered together for a roll call, or what the Germans called an appell. We all wore very thin clothing, and it was very cold, as mornings often are in late March. The commander of the camp gave an order to flog the entire first row of prisoners simply because the exhausted and freezing women had poor posture! And I was in the first row.

“Listening to the screams of the prisoners being whipped before my turn was almost worse than the actual punishment. Almost. I vowed that I would not scream when it happened to me, and I begged God for the strength to make that vow hold true. I was stripped naked and held by two female guards over a table while a third laid on the lash. The agony of this punishment is indescribable. I will not even attempt to describe it. But from the first stroke I completely forgot my vow, and I did scream.

Both Benjamin and Laura gaped at her with horror.

“I lost count of how many strokes I received because I lost consciousness before it was over. But a flogging is a gift that keeps on giving, as the Americanism goes. I woke up in the camp hospital in only slightly less agony than during the whipping, with my entire back on fire, it felt like. It would take four days before I could get more than a few minutes of uninterrupted sleep at a time. I had lost a lot of blood and the slightest movement opened the scars and caused me to bleed again. So I could not be moved from the hospital or walk under my own power.

“When the American forces drew very near, the entire camp descended into chaos. I was left behind. A day later I did manage to stumble out of bed for one final task. Troops of the 89th Infantry Division of the US Third Army captured Ohr druf-Nord on April 4, 1945. Among the many thousands of dead Jews whose burnt or decomposing bodies where strewn about the camp, one female German guard also lay on the ground with her head nearly twisted off the spine. That guard was the one who had laid the lash on my back. She was my third kill, father, but she was not my last one, not by a wide margin.”

Benjamin closed his eyes and howled in despair as Laura tried to comfort him. He howled not for his daughter’s suffering but for the eternal loss of the sweet little girl he had raised in this lighthouse.

“So you see, father, as I stand here in my army uniform, we do not really know each other at all anymore, do we?”

“Please,” Benjamin begged, recovering just a bit. “I must know. Please. What happened to your mother?”

But Judith shook her head firmly. “You‘re not ready to hear that, father. It would kill you. I’m not even ready to remember it yet, and I was there.”

1345 In the middle of the clearing between the thirteen tents of the Remnant a fold-door appeared, bending light in a way that made them appear to be a sphere of crystal. Two tall figures were seen within, and they remained even as the fold-door itself ceased to exist.

1346 The men of the Remnant had never allowed their vigilance to lapse in the slightest amount since the attack that cost the life of Lael. Jabez and Rimon let fly with arrows, but these were a clean miss.

1347 Zethan fired one of his own, and it too missed, but he saw why it was so. Zethan’s arrow had flown true, but in the instant before it struck the taller of the two strangers it was knocked aside as though by an in- visible hand. The less taller one, a nephil, said in halting Hebrew, “Hold! We are come in the name of the God of your fathers!”

1348 The archers ceased firing and the people gathered more closely around the two strangers. Both were swart like the Adanites, yet one was a nephil, a rarity in the House of Gerash. Che stood a head taller than the Laelites and had no beard. To the humans che looked to be a boy.

1349 The people of the Remnant noted the hips of the nephil were a bit too wide for a young man, with small breasts under hez raiment. On afterthought che looked to them to be a young woman, but with cropped hair. It was said the nephilim never needed to cut their hair.

1350 The other stranger was a beardless angel who appeared to be older than hyz nephil companion, though he might in truth have been a decade younger. “I am Remiel,” said hy. “I am come with my kinsjen Gabriel to bear aid to the refugees gathered by Lael of Adjara.”

1351 “Lael my father is dead,” answered Rosh, “yet we have read what he has written in the White Scroll, how a servant of God named Gabriel Shybear made the will of God known to him in Adjara to gather a remnant of the fallen kingdom of Judah and travel to this place.”

1352 “I am che who met Lael,’ said Gabriel, and the people of the Remnant thought it would be impossible to say if hez voice was that of a man or a woman. When Gabriel spoke it was as though che listened to an inner voice and belatedly repeated what che heard.

1353 “I am the eldest son of Lael,” said Elam, lest the newcomers think Rosh spoke for them. “Wheresoever the Ark of God itself would have us go, we do go, yet in all other matters I lead the Remnant.”

1354 “That is well,’ answered Remiel. “If you would have us depart, so be it. But the death of your father Lael is hateful to our God and your God. We have been charged to thwart angels led by Da’at himself in the flesh, the seraph Belphegor, who would seize the Tablet of Abraham’s Covenant after hyz lackeys have already tried and failed.”

1355 “God would have willing servants,” said Gabriel, “not unwilling thralls. But God also knows in the ninth hour of this day you will be assailed. Look to the B’nei Elohim as chieftains for a short time, and we swear the lives people of the Remnant will be preserved.”

1356 Elam’s impulse was to reject the aid of the B’nei Elohim and rely on his own strength, but again he saw how his followers would take it to be a great impiety, so he was constrained. “Let it be as you have said,” he allowed, “and God grant that it is for a short time indeed.”

1357 Gabriel was sufficiently pleased with that answer that che broke out into a smile and reached into hez pack for a leather pouch. Che said, “In the other world, they call me The Magician.” Che inverted the pouch to show there was nothing inside, then restored it again.

1358 Then Gabriel reached inside hez little leather pouch and withdrew a small loaf of warm bread. Che split it open and offered it to Remiel, who had seated hymzelf on the ground. Remiel applied butter to the bread with a knife, and gave it to the first willing hand.

1359 The Laelites were delighted by the miracle. Gabriel and Remiel repeated the sign until everyone had eaten their fill. They were all tired of the fare of salted cuts of lamb they had eaten as they had skirted for many leagues north under the precipice of the Wall of God.

1360 Then, after all the people had eaten, Remiel put away the butter and his knife. Hy stood up, and catching the eye of Elam, asked, “Where is the Ark of the Covenant?”

1361 Hyz eye followed the line formed by Elam’s outstretched arm to the most elaborate tent of the Remnant. Remiel and Gabriel saw it was twice as large as any of the other tents of the people, with curtains of fine linen overlaid with multicolored animal pelts, walls of fine wood with many gold and brass accoutrements, and even a jewel-adorned wooden table set up at the entrance.

1362 Gabriel said, “God did not command you to make such a tent for the Ark, nor did such even enter his thoughts.”

1363 “Do we in truth serve the same God?” Elam asked hem. “The God of our fathers is a holy God. What is more holy than the tablet made by the very hand of our God?”

1364 “Yes, our God is holy. Holy means entirely other. Our God is a living God, yet his life is wholly different than our life. Do you think God has forgotten this, and you must remind him with a tent for what is little more than a document commemorating a covenant?”

1365 Elam grew visibly angry. “What you call little more than a document is how God converses with our high priest, and it seemed good to our forefathers to carry the Tablet of the Covenant in an Ark covered in gold rather than a saddle-bag, and they also built a Tent of Meeting.”

1366 “But that tent became a temple of stone after time, which raised the Tablet by degrees into itself a kind of god. Da’at also thinks this way, and when Belphegor comes to this camp looking for the Ark hyz problem is much smaller if you keep it inside such a tent. Hide the Ark, therefore, in one of your own tents, so Belphegor must search each one in turn, and that under fire.”

1367 Elam knew he must comply or be held faithless. He said to his brother Rosh, “Move the Ark and the table to my own tent, and my goods to the Tent of Meeting.”

1368 After the people aided Rosh in carrying out the new commandment of their chieftain to move the Ark of God into Elam’s tent, Remiel said, “I see that some of the women among you are with child. Send all of the women into Shaula Wood with your flocks. They shall not fight.”

1369 In the noon hour the women of the Remnant gathered their livestock and made ready to drive the animals into the forest, but they lingered, perhaps, more than to the liking of Remiel and Gabriel, since neither they nor their men knew the nature of the enemy that was coming.

1370 Gabriel told Sariah, the widow of Lael, “Go under God’s protection, and take the flocks by whatever paths you may find in the forest, and do not turn about. Pause only when it is dark or when you are come again to the other side of Shaula Wood, where the men will await you.”

1371 When their wives had departed, and even the sounds of the animals trodding through the forest could no longer be heard, the men who had been left behind were instructed by Gabriel. “Your foe numbers eight mounted yeng of Haaretz led by Belphegor and hyz chief lieutenant, Malphas.”

1372 Elam made a noise of derision. “We slew seven on the face of the Wall of God, and that without any warning of their attack.”

1373 “It was a valiant deed, but you lost your father in that fight. God has laid upon me that not one man or woman more of you should die.”

1374 “These are eight pikelen,” Remiel added. “Your swords will be of no avail until they are unhorsed. And Gabriel did not number Belphegor and Malphas with the eight, as they are from Magodon and not the Saiph League. So the ones who will come against you number ten in all.”

1375 “When last our enemies came seeking the Ark,” said Jemuel, “they learned we have archers among the Remnant. ”

1376 “And now these len and the horses they ride are well protected from your darts,’ replied Gabriel. “Can your archers hit the open face of a foe at full gallop?”

1377 When Jemuel could not answer, an arrow flew from the quiver of Zethan to Remiel’s hand. Hy said, “God did not send the B’nei Elohim merely to pull loaves from a pouch. There is no cause for despair, but tell me, how many bows are found among the whole Remnant?”

1378 This Jemuel could answer. “There would be found among the men who followed Lael four bows of good make, and two others.” When he saw astonishment on the faces of Gabriel and Remiel he went on to say, “Mark you, there are only four among us who are skilled in the bow.”

1379 “This will not be an unsurmountable burden,” said Remiel, yet hyz face said otherwise. “The important thing is to get your darts in the air and flying toward the enemy, and I will take it from there. Give the two bows that are less good, therefore, to men of you who bear only swords.”

1380 “Alas!” said Zethon, one of the archers of the Remnant, with his hand against his face. “Our travail is not with the bows, but the arrows. We had cast some of our fallen enemies over a precipice, whether living or dead, without removing the shots we had fired from their flesh.”

1381 “Do not be afraid,” said Gabriel. “Bring to me every arrow possessed by the men of the Remnant.”

1382 Then Gabriel reached into hez little leather bag, with a different hand this time, and withdrew another small loaf of bread, as warm as the others had been, for Tobiah to eat.

1383 What che did was deemed magic by the men of Haaretz, but Gabriel knew the secret of it. Che knew it was entirely natural, as all things must needs be. The bag was only to conceal the way hez hand seemed to disappear, which could disturb some watchers.

1384 Jabez returned to Gabriel with a bundle of arrows. “We have sixteen darts, no more,” he said, “some are good, but some are hardly fit to be used. Our hope when we reached this forest was to make more, but now you say there is no time.”

1385 Gabriel received the arrows to inspect them. Remiel looked over hez shoulder to help examine them. “Get rid of the ones with black feathers Cousin Gabe. I can’t do much with those.”

1386 Gabriel replied, “I don’t like this pair either, Cousin Remy.” Discarding all those, che had but eleven acceptable arrows. Then Gabriel put the bundle of eleven arrows into hez little pouch of skin, which seemed far too small to accept them, to the wonder of the same men who had recently eaten their fill of bread from the same pouch. Che reached in with another hand and pulled them out again.

1387 This che did again two more times, until he had three identical bundles of eleven arrows each, which che gave to Jabez. And Gabriel said to him, “Who are the three other men among you skilled with the bow?”

1388 Zethan, Rimon, and Asher came forward and were similarly equipped.

1389 Then Gabriel said to Elam, “As the chieftain of these men you must choose which two shall lay aside their swords and take up the bow instead for the fight that will soon overtake you.”

1390 Elam named his brothers Rosh and Jemuel. Gabriel gave them each the three and thirty arrows.

1391 Remiel said, “When the signal is given to fight, the archers must fire their arrows at the foe as quickly as possible, without delaying overmuch to take aim. The rest of you must hurl stones at them as you can. I counsel collecting piles of stones outside your tents now.”

1392 Rosh asked, “What then shall be your signal to fight?”

1393 “Three blasts of my horn,” said Gabriel. “You must all be waiting inside your tents before the ninth hour.”

1394 Young Asher’s hand reached out to squeeze the black rubber bulb of Gabriel’s horn, but che said, “Don’t.”

1395 “I for one will not skulk inside my tent,” said Elam. “I will meet these horseyeng on my feet with a sword in my hand.”

1396 “That is well,” said Remiel. “Both Gabriel and myself shall stand with you. Belphegor is one of the Holy Ones and B’nei Elohim custom demands a suitable reception.”

Becky was shaken by the crash but not seriously injured. Sha tied off Gabriel’s injured leg with hez belt to try to stop the bleeding, trading a certainly lethal loss of blood for a possibly lethal blood clot.

Gabriel said, “I think the saucer is still air-worthy. You can get us out of this jam.”

Sha shook har head and said in reply, “Those airplanes will return and finish the job if we start flying again.”

And indeed, as soon as sha finished speaking the Mustangs flew by very low overhead to confirm they were down.

Gabriel said, “Soon somebody will be coming. You better leave before we’re both captured.”

Rebekah replied, “You could suffer True Death.”

True Death was something Robyn used to talk about in the days leading up to her murder at the hands of Paul Bergin. She explained that a terminal mind-capture must encapsulate the moment of death. If even so much as a single instant was allowed to transpire after the recording, then the individual bifurcated. One would go on, but the other would experience being extinguished.

Yeshua tried to talk her out of that idea by pointing out that no one in history had ever “experienced” being extinguished, and he should know better than anyone, having been extinguished by the Romans once before.

Gabriel said, “I trust you will move Keman and earth to make sure my True Death doesn’t happen.”

Then che held out the original Golden Gift. There was no point to keeping it stashed in the little pocket of space-time that always accompanied hem. If che was captured it wouldn’t do any good to cut hez way out of hez cell like che did back at Headwater. Gabriel’s leg was shattered. He wanted to leave room to copy something more useful, should the opportunity arise.

Rebekah accepted the weapon.

Gabriel said, “Use them to eliminate all the important parts of the saucer and all the controls.”

Using Gabriel’s Golden Gift and har own in tandem, Rebekah sabotaged the saucer in such a way that it was unrecognizable as a viable aircraft. When sha was done it was just a pile of sheet metal and glass and upholstered seats baking in the desert, with an injured jen baking inside.

There was still a little bit of water left over. Gabriel decided the water was a much more important thing to duplicate than the Silver Gift. Che did his standard trick to produce enough to fill two canteens for Rebekah, then put the rest in the little hidden fold-space pocket for hemself. Rebekah also took along a bag of trail mix to eat, and kissed Gabriel goodbye.

It took her two days to walk the thirty miles west and a little south to the town of Roswell. When sha was halfway to town sha found a small burrow pit in a ravine that was blessedly free of rattlesnakes. There sha sheltered for the night and contacted Dory to tell har about the accident.

Dory wired money to her from Hunky-Dory’s slush fund. Then from the town of Roswell, which, much like Headwater, was the only outpost of civilization for many miles around, Rebekah returned to Franklin by bus. The trip took another three days with all the required bus transfers.

Cowboys found the wreckage in the desert while Rebekah was still on foot. They rendered what first aid they could and took Gabriel to a small hospital in Roswell. The doctor managed to save Gabriel’s leg but che was laid up in traction and, as che originally guessed, che could make no move to escape.

At the same time the 509th Bomb Group retrieved the saucer from the rancher’s land and craned it onto a truck, but they saw it was just a pile of junk and there was nothing they could learn from it. There was no motor and no controls. It looked like a playground flying saucer made to entertain some children. Yet the pilots swore they shot it out of the sky.

The .50 cal round that had done Gabriel’s leg was still inside the thing to support their claim.

For hez part Gabriel refused to explain to the doctor and the local sheriff how the saucer or che came to be out there on that desert ranch. And there was the issue of his horns and the bone cup that emerged from the back of hez head, which of course was soon to attract the attention of Clyde Tolson and make this another DECON case.

In the saloons, cowhands mentioned the “silver disk” they found and soon after that some reporters from Albequerque came calling. The Army press liaison told them it was just debris from the crash of something they called project Mogul, and that Gabriel Shybear was just a local Indian who found it first, and shot himself in the leg when he thought he saw something move inside.

Then an Army general bitched about the leak of Mogul.

Tasked to conceal the existence of Mogul, the first thing that came to mind was the big national flying saucer craze that was in all the papers. This was exactly the scenario that occurred to Robyn when the Silver Gift technology was first being fitted to an air frame. So the Air Force made an official announcement that it had recovered the wreckage of a flying saucer.

The press went even more insane, and the Air Force bureaucracy gradually realized it had made a huge mistake. They went on the radio in Roswell to retract the flying saucer claim, and said naw, it was really just a weather balloon they picked up.

Americans were less cynical in those days and let this go, so the military concluded they had successfully covered up the coverup.

But that was not the last time people caught the B’nei Elohim flying around America in their flying saucers. The weather balloon dodge was soon overused to the point of becoming a cliche. It lost its original keen edge. So two years later when the existence of Project Mogul was declassified the Air Force said their second weather balloon statement was inoperative, and that it had really been Mogul all along. The first Mogul statement was back to being the operative statement.

Mogul had been an experiment to send balloons with microphones and tape recorders high into the sky to listen for Soviet nuclear detonations, then pick up the recordings later after the balloons had circled the globe. The press and the public let the issue drop again and the military concluded they successfully covered up the coverup of the coverup.

That was the last anyone heard of it until three things happened that took away America’s virginity and put an end to the halcyon days when her leaders were looked up to and trusted implicitly.

The first was the assassination of the President in 1963, which sparked a poisonous conspiracy mindset that only seemed to be validated by later events, especially the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam in 1968, when people realized with shock that the government had lied and victory was nowhere in sight in the Vietnam War, plus the cover-ups and incredible abuses of power of the Watergate affair.

Only after this vast shift in perception did people begin to read back ominous things into the comedy of errors that took place at the beginning of the “UFO era” in 1947. Alien bases were imagined to exist in the four corners area of the southwestern United States. An entire alphabet soup of imaginary government agencies were cooked up who were supposed to control all the top secret information on the alien presence, and even the information that these agencies existed was, conveniently, also supposed to be classified top secret. There were claims that projects existed to recover all downed flying saucers and claims that projects existed to overhaul and test-fly recovered flying saucers at “Area 51” sixty miles northwest of Las Vegas.

And the complete lack of valid evidence for any of these claims was considered proof that a conspiracy to hide the truth existed, all managed by the same organization that bungled the original crash.

1397 Elam and Gabriel and Remiel stood alone in the camp of the Remnant as the third hour past noon arrived. The warriors riding with Belphegor arrived at the camp of the Remnant as Elyon had foreseen, with both yeng and beast arrayed for battle under heavy layers of black leather and polished brass.

1398 Belphegor was at once heartened that only three withstood hym, but also dismayed that hy could not see the Ark of the Covenant sitting upon the pillars of stone as it was when hy saw it last under the eaves of the Wall of God. One of the three, a nephil, hailed hym by name.

1399 Gabriel went on to say, “I regret we must receive you with caution, not the adoration that is due to one of the Holy Ones, but you come against these refugees girded for war. After the death of their high priest Elyon placed them under B’nei Elohim protection.”

1400 “I am not come against this rabble,” Belphegor said, “only the relic they carry about with them.”

1401 “If you mean the Ark, Lord, and the tablet contained within, these are the artifacts bound up with a covenant between Elyon and Keter, and they have nothing to do with you.”

1402 “Nevertheless,” replied Belphegor, “I will take the relic, and whether these people live depends entirely on how difficult they make it for me.”

1403 “My Lord, as I said, Elyon has placed this group under the protection of his Extraordinary Force. I beg you to reconsider.”

1404 Belphegor replied with a furious shout and the pikes hy and hyz len bore, each twice the height of even the tallest lan, went from the vertical to the horizontal and were braced against fittings on their saddles to distribute the impact. They charged the Tent of Meeting.

1405 Elam, Gabriel, and Remiel dove out of the way as four of the pikes caught the coverings of the tent and lifted them away to reveal that nothing was inside. Gabriel sounded hez horn in the call for the men of the Remnant to emerge from their own tents and answer the assault.

1405 Eisheth from Zuben Well tried to ram the sharpened point of hyz pike into Elam’s midsection but Remiel made the tip to bend until it snapped off into a blunt splintered end. Elam was only knocked to the ground, and Eisheth was left holding a long cane of little heft or use. Then Eisheth cast away the ruined pike and drew hyz blade to engage Gabriel, striking down at hem from horseback.

1406 Belphegor and Malphas rode forward and used their pikes to uncover another tent by casting away the skins, but the Ark was still not seen.

1407 Zethan, Rimon, and Asher fired their arrows simultaneously. With hyz talent as a B’nei Elohim, and standing well away from them, Remiel took one of the arrows, it didn’t matter which, and accelerated it into the face of a yang named Morax. Hy fell from hyz horse.

1408 Zagan came to the aid of Eisheth, raising hyz pike to skewer Gabriel, as hy deemed the nephil to be the leader of the humans. But hy took an arrow under hyz raised arm from Jabez and was unhorsed. Josiah drew his blade across Zagan’s neck under hyz chin and hy bled out.

1409 Many stones were in the air striking the protected flanks of the horses and len, but one thrown by Abner was guided by Remiel into the eye of the steed ridden by Onoskelis. In pain the horse collided with Eisheth’s mount and both yeng were whisked unwilling from the field.

1410 Jemuel’s tent was overturned in yet another failed attempt to find the Ark. There were ten remaining and the nest of hornets was quite furious now. Belphegor still had no inkling that Remiel was guiding projectiles at hym with a tiny fold-door temporarily under hyz control.

1411 Orobas braced hyz pike against hyz saddle. Hy was so intent on skewering Abner that hy was caught off-guard when the pole seemed to slide forward on its own power out of hyz hands and into the air, missing Abner by inches. Hy withdrew hyz sword to defend hymself.

1412 Belphegor guessed the Laelites must have hidden the Ark in their most homely tent in a clever play of operational deception. Hy and Malphas assailed Asher’s tent with their pikes but came up with nothing. The air in the clearing grew thicker with arrows and stones.

1413 A rock hurled by Tobiah was guided by Remiel into the face of Danjal, a mercenary from Eniph, striking with enough force to make him unconscious. Hy fell at the feet of Josiah, who let out hyz life’s blood. With three dead and two missing Belphegor had enough.

1414 The thong of a stickywhip curled around the legs of Elam, the human Belphegor had seen standing outside the Tent of Meeting with the B’nei Elohim. The whip adhered to itself. Elam was dragged behind Belphegor’s horse as his tormentor bent the handle around hyz saddlehorn.

1415 Malphas signaled with a banner and the five yeng began to ride east. Another stickywhip wrapped around Elam and he was lifted from the ground suspended between the horses of Belphegor and Orobas. The men of the Remnant began to run after them to save their chieftain.

1416 Gabriel sounded hez horn to capture their attention and shouted, “Hold! You’ll never catch them and we must protect the Ark of God!”

1417 The Laelites realized che was right and broke off their chase. Remiel ordered the men to remove the covers of Elam’s tent from the holy relic.

1418 Gabriel said to them, “Your enemy has sought cover in the trees along the border of Shaula Wood. Your arrows will be of little use there. I counsel that your archers bear the Ark north and west deep into the Wood on the track of your women and animals. God himself will show you the way with the Director.”

1419 This sounded good to Jemuel, so he ordered Zethan, Jabez, Rimon, and Asher to carry the Ark with the two staves which fit through the rings on the corners. The four men obeyed at once, not questioning that Lael’s second son was their natural leader in the absence of Elam.

1420 “But what of my brother Elam?” asked Rosh.

1421 “Belphegor will not kill him right away,” Gabriel replied. “though Elam might, perhaps, come to wish he would. We will remedy that shortly. Belphegor greatly errs if hy thinks hy can beat anything useful out of Elam.”

1422 Gabriel and Remiel led the Remnant through Shaula Wood, forming a fence of men lest Belphegor’s force doubled back to assail the Laelites carrying the Ark. But Rosh stated his fear they would go astray in the forest and find they had somehow overshot Belphegor’s yeng.

1423 Gabriel replied, “Your God and mine has charged both myself and my kinsyeng Remiel that not another man or woman gathered by Lael shall die at the hands of Belphegor, nor shall they die at the hands of one of hyz thralls. Rosh, have you not seen the hand of God in all that has happened today?”

1424 At Gabriel’s rebuke Rosh fell silent. Rosh, whom God himself had chosen to replace Lael as the high priest, was deeply ashamed that even he had lapsed in unbelief.

Tabaet: "...one...zero, we have commit, and we have liftoff at oh-two-thirteen universal time.

Raziel: "Go all engines."

Erela: "We appear to have good thrust at this point."

Senciner: "Lilith, we're go here on the ascent. Begin your roll maneuver."

Raziel: "Tabaet, at three clocks the dynamics computer says the trajectory looks good."

Erela: "I show ten ji in altitude at this time."

Tabaet: "Roll complete and we're pitching."

Erela: "Altitude twenty-two ji, velocity seven ji per clock."

Raziel: "Ten clocks. The trajectory on my plot board is right on the preplan line."

Senciner: We are through max vibration, and we're go, Lilith."

Erela: "Husband, feel that weight!"

Raziel: "And the booster computer reports we are now through the region of maximum dynamic pressure."

Tabaet: "We're EDS MANUAL."

Senciner: "Thirteen clocks and we are go."

Erela: "Altitude now two hundred seventy ji."

Raziel: "Engine two, three and four out."

Tabaet: "Raziel that outboard out was way early."

Raziel: "Acknowledged."

Tabaet: "Senciner, confirm outboard engines down."

Senciner: "Affirmative, Lilith."

Raziel: "You don't see any problem with that though, do you?"

Senciner: "Negative, not right now Raziel. The inboard engine is go, and that's the one that really counts."

Tabaet: "The early shutdown of the outboard engine will cause no problem, we will burn a little longer than normally scheduled."

Erela: "Coming up on five hundred ji altitude."

Senciner: "Seventeen clocks. Trajectory's good, thrust is good."

Erela: "We're now six hundred ten ji high, seven hundred eighty, correction, seven hundred ji downrange."

Tabaet: "Guidance initiate."

Senciner: "And telemetry reports the guidance system is now correcting our eighty ji error."

Erela: "We're now at an altitude of nine hundred thirty ji."

Tabaet: "The little red lines are right back on the little white lines up here."

Erela: "We are currently about up to four hundred ji per clock, twelve hundred fifty ji in altitude...two thousand two hundred ji downrange now."

Raziel: "And our cabin pressure is sealed at point six one, which is normal. Senciner, what was the story on the outboard engines?"

Senciner: "I don't have a story on why that shutdown was early, but the inboard engines were go, and we're go, we're still looking good, our gimbals are good, trim is good."

Tabaet: "Level sense arm time four eight clocks, nominal, coming up on revised engine cutoff.

Erela: "We are now six thousand two hundred in altitude, eighteen thousand ji downrange."

Tabaet: "Standing by for crew report of main engine shutdown."

Erela: "MESD."

Raziel: "Confirm MESD, Captain."

Senciner: "nd the radar at first glance says we look good on the ascent ellipse and the boosters are in 'safe' so thank you, everyone. We are clear of the planet." He rotated the vessel to make the shrinking globe of Kemen visible.

Tabaet said to Raziel and Erela, "You are also free of being overheard by anyone on Gorpai, so do you have any questions?"

"Senciner called you Lilith a couple of times back there," Raziel mentioned.

"That's my real name. It wouldn't do to be called that in the heart of Keterdom."

"Did your parents have a soft spot in their heart for the Lilith of the scriptures?"

"I am the Lilith of the scriptures."

"It's true," said Senciner. "We've seen her fly."

"But how can I accept that as true?" Raziel asked. "Lilith hasn't made a dent on history since the days of the dragon."

Lilith said, "Senciner believes B'nei Elohim like myself are immortal, but the truth is even more unbelievable. We can move at will through time. I can say that now in your hearing, and in the hearing of Senciner, because now it is entirely safe to do so. If Keter has a listening device on his weapon it is safely out of hearing range, mounted in vacuum on the outside of a noisy ship."

An exceedingly bright flare appeared on the planet below, near the edge of the Northern Ice, drawing everyone's attention. Lilith muttered, "I hope everyone got away."

"Why?" demanded Raziel. "What just happened?"

"Asmodeus followed the trail of our vessel back to the Ice and destroyed the facility with fire from his own body. He was counting on taking it out with the weapon, but now he has seen that we have launched before it was armed."

"And we're next!"

"No, he will need five days to accumilate enough dark energy to open another fold door and hit us. Besides, he'll just let the weapon take care of us, the instant you arm it."

"How do you know all this?"

"I already told you," Lilith said. "We can move through time. On the previous loop you armed the weapon at the facility, and it detonated right away. You'll notice on this loop the weapon is outside of the crew cabin, and we have no way to get to it."

"Then you have no way to detonate the weapon at the comet and it will strike Kemen after all."

"The weapon is what we call the gun-type," Senciner told him. "There's a slug of enriched Uranium that is 'shot' into a bigger slug with a charge of high explosives and this causes the chain reaction. We have determined that even without arming the weapon, impact at the comet will do the same job as the explosive charge, provided it strikes with the correct orientation. So we don't need you after all."

1425 “Orobas, Surgat and Ukobach are all in place, Lord Belphegor,” Malphas told hym after having seen to their disposition hymself. “They will raise the alarm at the first sign of the humans.”

1426 “But what of Onoskelis and Eisheth? Have they returned?” Malphas replied in the negative. Belphegor said, “If you encounter those two yeng again, Malphas, I trust they will meet an interesting end?”

1427 “Yeng of the Saiph League can be perfidious, Lord,” said hy, “but the manner of their demise shall teach other would-be hirelings with a sword what they must reap by such incompetence.”

1428 Satisified, Belphegor turned hyz attention to the interesting thing hy had going on hymself. Elam was suspended from a tree, with the frayed ends of two ropes twisted around the base of his thumbs. There was no hope of slipping out, as his thumbs had become two bloated purple bulbs.

1429 Elam had never felt agony remotely like it before. His back and legs were lashed to a straight log, and this log and all his body weight was suspended by two slender points. He already told Belphegor the Ark was in his tent, and had described his tent to the finest detail.

1430 Belphegor said, “That is no help to me. Your brothers must have moved the Ark by now. I need to know where it is going so I can arrange a suitable greeting.”

1431 Elam desperately tried to explain how there was no telling where the Ark went but he couldn’t put the words together.

1432 Belphegor raised an eyebrow. ‘You are a strong man, Elam, but your suffering must be at the limit of your endurance. I assure you this torment can be pushed far beyond your endurance, yet endure it you must.”

1433 Hy displayed a stone carried in something like a cradle of rope. The stone focused the mind of Elam. He said, “My brother holds the tablet up and turns in a circle. When he faces the way Elyon would have us go, there is a loud report."

1434 Belphegor thought about that. Yes, Elyon might do such a thing to protect the tablet. Good, it took at least four Laelites out of play. So it was time to bring things to a head, Belphegor thought.

1435 Hy draped the stone and its net of rope around a stubby branch on the log strapped to Elam’s back and the weight pulled one of the man’s thumbs out of its socket, then another. Elam began to scream continuously.

1436 Elam’s screams steered the men of the Remnant through Shaula Wood to the place where he was being tormented and they ran into Belphegor’s picket of yeng. Their shouts of warning went unheard by reason of the noise made by Elam. Remiel used hyz talent to shred their cloaks.

1437 A wad of cloak wound up in Ukobach’s mouth. Surgat and Orobas found sections of their cloaks wrapping around their heads to both make them blind and stifle any further cries. This was utterly beyond their experience and effectively sliced the three of them from the fight.

1438 “There is no cause to slay these three yeng,” said Remiel. “You can release them later, one at a time. Let them make their way home to the Saiph League, where their tongues may wag. It will be a generation before any come against the Remnant gathered by Lael.”

1439 Gabriel left Abner, Asa, Josiah and Tobiah to bind the three yeng under guard and take them west toward their camp. Only Rosh and Jemuel remained with Gabriel and Remiel to advance on their enemy. Elam’s every scream weighed heavily on the heart of his brothers.

1440 They were all relieved to find only Belphegor and Malphas with. Elam Even Gabriel expected two more.

1441 “Cut the man down!” hy said in the Semitic little changed in Heaven which men from Earth understood no longer. Belphegor hefted hyz blade and replied, “As you wish.”

1442 Rosh saw that Belphegor was about to pierce Elam rather than cut him free, so he loosed an arrow at the center of hyz back. The range was so short he could not avoid striking an organ, but this didn’t suit Remiel, who bent the arrow higher, toward a shoulder blade. Belphegor was not mortally wounded but in hyz shock and pain hy released hyz blade and fell to the forest floor.

1443 Malphas moved closer to hyz lord, shifting the line of hyz own blade between Gabriel and Remiel. Hy said, “Servants of Elyon and Binah you name yourself, yet you hide behind the humans you claim you have come to protect!”

1444 This was garbage to make either Gabriel or Remiel angry enough to fight. Gabriel wasn’t having any of it and frankly che could barely hear hym over Elam’s screams.

1445 Gabriel could feel Remiel’s power tugging on his sword, so it was a matter of letting go and watching it bury itself into the chest of Malphas with no fanfare. Belphegor saw it.

1446 “Disappointed?” Gabriel asked. “I need Elam down from that tree, not to jerk off.”

1447 Jemuel and Rosh advanced beyond Malphas’ dying body to cut their elder brother from the tree. As they did they grew sickened by how the weight of the stone and the log and Elam’s own weight, plus the swelling induced by the torment, had deformed his hand, possibly for life.

1448 Remiel knelt over Belphegor and held the arrow where it entered hyz back steady with hyz talent while he bent the shaft with hyz hand. Belphegor was not suffering pain from the wound anymore. As a seraph hy shared the same internal remedy for unnecessary pain as any B’nei Elohim.

1449 Remiel and Gabriel gently rolled Belphegor until hy was face up, then helped hym to sit up.

1450 “Forgive the touch, Lord,” said Gabriel. “It pains B’nei Elohim to see a seraph in such straits, no matter what unfortunate disagreements might temporarily exist between we and you.”

1451 Remiel dropped to hyz knees to put hyz eyes on something of a level with those of Belphegor. Hy said, “Your mistake, if you will forgive the presumption, Lord, is that you do not think Elyon to be warlike. But the B’nei Elohim are Elyon’s answer to the Eyes of Keter.”

1452 When Elam was free of his bonds he gave a shout of rage at Belphegor and pawed at the blade sticking out of the corpse of Malphas with useless hands. “I’ll kill hym! Look what hy did to me!”

1453 “Hy is of the seraphim,” said Gabriel. “You will get on your knees even as you see we have done.”

1454 Elam saw Rosh with a bow and said, “You swore to obey me as though I were our father. String an arrow, therefore, and finish this one named Belphegor.”

1455 “Your brother agreed to follow me”, said Gabriel, “and I forbid it! Killing captives of war is hateful to the B’nei Elohim.”

1456 Rosh paused as he weighed his obligations for a time, then threw down his bow and sank to hyz knees before the seated Belphegor even as Gabriel and Remiel had done.

1457 Disgusted, Elam turned to Jemuel and said, “Brother, as you love me, kill this angel who put me to torment.”

1458 Jemuel made his choice with less hesitation than Rosh and extended his blade.

1459 Gabriel and Remiel rose to their feet between him and Belphegor. Remiel said, “Jemuel! How fortunate our God has charged that none of the Remnant shall die, or you would be dying now.”

1460 “Listen to none of their lies,” Elam told him. “They have not the Ark. The will of God is unknown to them.”

1461 “For one day in every year the high priest among you hears the oracles of God,” said Gabriel. “How much more so do we who dwell ever in the very presence of God know his mind!”

1462 Elam hissed “Do it!”

1463 Jemuel moved toward the captive with his blade arched to decapitate hym. And Remiel, without touching the man, twisted the blade out of his hand and hurled it out of reach.

1464 “We have no power of our own but that which is given by God,” Remiel told him. “Now you are disarmed by that same power, Jemuel. Do you hold yourself answered that killing the Lord Belphegor is not the will of our God?”

1465 Neither Jemuel nor Elam made reply, but they kept their place, as Gabriel and Remiel were armed and stood fast against them.

1466 Gabriel was angered almost beyond speech. Che said, “I thought to leave Lord Belphegor in your keeping, to be treated well until such time when hy could leave of hyz own power, but I see the faithfulness of Lael was not passed to his sons.

1467 "We will take the Lord ourselves. A curse lies upon you, Jemuel, for you would do a thing to make the name of our God a reproach among elohim and angels and nephilim and men. On the shoulder of Mount Naratha the sword of your foes shall go through the camp, and you shall be cut down in the flower of youth.

1468 "And you shall remember this doom, and beg Elam to steer the Remnant far from Mount Naratha where the Ark wills not to go, but pestilence and famine and the threat of enemies shall drive the people thither, where you shall perish before your sons take wives.

1469 “Also a curse lies on you, Elam, for you ordered your captive be slain out of hand, which thing is hateful to God, whether the captive be a seraph or one of the ishim. You crave to lead the Remnant, yet you shall be driven into Eliath Wood to wander for a generation.

1470 There you shall yearn to be free yet your enemies shall hem you in, and you shall die never seeing the sons of your sons. The third son of Lael shall lead the Remnant to a land which is choice above all other lands in Haaretz, and the people shall be known by his name.”

1471 Then Gabriel and Remiel, who would have preferred to leave the Remnant with friendly farewells rather than angry curses, knelt once again close to Belphegor. A fold-door materialized to port the three of them to Nyduly Wood in Hamar, leaving only a hole in the ground.