TC1

YOM KIPPUR

TC096: Judith did brief Lt. General David Elazar but things went much slower than Sharon predicted. All through the night Elazar bickered with Defense Minister  Moshe Dayan. But more evidence trickled in besides Judith's photos. Army intelligence reported the evacuation of the families of Soviet advisors from Egypt and Syria. At 8 AM Elazar and  Dayan met with Prime  Minister Golda Meir, Deputy PM  Yigal  Allon, and  Military Secretary  Yisrael Lior. It was Lior who settled matters with a telegram.

TC097: Mossad reported that only five Egyptian brigades remained near Cairo. The cable also said Syria was expected to attack the Golan but Sadat  would not  call off  his own  attack if  Assad didn't move. Sadat was, however, confounded by Israel's complete non-response to his preparations.

Dayan had no more argument with Elazar. In fact a new shakiness in his voice betrayed a nervousness that infected  even the PM. Elazar called for a first strike  on Syria and Egypt  but Golda Meir overruled that.

TC098: "The United States is the only ally we have," she pointed out. "If we strike first we won't get help from anybody."

Even a full mobilization might be viewed as  an aggressive act. But Meir was  willing  to do  a  partial call-up. Mobilization orders went out to  the reservists and  regulars of  the Israel Defense Force while they were  at home or  attending synagogue. Fortunately, with the  country shut  down for  Yom Kippur,  the roads were left clear for soldiers to reach their units without delay.

TC099: Six hundred  Syrian  tanks advanced  across the  uplands known as the  Golan  Heights. In the Sinai,  Israel lost  two hundred tanks right  away, but  two extra  tank divisions  were rushed forward to halt the Egyptian advance.

Egyptian troops using  Soviet-supplied anti-tank  weaponry held the Israelis to  a  line five  miles east  of  the Suez  Canal. Meanwhile Egyptian tanks massing  on their  side of  the border were protected by anti-aircraft missiles guided by radar, again courtesy of the Soviet Union.

TC100: The Arabs didn't have things all their  way. Israel also took delivery of cargo, from the United States,  to replace the ordnance and equipment being consumed by the war.

After the first  shipment Golda  Meir and  Moshe Dayan  stepped aboard one of the empty transports as it was being made ready to fly back to the  USA. Judith Margolies was  seated alone  in a chair that  folded down from  a bulkhead. She was under arrest, but not under restraint. Her honor as an Israeli  officer kept her in place.

TC101: Dayan called her to attention but Judith merely glared at the two politicians and made no move to stand up.

Meir cleared her throat and snapped, "Do you know who I am?"

"The more pertinent question, Madame Prime Minister,  is do you know who I am?"

"Most assuredly, Sgan aluf Margolies--"

"Doctor Margolies,   please,  Madame  Prime   Minister"  Judith interrupted. "I resigned my  commission  immediately after  my unlawful arrest."

"Would you have followed a lawful order to board this plane?"

TC102: Judith had to admit that she would have never obeyed such an order. Golda Meir said, "Then if the law  must be broken let your own  conscience be clear.  I know I  have you to  thank for keeping  this war  from turning  into a  complete rout  from the beginning and I am well aware  of your crucial role in every one of our conflicts going back to the War of Independence."

Judith gestured at the interior of the plane. She said, "This is a strange way of showing your gratitude, Madame Prime Minister."

TC103: "The Americans have been demanding  your extradition for over a  year now. The  exact reason  has never been  made clear. I've held them off by asking for more information but now I find myself at the end of my rope."

When Judith remained silent Dayan spoke for the first time since ordering her to  stand. "The country is  in desperate  need of resupply to avoid  losing this war. The  American President came through with the  first shipment but he  has conditioned further aid on your extradition."

TC104: Judith rolled up one sleeve of her uniform to reveal six numerals hastily tattooed there by the Germans at Ohrdruf-Nord. "What awaits  me in  America,  Minister  Dayan?  Will I  get  a matching tattoo for my other arm?"

"The President assures me  you will  not be  mistreated," Meier told her. "Apparently you are to assist some sort  of criminal investigation."

"I am a subject of Her Majesty and more the the point, I am also a citizen of Israel. I am not to assist  anything in America at gunpoint."

TC105: "Only the  initial  contact is  mandatory," Dayan  said. "Hear the Americans out. If you agree to stay you will be given a salary and a car and the  freedom to move about. If you refuse you will be returned home with the next aid shipment and no harm done."

"I will return home with the next aid shipment," Judith solemnly assured him, "and  if your  mismanagement of  this war  haven't already driven you and the Prime Minister from office, the court cases that follow will do so most assuredly."

TC106: Dr. Judith Margolies was flown to the United States in an empty C-141 transport plane with nothing but a cold box lunch, a cold box dinner, and orange juice for  sustenance. Her passport remained back at  Yad Mordechai,  as she  never expected  to go abroad, but all  that was smoothed over with Customs  by Dr. Ian Trochmann when he met her at Andrews Air Force  Base outside of Washington DC. Judith had caught a few catnaps on the flight but it had been a long day and she felt tired and filthy.

TC107: At best, Judith expected a community shower and a simple cot in a  jail cell. To her surprise she  was checked  into a swanky  hotel room  at the  Watergate  complex and  to her  even greater surprise the door  was not  locked. Curiosity kept her from wandering off into the chilly DC night, but she did have a bite  to eat  in  a diner  at the  Howard  Johnson's across  the street. Trochmann had given her a small advance  on her salary. She caught up on events back home through the evening broadcast news.

TC108: The high tide of the Syrian advance reached Nafah in the southern Golan by the  second day  of the  war. The first wave of reserve  forces, which  would  have  included Judith  before she was  so rudely  placed  under  arrest,  began to  walk  the Syrians back north,  inflicting heavy  losses on  them as  they went. The only  moment  that was  touch-and-go  was  a  Syrian counterattack at Quneitra with  helicopter-borne troops  but it was repulsed. Israel reached the line from which Syria launched their invasion.

TC109: Defense Minister Moshe Dayan wanted to halt right there, thirty miles from Damascus, to  avoid drawing the  Soviet Union into the war. General Elazar, by  contrast, wanted  to advance another twenty miles into  Syria to set  up a  strong defensive line and stabilize the northern front. Prime Minister Golda Meir was assured by US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that Nixon had her back so she sided with Elazar.

But Judith was jet-lagged to hell and gone, so she made an early evening of it.

AVRAM

TC110: At the command of  his father King Melchiyahu  of Salem, Prince Melchizedek was sent to the other world  to test whether men could remain obedient to the commands of an eloah with only a trace of  contact  between them. For protection Melchizedek carried a killing artifact made by Bat-El herself within her own body. Nothing was remotely like it. When brandished, the weapon bore clear witness that Bat-El was no mere figment like the gods that multiplied in the imagination of the men of Earth.

TC111: Melchizedek rose to the surface of Lake Tana and dragged his comestibles to  the  shore. With the  Killing Artifact  he felled and  shaped the ample trees  on hand to build  a raft. He also possessed a quantity of gold to trade with  the locals for what supplies he consumed.

From the mouth of  the lake  it was thirty  miles to  Blue Nile Falls, a significant obstacle. Melchizedek abandoned his raft and built a sleeker one below the cataract. On the next leg he shot rapids men considered unrunnable.

TC112: Below the rapids Melchizedek sat in his raft and drifted through deserts  with no  potable  water  except the  river  he floated on. He saw ponderous beasts and humans of both sexes who dared not approach. At length he floated into the  place where the Blue Nile merged  with the  White Nile  to become  the Nile River proper. This part of Earth was much warmer than Kemen and it took much time for Melchizedek to learn to set the heat into the back of his mind so he could sleep easy without a struggle.

TC113: In the Nile delta  Melchizedek traded his raft  and some gold for camels and supplies  to make an overland  journey. His destination was the place where the Euphrates and Tigris rivers meandered through marshlands  and silt  islands before  merging with the sea. As he was commanded, Melchizedek  remained alert for any man who would suit the purposes of  Bat-El. Rather than taking a  direct  path  across the  Empty  Quarter  Melchizedek journeyed north through  the  fields and  towns  of Canaan  and Lebanon.

TC114: At green Harran where the Damascus road  forked with the road to Nineveh Melchizedek overheard  a man engaged in  a loud argument with his father. The prince learned the man's name was Avram. He lived a semi-nomadic  life on the range  lands around Harran while his father Terah lived in the town itself and ran a little shop  selling  items  associated  with  the  worship  of multitudinous  gods. Terah sold  carved images  of  dozens  of deities but Avram complained all these idols were meaningless to him.

TC115: Avram said, "Father, you cut down cedars  and oaks which the actual creator planted, and the actual creator also sent the rain to  grow them. You become  cold, so with part  of your wood you make  a fire to warm  yourself and bake bread,  and with the other part  you make the image  of some god. Then  you fall down before this image and say, 'Rescue me from this weather!' But it never comes into your mind that this deaf and mute block of wood you carved with your own hands is a complete fraud!"

TC116: Ophan Melchizedek entered the shop and  began to inspect the rack of idols on display. The angry words of father and son dwindled to silence because they saw the prince was  a tall and striking figure, and there  was an other-worldliness  about him that went far  beyond that  of a  mere stranger. After he had made a complete tour  of the  idolatry shop,  Melchizedek begin unpacking his gold on the edge of the shop facing the street, as though he were preparing to buy out Terah's entire stock.

TC117: As Melchizedek anticipated,  this drew the  attention of five men  who approached  Terah's shop  with swords  drawn. They demanded the gold  be handed  over to  them. At this time  the Killing Artifact made its  first appearance  in the  history of Earth. The weapon was the  size and  shape of any  normal sword hilt. But when it was squeezed firmly in  Melchizedek's hands a roaring  black  shaft  emerged  from  it  which  was  about  the thickness of a spear. The harder he squeezed, the  longer the black beam grew.

TC118: The more firmly Melchizedek squeezed the longer the black beam grew, and whatever it touched  simply disappeared. Indeed, the reason it  made a  sound  was that  air was  drawn into  it all  along the  length  of the  beam. One of  the thieves  that Melchizedek judged to  be the  leader  was cut  into two  equal pieces starting from  the top  of his  head. Another thief was decapitated. This was sufficient deterrent to convince the other three robbers to flee. Yet was not the purpose of the prince to kill.

TC119: Avram came before Melchizedek and sank to his knees. The prince said. "Avram, I bid you to go forth from  your land and your father's  kinfolk to  the land of  Canaan. There  God shall make of  you a  nation, and  he shall bless  you, and  your name shall be  great among men. He  shall bless those who  bless you, and curse  those who  curse you,  and all  the Earth  shall find blessing in you.  Such are the words of the  Most High God, lord of all  the Earth. What  say you to  these things, Avram  son of Terah?"

TC120: Avram lifted his eyes to him and said, firmly, "No."

It took Melchizedek a moment to comprehend what  Avram said. It was so unexpected.

Avram rose to his feet and took his father  gently by the arms. He undertook  to explain  his  rejection  of Bat-El's  command, saying, "My father is crippled. He does not earn  enough at his livelihood to support himself. We do  not always agree, but as I love my life, I can never turn  aside from my father for all the days he is a wayfarer in this world. "

TC121: Then Avram fulfilled the purpose of his visit. He called in a servant and delivered to his father two  living lambs from his own flocks, one to kill and eat, and the other to sell for a little money to buy the  things he  needed until the  next time Avram came in from the open range and visited him.

Melchizedek nodded in full understanding. He restowed his gold and quietly left the shop. He was careful not to  tread on the fortress of human  dignity  that Avram  had  asserted with  his refusal.

HANFORD

TC122: Each day for a half-hour Dr. Ian Trochmann contemplated a glass case displaying the desiccated gray shape of the brain of Gabriel Shybear,  still unchanged since  his death in  1947. The science he had obtained by studying the brain of the once-living subject was maddeningly  small. Images made with an  electron microscope revealed that every organelle in every brain cell had been replaced with a kind  of articulated plastic that  did not degrade like the protein components of living protoplasm.

TC123: When Dr. Trochmann allowed Judith to see  the remains in the morning  he said,  "You may  think these  are casts  made in plastic of a mold taken after the demise of a living person, but what  you  have  in  your  hands is  a  real  human  brain,  Dr. Margolies."

Judith eyed Trochmann with a quick flash  of indignation, which he expected. She said, "Brain? I've been in combat. The color is all wrong, no matter what you did to preserve it. This should be an unsightly dark yellowish-brown. And softer."

TC124: Roland answered, "We have examined samples under extreme magnification and there is always  more detail. Special Agent in Charge Clyde Tolson came up with  the analogy of a bridge across a stream. He  said that nature, with all the  time in the world, still only  made bridges by  mindlessly rolling boulders  into a rough  line, or  maybe having  a  log drift  downstream and  get caught by  boulders, but  this is  like someone  poured concrete over the boulders, then cut up the log for a functional truss."

TC125: Judith was almost furious. "This is either an elaborate joke or gross incompetence and I  don't know which is worse. I'm not that kind  of doctor! I'm an Assyriologist! I  have a PhD in Biblical Archaeology from the B'nei Elohim Historical Institute. I can date a clay tablet from its cuneiform."

"The B'nei Elohim Institute,"  said Dr. Trochmann. "Precisely. This was your fellow alumnus,  Gabriel Shybear. Does  that name sound familiar?"

"Of course. Be-Hi is much smaller than you imagine."

TC126: "I'm taking you to meet his widow Robyn.  We have her in custody."

"Ah yes. We call her the Seer."

"The Seer?"

"Think of a fortune teller with a perfect track  record. And it is obvious to me, Doctor, that  you do not fully understand what having Robyn in custody implies."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm here  because  I'm  not  a  prognosticator.  I  could  not anticipate my arrest.  But if you have  Robyn confined somewhere it's only because that's exactly  what she wants. You're dancing to her music."

TC127: It took from late morning through most  of the afternoon to fly from one Washington to another. Upon landing Judith was checked into a hotel room once more, in a town called Richland, but this time she was given  a rental car and  an international driver's license. Trochmann had thought of  everything. Before dark she went driving around what locals  called the Tri-Cities to test the limits of her freedom. It was arid, but there was a big river and irrigated farms. It reminded her of Israel.

TC128: Judith dined out  once more, then  returned to  her room where she once again caught up on the progress  of the war from watching television news. An Israeli thrust east from the Golan Heights into Syria began to push the Syrians  back after fierce fighting. Judith's brigade, minus Judith, was already six miles over the border into Syria. Then Defense Minister Moshe Dayan went on television  to remind  the Syrians  that the  road from Damascus to Israel was also the road from Israel to Damascus.

TC129: The Hanford site was where the Trinity  and the Nagasaki "Fat Boy" fission bombs  had been assembled. It still had one working reactor generating  power. Thirty years after  the war there remained much  useful infrastructure:  a rail  network, a power  grid,  Levittown  type  housing and  a  number  of  empty buildings. But Dr. Judith  Margolies didn't understand  why she had to leave her rented car parked at the so-called Rattlesnake Barricade.

"Government or Pharmadigm vehicles only", Trochmann said.

TC130: "And my visitors' badge?"

"You'll be upgraded if you decide  to stay with us.  But first, Dr. Margolies,  tell me  what you  know, or  what you  think you know, about a company called Pharmadigm."

"Farm-a-dime? Is it agricultural? I know nothing about it."

"Pharmadigm is a drug company, but it's not one of the big ones. It has been around for about  thirty years. It began,  so it is said, when government insiders privy to taxpayer-funded research met with venture capitalists to monetize it."

TC131: Judith said, "Now I do remember something, a report about an anti-anxiety drug that actually  had the reverse  effect. It caused a very intense anxiety."

"Oh, that  molecule  proved  beneficial after  all,"  he  said. "Suppose you're asking questions but you have a tough customer. So you  bring out  the standard toolkit.  Without the  drug, you have to use the tools. With the drug, you just show the tools."

His glib reply strongly reminded  Judith of a  sociopathic Nazi asshole called Dr. Mangler.

TC132: He went  on  to  say, "Pharmadigm  is  in  fact a  shell corporation  fronted by  the  Federal  Bureau of  Investigation. During World  War II there  was a ... well,  we treated it  as a contagion. The details are so bizarre that you might imagine all of this  is a massive  joke, perhaps you  already do, but  it is most certainly not  funny. Certainly at the Academy  you must of seen them. Some were tall, some  were very tall, folk with white horns curved in such  a way as to form the  cartoon version of a halo?"

TC133: "I assumed that was decorative. A native American thing, perhaps some sort of hat."

"You were never curious enough to give one a tug?"

"Never so rude," she said.

After driving east for miles  over flat desert they  arrived at the desolate ruins once known as the town of White Bluffs before the spring of 1943 when all the townspeople were ordered to move away. Only three structures existed here: Robyn's house, a small clinic, and a shack  for guards  who watched  the area  day and night.

TC134: Judith stepped out  of Trochmann's car,  but he  made no move to  follow. Puzzled by this, she  asked, "What shall  I do now?"

"Go up to the house and meet Robyn," he told  her. "Get to know each other. After all, she  was the  one who demanded  you come here. I'll wait over at the  lab and when you're ready I'll take you back to your own car, whether you decide to join our project or not. But really, Dr. Margolies, I think by this time tomorrow you'll have a different badge and a different car."

TC135: Judith didn't need to knock. Robyn always opened her door just before  anyone did  knock,  a  small practical  joke  that stopped being funny in 1943. "Hello Doctor J," she said, "it's nice to finally  meet you. I'm so glad you  came, and you should be glad you're here also. I just saved your life!"

"What do you mean?"

"You must have guessed you  embody a significant  investment to Hamon," she said. "It'd be a terrible thing to lose you at the very end to something as stupid as a nuclear war."

HAMON

TC136: Bat-El knew  when the  plants and  animals of  Kemen and Earth multiplied their  offspring were  of like  kind, but  not identical, and this was  proper, as  conditions on  both worlds were always changing and life must change to  meet this. Bat-El sought to create a living avatar, but the attributes she sought had never been fastened  upon by any  living thing  because the changes, such  as  the  ability to  override  pain,  undermined that organism's ability to  compete with  others in  the shared environment.

TC137: The possible changes were constrained by Bat-El's desire to have the mutations  breed true  in the  subject's offspring. Bat-El gnawed away at the  problem of creating a  living avatar for eight hundred years  following the  Great Deluge. She used animals similar to humans to guide her inquiries before arriving at a procedure that could reliably prepare  a world-dweller for something akin to union with an  eloah. When all was ready she flew her avatar to Salem in the far west of the Adanite lands.

TC138: Outside of Salem's walls the elyonim of the city rejoiced over the harvest. Just as the celebration  of Hellberry  Days reached a fevered pace something the  size of an engine  of war descended on white  flame heralded  by a  terrifying roar  that scattered the  crowd. The first Salemite  to  return  to  the pavilion was not a soldier of the warrior caste  nor one of the elders of the council, but a  mere child. Yet this dirk proved more valiant  than  the  adults who  ran  away. Curiosity had overcome fear.

TC139: The blast  of the  descent  uprooted the  fabric of  the pavilion tent and blew  it far  away. The young lan  stood his ground, but at some distance. He was curious about the object but not eager to be burned.

A loud voice then rang out from the avatar  of Bat-El: "Adanite child, if you are willing, draw nearer."

The dirk obeyed. He saw how by resting on six legs the avatar of Bat-El remained shoulder high above the  ground. Underneath the central pillar a round hatch dropped open on a hinge.

TC140: Bat-El said,  "If it  seems  good to  you, child,  climb inside."

The dirk squeezed between two of the six legs to look inside the hatch. The center was hollow  and there was much  light within. Ribs embedded on the interior wall formed edges  to be grasped. As the dirk  crawled up  inside the  core Bat-El  requested his name.

"I am Hamon, son of Jophar the stonemason," he said. Hamon noted how the hatch below closed of its own accord. He climbed until the core flared out into a larger space.

TC141: "Be not afraid, Hamon. I  am Bat-El, coeval with  El and Belial. I have much to teach you. If you withdraw now, your life shall resume as before. If you tarry,  I shall bear you to a far land quickly  and safely, but  the passage would  terrorize even the most valiant of len and there can be no succor."

The dirk declared he would stay. Bat-El said, "You are bold in a way that  belies  your  years,  Hamon. Allow  me  to  make  you steadfast."

Several straps embraced Hamon as though they were alive.

TC142: The avatar of Bat-El  spouted flame once more  and Hamon was whisked into the sky. Steadily he grew almost too heavy to breathe. The young lan was brave but Bat-El spoke  truly of the terror of the passage.

At the top of the arc made by the  avatar the strange invisible burden was abruptly gone and Hamon felt blessedly free. Were it not for the straps he would swim in air. Bat-El's avatar turned to let white Kemen become  visible through the glass. The dirk saw the true shape of his world.

TC143: "I had thought it to be a ring, Lord,' said Hamon after a moment. "We hear tales that men have crossed the  West Lands to arrive in the East Lands."

Bat-El said, "That much  is true, Hamon.  The unfrozen  part of Kemen does forms a ring, do you see?"

After that Bat-El turned to put  Kemen and the two  suns out of sight. Hamon saw countless  stars. Bat-El said, "Know  this, Hamon: all the stars are but faraway suns."

Hamon began to feel  the weight again,  but his  mouth remained open in wonder.

TC144: Precipitation is greatest at  the poles of  Kemen, where the two world-glaciers, north and  south, are miles  thick. The glaciers grind the surface and underlying bedrock flat. Only at the equator are temperatures warm enough to melt the ice. There at the foot of long terminal moraines chunks of  ice shear away and melt, the source of  water for many streams  and freshwater lakes.

Volcanoes burn through the ice in places. The ice caps give way and close back up to form teardrop-shaped lands.

TC145: In one such land abounding with geysers and boiling lakes the avatar of Bat-El  touched down. Anshar was the  name Hamon later chose for this place. So distant is Anshar from the Slush Belt that no elyon ever discovered it, thinking the Northern Ice to be a frozen waste that continued without end.

After Hamon climbed back down through the central pillar Bat-El ordered him to  walk a  short  distance away. After this, her avatar changed size and took on the form of a slender white yan.

TC146: Bat-El's face was featureless with no eyes nor mouth, yet see and speak she could do. She pointed across the barren flats to a dwelling made of glass and wood and  said, "The only house in this land now belongs to you, solely. Let us draw indoors and I will declare to you many things."

Hamon said, "I  am  safe  as you  promised,  though  it was  as frightening as you  counseled. I see now the  Litany of Creation is a lie."

"The Litany also calls me the son of Shemhazai  rather than his daughter."

TC147: The house was  more glass  than wood,  built on  a stony knoll overlooking fiery Mount Anshar across a chasm and a pumice plain. In design the  house was  merely a  single room  with an alcove above the  kitchen where Hamon could  sleep with privacy, yet there was no other living  soul for a thousand  leagues. On the main level were cushions and a glass table of superior make. Bat-El needed no cushion. She seated her avatar on  the stone floor to put her eyes on a level with Hamon and began to speak.

TC148: "We call  ourselves the  Watchers. Shemhazai  and Belial call elyonim and nephilim and men their servants, but I call you students. Contrary  to the Litany  I did  not make your  kind, I found your ancestors  living in another world than  this. It was the  most  important  discovery  we  ever  made.  World-dwellers are  fully  awake even  as  the  Elohim  are, so  Shemhazai  and Belial live  in fear  and contrive to  have you  destroyed. When you  are revealed  to the  other  Elohim it  will uncover  their transgressions.

TC149: "Shemhazai has laid certain bonds upon me, yet he cannot stop me  from sharing with  you everything the Elohim  know. But how  shall  I  do  it,  Hamon? Shall  I  lecture  and  hope  you understand?  I have  found another  way, but  I am  not like  my father. I would not force you to accept the changes required."

"What are these changes?"

"Your identity as Hamon will not be altered, but my memories as an eloah will  be added to your own memories,  and your memories as a young elyon will be added to mine.

TC150: My will shall  be manifest  in your  mind always,  and I shall see  the world through your  eyes. You shall be my living avatar, yet you shall ever remain free to act. Together we shall ratify our joining  from moment  to moment. But you must know beforehand these physical changes cannot be undone  for so long as you live."

Hamon asked, "After I am changed will I look very different?"

Bat-El touched a snow  white hand to  Hamon's temple  and said, "No, the changes will be entirely inside of you."

TC151: Bat-El stood up and found a goblet in the kitchen. "Your brain is like a  glass that  you filled  with wine  during your brief life. The  new glass will have a greater  capacity but the first wine  will remain. Even when  the glass is gone  that wine will remain, but not forever. Elohim  share the same fate as all living things  but we live  so much  longer than elyonim  that I cannot  express it  to  you.  Nay, not  even  to  the wise  ones of  Salem!  Your culture  never  had  the  need to  ponder  such magnitudes."

TC153: Hamon stood up from the cushion to stare at smoking Mount Ashar issuing a dull roar two leagues distant  while he weighed the words of  Bat-El. They had the  power to  change his  life forever.

He returned to kneel before the avatar and said,  "O Great One, let  it  come  to  be  as  you say,  this  union  of  eloah  and world-dweller. I am fully willing! Yet  do think I crave only to delay my own end until a  time beyond all reckoning. Let us join that together we will both come to know many new things."

WIGHT

TC154: Standing in the doorway Judith stretched her hand toward Robyn's head but basic human decency stayed her. "Do you mind?" she asked with a  timorous voice that  went far  beyond British reserve.

But Robyn knew what  she wanted  to do. "Go ahead, give  'em a tug," she said. "They're real."

Judith did so. She remembered all the times she saw B'nei Elohim with halos. They were always accompanied by a hair  net made of chain  and  polished  stones  to  give  the  illusion  of  being decorative head wear.

TC155: "I never knew!" she said.

"And you never asked," Robyn replied. "That's adorable, really. Please come in, Judith, so you don't catch a draft."

Judith advanced a few steps into Robyn's house  and allowed her to shut the door. There were so many questions. She started with the big one that bubbled to the top: "Why am I here?"

"You know quite  well we've  been grooming  you since  you were twenty but  there are  things we've never  told you  because you weren't all the way in. Now's the time."

TC156: "Why now?"

"Hamon says you patched  things up  with your  father recently. Remember he once told you rapprochement was the price of entry?"

"It was a steep price  to pay. Too steep,  I think. And  I only mostly  'patched things  up' with  him.  I never  told him  what happened to  my mother. I think  it would kill him  to know, yet that is what he most wants to know."

"Hamon says it was  enough. But  first, I  must warn  you, this house  is  rigged for  sound.  No  privacy. Everything  will  be recorded."

TC157: "There are things I heard at the Academy  that would not bear repeating."

"It doesn't matter, Judith. This is a junk  timeline. I'm gonna jump tracks and hopefully take you with me."

"I don't understand what you just said."

"You will. For now, make yourself comfortable.  You never spoke about Benjamin before. Tell me about your father."

Judith slowly sat on Robyn's couch and held her breath while she thought about that for a long moment. Then she nodded her head and let the air out.

TC158: Being a wickie at St. Catherine's Lighthouse on the Isle of Wight had its good points, Benjamin thought. His wife Edith and daughter Judith aided him in  his work, so it  was a family endeavor. Benjamin was a  meteorologist  by  training and  the lighthouse doubled as a weather outstation. During daylight the Margolies family faithfully sent hourly reports of temperature, humidity, cloud height,  cloud formation,  wind direction,  and wind force to the Meteorological Office in London by Teletype.

TC159: When Benjamin  was paid  his  salary a  small amount  of petrol  was  delivered  to  power the  engine  that  turned  the lighthouse shaft. He was never tempted to divert a  portion of this petrol to his motorcar, as he  had none, but he did have to keep one eye out for neighbors who did.

On weekday mornings Judith  trudged up  from Undercliff  to the village of Niton for her  primary school. Sometimes her mother accompanied her when  she attended  to shopping. At sunset on Friday his family ceased all work.

TC160: Benjamin took his family by ferry and bus on such modest holidays as they could afford. Sometimes they went to the Lake District in the northwest of the country to camp in the treeless hills called fells that qualified as mountains in England.

In 1944  American,  Australian,  En  Zed  and  Canadian  troops were transported to  the south  of England  in preparation  for the invasion of  France. To ensure their  success  a wall  of operational deception was created that  the world had never seen before.

TC161: A world of false radio traffic was created and maintained to let the German High Command  conclude US Army General  G. S. Patton  was  gearing  up  to  lead the  entire  force  over  the narrowest part of the  Channel where Dover  could be  seen from Calais. The Germans knew that was the smart move.

Admiral Sir Bertrand Ramsay, in overall command of the invasion, left absolutely nothing to chance. On June 4, 1944, just before D-Day, Ramsay spent his precious time  visiting St. Catherine's lighthouse.

TC162: Benjamin showed the admiral the room  where the Teletype and the transmitter associated  with his hobby  were installed. Ramsay thanked Benjamin personally for his service to the King, but Benjamin, for his part, considered it prudent not to mention the assistance he received from Edith and Judith with his hobby.

The Admiral seemed to be captivated by a wall chart and he asked Benjamin to identify it.

"That's my moving five-day weather forecast for Undercliff, sir. Where we are."

TC163: "This weather forecasting, is it perhaps a second hobby?"

"A bit more than just a hobby, Admiral Sir Ramsay. My calling is meteorology. Now I know we've all got to pull  together to stop Jerry, sir, and I'm sure other  professional men are in the same predicament as  myself, but all  the same, one must  continue to use the skills one has, or one's mind gets in a bit of a rut."

Benjamin led the admiral into the white octagonal  tower of the lighthouse proper to show him the Clarinet antenna.

TC164: The array mounted to the central shaft of the lighthouse was identical in  appearance to  the decoy  antenna constructed nearby on the grounds of St. Catherine's, but  the one outdoors was a sacrificial offering  for the  Germans. They had already made one attempt to bomb it out of existence. Benjamin and his family were entirely unharmed, but they sat idle while the Royal Air Force set the largely undamaged structure aright. After that Benjamin resumed his part of the so-called Wizard War.

TC165: Twice a week at  odd hours  of the evening  the Teletype alarm woke up the Margolies family with a transmitter frequency and a line of bearing. The lighthouse lamp was extinguished and the central  shaft  was  disengaged from  the  motor. Benjamin rotated the antenna to  the ordered  compass heading. Half the time this was followed by dozens of bombers pivoting overhead to follow the beam to some target area in Germany. The other half of the time the beam marked the location to drop their bombs.

TC166: The genius of the system was that while  the concrete of St. Catherine's  lighthouse was  nearly transparent to  the long radio waves of the transmitter  they were completely  opaque to the short light rays used by prying German eyes and cameras.

The admiral said, "Mr. Margolies, the following  few weeks will be rather lively ones for you, I'm afraid. Your Clarinet tasking orders will be coming in at a greater rate than ever before. You should lay aside your weather reports and sleep days."

TC167: "Has something gone badly awry?" Benjamin asked.

The admiral replied, "Not at  all! As  you are no  doubt aware, much of southern England has become  an armed camp with some two million soldiers from  several allied countries, as  well as all of their supplies. As we draw near to the day of the invasion we must shape  the beachhead in France  with continuous bombardment of enemy strongholds,  both day and night, or  the invasion will fail. You will be assisting some of the night raids, of course."

TC168: "I  understand   what  I  am  to   do,"  said  Benjamin. "Perfectly."

He led the  officer  spiraling up  ninety-four  steps with  the Clarinet antenna nearly  filling  the hollow  space inside  the lighthouse. At the top Benjamin  pointed out  where the  large crystal lens had been chipped by a 1943 air raid. They could see thirty nautical miles out to sea. The whole Channel was roiling with whitecaps kicked up from  high winds. "Such weather!" Sir Admiral Ramsay complained. It threatened the whole invasion.

TC169: "Even so," said Benjamin, "look how clear it  is. We are in  a rain-shadow  here, you  know. And  also a  fog-shadow. Our weather is not  nearly as immoderate as it is  for the Overners. That is, for the rest of the island."

After  the  war   it   was  Benjamin   who   coined  the   word 'microclimate'.

He went on to say, "By a fluke of geography  and wind and water currents, the  weather here  at the lighthouse  has a  very high correlation with the weather directly  across the Channel on the coast of France."

TC170: "Is that so? How remarkable!"

"I was working towards my doctorate with this research when the war so rudely  intervened. The data I have  collected since then has only confirmed that I'm on the right track."

"What do you forecast for Undercliff tomorrow?"

"A twenty-four hour  break  in this  miserable weather,  partly cloudy, winds drop  to five knots. But elsewhere  on the Channel there will be fog and rain, with winds gusting to thirty knots"

"And the opposite coast will calm as well?"

TC171: "Weather  is  always  a chancy  business  sir,  but  the correlation should hold."

Admiral Sir Ramsay was elated. Eisenhower's chief meteorologist had predicted the same short break in the weather using aircraft over the Atlantic to gather  the data. Ike was still dithering but now the  doughnut hole  in the  storm was  confirmed by  an unexpected third  party. It might be enough to convince  Ike to get a jump while the Germans were looking the other way. General Rommel wasn't even presently in France.

TC172: Two  days  later  the  Margolies  family  received  more visitors but  they  were  considerably less  welcome  than  the admiral had been. They paddled in from  the sea. Judith never learned the name of the German officer who led them. To her the man would always  be Felix. Perhaps Felix had been  killed in the  subsequent invasion,  or perhaps  he died  during the  long retreat that followed. Considering Judith's post-war  success moonlighting as an implacable Nazi hunter that  would have been best for Felix.

TC173: Looking back Judith realized  Felix was a member  of the Shutzstaffel, a  paramilitary  unit  which  observed  no  legal restraint. Perhaps he was a  political officer assigned  to the U-boat to ensure the  crew's loyalty  to the  gangsters running Germany. In any event, the  fact that the Margolies  family was Jewish put him in the dilemma of obeying conflicting orders. But he had the authority to improvise when it became necessary, and he spoke  English  sufficiently  well to  get  this  across  to Benjamin.

TC174: "When you get your  orders you  will carry them  out, as before,  but you  will be  a little  sloppy when  you align  the antenna. Not too sloppy, Mr. Margolies! Just enough to throw off the raid by a few hundred meters. And the most important part is that you must tell no one  you are sabotaging the raids, or that we were ever here."

"Or you'll return and kill us?"

"Mr. Margolies, you  have my  word  that neither  you nor  your lovely wife  Edith nor  your beautiful  daughter Judith  will be killed."

TC175: "I, too, am a man of my word," said Benjamin.

"How very fortunate  that  is for  Edith  and Judith,"  replied Felix, "since we will now  to take  them to the  racial hygiene camp near St.-Malo in France."

"No, I beg you!"

"Do not be alarmed, Mr. Margolies. Your wife  and daughter will not be  mistreated. All  the British Jews  we captured  from the Channel Islands have been relocated  there. But if we learn that a future air  raid using this transmitter  is successful, things will not seem so good."

MALPHAS

TC176: When Malphas  was taken  to meet  the king  of Salem  he apparently  didn't rate  an audience  before the  actual throne. Instead he  saw  the  cherub  in his  salon  with  only  Prince Melchizedek in attendance. The lack of  pomp was  striking. He surmised the king  had  no  wish to  be  humiliated before  his subjects. But he  was  taken  to the  chamber  by  the  king's daughter, Lilith, a  yan leather-garbed in parody  of a soldier. Malphas found it to be personally offensive. Very well. He would trade barb for barb.

TC177: Lilith  came to  the  required  number of  paces  before Melchiyahu and sank to her knees while Malphas pointedly did not do so. She said, "My father and liege-lord, this lan, Malphas by name, claims to be a prince of the city of Adan."

Melchiyahu ignored the breach of  protocol made by  Malphas. He said, "I know of one son of  Rimmon by that name. Such  a one I have never met, as a thousand leagues lie between here and Adan. And such  a one  was never  granted leave  to make  utterance in Salem.

TC178: "Sire," replied  Malphas, "were  I  the get  of a  lowly stonemason like this lan named Hamon who is disturbing the peace of the Lord's  realm, even so I would have  leave to preach here in Salem,  for I  am the  Voice of  Shemhazai, and  your kingdom still lies, however uneasily, within the East Lands."

"Yet were Shemhazai himself come to Salem he could not pronounce death as you have done, even for a stonemason's son. That is my power,  solely,  and  the  giving  of  the  scepter  is  without repentance."

TC179: Malphas said, "Then  sire, at the  very least  I counsel restraining this Hamon by fetters if not by death."

"Not in haste, O Voice of Samael. My own  daughter admires this prophet and puts his words  into action, which gladdens my heart in a way I cannot tell you."

"Your Majesty, the ideas admired by your daughter spread through the East Lands like a plague. Already the river of pilgrims who flow to  Adan seeking  absolution ebbs. Hamon  is like  a dagger pointed at the heart of the state."

TC180: "What do you mean?"

"Sire, the priests have been forced to double their rates!"

Melchiyahu looked  at  Malphas  with  a  mixture  of  pity  and amusement. Abruptly the prince realized Melchiyahu's purpose in limiting  the audience  to  just three  nobles  in this  private setting. Any grandstanding was  impossible. In their raw state his words sounded insane even to himself.

The king said, "I will listen to this Hamon's words with my own ears and judge whether they disturb Shemhazai's peace.

TC180: "Have a care, Melchiyahu!" the prince dared to exclaim. "I assure you the  Lord will  not hesitate  to bring  an errant cherub to heel through war!"

Melchizadek and Lilith were both startled, not by the bold words of Malphas but by the deadly calm on the face of their father in the wake of the affront. The king gracefully rose to  his feet and said, "I leave this matter  to you, son. Remember,  one day you will rule Salem."

After his father departed,  Melchizedek struck off  the Killing Relic.

TC181: The  eyes of  Malphas  grew  wide. This confirmed  many things. The ruling house in Salem had divine assistance and the usurper Hamon  did not  merely  imagine  himself to  speak  for Bat-El.

"Say no more words," Melchizadek warned, shouting over the noise of the Relic. "You would be cut in twain even as you spoke."

To underscore this threat he  sliced the corner of  the massive and ornate stone table  as though  it were  made of  bread. The severed piece crashed to the floor and did not bounce once.

TC182: Melchizedek allowed the hissing black rip  in reality to fully retract into the golden hilt  he held in his hand. Then he continued much more quietly. "A horse shall be given to you with comestibles to see you  to the town  of Odargas  thirty leagues east of Salem.  Tarry you there. A messenger  shall follow after Cherub  Melchiyahu  himself has  heard  this  Hamon preach.  But Malphas, real son  of King Rimmon or no, should  you ever return to this city, take heed to do so at the head of a large army."

TC183: "That is sound counsel, I deem," said  Malphas. He broke the clay seal on  the blank  scroll of  parchment that  was, in fact, his credentials as the Voice  of Shemhazai. At once he was surrounded by a transparent sphere in the likeness of a ball of glass or crystal. The grounds of the palace of Rimmon were seen within. "Think you Bat-El alone  works signs of wonder?" In an instant the sphere disappeared  and Malphas  was gone  with it, leaving only a crater in the stone floor of the king's salon.

ERIK

TC184: Late afternoon drew on. Robyn stood up and said, "Well, Doctor J, I think I have everything  I need to make you a proper cuppa but I don't know to actually make it."

Judith smiled. "I can teach you. But  turnabout is  fair play, Robyn. Tell me  about your own mum  and dad. Then I  can tell my captors I've heard you out so  they can return me home to Israel as they promised."

"If you go home you will die."

"The war is going rather well for the Israeli side."

"Precisely, Judith. All too well."

TC185: Erik Zinter was one of the merry  but homesick doughboys who went into battle  in September 1918  whooping with  all the enthusiasm of a football team  pouring out onto the  field just before kickoff. Joining his team was six hundred  aircraft and one hundred forty-four tanks led by Col. George  S. Patton Jr.. Three thousand  pieces  of  field artillery  unleashed  by  the Entente side and countless bombs dropped from the  air tore the landscape at St.-Mihiel into  a pock-marked pigsty  filled with mud.

TC186: Erik took  two rounds  from a  Bergmann Maschinenpistole 18/1 that shattered  the bone  in his  upper left  arm. Doctors removed  the  bullets   but  the   surgery  was   performed  in less-than-ideal  conditions. He developed gas  gangrene  while recuperating in the field hospital so his arm had  to come off. Afterward Erik rode a train to Paris with a  hundred other men. The same train  carried fresh  soldiers to  the Western  Front, which over four  years  had become  an  efficient mangling  and killing machine.

TC187: Erik met a Red Cross nurse with a surname he recognized. While she  changed  his  dressings Erik  learned  that  Clara's family, the Hursts, had stayed  behind in Pennsylvania while his own Zinters went west. But after talking about their respective family trees for a while  they discovered they shared  the same great-grandmother. So they were second  cousins. That and her all American girl-next-door  good  looks  interested Erik. His unrelenting good  cheer even  after  losing  an arm  interested Clara.

TC188: They could not talk  for long but  after he told  her he wanted to  stay in touch Clara  passed along the address  of her parents in Pennsylvania. Their pen pal  relationship blossomed into something they both thought was love.

Erik came home from the war  with a bonus of  sixty dollars and took a job in Headwater painting houses using his remaining arm. He laid money aside for a wedding. Finally, in 1922, Erik took to the Yellowstone Auto Trail  in a  Model T and  drove halfway across the country.

TC189: In Pennsylvania only first cousins couldn't get hitched. Second ones were fine. Both of Clara's parents thought Erik was a great kid  so they  wholeheartedly gave  their blessing. But Erik's own parents in Headwater  were a much harder  sell. Back home Erik instantly  became  the black  sheep  of the  extended Zinter family for passing over a perfectly good (but horsefaced) local first cousin for a beautiful second cousin from back east. One of his aunts said, "Why, any heathen could do as much!"

TC190: Before Robyn was Robyn she was Kimberly, born to Erik and Clara Zinter in 1925. She knew her two best friends Sophia and Doriel from when they shared the same nursery  while even their mothers found work in that frothy decade. But by 1932 they were all without jobs  and so  was Erik. What builders there still remained found applicants with two good arms suddenly willing to paint. Still, Erik retained the good spirits  that had endeared him to Clara in that Paris hospital during the Great War.

TC191: There are rich seams of bituminous coal inside Green Dome hill and under the town of Headwater itself but  the geology of the area is so jumbled there's  no economical way to reach it by drilling a  straight shaft. The coal is exposed only  here and there. During the Depression Erik made twisting tunnels through the bulk of Green Dome. At the time no one knew how he managed the feat, and he refused to  say. By day other men followed in his wake to reinforce the tunnels and remove the coal.

TC192: In   the  heart   of  the  Great   Depression  Headwater experienced a boom. Great heaps of black  gold from  the mines piled up  on docks  in  Chicago  and  San Francisco. Soon the unemployed, unemployable Erik Zinter had a brand  new brick red Ford Model B and he also  completely paid off his  modest home. There was enough money left over to send Kimberly to the Academy to be with  her friends  Doriel  Shybear, the  daughter of  the prophet of the Church, and Sophia Krause, the only  girl on the football team.

TC193: Doriel Shybear wore her black hair just long enough for a pinch of it  to be  tied in  the obligatory  Church pony  tail. Members of the Shybear family always sported what was assumed to be a decorative head dress particular to the Kuwapi people. The item had white horns that curved over the head in such a way as to resemble  the halo of  a cartoon angel. This bifurcated halo tapered to points over the forehead and anchored a  net of gold or silver chain with semi-precious stones at the nodes.

TC194: Sophia Krause kept her ash-blond hair  even shorter than Doriel did, with  no Church-mandated  pony tail. Like Kim and Dory, Sophia was required to wear woolen skirts to class rather than trousers with  pockets, which  annoyed her. One Halloween morning Dory came dressed as  a pirate's wench. She had ripped her dress into long strips  so her pinup-model legs  could poke out when she  walked. When Sophia saw  that she  felt a  sweet electric shock  and  knew  she had  graduated  from  tomboy  to something.

TC195: Kimberly  had long  hair  halfway  between mahogany  and carrot-top which she wore in a ponytail all the time like every good little Greendomite, male and  female. Kim was an infidel. She didn't believe a  word of  the Green  Book. But she wasn't ready to  disappoint her father  so she gritted her  teeth, wore the damned ponytail in a bun, and when she  ventured outside of Headwater she  tried to ignore the  comments at the edge  of her hearing like, "Hey,  there  goes another  Bunner,  look at  her hair!"

TC196: At the Academy Kim  drew Sophia  as a lab  partner while Dory ended up with her  sibling Gabriel. Sophia kicked Gabriel out of his seat with "no offense pally" and  sent him shambling towards Kim, a slight adjustment  in the teacher's  choice that eventually led to hand holding while skating at Lake 13 and much pitching of woo.The girls ordered Kim to make a report.

"He feels like a rubber wet suit stretched over a suit of armor, Soft on the surface but with a hard core underneath. I like it."

TC197: Kim was the darling of the Green Dome Temple Girls Choir. She was an  expressive mezzo-soprano  with a  come-hither voice that belied her fifteen years and verged on being too sultry for Sundays. Listeners compared her favorably to Peggy Lee. In band class she started dabbling with the piano and found she also had the chops for keyboard. Gabriel had no inborn talent  but this was the  Academy after  all. After learning scales  he  tried several brass instruments before settling on the saxophone.

TC198: Dory played a double-bass  standing on an  end-pin which she had lengthened to  be more  comfortable. Sometimes she set down her bow and plucked the strings  pizzicato with meandering bass lines while daydreaming she was a black cat slinking around at night.

Sophia pounded the skins  with all the  power of  the offensive guard she happened  to  be,  yet she  ran  effortlessly in  and around Dory’s rock steady bass and punctuated  her licks with improvised drum fills as endlessly unique as snowflakes.

TC199: Word arrived of the Doolittle raid after  five months of steady  bad news  following  Pearl Harbor. In celebration, the Academy held a recital of  patriotic John Philip  Sousa marches attended by half of the  town of  Headwater. For an encore the class tore into a cover of the classic  Duke Ellington standard 'It Don’t Mean A Thing (If  It Ain’t Got That  Swing)' with Kimberly soloing on vocals and Gabriel on sax. For Kim the only downside was her  father Erik  wasn't there  as he  promised he would be.

TC200: Kim saw how her mother kept a seat saved for Dad that was never filled. Erik did not come home all that night and not even the next morning. In the middle of the school day Kim was pulled out of class and driven home by Deacon Paul. She started crying then, fearing the worst. At home when she saw her mother pacing Kim tearfully pleaded for  her to  speak. It took a  long time before Clara had the willpower to look directly at her daughter and blurt it out, sobbing, “Your father is dead!”

TC201: They both cried until there was nothing more to give, and even when Kim’s eyes were bone dry she was still wracked with sobs that trailed  off at  length to  silent grief. When Clara finally gave Kim answers they seemed hard to believe.

The Green Book  described something  called the  Killing Relic. Clara and Kim had both assumed it was just a literary device to move  the plot  along, perhaps  like the  whale in  the book  of Jonah. But Prophet Jashen insisted it was real and  he had lent it to Erik.

TC202: For years Jashen honeycombed Green Dome  with tunnels to access seams of  coal. But overnight a cave-in smashed Erik’s helmet lantern and plunged him into total darkness. He tried to bore his way out but  the Killing Relic consumed  the remaining oxygen faster than he did. At dawn men with picks  and spades broke through the cave-in and reached Erik’s  body. They also found the  artifact. Prophet Jashen assured  Clara  that  her husband did not suffer,  he simply fell  asleep and  never woke again.

TC203: Jashen praised the memory of Erik for  never violating a sacred trust that  some in the Church were saying  was more than he had the authority to grant. Jashen asked Clara to accept that the Killing Relic was real and the Green  Book was historically true. “When you attend the Final Rite you will come to see the wisdom of it,”  Jashen told  her. “But try to be  strong, Clara. In the days to  follow some  will tell you  God punished your husband with  death  for  misusing his  holy  gift to  the Church.”

TC204: Kim stopped going to school. After a few days Dory and Sophia came around. Their visit elevated Kim from her  grief a tiny bit  and her  mother noticed  this. When Sophia’s mother came to pick  up her  daughter Clara  asked her  to wait  until Dory’s mother arrived as well,  because she had a  request to make of all of them.

When everyone was together Clara said, “I’d like Sophia and Dory to be with Kim for Erik's Last Rite.”

Susan Krause shook her  head. "Last Rite? They're  just school girls!"

TC205: Dory's mother Leliel  was with Susan  on this. She said with her unplaceable accent, "My husband told me  the Last Rite actually destroys faith.  You believe because you  have seen. Do you not remember how Lord Yeshua  told us more blessed are those with the faith of a child, who believe without having seen?"

Susan said, "This should be family time for you and Kim, Clara."

"But I have no family here," Clara objected. "All my people are back east."

"You have your in-laws," Leliel pointed out.

TC206: But here Clara firmly shook her head. “The Zinters are Bunner Incarnate. They've always held me at arm’s length. Now Kimberly is taking the  death of  Erik very  hard but  when the girls came over today she brightened  just a little. I saw how they were like a family to her. This is all about Kim.”

After that it  became a  gentle negotiation. Susan and Leliel agreed that Kim’s friends could be with  her, downstairs, but Leliel persuaded Clara to  have them sit  out the  actual Final Rite upstairs.