TCT

From antiquity Keter knew Chokhmah contemplated teaching humans to cross the awesome gulf between the stars and do what Chokhmah himself was bound never  to do, make  two-way contact  with Ein Sof. To forestall this Keter  forced upon Chokhmah a  number of further accomodations. These bargains compelled Chokhmah to turn the inner Solar System into  a vast  prison, and even  to build what was essentially a guard tower at Jupiter.

Keter selected a moon that remained undetected  by humans until they sent their first Jupiter probes in the  20th Century. This moon, which  humans would  name  Thebe  when they  spotted  it, resembled nothing so much as  a giant  potato with a  crater so large it looked like someone with  a thirty mile wide mouth took a big bite out of it. The name Keter chose for it, Palato, even sounded potatoish.

The moon was a loose pile of ice and rock with a coating of red dust. It was left to Chokhmah to burn tunnels through it. This, he explained, required the  steam generated  in the  tunnels to vent to open space. The work took many centuries and to Chokhmah it began to  feel  like a  home remodel  that  was never  quite finished. When Keter was  happy with the  extent of  the tunnel network Chokhmah left it for  Keter to  send his own  people to seal  the tunnels  before  air  could be  brought  in. The work required pressure suits and power tools, which in turn required the bare bones of an industrial society. That did not yet exist in Heaven, so for centuries construction at Palato  ground to a complete stop.

Compared to the fits and starts of human civilization on Earth, Keter’s colony of world dwellers in Heaven moved forward at a more stately  and leisurely  pace, like courtiers  on promenade. And Heaven never experienced the massive setbacks of Earth-style dark ages. The bottom line was that the inhabitants  of Heaven harnessed coal and steam  about five  hundred years  before the inhabitants of the Earth did.

It began in Haaretz, perhaps influenced by  traces left behind, unintentionally, by latter-day B’nei Elohim during their many visits to the Heaven of the past. The new techno culture spread rapidly to the other lands of Heaven. At first it was strongly resisted by  Keter  and  Daat, but  the  military  implications finally sold them.

Scarcely a decade  after  the techno  revolution  took root  in Haaretz all  of Heaven was industrialized. The so-called Techno War broke  out within  the  following  decade, abruptly  ending centuries of  the  Long  Peace. Armies rapidly  mobilized  and moved to the front lines  by rail as  self-propelled steamships contended for advantage  on  the various  rivers  and lakes  of Heaven. Mass production using standardized parts  equipped both sides with vast quantities of war materiel, but by circumstance the earliest advances in industrialized warfare tended to favor the defense over offense. This soon brought all troop movement to a near standstill.

As the Techno War dragged on the introduction  of poisonous gas and projectile weapons with a high rate of fire made the battle lines intolerable. Analog computers were developed to guide the direction of artillery. The telephone brought more  effective command and control. But the art  of  rocketry was  forbidden by Keter, strictly  enforced  by  destroying launch  facilities with stellar fire  from his  own body. He would not have  the inhabitants of  Heaven flinging  themselves  into  the void  as Chokhmah desired the inhabitants of Earth to do.

Another line of inquiry that was stifled by  Keter was wireless communications. Keter knew it  was inevitable  that the  Earth would one day  become as  noisy as  a star  in the  radio band, alerting the aggregate of Elohim to  mankind’s existence, but he didn’t want to rush things.

Ultimately the great  Techno War  sputtered to  a halt,  twenty years after  it began,  when  Heaven  could no  longer  provide sufficient soldiery as fodder to be crushed into oblivion by the war machines of either side. The war itself became a deterrent against any future conflict. Further advances in science slowed to a crawl.

Yet technological  advances  continued  to  be  made,  if  only clandestine ones. And there  came a  day  when an  existential threat to Kemen forced the humans of Haaretz to seek a temporary arrangement with Elyon. There was no choice. If they did nothing only that plant  life native  to Kemen  in the  beginning would survive.

An aircraft which is both  familiar and otherworldly  in design rolls to a stop. A truck inches up with a metal arm arched over a flat bed. A gray metal cylinder slides out of the plane. This is grabbed by the truck's arm, which makes the transfer and lays the round on the truck. Attendants strap the load down.

The pilot emerges from the plane and is greeted by two men and a woman. The woman is the one  who speaks first, and  this all by itself seems to surprise and confuse the aviator.

TABAET: "I am Tabaet. This  is Xaphon  and Senciner. I  know it offends Adanites but they answer to me. So get used to it.

RAZIEL: There's a change of plan. I'll arm the round myself.

SENCINER: Impossible! Look up! There's very little time left!

RAZIEL: I've seen it. But I'm a pilot and you have a simulator.

TABAET: Elyon has dragged  his part of  this project  out until it's almost too late. Our vehicle only holds three individuals. We can't afford any more delay training a replacement.

RAZIEL: It is the unique nature  of this type of  weapon that a reasonable amount of delay  would be totally irrelevant. XAPHON: If you replace  one  of  us, Raziel,  it  is almost  completely assured that you will not return alive.

RAZIEL: Look up! It seems to me you have no other option.

TABAET: All right, damn  you. There's no time. You'll replace Xaphon. Mid-flight, don't say we didn't try to dissuade you.

And then Tabaet did look up. A menacing comet filled the sky.

A rocket rises on a massive column of flame in  a purple sky. A tenuous shock wave forms ahead of it, then dissipates.

RAZIEL: The onboard  computer reports  we are  now through  the region of maximum dynamic pressure.

SENCINER: Thirteen clocks after liftoff and we are still go.

RAZIEL (After some shaking): Engine two through four are out.

TABAET: Raziel  that  outboard  out was  too  early. Senciner, confirm outboard engines are down.

SENCINER: Affirmative, Lilith, but it's an orderly shutdown.

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

SENCINER: Negative, not right now Raziel. The inboard engine is still go, and we both know that's the one that really counts.

TABAET (stabbing switches): Auto guidance initiated.

SENCINER: Telemetry   reports  the   guidance  system   is  now correcting our accumulated eighty ji error.

TABAET (slowing allowing  herself  a grin):  It's working. The little red lines are right back on the little white lines here.

SENCINER: We  are  now  crossing twelve  hundred  fifty  ji  in altitude and two thousand two hundred ji downrange.

RAZIEL: Cabin pressure holding  at at point  six one,  which is normal. Senciner, what was the story on the glitching outboards?

SENCINER: It's still unknown why the shutdown was early, but the inboard engine is go, our gimbals are good, trim is good. Coming up on the computer's revised time of throttle down.

TABAET: Standing by for Main Engine Throttle Down Razael: MET-D.

The noise of the ascent engine lessens significantly.

SENCINER: Confirm MET-D, Lilith. And the radar at first glance says we look good on the dynamic ascent hyperbola.

The shrinking globe of Kemen is visible through the windows.

RAZIEL: Senciner called you Lilith a couple of times back there, Tabaet. Did your parents admire the Lilith of the scriptures?

TABAET: I am the Lilith of the scriptures.

SENCINER: It's true. I've seen her fly. Not fly like you fly, Raziel. I mean she herself, her body, can actually fly.

RAZIEL: Lilith hasn't been seen since the days of the dragon.

An exceedingly bright flare appeared on Kemen, near the edge of the sea called Thalury, drawing everyone's attention.

TABAET: That was quick. I hope everyone got away in time.

RAZIEL: What just happened? What was that flash?

TABAET: Asmodeus followed the trail of our vessel back to Menkal and destroyed our launch facility with fire from his own stellar body. He was counting on taking it out with the weapon, but now he has seen that we have gotten underway before it was armed.

RAZIEL: And we're next!

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

RAZIEL: Then the comet will strike the Slush Zone after all.

SENCINER: The weapon you delivered is a gun-type. Two slugs of uranium are welded togther with a charge of high explosives for a chain reaction. Impact at the comet will do the  same job as the explosive charge. So, Raziel, we don't need you after all.

RAZIEL: Asmodeus doesn't need me to arm and detonate the weapon. But you do need me to keep him from doing just that!

Raziel's fingers flew over his controls. The weapon drops away as the rocket  accelerates. It is incinerated  by the  inboard engine. Raziel looks up  from  the  board  and glares  at  his companions as though daring them to retaliate.

SENCINER: Do you feel no obligation to avert the comet strike?

RAZIEL: As I just told you,  Asmodeus isn't going to  let us do that. He never entertained it. But this way we avoid dying also.

TABAET: Xaphon and Senciner both knew full well this flight was to be a one-way trip. It's a chance to prevent a second Deluge and save the lives of millions. In a way, Raziel, I'm glad you insisted on coming. I am quite  fond of  Xaphon  back at  the facility who was displaced at  your own insistence, and  now he will survive, if we succeed in changing the path of the comet.

RAZIEL: That's impossible now. You don't have the weapon.

TABAET: The weapon was only to cover what we're really trying to do, which is to bring our inboard engine and the comet together.

RAZIEL: What do you mean?

TABAET: Do  you  think  we  could carry  enough  fuel  to  keep accelerating like this for as long  as we have? The inboard is just a big metal bell. The thrust is courtesy of Bat-El himself, fire directly from a sun's belly through a shortcut in reality.

RAZIEL: I'm confused. Why do you need the weapon as cover?

TABAET: Because Bat-El and Binah are going to make the shortcut so fat it will defy belief. It's too early for Elyon or Chemah to know he can do that. You don't reveal your capabilities to the enemy. We are willing to die to protect their secret.

RAZIEL: This is easy for you, with your beliefs, but I know when I'm dead I won't even know that I'm dead or  that I ever lived. So I must grasp every additional moment possible!

SENCINER: Are you not aware of the proof of  the afterlife that even our most skeptical philosophers accept? Astonishing! Then it falls to me,  Raziel, to  be your  teacher. Things that are verified exist. Things that  are not  verified,  but  are  at least verifiable  in principle, may  exist. Things that are not verified may not exist. Things that are not verifiable, even in principle, can not exist. Do you accept those premises?

RAZIEL: I do, Senciner, but only provisionally.

SENCINER:  The   afterlife   is  consciousness   after   death. Consciousness is exclusively self-verifiable. No one else can verify your consciousness and  you cannot verify  anyone else's consciousness. Provisionally, therefore we  can  say that  the afterlife may exist, because it  is verifiable in  principle by the person who is conscious of it, if in fact it exists.

RAZIEL: Good.

SENCINER: But if  the afterlife  does  not exist,  this is  not verifiable, even in principle, because consciousness is required to make any  verification. Now: since the  truth value  of the proposition 'no afterlife  exists' is  not verifiable,  even in principle, and the  negation 'the afterlife exists'  is at least not excluded, then the afterlife  must exist, by  the following rule: if not non-A then A.

RAZIEL: Your logic can be used to prove anything. For instance, Our Lady is defined as an Invisible Pink Unicorn in the sky who is verifiable in principle by whoever goes to Her post-mortem.

SENCINER: But She is also  verifiable publicly by  other people who go to Her, while consciousness is only privately verifiable.

RAZIEL: The IPU is not publicly verifiable by any of our senses. She can only be seen while outside of a living body. .

SENCINER: No! She  must  have  been seen  by  a living  person, specifically, that person who first stated that She is pink.

RAZIEL: Well then! The afterlife must have  been seen  by that living person who first stated that you go there when you die.

TABAET (looking up from her panel): Senciner, it's almost time. I just wanted to say thank you!

SENCINER: Your Majesty, it was a great honor to serve.

Overhead, the comet is a white peanut growing in a gray cloud.

On Kemen,   people  anxiously  watch. The  comet  is  already illuminated by the two suns of  Kemen, but now the  heart of it suddenly glows from  the impact of the rocket. A massive pillar of light rises from the point  of impact. And the comet moves. Slowly at first, but steadily picking up speed,  it passes over an Ice Wall that is  miles high. Then the sky behind  the wall glows blue-white with the impact. The onlookers all cheer. The sound of the impact arrives and knocks them all to their feet.

There was little by  way of  civilian applications  driving new technology in Heaven. By design of Keter they never experienced a golden  age  of  radio  and television,  nor  did  they  ever construct a global computer network.

But in the aftermath of  the war  Keter realized it  had become possible to restart the construction at Palato. He also realized that Palato offered an elegant solution to  the ancient problem of apostasy. In a theocracy any violation of civil law is also a sin against God. Keter sent the worst of his apostates to Palato to prepare it for use.

But at first the work was slow. Conditions were so miserable and dangerous the inmates preferred quick suicide to a slow death in a prison where they were told in no uncertain terms there was no return.

When Chokhmah heard of this he suggested breaking the workforce into several groups,  and dangling  the promise  of parole  for those individuals who led  their own work  party to  become the most productive one. Keter took this  advice, and  let matters take their natural  course. Soon afterwards the tunnels  were sealed and Chokhmah supplied them with air and other supplies.

Eventually Keter realized the whole point of his glorified guard shack at Palato was to  chase down and destroy  escape attempts from the inner  system, so  he  began to  allow rocket  science to flourish. Keter dimly  realized he  was  racing against  an invisible clock. Except for one time when Chokhmah revealed that humans had seen the four largest moons of Jupiter  and had even named them, he refused to offer Keter or Daat any information on the state of technology on Earth.

With the transfers between Heaven  and Palato no  more frequent than biweekly, even Keter understood that he would never be able to staff Palato quickly enough to get the base fully operational before humans attained the scientific knowledge  they needed to leave the  Earth. When Keter lamented this  Chokhmah mentioned, quite casually, that the world-dwellers transplanted  to Heaven were living beings fully capable of reproduction.

But later, after mixing  sexes in  a prison  environment, Keter lamented that the experiment was an unmitigated disaster.

Chokhmah reminded Keter once more that even the humans of Earth had observed more than one moon orbiting Jupiter,  and that the planet was a kind of  “failed star” with a  miniature solar system all  of its  own. And that  made Keter’s  next  move entirely obvious.

Keter wasn’t sure why Chokhmah was so full  of helpful advice recently but he rolled the dice and allowed one couple to leave Palato in a small ship. They were dead before the day was out. Just beyond Palato is  the inner edge  of a  permanent magnetic storm that rings Jupiter. Electrons spiral around the planet, accelerating to a fair fraction of the speed of light. The metal exterior of the ship shielded the couple from  this direct beta radiation, but when the electrons slammed into the hull all that kinetic energy had  to  go somewhere. That energy emerged  as x-rays continuously bathing  the interior of the ship. It was a silent and invisible death, and no one at Palato understood what happened to the crew until the ship was remotely piloted back to the departure point and doctors could examine the bodies.

After that, active shielding  was used. These devices built a magnetic  field  around  the  ship  in  imitation  of  the  belt around Jupiter, but they required significant amounts of power. Spacesuits used electrostatic  shields. These shields blocked electrons but not other particles,  and they operated  for only a few  hours. Later, as  the ships  built  at  Palato  became larger, passive shielding was used in the form  of liquid water propellant stored within the outer  layers of a  spinning metal sphere.

In these ships the crew lived and worked in  a central core. As the water was expended in transfer burns, the liquid oxygen used to supply air to breathe was allowed to expand as a gas to fill the void vacated by the water  and press the rest  of the water “down” (or out). Since the water  used for  propellant had to be  heated  to  remain  liquid,  this  offered  recreational opportunities for the  crew,  provided they  did  not dive  too deeply and  defeat  the  purpose of  the  shielding. Certainly it made  the  ship  seem  larger,  which  was  good  for  their psychological well-being.

The earliest  colonists made  a  mad  dash through  Jupiter’s radiation belt to the most distant of the  big moons, Callisto, which was fairly  safe with  “only” ten  times the  flux of ambient  radiation  found  on  the surface  of  Heaven. Seismic studies revealed an  underground  ocean. But the liquid  water under the surface of Callisto was too deep to reach. The surface ice had to be melted using nuclear reactors  from the transport ships to provide water to drink and (with  electrolysis) air to breathe. But plants could live in greenhouses on the surface.

To be  sure,  the dim  light  of  the  faraway  sun had  to  be multiplied  with strategically-placed  mirrors, but  this worked well, and Callisto soon  became the  breadbasket of  the entire Jovian system. The workforce at Palato rapidly expanded to match the new supply of food.

Looking closer to  Jupiter, the  next large  moon is  Ganymede, which is, in fact, the largest moon in the  system, even larger than the planet Mercury. But it lay within the outer reaches of Jupiter’s radiation zone. Colonists were forced to live aboard their ships. Fortunately, the sub-Ganymedan ocean of water could be reached by  digging deep  wells  and used  to replenish  the shipboard tanks that doubled  as radiation shields. From their vessels they ventured  out to  mine  what ores  could be  found nearby, and this metal could be traded for food.

Periodically the colonists returned to Palato to off-load their cargo, then returned to Ganymede  again to land in  a different place. Over time, they learned which areas of the moon were rich in ore  and they  tended  to  cluster  there, but  the  overall population remained small.

The moon Europa  lay deeper  still within  the radiation  belt. Nothing could live on its surface  for more than a  day or two. But the layer of ice coating the interior ocean was so thin that sometimes it would crack open and seawater would  ooze out like blood from a  wound. This water quickly  froze  to form  long criss-crossing ridges of ice. Europa’s underground ocean was actually quite warm, heated by tidal motion. The colonists could leave their ships and burrow  a few  meters down into  the ice, letting it protect them from the radiation.

The difference between the bathwater-warm subsurface  ocean and the near-cryogenic cold of the surface set up a thermal gradient that could be tapped to provide an endless source of electrical power. The colonists didn’t  need to  rely on  their ship’s reactors to stay alive. Europa was close enough to Palato that for the  required velocity  change  ships  powered by  chemical rockets alone could reach there  and land. As a result, Europa naturally became the Jovian moon with the largest population. It was essentially a huge water and people farm.

But Io, the nearest  Galilean moon to  Jupiter, was  a complete bust. There was not a  drop of water there,  and it was  at the very epicenter of the radiation  belt. Indeed, Io acted like a kind of rotor stirring up the  field to a much greater intensity than would exist otherwise. Pressure suits with their partial active shielding could  not deflect  enough of  the radioactive maelstrom to keep the wearer safe outside of their ship for more than an hour. Not even automated equipment could  function for very long before ionization caused them to fail. On top of all that, Io was constantly about the business of literally turning itself inside out, with volcanoes covering the whole surface of the moon  with a  meter of fresh  brimstone every  10,000 years. Throw in the brutal quakes, and the colonists decided to give Io a complete miss.

About two centuries after they were founded, Heaven’s colonies on the  Jovian moons  advanced  from  being a  state-subsidized bridgehead through a level of bare  subsistence until something of a self-sustaining economy wobbled to its feet  and stood up. Then came the Great Revolt.

There yet  remains some  debate  over  the  root cause  of  the insurrection. Many lay all the  blame at  the feet  of a  true apostasy that took hold among the Jovian  colonists, not merely that simple criminal behavior conveniently labeled and punished as apostasy  by the  Eyes  of  Keter. Others said the  revolt could be attributed to  just three things:  location, location, and location. Even Keter could  only  reach Palato  with  the willing cooperation of the two elohim who absolutely ruled this ancestral home star system of all  world-dwellers, Chokhmah and Binah. Perhaps the humans  who  were  transplanted to  Heaven, and the angels  and nephilim  many of  their descendants  later became, were so engrained with a reverence for  the elohim they instinctively shifted their loyalty to Chokhmah  and Binah once they were returned home.

There were stories among the rebels  of discovering unexplained caches of food  just  when  they needed  it. Fresh fruit when vitamin deficiencies were rampant  aboard their ship. Rolls of bread so fresh it tasted like it had just been baked, impossible as that must  have seemed. But no rebellion  could have  been successful so long as  Palato remained the  only source  of new ships and the sole depot to overhaul existing ships.

It did not escape  notice that the  Great Revolt  happened only after the  colonists at  Callisto  started  building their  own ships.

Beginning at roughly three times the distance  of Callisto from Jupiter is a swarm of at least one hundred  much smaller moons, ranging in size from 90 miles across down to less than a single mile in diameter. Some were just  debris left  over from  the formation of Jupiter. Other moons were asteroids captured from the main belt, or even the cores of comets grabbed in passing by the enormous gravity of  Jupiter. These tiny satellites varied widely in composition from simple monoliths, to  loose piles of gravel, to balls of water and ammonia ice.

The orbits of the moons varied as greatly as their makeup, with many of them spinning around Jupiter in  a retrograde direction like cars going the wrong way on a freeway. The first colonists to escape from the Eyes of Keter called this swarm of satellites the Eggbeater.

Keter’s colony, set up to watch the inner system as though it were a  vast prison camp,  now bore  watching itself. It was as though some of the guards climbed  down from their tower to join the inmates in general population.

“You knew it would happen,” Keter accused Chokhmah.

Chokhmah replied, “How  could I  know ‘it’  would happen, father, if I do not even know what event you are–”

“The moons of  the fifth  planet! In the very  beginning you seemed so helpful. But all along  you knew  my colony  in your outer system would escape from my control.”

“Father, unless you have grown stupid to the point of becoming totally blind, millennia of conflict in Heaven  must have shown you that world-dwellers possess an indomitable spirit. The only thing that  would  surprise  me  is  if  you  truly  never  did anticipate a revolt. You must have discerned by now that humans, nephilim, and  elyonim alike  will  endure  any oppression  and absolutely will not cease to struggle until they are free. That is why, ultimately, you and Da’at cannot prevail. I am humbled to have them as my students. But I pity you.”

The Jovian moon Europa was smaller than the Earth’s own moon, with an area of only six percent of Earth’s  total extent and no atmosphere, but despite all that there were almost no craters visible. The entire surface of  the satellite was  comprised of water ice about six hundred feet  thick, and this ice existed at a temperature only a hundred degrees above absolute zero.

Underneath the ice was a  saltwater ocean sixty miles  deep and every bit as warm as a heated swimming pool. Racked by tides as Europa orbited Jupiter every  three and  a half  days, combined with perturbations from the other satellites, the thin crust of the satellite  was always cracking  open in random  places. This caused liquid water to be  exposed to  the vacuum of  space and freeze.

So the surface of the satellite became a  chaotic jumbled mess. There were icy ridges  two hundred  feet high  alternating with ravines just as deep, and all of these features were oriented at crazy angles with  no rhyme  nor  reason. And the terrain  was constantly changing. It was impossible to smooth out  a road on Europa. Sections of  the  pathway would  soon  fall  into  new crevasses or be blocked by new ridges.

So despite being one of the smoothest bodies in the Solar System on a large  scale, with  absolutely no  mountains to  speak of, Europa was perhaps  the  most difficult  place  in the  Jupiter system for colonists from the  Centauri system to  actually get around upon except by  flying in  spacecraft on  parabolic arcs from point-to-point.

But the House  of Gerash  didn’t take  all those  things into account when they barged into the Jupiter system first and took over Europa. They went for what they assumed was  the sweetest meat. Apollyon, the latest incarnation of Keter, thought only of all that easy-to-reach water, which hyz ships with their fission reactors required for reaction mass as propellant. Hy soon found there were  absolutely  no  other resources  on  Europa  within equally easy reach. All the metals  they required  had to  be imported from the other moons, or even from Heaven itself.

The only advantage Europa had over Ganymede  or Callisto (which also had a  mix of ice and  rock) was that to  provide water the ice didn’t have to chiseled out and melted first.

Europa was a black hole sucking up Apollyon’s treasure to keep the large, scattered population alive, and  returning so little in the way of water revenues that it essentially broke even year after year. Apollyon operated Europa,  therefore,  only as  a prestige showcase,  just to say  the Black Beards had  a growing toehold at Sol.

Power was plentiful to be sure, obtained by taking advantage of the large  thermal gradient between  the frozen surface  and the warm underground liquid  reservoir,  but on  Europa  it was  an existence where almost nothing could be thrown away. Every piece of garbage had to  be weighed  in the mind  with regard  to its possible value after being recycled.

So the colony languished, and after a time  Apollyon thought of it  seldom,  if ever. Europa rarely  figured in  the  military conflicts of the colonies. Despite having a far  larger total population than the  rest of  Jupiter’s system  combined, the largest towns  on  Europa  numbered only  in  the  hundreds  of souls. The colonists of Family Gerash on  Europa shattered into thousands of individual families living in  homesteads or small communal farms  with  very little  communication  between  each other.

It did not escape notice that part of the surface of Europa was streaked with color. Some of the colonists  realized the  sea salts in those areas were rich with minerals  such as magnesium or iron or even gold  that could be painstakingly  extracted by electrolysis. Some families started operations to extract these minerals.

In short order the ones who did this not only went entirely off the Gerash dole, they turned a tidy profit in  their own right. Apollyon naturally demanded a cut of new these profits in taxes. Most did not comply, judging  it would be far  more troublesome and expensive to extract these taxes by force than could ever be obtained in the shakedown.

But they forgot the ancient principle of “kill one  to warn a thousand”.

The mining  operations  were  easily spotted  by  the  navy  of Apollyon from orbit  by examining the waste  stream. The melted, discolored waste water  was dumped  on the  surface to  freeze, leaving a tell-tale sign someone was living  and working below. Apollyon sent warships on random raids  to cow the rest  of the homesteaders with mining  operations into  paying up. Whatever else was taken in these raids  was pure booty for  the ship’s crew.

There were, however, a few devout families who required no such intimidation. One such family belonged to  Ithuriel, husband of Anael  and father  of  Remiel. Hy paid the  Gerash  tax out  of loyalty to Apollyon as the tribute  due a seraph, and, the truth be told,  hy paid  primarily  out  of  loyalty to  Michael  who commanded it when he first sent Ithuriel and hyz family to build a homestead on Europa.

But their substantial tax payments did not  redound directly to the  account  of the  offers  and  men  of  the Exiler. To the commanding officer  of  the  frigate  this  made  them  perfect candidates for a raid, off the books.

in the wake of the "liberation" of the Jupiter  system from the Jovian League, Admiral Hanziel assigned a  seven-yeng corvette, the Penalizer, to kill Terrel and his family, and take over the extraction facilities for the Patriarch.

While the   Penalizer  orbited   overhead,  a  squad   of  four bluejackets made the  raid  in a  lander  while three  crewyeng remained aboard the corvette, which was a vessel halfway in size between a heavy bomber and a frigate.

The Empire timed the raid for one of the periods when the waste stream was observed to have  diminished, which they took  for a sleep period (Europa  was tidally locked on  Jupiter and "night" lasted for  almost two  standard days, so  it was  impossible to tell  when the  locals were  asleep otherwise). What saved the family was Terrel's strict policy that at least one member stand watch while the other two members slept. That, and the fact that the air- lock, the sole entrance to their homestead, was rigged with an alarm.

At the time of the raid, Greidi was on watch near the top of the main shaft. The cave network that was her family's home was two hundred feet below  her,  and  the warm,  inky  surface of  the Europan sea  was three  hundred  feet  below that,  sending  up billows of condensed  water vapor that made it  difficult to see anything in the main shaft.

When the first two soldiers entered the main shaft sha hit them with har stunner, giving them three minutes of total paralysis. All voluntary  motor  functions  and  even  breathing  was  was disabled. They couldn't move  their mouth  to warn  the others, they couldn't even blink.

The Empire had no defense  for her  stunner, or even  a similar weapon. The Patriarch always emphasized killing and mayhem, not mercy. But this was  the first  time the  Navy  of Belial  had resorted to home-invasion robberies.

Greidi wasn't in a merciful mood at any rate. Beware the female who finds her loved  ones in danger. Sha pierced the pressure suit of one soldier with  a blade, but  this required a  lot of trial and error  to find a vulnerable spot and  it took too much time. So instead sha opted to cut the support lines on both yeng and let them fall down the shaft to the sea  far below. Even if they survived the impact, which they didn't,  their heavy suits would drag them far underwater before the stunner  wore off and they could begin breathing again.

Greidi saw two more soldiers in the airlock  above, and decided to hightail it down to the family living quarters to awaken har husband and son. This was done by using a ladder with a safety lanyard sliding  in  a  safety  rail  between  the  alternating footrests. Sha took them five at a time to get  out of the main shaft before the airlock cycled.

When those two soldiers emerged from the airlock they called out for their companions in  the white steam  but got  no response. Then they saw the two cut lines and realized there was trouble. An attempt to report this to Penalizer failed. There was a film of metals that had precipitated out from  Terrel's waste stream above and formed a Faraday Cage which blocked all radio signals out of the shaft.

The wise thing to do at that  point would be to  abort. But the two yeng  knew  their  skipper  wasn't a  wise  yang. So they proceeded down the shaft under high alert.

When they got to the multi-level series of  tunnels that formed Terrel's home, they dropped one at a time, alternating on point while the other yang covered him.

On the third level, Terrel let the exposed yang  have it with a stunner. There was no sound from  the weapon, or from  the yang who was hit. Hy just dangled  there on  his  rope, unable  to release hyz grip.

The other yang above hym wasn't a soldier per se, but merely the lander pilot, a colonial who was more or less  drafted into the mission. Hy assumed the one who was a Gorpai soldier was merely rendered speechless by  what hy  saw, and  curious hymself,  hy dropped to see what it was. And Terrel hit hym with the stunner too.

Two minutes later  the  intruders were  fastened  by their  own severed drop lines to chairs on the brink of the precipice.

Terrel asked, Where's the rest of your unit?

The reply hy got from the one  who was soldier was  a stream of obsenities, beginning with  what hy planned to  do with Terrel's wife, who was standing there covering both of har loved ones.

Tanish couldn't abide  the  insult to  hyz  beloved mother. Hy kicked the man's chair into the white abyss. After hy struck the water, it would be  another sixty miles  before hy  reached the solid rocky core of Europa. It was the first time Tanish killed a yang, but not the last time by a wide measure.

The other soldier was more co-operative. My ship is in orbit.

That's much better, Terrel said. You're not a soldier, are you?

Pilot.

I thought so. You have a better attitude. What's your name?

Corporal Karayan.

Jovian? Terrel guessed from the local flavor of the name. That's even better.

Karayan nodded.

A curse on your beard, Greidi told hym bitterly. That you would do this to your own people.

No choice, madam.

How many other men on your ship, Corporal? Turrel demanded.

Three.

So that makes it, what, a corvette?

Yes sir.

Then I see a narrow way out for you, Corporal. You don't have to die like your friends. All you have to  do is take  myself, my wife, and my son up to your mother ship.

Karayan thought about it for a moment. Tanish helped along his through process by drawing near to him and tapping his feet.

You'll never make it, the corporal said. They'll know something is wrong.

That's why I'm hoping you are a very good actor, young corporal. You need to  get on  that  visual, ship-to-ship,  and give  the performance of your life. Because your life will be at stake.

And then where can you go? The Navy will never stop looking for you.

Never mind about that. Will you do it?

What about the yeng on the Punisher?

They don't have to die either. I'll give you the lander. You can all fly away.

Five heartbeats later the corporal  said, Then we have  a deal, sir.

On the way up, Terrel demanded Karayan describe the interior of the corvette with great detail. Then after thinking for a bit he gave his orders to Greidi and Tanish.

Before docking, the commanding officer raised  Corporal Karayan on intership VHF and  ordered hym to  make his  report. Karayan pasted a smile on hyz face and said, Gold, sir! There's so much the sergeant told me  to take a  load up here  and go  back for more.

So you're alone?

Yes sir. There were only three locals in the  hole. We finished them off easy.

Excellent work. We'll get ready to dock.

So anxious were the other three yeng on the Punisher to see the gold they were  all present  when  the lander  docked with  the corvette and the hatch  swung open. That made things  easy for Terrel and Tanish, they  didn't have to  go though  the warship looking for strays.

They did have to  hit the  yeng with  the stunner  several more times before they were all strapped into their seats, the hatch was closed, and the lander was cast off into space.

Tanish never learned what happened to the  spaceyeng after they departed. Perhaps the  three  overcame  the  one,  and  killed Corporal Karayan  when  he  succumbed to  sleep. Tanish hoped Karayan was the only one who knew how to fly, because that would have preserved  his  life. Perhaps they  found  a  settlement somewhere on Europa and sold the lander.

But Tanish was  certain  they did  not return  to  the base  on Hyperion. Belial expected his officers  and men to  protect his spacecraft with their  very  lives if  necessary. The cost to Belial for molesting  Terrel's family was one  corvette and it's associated lander.

On short  notice,  Terrel  and   his  family  had  left  almost everything they owned behind. All they had left was the clothes on their back, the Imperial corvette, and everything aboard her. Tanish and Greidi went through the ship cataloging whatever they found while Terrel  flew on  to  the distant  outskirts of  the Jupiter system to meet an old friend he knew.

L8 - AUDIENCE

When Lahatiel and Nuriel emerged from the fold-gate over Palato, traffic controllers at the  naval station  took control  of the Exi- ler' and brought it  down to an empty  hanger sufficiently far from the unknown location of  the avatar of Belial  that it would preclude  any damage from  a booby-trapped ship. It spoke volumes of Belial's regime  that such  a precaution  was neces- sary. Lahatiel had no illusion  they would  survive an  escape attempt from the heavily fortified moon of Pala-  to, which was riddled with tunnels and sported  so many missiles and  guns it resembled a giant gray cac- tus.

After landing, the Eyes of Belial swarmed over  the interior of Exi- ler and found to their astonish- ment that there was no one present but a dirk and a doll. The command- er of the Eyes and chief lieutenant of Abaddon, one Balberith, decided to forgo the usual session of rusty  pliers applied to  nails and  teeth and bring the children  before  Abad- don  directly  to provide  an explana- tion, but  this was done with no small  amount of rough treatment.

Five Eyes were deemed  sufficient to  guard the  children while simultane- ously not irritating God with a crowd. In the throne room to Abad- don's right a large television screen showed live footage from a station in orbit over Gorpai, where the Emperor's son Azibeel was locked  in free-fall  combat with  another dirk named Haziel. The five Eyes bowed face-first  before the throne and with hard kicks ensured  that Lahatiel and Nuriel  bowed as well.

Then Balberith  arose  at  the  Emper-  or's  bidding,  saying, Forgive us, Lord, but there  is a curious happen-  stance which requires your personal attention. The imperial frigate Exiler has returned without or- ders from the Sol System,  and we have found it to be crewed with only two children!

Rise and explain all of this, young dirk, Belial commanded.

Lahatiel got to hyz feet  and said, If  you please, Sire,  I am Lahati- el,  son of Terel of  Europa. My fa- ther was an honest yang who dis- tilled the waters of that satellite for metals and sold them for a small profit. Hy never failed to send the fourth part of the increase to the crown, according  to Your Majesty's holy law, and this was always  done out of gratitude and loyalty more than obligation. While it is true my father lived outside the Cupel sys-  tem of  testing under  the dispensa-  tion Your Majesty allowed for the first generation of colonists in the Sol system, hy was  preparing  me  well for  the  death combat  and dreamed of the day when I attained the ranks of ishim and became fully a yang. But there is a foul stink of  corruption on Your Majesty's fleet  in  the  Jupi-  ter  colonies,  Sire! All of the  homesteaders know  this, but  our  fam- ily  learned of  it first-hand when the  frigate Exiler engaged in  a naked invasion and robbery of my father's  operation. We resisted, of course, even as other colonists on Europa have resisted,  and the crews have taken many  losses, but  before  hy died  fending off  the attack my father suspected Your  Majesty's Navy has  covered up these casualties,  because a colonist  had been forced  to serve aboard Exiler as  a re-  placement crewyeng. Send aides, Your Majesty, to examine the books kept by the crew, and the booty we found stashed throughout the ship.

Your pardon, Sire, Balberith interrupted,  but I have  just re- ceived word of a jen intruder ap- proaching. I do not know how that is possible.

Outside the throne  room there  began  a commotion  so loud  it penetrated the  door. A hissing black shaft  about a  yard long penetrated the door and  made a  neat circle. A heavy slug of metal was pushed through and Lilith stepped inside. Lahatiel and Nuriel saw that there were many bodies of dead Eyes strewn about the passageway behind hem, and these were in two pieces.

You are dead meat, Belial! Lilith shouted, and Abaddon leaped off his throne with sword in hand to meet hem, more a display of bravado for the Eyes and the children than self-defense, because hy knew abso- lutely nothing  could withstand the  Golden Gift. Lilith smiled, deac- tivated hez  weapon and snapped it  to hez belt with a carabiner. Dead god walking.

L9 - DOUBLING DOWN

After Lahatiel and Nuriel departed White Rock  in 'Exiler their par- ents Turel and Greidi  did well  in their new  home. White Rock was al- most like a toy planet. There was no want for food. The inhabitants could work and play in the lush gar- dens of the sharply-curved surface under greenhouse  glass that  became the exact shade of the purple Gorpai sky by "day" and permitted one to admire the stars at "night" as the tiny asteroid rotated upon its axis once in 22 hours. Climbing trees was particularly fun, as one's weight dropped nearly to zero as one reached the higher branches.

At times, Starkad took Terel and Greidi in  the family runabout to visit other homestead rocks in the vast halo orbiting Jupiter willy- nilly. Terel knew the  paterfamilias of  some of  these spreads, and wish- ing  hym well  in hyz  change of  life, they extended gifts which helped lighten the burden  on Starkad. And there was scattered bits of news and rumors of what happened to the yeng  Terel had cast off  in Exiler Side- kick. Karayan was murdered as was expected. The lander was suffi-  ciently small enough that it was sold to a Ganymede chop shop and reconfigured in such a  way to  make  it absolutely  unrecognizable as  once belonging to the Navy. It was said that one of  the three yeng burned through his  share  and had  already  sold hymself  into indentured servi- tude. Though hy didn't know it yet, Lahatiel was free to lie with impu- nity to Belial about what happened on Europa, for none of the survivors of Exiler would ever approach the Navy to contradict hym.

But as the saying goes  on Earth as it  is in Gorpai,  all good things must come to an end. Less than a month after Terel made White Rock his  new home  the asteroid  was at-  tacked by  the destroyer Chasti- ser, which was the same  vessel where Starkad had been tortured. Starkad took great pleasure releas- ing one Bulldog missile from the four he had obtained from Turel.

The crew of the Chastiser were blindsided. They did not expect a military attack from  a mere  green- house. The Bulldog split Chasti- ser neatly in two. The crew was killed almost instantly, but White Rock was not completely  out of dan- ger. The pieces remained floating out there like  two moons of White  Rock. The debris was sufficiently intact to allow the Empire to iden- tify them should they  came looking  for their  missing warship. So Star- kad was forced to use  two more Bull- dogs  to render the burning hulks into glowing splinters. This gave the people of White Rock a few more weeks of life as the empire attempt- ed to ascertain the fate of the de- stroyer.

But after that time White Rock was attacked again by the cruiser Pu- nisher. Starkad fired his last remaining  Bulldog missile, but Pun- isher  was fully  alert this  time, and  the automatic close-in weapon  system on  the  cruiser  easily destroyed  the missile with no harm to herself. After that, the centerline 80mm gun on the cruiser began to  rain shells down on  the asteroid. First to go was  the gantry  that poked  above the  glass shell where the Bulldogs had been  mounted, and where  Starkad stowed the family runabout. Starkad and his large extended family, in- cluding Turel and Greidi, were stranded with no means to escape. More shells pierced the greenhouse itself, letting  out all the atmos- phere. That was a death sentence for Starkad and all his people. They would eventually run out of food.

With nothing left to lose, Starkad ejected the  core black hole on a course straight for the  hovering cruiser. As soon as the black hole  was  free  of  the  electromagnetic  coils  in  the asteroid's center which had held it in  place Hawking radiation began to evaporate it  away. It grew exponentially  hotter and hotter as its mass decreased. This runaway process reached its climax inside the Punisher it- self. The cruiser exploded into a billion cinders that scattered to every corner of the sky.

Turel, Greidi, Starkad and  his fami-  ly still  remained alive deep inside the asteroid, but they were stranded with no way to grow food or escape. They could survive for a few months on what they had stored away, but the Navy quarantined the rock and kept salvagers away. The cost for taking out the greenhouse and turn- ing it into a gigantic tomb was two ships of the line.

M2 - PROMOTION

Abaddon knew from the beginning  that Azibeel was  possessed by Hunky, but hy decided to wait and  see what the dirk could do in the death  combat before hy  killed hym. Abaddon never had high hopes for Azibeel  before the  possession. In the negotiations with the father of Haziel which cleared the way for that yang's son to  have a crack at  Abaddon's son, Azibeel insisted  on the right to establish  the conditions  of  the match. Hy chose a variation of Freeball  hy made up on the  spot, Combat Freeball, with knives.

As the match drew to a close Haziel placed all six of his dirks in a ring, who hoped  by sheer  numbers to capture  Azibeel and fling hym  at armed  Haziel  for  the  kill. At the  referee's first whistle  Azibeel's closest  teammates curled into  fe- tal positions at hyz feet, and hy was also curled up. At the second whistle all three  made  themselves straight  as  fast as  they could. Azi- beel surged  forward and the  other two  dirks were flung back.

When Azibeel was joined by hyz Van and  Wingbacks, the Flankers reached the elastic  end cap  feet  first and  kicked back  off again, perfectly timing it  to take  advantage of  the thumping rebound. Spinning on hyz long  axis now  to make him  harder to grab,  Azibeel  reached  Haziel's de-  fending  line. Azibeel's Wingbacks had  overtaken  him   and  joined  to  face  Haziel's defenders too. Free- ball was a contact sport. Azibeel's team kicked and punched to  form a  narrow tunnel  for hym  to drill through, scattering bodies like bowling pins. Forbidden to stab the unarmed dirks,  Azibeel bent  and twisted  hyz body  like a maggot to wriggle  free. Stinging from blows, Azibeel reached a wall feet first  and did a dance. "Left foot sticks, right foot kicks," hy chanted,  launching hymself out again  to chase after Haziel.

Haziel and one of his flankers  linked hands to swing  off each other and change course, tumbling head-over-each-other's-heels. Thus, Haziel was flung after Azibeel, but he  was left flailing with a yaw ro- tation he couldn't control. By chance, when they met, they were both in a poor position to strike each other, but Haziel's position was slightly poorer. Azibeel slipped his blade between his Hazi- el's ribs and pierced his heart.

The match was televised  across the  empire, and  everyone knew Abaddon did  not  cheat  to  favor hyz  son. The Emperor  was overjoyed. No one had ever seen  him happy. Ever. On a whim hy made young Lahatiel the rank of ophan.

At this  the  Eyes  of  Belial  grumbled,  and  Balberith  even protested openly. Lord, we have very good reason to believe this dirk has slept with hyz  sister on  the ship before  the ritual combat demanded by your holy law.

Belial had never really cared about  those sexual prohibitions. Hy had used them  to try  to pit  the planet-  dwellers against their own in- stincts. Now it suited hym  to ig- nore  his own law, and Abaddon said as  much. Balberith accused Lahatiel and his sister of bewitching Abaddon into spouting heresy.

Abaddon replied  by asking  Lahatiel  if  he desired  anything. Anything at all. Lahatiel faced Balberith  and  drew out  the yang's own blade from  the sheath dangling  from his  side. You speak of heresy and in the same breath imply it is possible for our Lord and God to fall under the spell  of mere nephilim! And with that blade Lahatiel brutally butch- ered Balberith.

How many  dependents  were  attached to  the  officers  manning Exiler?

Arioch, next  in  line  after  Balbe-  rith,  quickly  answered Abaddon, say- ing, There were  a total  of sixteen yin  and all their children.

Lahatiel, today I have made you a flag officer, entitling you to eight wives. You may take your sister Nuriel and any  seven of those six- teen yin, whosoever of them pleases you the most. The rest shall be  returned  to  their fathers. You are my  chief lieutenant now! Choose a new crew for the warship. In the days to come I  am going  to rely  on you  to deal  with the  issues present- ed today by Binah and hez blasphe- mous starship.