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 * 1) SA0: 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.
 * 2) SA1: 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.
 * 3) SA2: 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.
 * 4) SA3: 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, in payment for every "agent" he brought from Earth to Heaven. This, he explained, required the steam generated in the tunnels to vent to open space.
 * 5) SA4: 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.
 * 6) SA5: 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. During that time Chokhmah brought no B'nei Elohim to Heaven.
 * 7) SA6: 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.
 * 8) SA7: 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 the B'nei Elohim during their many visits.
 * 9) SA8: 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.
 * 10) SA9: 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.
 * 11) SB0: 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.
 * 12) SB1: 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.
 * 13) SB2: 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.
 * 14) SB3 N: 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.
 * 15) SB4: 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.
 * 16) SB5: Further advances in science slowed to a crawl. 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.
 * 17) SB6: 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.
 * 18) SB7: 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.
 * 19) SB8: 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.
 * 20) SB9: 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 allowed rocket science.
 * 21) SC0: 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.
 * 22) SC1: 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.
 * 23) SC2: When Keter lamented this Chokhmah mentioned, quite casually, that the world-dwellers transplated to Heaven were living beingss fully capable of reproduction. But later, after mixing sexes in a prison environment, Keter lamented that the experiment was an unmitigated disaster.
 * 24) SC3: Chokhmah reminded Keter once more that even the humans of Earth had observed there was 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.
 * 25) SC4: 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.
 * 26) SC5: 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.
 * 27) SC6: 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.
 * 28) SC7: 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 power, as high temperature superconductors were yet many decades in the future. Spacesuits used electrostatic shields.
 * 29) SC8: 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.
 * 30) SC9: 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).
 * 31) SD0: 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 morale.
 * 32) SD1: 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.
 * 33) SD2: 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.
 * 34) SD3: 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.
 * 35) SD4: 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.
 * 36) SD5: 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 metal ores could be had nearby, which could be traded for food.
 * 37) SD6: Periodically the colonists returned to Palato to off-load their cargo, then ventured 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.
 * 38) SD7: 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.
 * 39) SD8: 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.
 * 40) SD9 N: 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.
 * 41) SE0: 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, essentially a huge water and people farm.
 * 42) SE1: 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.
 * 43) SE2: 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.
 * 44) SE3: 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 gave Io a complete miss.
 * 45) SE4: 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.
 * 46) SE5: There 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.
 * 47) SE6: Certainly when the colonists found they were no longer under the constant gaze of Keter's priests the hated Cupel testing system of the state religion was the first thing to be cast aside, with its institutionalized incest, polygamy, and glorification of violence.
 * 48) SE7: Others said the revolt could be attributed to 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.
 * 49) SE8: Or 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.
 * 50) SE9: 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.
 * 51) SF0: 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.
 * 52) SF1: 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.
 * 53) SF2: 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.
 * 54) SF3: 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.
 * 55) SF4: 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.
 * 56) SF5: 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."
 * 57) SF6: "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.
 * 58) SF7: You must have discerned by now that humans, nephilim, and angels alike will endure any oppression and absolutely will not cease to struggle until they are free. That is why, ultimately, you and Daat cannot prevail. I am humbled to have them as my students. And I pity you."

K9 - EUROPA

The Jovian  moon  Europa  was  just slightly smaller than  the  Earth's moon, with a surface just 6  percent of the Earth's total area, but there were almost no craters  on  Europa. The entire surface of the satellite was water ice about six hundred feet thick and  only a  hundred  degrees Kelvin above absolute zero. Under- neath that ice was a saltwater ocean sixty miles deep and as warm  as  a heated swimming pool. Driven by ti- dal forces as Europa orbits Jupiter every three  and a half  days,  the thin crust of the satellite was al- ways cracking open in random places, allowing liquid water to be exposed to the vacuum of space and  freeze. This made the surface of the moon a chaotic jumbled mess, There were icy ridges two hundred feet high alter- nating with ravines just  as  deep, all oriented at crazy angles.

It was impossible to build a road on Europa, and  it wouldn't  last  for very long even if one was attempted. So despite being one of the smooth- est bodies in the Solar System, with no mountains  to speak of,  it  was perhaps the most difficult place in the  Jupiter  system  for  colonists from Centauri system to get around, except by flying point-to-point. But the House of Gerash didn't take that into account when they barged  into the Jupiter system first  and  took over Europa and what  they  thought was  the  sweetest   meat. Belial thought only  of  all  that  water, which his ships with their antimat- ter reactors still required for re- action mass, for propellant.

But House Gerash soon  found  there were absolutely no other  resources on Europa within easy reach. All the metals they required had to be  im- ported. The only advantage  Europa had over Ganymede or Callisto (which also had a mix of ice and rock) was that the ice didn't have to chiseled out and melted first. So Europa was a black hole sucking  up  Abaddon's treasure and returning no profit  to hym at all. It wasn't even suitable for a  navy garrison. Hy operated Europa at a loss, therefore, only as a prestige showcase, just to say the White Beards had a toehold at  Sol. The families of the Gerash clan who were established there lived largely on the Imperial dole.

Power was plentiful to be sure, ob- tained by taking advantage  of  the large thermal gradient between  the frozen surface and the warm  under- ground liquid reservoir, but on Eu- ropa it  was a  life  where  almost nothing could be thrown away. Every piece of garbage had to be  weighed in the mind with regard to its pos- sible value after being recycled. So the colony languished, and after  a time Belial thought of it seldom, if ever. Europa rarely figured in the military conflicts of the colonies. The largest towns on Europa numbered only in the hundreds of souls. Fam- ily Gerash on Europa shattered into thousands of  individual   families living in homesteads or small commu- nal farms with very little communi- cation between each other.

But it did not escape  notice  that part of the surface of  Europa  was streaked with color, and 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 fam- ilies started operations to extract these minerals, and they  not  only went off the Gerash dole, they even turned a tidy profit in  their  own right. Abaddon naturally demanded a cut of 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 shake- down. They forgot the ancient prin- ciple of "kill one to warn a  thou- sand". Their operations were spotted by the Navy of Belial from above by examining  the  waste  stream,   the melted discolored water they dumped on the surface to freeze, leaving a tell-tale  sign someone  was  living and working below. Abaddon sent war- ships on  random raids to  cow  the rest of the homesteaders into paying up. Whatever was taken  in  these raids was pure booty for the ship's crew.

There were a few families  who  re- quired no such  intimidation. They paid the Gerash tax out of  loyalty to Belial. One such family belonged to Terel, husband of Greidi and fa- ther of Lahatiel and  Noriel. But their tax payments did not  redound directly to the account of the  of- fers and men of the Exiler.  To the  captain this made them  perfect candidates for a raid.

On Europa there was a family of colonists with just three members, headed by a yang named Terrel. Hyz wife was Greidi and they had a son named Tanish who was on the edge between dirk and yanghood. Their operation was spotted by the Navy of Belial from above by examining their waste stream, the melt- ed discolored water they dumped on the surface to freeze, leaving an una- voidable tell-tale sign someone was living and working below.

In 1978, 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.'''