TCI

By the spring of 1944 the  homes in Franklin were  complete and the Red Wing  was  migrating  out of  Greendome  by train,  six families a week. And a curious thing happened. The Squaw River, which debouched full-grown from the western slope of Green Dome, slowed to a mere trickle.

Then even J. Edgar Hoover got tired of Clyde Tolson wasting time with his obsession on the high plains and called him back to DC. A war was still raging. Or perhaps he just missed  him. Around that time Robyn began to show her pregnancy and she could visit Dr. Wahkan without fear of capture.

"I'm glad you came in," he said. "You won't need to be sedated because you  can isolate your  conscious mind from any  pain but it's still going to kick  your ass. Your body, your subconscious mind is still going to know something is going very wrong."

"Why is that, Doc?" she asked. "Why can't we just drop 'em like cows do and carry on?"

"Because humans are the only animals on Earth that walk upright, on two feet. At every  moment we are  faced with the  threat of being disemboweled  simply by standing  up. F5: 'So the  hole in the pelvic floor has to be as small as possible to prevent that. At the same  time, humans have the largest brains  of any animal on  Earth as  a  percentage of  their total  body  mass. So  the opening in the pelvis cannot be too small, do you see?"

Robyn nodded. 'Otherwise the infant  would get  wedged in  the birth canal and die."

"Correct. The baby's  skull  does not  fully  form until  after birth, so it actually deforms  during birth to ease the passage, but the ordeal is still very dangerous for mother and child."

"Assuming we both survive, what am I in for?"

"You mean, what are you going to get?"

Robyn nodded.

"Well, Gabriel is a jen, hez sex chromosomes are X and Z. You're are X and X. So there's a fifty percent  chance you're going to get a beautiful and human baby girl. And there's a fifty percent chance you're  going to  get an  equally beautiful  baby nephil. Flip the  coin again.  Heads che's an  ambi, like  Doriel. Tails che's  like hez  father  Gabriel.  I could  have  tested for  it earlier, but now it's so close there's no point."

During the  war  there  had  been a  strike  by  the  unionized professional musicians banning  any form  of recording  until a better royalty-sharing  arrangement was conceded by  the labels. The most popular style of music going into the War was big-band swing, but the  recording ban  from 1942  to 1944  forced radio stations to feature crooners who would sing  over recycled jazz recordings. These crooners such  as Frank  Sinatra became  the first pop idols, and the older purely  instrumental swing style faded into the background.

Only when the  recording strike  was over  did white  audiences learn that swing, in the meantime, in the clubs,  had given way to bebop jazz, which emphasized complicated  chord progressions rather than melody, and at first  they didn't like it,  much as rap music took a long time  catching on to white audience in the 1980s. Bebob or rebop was  lumped  with rhythm  and blues  and termed, as Ruth Bergin did, "race music".

In response  half  of  the  whites  in  America  shifted  their listening habits to "hillbilly" music, the progenitor of Country and Western, and the other half gravitated to  folk music which celebrated the politics of the labor movement.

Over the next ten years, bebop and hillbilly  music would merge to become "rockabilly", then merge again with 1930's style blues to form  the final,  most  stable  genre of  twentieth  century popular music, rock 'n' roll. Folk music would fall out of favor in the  wake  of  the  McCarthy  hearings  attempting  to  root all communist  influence  out  of  American  culture,  only  to emerge  again  in the  late  1960s  and  early 1970s  when  solo singer-songwriters became prominent and there was  an unpopular war to protest.

After magnetic tape was introduced there was no longer any need to record a performance in one take directly to a shellac master disk. Musicians with less skill, therefore,  could still create acceptable recordings by making numerous attempts. The number of recordings grew far  beyond the  ability to  catalog them,  and record companies began to compete for radio air time.

Also the   major  radio  networks,  which   first  opposed  the advent of television, found  to their  surprise that  through a circuitous route television was profitable for them indeed. They began developing music-centric  shows for  the new  technology. Hunky-Dory's big break was on  a television show  called Sidney Buller Time, which featured amateur performers. Hunky-Dory was the first white bebop quartet. Their "gimmick" was essentially race music sung by a German-American singer to a beat delivered by a   female  German-American  drummer. Hunky-Dory's native American saxophonist,  bassist  and  were  largely  overlooked. It was   quite  a   novelty  in  1946,   but  there   was  much cross-fertilization of cultures after  the war, and  some dared hope for an end to racial inequality.

By the middle of 1946 Sabriel began to work for the band. Never without her  clipboard,  she  became  very  good  at  directing work crews to  set  up  Hunky's drum  kit,  Robyn's piano,  the microphones, and  the  amplifiers. Her organizational  skills applied to the band as  well. It was Sabriel who set  up their gigs, and scheduled  their tours. Sometimes she even came  on stage with her acoustic guitar and played. Soon she was entirely within her  rights to  consider  herself  the fifth  member  of Hunky-Dory.

Working out of  a  garage  they had  decorated  with empty  egg cartons to control reverb and noise) Hunky-Dory played sensuous but  ghettoized  rhythm and  blues  race  music mixed  with  the brainless  fun  of hillbilly  music,  the  social conscience  of folk,  the  swing  of  boogie  woogie,  and  the  sweaty  energy of  gospel  revival  music.  Only  the  fact  that  Hunky-Dory's influence remained confined to a few widely-scattered cities the northwestern United States led music historians to attribute the creation of  Rock 'n' Roll to  Chuck Berry, or Elvis,  or Little Richard, or even Bill Haley and the Comets.

Hunky-Dory songs were usually  under two minutes  long, written mostly by Dory using  an AABA song  structure, with  Gabriel on saxophone for the solo B part. The band used no electric guitar in those early days, but Sabriel with her acoustic guitar filled out their sound, with Hunky keeping 4:4 time and Dory stitching the songs together harmonically on  bass. Robyn kept the whole thing chugging along with high-flying chords on  her piano, and she did all the singing with a vampy, come-hither voice.

Their first album was titled Stampede and that  title seemed to describe the proceedings to a 'T'.

Whole Town's a Rollin' was  the first  song, and the  best one. Hunky-Dory wanted to hook the  listener and show them  right up front what they  were getting. And what they were getting was a lot of  energy but not  much in the  way of sound  fidelity. The tapes were recorded on a two track system but  the second track was for overdubs, not a separate channel. So the resultant vinyl disk was monophonic, and a little noisy by later standards.

The second song was named for a girl in  Franklin they all knew and it was a gentle ballad. It established a pattern that would be duplicated on all subsequent Hunky-Dory LPs. The second song on the band's platters was always a down-tempo ballad, just for dancing cheek-to-cheek. The girl in question was  Erin Spencer and she was a high school dropout who found herself working at a B'nei Elohim safe house  to keep body  and soul  together. Dory wrote this song of encouragement for her.

And what would an album be without a  little filler? Hunky-Dory would always put what they felt was their  weakest tracks third (That's Some Lovin) and sixth (Tumblin' an' a  Boppin). But the songs were never actually bad,  and there were always  fans who appreciated them.

She's Everybody's Baby was the  only track from the  album that was released as a single and the only song to garner radio play. This naughty ditty about  a girl with  loose morals  would have earned a  quick  ban  in  the  South  or  on  the  East  Coast, but the Wild  Wild  West  was a  little  more  open about  such things. Besides, Robyn snarled  some of the  words to  the song unintelligibly to deliberately mislead censors.

Opening side two is an updated cover of the Duke Ellington song they once played at  a recital,  It Don't Mean  A Thing  (If It Ain't  Got That  Swing). Before Robyn became  one of  the B'nei Elohim she would have never consented to perform  this song. It inevitably reminded her of her father, who  missed the original performance because he lay dead in a mine shaft at the time. But now Robyn herself had been  through death  and came out  on the other side. Her attitude towards  many  things was  decidedly different.

The title track was a jam with no vocals named for Stampede Pass high in the Cascade Range where the band often  went skiing. It started the second trend that  would be faithfully  executed on every  Hunky-Dory  record. The seventh  track  was  always  an instrumental, but never filler.

Goin' Skiin' started the third trend of  Hunky-Dory albums: The last song always mysteriously foreshadowed the album that would follow. But it was not so mysterious,  really, considering that Robyn was the Seer.

Every Hunky-Dory album  would  have the  same pattern:  Exactly eight songs, with the second one  a ballad, the seventh  one an instrumental, and the  last one a segue to the  next album. Only the styles would change, sometimes  wildly, and the  band would consistently foreshadow the  changing  tastes in  pop music  by several years,  sometimes by  an entire  decade. But they would rarely get credit for that.

The members of the band didn't care. They were doing all of this for fun. After the album  was  complete,  they had  far  less difficulty distributing the LP and the single, and getting radio play, than bands  with  less name  recognition. Hunky-Dory was already modestly famous, but only locally, and their impact was regional, not yet national, and certainly not international.

Robyn's husband and her two closest friends stayed close to her during the whole ordeal. Once, just once, she let herself be in full contact with  the worst of the labor pain,  and she quickly retreated, thankful  that she  could  retreat. The Change had completely spoiled her. When it was over she was holding a baby jen. Gabriel suggested they name hem Daniel,  and Robyn agreed. Daniekl was perfectly whole and healthy and came  with a little pad of soft black hair. Robyn found that words failed to fully convey this greatest of human experiences. Robyn loved to hold Daniel's face close to her own and inhale hez  soft baby scent, that special new person factory-fresh smell. Gabriel, too, was filled with joy to be Daniel's father, but he  felt sliced out, somehow, from the pure joy that Robyn so obviously felt.

Dory's house was too cramped  to properly show Michael  what he had come up  with so Ithuriel led  him to the top  of the little knoll which  was  still  adorned with  Dory's  treehouse. Dory herself had gone on ahead to Franklin along with most of the Red Wing of the defunct Church. Ithuriel could not hide his pleasure at the rare presence of his father, the seraph Michael, who was the absolute lord of Earth and arguably at least half of Heaven.

To the north they could see where the Squaw River forked to form an island, but it was just a trickle now. Ithuriel brought that to Michael's attention. He said, "The town is dying a little bit every day, father. I've come up here many times and I've watched it shrivel."

"There is no wisdom in completely stopping the  flow of water," Michael said, knowing that Ithuriel was well aware the source of the Squaw River was actually in Nyduly Wood more than four years away as the photon flies. "But as you have seen I am reducing it by degrees. I keep it  just below the level  it needs to  be to fully support the declining population of the town as it is from day  to day.  That serves  to keep  them moving  out. Eventually DECON will own the whole town, but by then they'll need to bring all their water in by truck."

"One consequence I've noticed, father, intended or not, is that the White  Wingers who thought  it was  a bargain buying  up Red Wing homes  at seventy cents on  the dollar are now  grateful to sell their own homes to  the United States government for thirty cents on the dollar."

Michael allowed hymself a sly  smile. "Over the centuries many have attributed to me the virtue of justice."

To the north and west Michael  and his son saw  the island that formed the center  of Greendome,  anchored  at one  end by  the courthouse and on the other  end by the sheriff's  station. But half of the  business were  closed  so hard  they weren't  even boarded up. They were simply abandoned by their  former owners and left for Clyde Tolson of  DECON to remake them  in whatever image he had in mind. But Tolson himself had not been around for several months. The War in Europe had entered its final year and J. Edgar Hoover had given  Tolson's leash  a tug, made  him put whatever side project he had going  on in Greendome on  hold to hunt down  actual domestic  enemies, not  phantoms, infiltrators who were Third Reich saboteurs and spies.

To the east  over the  roof of  his grandchild's  home Ithuriel could see the bulk of the town platted out  south of the river. Dory's friends Robyn and Sofie used to live over  there but now it was eerily quiet, with very little traffic. Half of the homes lay entirely vacant.

South and  east  was  the little  bump  informally  called  Mt. Motorcycle. It was perhaps  fifty feet  taller than  Treehouse Hill. A very small  cemetary lay on  it's flanks. The railroad from back east  wrapped completely  around it  and merged  with itself, the absolute end of the line. Behind the rail yard the uppermost vale of the Squaw bent south, then  turned west again to wrap nearly halfway around  the small mountain  called Green Dome that dominated the western sky line. On its summit lay the charred ruins  of  the  temple, which  remained  more  or  less untouched since the Desecration.

The pilgrims of Five Corners Free Congregation first arrived at the lower slopes of Green Dome at dusk on the last day of August in 1866. There, with their journey finally at an  end, they saw four fallen warriors of the People, Left Hand, Half Yellow Face, Kill Eagle, and Hairy Moccasin lying on a bier of branches taken from woody shrubs. And it was on this solemn occasion when the Kuwapi People and the settlers of Mark Lange's group were first gathered all together.

In full view of everyone Chief Wanica, with  words of reverence for Wakan Tanka, struck off the Golden Gift and made the bodies of his dead men disappear. The Whites were struck speechless. Coming as they did from a religious background,  such a display could be nothing other than the power of God made manifest.

"This is a sign!" Mark exclaimed. He recognized the Golden Gift from the translation of the White  Scroll he had made  with the help of Leliel and Jashen. It was the same weapon  wielded by rince Melchizedek when he  first encountered father Abraham. Not merely the same kind, but literally the same artifact.

"God has brought us all  together," Lange declared,  "White man and Red  man alike, in this  land of His choosing,  flowing with milk and honey." At Lange's words all the people looked around in the fading  light and  took in  the barren,  mostly treeless grasslands. Lange cleared his throat. "Here at Green Dome we all shall remain, and prosper with God's blessings!"

Lange couldn't just take the weapon outright, as it was holy, a divine gift made by Bat-El himself, so it could never be defiled by base theft. Obviously the  People led  by  Wanica and  the remnant of the  Five Corners  Free Congregation  would have  to be  ermanent and  equal  (but separate)  partners. The Church's doctrine of mandatory cousin-marriage  would salve the settlers' horror at any race-mixing.

After the  funeral there  followed  a  good old-fashioned  mass conversion of  the  entire  Kuwapi people,  followed  by  their assembly-line baptism in the  cold waters  of the  Squaw River. They were each plunged into the stream three  times using total immersion, since Lange was at  heart still  a Dunker. So a new congregation was born, the Church  of Green Dome, with  a White Wing and a Red Wing, "Two  lungs by which the  united people of the Creator draw new breath," Lange declared.

That night Wanica's people returned to their  encampment at the 4,650 foot level of Green Dome, on a wide  bench on the eastern side of the hill. In the morning, aided  by the  Whites, they began to turn it into a permanent village.

Gary Bergin and his wife Marge chose the valley  of Squaw River due south of Green  Dome and  begin pulling  up dead  stumps of burnt trees to  establish a farm, aided by  their children Dale, Owen, Linda, Grace. Baby Megan was still far too young.

Alfred Porter,  his wife  Caroline,  and  their three  children George, Ida, and Rachel established their farm a  little to the north of the river ford. Water was plentiful there, diverted by a ditch from higher up the slope, and they  grew a wide variety of green stuff as though they had an extended backyard garden.

Thomas Henry, his wife Melanie, and their four younger children Kenneth, Jane,  ____,  and  Susan  choose  a  spot  for  their homestead at elevation 4,400 feet, a little below the village of the People. At first they grew oxen, taken from the animals that accompanied them on the pilgrimage, but they  also planted rows of apple and pear trees. Their eldest son Lee Henry, together with his new bride Tamara,  raised a few sheep,  purchased from another drive of livestock  that used the  ford soon  after the Stiffnecks arrived. The following summer  a cattle  drive also used the ford and the  Henrys bought dairy cows. Their animals grazed in the shade of their family's fruit trees.

David and Ann Krause, with their crowd of children Linda, Gail, Robert, Carl, ____, and Tom settled to the  south of the river ford took to raising horses, having received back most of the horses they loaned to make the pilgrimage.

The 6th Cavalry  Regiment came  up from  Texas looking  for the bloodthirsty warriors who wiped out a whole company of their men and found only a  docile tribe of  newly-Christianized converts helping white  settlers  grow  some crops. When pressed,  the farmers said they knew there was an empty fort  nearby, but did not know how it came to be abandoned, and there was no evidence to give lie to their testimony. The bodies of the men and horses which fell along the river were  now totally gone. So the Army broke up the fort and left, marking the whole thing down as one of the spookier mysteries of the high plains.

The white settlers who did not take up the plow instead platted out the town of Headwater on both sides of  the river crossing. In the beginning these were Harry and Hester Hilling with their four children, Brandon, Oscar, Roy, and Nancy, who built and ran a general store. Ivar and Anna Zinter  operated a  blacksmith shop. Like the Zinters, Mark  Lange and  his wife  Joanna were childless, but not for much longer. In a few years a boy named Clark was born to the Langes, closely followed by David, who was born to the Zinters.

Mark built a tabernacle on the summit of Green  Dome, which was just under 5,000 above sea level, but only about 900 feet above the plains. From there one could see nearly forty miles out over the grasslands, in  every direction. The tabernacle was built over the cairn of  the Artifact,  commemorating the  very place where Wanica and Jashen came face-to-face with God.

The Green Dome Tabernacle was  the gathering place for  all the eople, Red and White,  every Sunday. With each homily Prophet Lang and Apostle Wanica established the wall of Church doctrine steadily, like laying bricks. One of the doctrines,  which was really a concession to  the Kuwapi  people, was  that everyone, both male and female, must wear their hair long and tied into a ony tail. After a time, the members  of the Green  Dome Church were called Ponies by outsiders, and later  even the Stiffnecks called themselves that. The Kuwapi were also introduced to the Western concept of  surnames. Jashen remembered his  original given name of Shy Bear and chose the last name of Shybear.

In 1869 the rumor of gold was heard tell  along the Squaw River and Headwater swelled with the influx of prospectors hungry for the shiny  yellow  stuff. Some got  rich,  but  most  of  the Sixty-Niners struck out. Some of these stayed in  Headwater as converts to the Church. After the rail line connected Headwater to the new Union Pacific line running across the country it was easy for cousins of the new converts to make  their way west to new  lives as  wives  of  the former  prospectors  and even  the children of the original settlers. The tabernacle on Green Dome was expanded into a much larger wooden  and whitewashed edifice called the Green Dome Temple. When it was complete Prophet Mark Lange was fifty-three years of age. Secondary tabernacles were established throughout the  United  States but  all Green  Dome funerals still took place at the original site.

Chief Wanica died at  the age  of 84. He lay in state  in the Temple sanctuary for fourteen days. Many Greendomites scattered across the country journeyed by train or even by the newfangled horseless carriages to pay their last respects. When the Prophet Lange committed the  Chief's body  directly into  the hands  of Bat-El it  was a sight that  few but the oldest  members present had ever seen, for the Church grew far beyond the dreams of her founders. During the Last  Rites Lange announced  that Wanica's son  Jashen  Shybear  was  the  new Apostle. For most  of  the attendees it was a  ceremony they  would not  otherwise witness until they were well into  middle-age when their  parents died, and of course everyone prayed they would never  have to attend. But the Green Dome  Church had  grown so  large that  every day except Sundays the Temple was booked for farewell Rites.

But not everything was so grim. During the fair held in honor of the Prophet's sixty-fifth birthday a barnstormer  came to town, offering rides in his biplane. Absolutely fearless, Mark Lange stepped up to be the first  to fly, to the  delight of everyone resent. Few religious leaders have been so beloved. A newspaper reporter named Rupert Keller, however, considered Greendomism to be a dangerous cult, on the same order as Mormons, Satanists, or even the deeply-despised Roman Catholics. Keller said they were sun-worshipers who rejected the truth of the  Bible and married their close kin. And truth be told, Keller was absolutely right.

Two years later  the  Great War  broke out  in  Europe and  the acifist Church of Green Dome, with its German  roots, sought to keep America  out of  the conflict. Mark Lange traveled  to the German embassy in Washington  DC to  express his  concerns over ossible U-Boat attacks on passenger ships  traveling in British waters. The Ambassador assured him only warships and freighters were fair game, but at the behest of Lange  he posted a warning in fifty American newspapers. And Lange, for his part, expressed his belief in the assurances of the ambassador by booking assage on the British express liner Luisitania, which was due to depart New York for Liverpool in a week. He wanted to visit the Church of Green Dome mission field in Great Britain.

When the ship was in the frigid waters south of Ireland she took a torpedo from  the German  submarine U-20,  which triggered  a secondary explosion shortly afterwards. The liner listed sharply to her side, drowning her starboard lifeboats. Frantically, the lifeboats on  her port  side  were  laden with  passengers  and released but there were not enough for everyone and no chance of raising the  floundering ones  on  the  other side. Women and children were saved first, and then old men. Prophet Mark Lange was placed in the last lifeboat,  but before it was  lowered to the sea he spied his nemesis  Rupert Keller standing on the deck of the doomed ship, contemplating  death. Lange bounded out of his  place and  offered his  seat to  the unrelentingly  hostile reporter. "Happy birthday, son," he said with a gentle smile.

Lange was not  joyful, since  all living  things seek  to avoid death by their very nature, but he was encouraged by his memory of Kemen and the promise  of Lord Yeshua  that he would  see it once more. He spread his encouragement around to the rest of the doomed passengers on board. In this way he made their passing a little  bit  easier. There was  enough time  for  six  of  the forty-eight lifeboats to get away before the ship took everyone aboard down to the frigid and murky depths of the ocean.

The sinking spurred the American public to enter the war.

Mark Lange's very kind offer  of a  seat on the  last remaining lifeboat on the doomed Luisitania was wasted  on Rupert Keller. Returning to New York he wrote an account of the disaster which had the Prophet  kicking little  girls off  a lifeboat  to save himself and his gold, resulting in the sinking of the lifeboat, the death of Lange, and  the death  of everyone else  with him. Indeed, Keller said the presence of the gold must have been the reason the ship was torpedoed by the Central Powers in the first lace. Lange had not an ounce of gold, but no matter.

Keller's widely published lies did their  intended damage. Many former supporters soured on the religion, and the growth of the Green Dome  Church  slowed  to a  crawl. Shortly after  that, by popular  referendum,  Nebraska  joined  a  dozen  others  in banning marriages  between first  cousins and the  first serious ersecutions of Greendomites began. That is not to say the Church of Green Dome  did not  continue to  conduct marriages  between first cousins. They merely performed them on the Wyoming side of the Tri-State marker, nigh at hand, to make it legal.

Upon the death of  Lange the Apostle  Jashen became  the second rophet. And for years Jashen  could find no  suitable candidate among the whites to replace him as Apostle. Something had been lost with the passing of Mark Lange, a principle  of unity that bound the two sides. The members of the White Wing began to tie up their ponytails into buns as a subtle act of separation from the native faithful. Ultimately they refused to worship with the Red Wing at all and met  seperately in the Temple  on Wednesday nights, led by one Klaus Hansen who oozed up  to lead them. And by early 1943 Hansen, more than anyone else, brought the town to an irretrievably fallen state.

On the summit of Treehouse Hill Anael waited patiently next to a giant hubcab about  six feet  tall and  wide enough  to fill  a two-car garage. It was standing, as it were, on  its head. In a recess that would have  been in its  undercarriage there  was a round plate the size of a manhole cover that Ithuriel could move with a hand. As he did  so,  the control  stick  in the  crew compartment moved as  well. After Michael look at  everything closely he asked  his son,  "What gave  you the  idea for  this shape?  It's hardly  the  most optimum  choice, considering  air resistance."

Ithuriel smiled. "That is attributable  to a  most interesting story,  father.  Last June  a  US  Marine C-46  transport  plane crashed on the  western side of the highest peak  in the Cascade Range,  and when  word got  around,  a private  pilot named  Ken Arnold volunteered to aid with  the search. While Arnold circled Mount  Rainier he  spotted a  cluster of  nine brightly  glowing meteors rushing past his plane  at supersonic speed toward Mount Adams in  the south. Because they  were pieces of a  fireball in the  process  of  breaking  up,  they seemed  to  be  flying  in formation, so Arnold assumed  they were aircraft. He interpreted their intermittent bursts of  brightness to be sunlight glinting off polished  aluminum. The pieces  were of irregular  shape and they were tumbling end over end, which made them hop up and down in the air stream.

"After his flight Arnold told a reporter that they  flew like a saucer  skipping over  water. This  sighting sparked  an ongoing national obsession  with 'flying  saucers' that borders  on mass hysteria because people insist on identifying them as spacecraft operated by aliens. Perhaps it is just more fun that way. But by July  there were  many more  saucer sightings.  Some are  honest mistakes  much  like the  one  Arnold  had  made, but  most  are outright copycat  hoaxes. The reporter somehow  garbled Arnold's description. The pilot  merely tried to convey  that the objects moved like  saucers, not that  they looked like saucers.  But it was too late,  the erroneous quote was already in  print, so now everyone keeps 'seeing'  saucers. When I was stumped  on a final body  design Remiel  mentioned  the big  national flying  saucer craze that is going on. He said, 'If you make it in the shape of a flying saucer, then even if  people see us and report it, they won't be believed. If they photograph us in flight, they will be accused of taking a snapshot of a hub cap.'

"Brilliant. But I don't see a motor. What makes  you believe it will fly?"

"Oh, father, I knew it would fly  from the moment I  lit off my copy of the  Golden Gift and pointed it down  towards the Earth. It  pushed  up against  my  hand.  I  knew the  basic  operating rinciple was negative energy,  which acts like anti-gravity, and that is also  what you use to hold open  a fold-door. The source of this negative  energy is your own stellar  body, not anything in the relic itself. This I  confirmed when I took one apart and found nothing inside but a garnet.

"Now as  the scripture  says,  your  thoughts  are not  as  our thoughts,  but you  made  the first  Golden  Gift yourself,  and wherever it  was taken,  some corner of  your mind  continued to track that  garnet so  you could produce  the killing  effect on demand, and this  you continue to do even when  it is multiplied by Gabriel.  This saucer I  have made has  a plate instead  of a garnet, but if you touch it, your mind will track it also."

"And why would I volunteer to  do that, son? Since  the days of Lael Keter and  Da'at have each had their own  equivalent of the Golden Gift but they never allow a world-dweller to possess them because even  a sun can only  make so much negative  energy in a given  span of  time,  and  deploying the  Golden  Gift at  full blossom consumes  it at a rate  comparable to that of  opening a fold-door."

"Ah, yes, father,  but Binah  can supply  unlimited amounts  of negative  energy  from other  branches,  or  even bring  forward non-utilized  negative energy  from  this branch,  can she  not? Besides, ever since that debacle  with the FBI agents I've known what it  is you're really  after. It's  not enough that  you win and  break  through to  the  City  of  Stars  with news  of  our existence.  Elyon  and  Chemosh  must be  caught  red-handed  in active resistance,  and you're  enlisting Earthbound  allies for them.  Special Agent  in Charge  Tolson would  forget all  about schoolgirls with  buffalo horns if  he got  a whiff of  a flying saucer."

Anael winked at Michael. "My father has got you there, Lord."

"Yes, he always was a sharp cookie." Michael touched the pusher late as his son knew he would.

"Thank you, father," Ithuriel said. "And now we're ready for you to do your part, Anael."

Then Anael applied hez talent to lift the saucer  from its edge until che was holding it over hez head. Che twisted it mid-air, and set it back down  with the flight  deck right side  up. The interior ribs of the saucer had been designed to permit Anael to do precisely that without  warping or  snapping the  vehicle in two.

"Thank you, Anael," said Ithuriel, and he opened the door in the side of the craft. It popped straight out,  then slid  to the right on tracks. "Shall we see if it flies?" He ducked his head and stepped inside.

Michael said, "That door is easily the most complicated part of this whole contraption,"  but  he, too,  stepped inside  after his son. It smelled like  the  interior of  a very  expensive automobile because the circular  couch was upholstered  in new leather. "Ah yes, a whiff of home," said Michael sardonically. "The tanners on Arcturus IV did an amazing job."

"We can let ourselves be seen skinning cows every  now and then to explain it, should Tolson ever capture a saucer."

"You go ahead, Lord," said Anael. "I prefer to watch the crash from here." Then che slid the door shut and watched it lift from the hilltop into the sky over Headwater.

The saucer didn't go very far, only to the summit of Green Dome where the charred remains  of the  Temple lay. Ithuriel didn't really have anywhere to go at the moment, he really just wanted to verify the concept would work and sample the maneuverabiulity of the thing.

Michael and Ithuriel got out and looked down on the little town. They could see the  tiny figure  of Anael  waving at  them from Treehouse Hill. Michael asked his son if  he had  any theories about how stars generated negative energy.

"I do have a tentative  idea, father, but  I am hobbled  by the fact  that  I  cannot  build  the  apparatus  I  need  to  fully investigate the effect,  and by the current state  of physics in this time, which was advancing rapidly but lately it has been ut on hold by the war. I know, for instance, that the core of atoms are made  of two particles, a  proton and a neutron,  and I know that  a  neutron all  by  itself  will  decay in  about  fifteen minutes into  a proton,  an electron, and  a particle  called an antineutrino we haven't  yet observed but we know  must be there to balance the energy books in beta decay.

"If a neutron decays  in fifteen minutes  how does  a deuteron, with just  a proton  and a  neutron, not  itself decay  into two rotons after fifteen minutes?"

"We think when proton and neutron are close  together they keep changing  identities somehow,  a proton  becoming a  neutron and vice versa, and every time this happens the clock on the neutron is  reset. We've  also found  that protons  and neutrons  have a magnetic moment, which implies  some kind of internal structure, so they're not fundamental particles, but we haven't probed much beyond that. If nucleons are made of smaller pieces, these ieces should be  able to form  other kinds  of things we  haven't seen yet,  not protons  and  neutrons. So  consider  a magnet,  which always has a north and south pole.  If you break it in half, you will have  two smaller magnets, and  each one has its  own north and south pole. Even the elementary particles that comprise them are just tiny magnets. So we see if a magnetic field line enters a magnet of  any size whatsoever, it also  must continue through and leave the magnet. The field lines are closed loops. But what if there existed particles that could  be either a source  or a sink of a magnetic field?"

"Ithuriel, you  are speaking  of  something  called a  magnetic monopole,  but again,  with my  access to  all of  the knowledge accumulated by the City of Stars, I can tell you the Elohim have never once observed a particle such as you describe."

"And yet,  father,  years  ago  you told  me  the  Elohim  have developed models describing the primordial universe, and some of these models posited an era when the universe was richly flooded with magnetic monopoles. That was, in fact, when I first learned of the concept."

"I do remember telling that to you, son," said  Michael, "but I also  remember telling  you  that the  most  elegant model,  one with the  most beautiful  simplicity combined with  the greatest explanatory power, remains merely conjecture if the most obvious details remain unobserved."

"Then, father, please allow me to mention an article in the May 1940 journal Physical Review  anouncing the synthesis of element 93. It has  a half-life of only two million  years, so any large amounts that  were present  at the formation  of the  Earth have long since decayed. It was not  until a sample of element 93 was repared  by neutron  irradiation that  anyone on  Earth actually observed it. So if magnetic monopoles are similarly unstable, it would come as no surprise the Elohim have not found one, if they never attempted to synthesize them."

Michael was beginning to enjoy  this unexpected battle  of wits with his beloved son. He said, "On the contrary, the Elohim have examined collisions from the  ejecta of collapsed  stars, which are quite a bit more powerful than anything mankind can assemble here, yet to no avail on the monopole front."

"I suspected as much, father, and I have abandoned searching for magnetic monopoles as fundamental  particles. But  ensembles of fundamental particles  can have interesting properties,  do they not?"

"The Elohim have long known that protons and  neutrons are made of  three smaller  particles, and  they continually  swap things between themselves things made of two of these smaller articles. You are on the right track, and no doubt after the war this will be discovered by human researchers."

"Very good, father. But  consider an ensemble  made of  four of these smaller particles.  They would have four  dipoles with two quantum spin states each. Under normal conditions, in the ground state, each ensemble has two  dipoles with their magnetic moment directed in  and two dipoles  directed out, and entropy  forms a kind  of committee  which enforces  this. But  if you  raise the ensemble to an excited state, stochastic processes will flip the spins to a random state.  That's when things get interesting. On the  scale of  the ensemble  particle itself,  all is  well. The magnetic field lines pass through  the dipoles as loops, as they should. But scale things up a bit, and look at the particle from the outside. You might have  three magnetic moments pointing in, and one  pointing out. So  you have a  net sink of  the magnetic field.  Alternatively, you  might  have  three magnetic  moments facing out and one in, giving you a net source. As a result, the article can be treated, mathematically, exactly like a magnetic monopole. It's easy enough  to  make  monopoles, or  at  least facimiles of monopoles,  but the  real  trick is  to keep  them separated long  enough to  put  them  to work. Ensembles with opposite net magnetic moments will attract each  other and drop to the ground state after the collision. They would perhaps even soon decay into normal protons and neutrons."

As hyz son continued to explain hyz device  Michael was reduced to staring at Ithuriel in open-mouthed awe. Hyz thoughts raced ahead to glimpse how magnetic  monopoles, the real  ones, might have reduced the prevalence of normal matter in the universe to the present five percent of reality.

Ithuriel went on to say, "At some distance from the monopole the electric and  magnetic fields  operate  under  an extension  of Maxwell's classical field equations that include a parameter for magnetic charge. But the two kinds of fields are not compatible. It'd be like  mixing oil and water. Since lines  of magnetic and electric flux  can never cross  there develops something  like a skin  between  the two  different  fields,  and that's  where  a wonderful  and  unexpected  thing happens,  father.  If  quantum excitations of an electromagnetic field cross that surface, they become  carriers  of negative  energy.  If  matter crosses  that surface  all the  mass remains,  and it's  still subject  to the gravitational  field,  but  it  no  longer  interacts  with  the electromagnetic field, so it  goes 'dark'. Or more specifically, it becomes  transparent. Electrons fly free  of their attraction to protons. From our frame  of reference  the matter  is simpy gone. This is exactly what happens when we use the Golden Gift, father. So there you have it, the best I  can do describing how it works without re sorting to a heap of equations, and I would have to explain  the symbols  I use  before the  equations made sense"

Michael said, "You may not yet see the full import of your deed, but I would  proudly rank  it  among any  of the  works of  the Elohim.  Perhaps  one day  men  will  have a  fold-door  network entirely of  your own.  And know  I know  every teacher  must be ready for the day when hy has nothing more to pass along, simply because he  has been surpassed  by his  own student. I  tell you that day  has now  come, and  I should be  melancholy, yet  I am exceedingly proud, for you are my own son."

"I don't understand, father. Why  should you feel sad  when you have fulfilled your role as teacher?"

"Perhaps it has to do with being a living star by nature, and a world-dweller only by choice. When I heard your explanation just now, I also saw the beginning of sunset for the Elohim."

"Then with your leave, father, grant your student another lesson for his teacher. Ever you have seen the Elohim  as the ones who teach, and humanity as the ones  who are taught. Yet what is the goal of such a relationship if  not that both should grow into a full  partnership?  Have you  never  considered  what the  B'nei Elohim will do after we aid in your victory over Keter and Daat? Do you  think their corruption  is unique among the  Elohim? Are there no  other living stars who  are held aloof from  the other elohim? We will find and ally with them as well."

"Michael bowed  hyz head  in  acceptance  of Ithuriel's  gentle rebuke, but at once a new  stream of thought came into his mind. He said,  "Are you fully  assured that you can  communicate with Doriel at once, at  any time, no  matter the  physical distance between you?"

"Of course I am, father,  but I also  know Dory refers  to keep such communications to a bare minimum. I don't blame hem."

"Then are you also assured that  no matter where you  are, at a word to Doriel I can summon a fold door and whisk you away?"

"There are the tales in the Green Book, but I  was too young to remember my mother before sha died. I have only known this place and time. But Dory told me that you once whisked har and Gabriel to the top of Green Dome in  such a manner, and I have no reason to doubt har."

"Then I have one more question, Ithuriel. Do you  think you can stand before Samael or Belial and lie to their face?"

"Now that, father, might need to be put to the test, and failing it, I would certainly be glad of a life line. Why do you ask?"

"I would have you and your family leave this place, but I wanted you to be entirely certain I would never put you nor Beleth nor Remiel  in any  sort  of  danger with  no  promise of  instantly retrieving you."

"What danger, father? Are we now to join Doriel  and the others who have already moved to the west coast?"

"Oh no, I had a place in mind that is somewhat farther away than just the state of  Washington. Something on  the order  of five hundred million miles away."

The special  talents  that  set the  B'nei  Elohim  apart  from humanity and  made  them  actual demigods  frequently  came  in complimentary  pairs. Michael could  mend things  with a  touch while Hunky could break  them. Robyn could see things  to come while Beleth could see things that were. Elin could light up the human nervous system like a Christmas tree  and cause bloodless suffering that defied belief, while Sabriel could do essentially the opposite thing centered around the pleasure-sensing regions of the brain. Bat-El was not  needlessly cruel,  but on  rare occasions he needed answers from reluctant  interviewees and he would send Sabriel and Elin to  get them. The other B'nei Elohim called this team the Carrot and the Stick.

Sabriel was not, strictly speaking, sexually  irresistable, but if she took a  fancy to  someone and they  so much  as slightly willing, consciously or not, she would have her way with them.

Gabriel was more than slightly willing. He was young, Robyn was regnant, and she had seemed to lose interest in having intimate relations of late. And he had a distinct problem in that he was married to a woman who  could see  the future. But the problem seemed to resolve itself when he offered to teach  Robyn to fly Ithuriel's saucer and she didn't seem interested in that either. Che then floated the idea of teaching Sabriel instead, and Robyn didn't pitch a fit, which Gabriel  took as her blessing  to go, since there was no hiding anything from her.

With the blessing in hand,  he extended the flying  lessons far beyond what anyone would take to be reasonable.

When things  got  boring  between the  national  parks  in  the American southwest Gabriel and  Sabriel filled  in the  time by having  sex  in  a  mesh  hammock slung  between  hooks  on  the bulkheads of their flying saucer. When it came to making love Robyn was good but Sabriel took things to a  level that Gabriel had no clue  even existed. But she had what  was literally  a god-given talent for it.

Sabriel saw the astonishment on  Gabriel's face and  said, "You have no clue what  is in store for you in a week  when you get a bone cup too." She guided hez hand to the back of  her head to let hem feel what made her physically different from other B'nei Elohim, aside from the extra set of horns she had. "Cable sex is a whole different thing again."

"Who else have you...?"

"No one, yet."

"So I'm your guinea pig."

She nodded her head. "My eager volunteer of a guinea pig."

The  P51   Mustang   fighter   plane  was   a   bomber   escort that  revolutionized  the   strategic  bombing   campaign  over western Europe  during  the  war. Bomber pilots  called  them, affectionately, their "little friends". Jet aircraft began to come on line  after the war, but the P51  remained in service as the most  numerous fighter in the  US Army Air Forces. In July, 1947 that outfit was still a  few months away from  being split off into it's  own branch  of the  military called  the US  Air Force.

Unfortunately for Gabriel and Sabiel, they were  touring a part of the  country  that  had  large empty  areas  of  land  given completely over to military operations and no way  to know when they crossed over the line into their airspace. On Independence Day fireworks commenced. Gabriel and Becky became  acquainted with a pair of P51s flying out of Alamo- gordo  AAF base in New Mexico. They didn't have a  chance. In the war  Mustangs shot almost 5,000 enemy  aircraft out  of the  sky, and  de- stroyed another 4,000 aircraft on the ground. Each plane sported six .50 caliber machine guns.

Several rounds penetrated the crew canopy. One hit Gabriel and assed right through hez leg. It was all che could do to get the saucer down to the ground without killing himself or Sabriel. It was more of a crash than a landing, and it took place on a hilly ranch about thirty miles west of Roswell. This was to become the most famous UFO incident in history.

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

Gabriel said, "I think the saucer is still air-worthy."

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

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

Gabriel gave hez copy of the Golden Gift to  Sabriel. There was no point  to  keeping  it  stashed  in  the  little  pocket  of space-time that always  accompanied hem. If che was captured it would- n't do any good to cut hez way out of hez cell. Gabriel's leg was shattered. And if che died there'd be a perfectly good Golden Gift floating  between realities  somewhere that  nobody could ever retrieve.

Gabriel said, "Eliminate all the important parts  of the saucer and all the controls."

Using Gabriel's Golden  Gift  and her  own  in tandem,  Sabriel sabotaged the saucer in such a way that it was unrecognizable as a viable aircraft. When she was done it was just a pile of sheet metal and glass and upholstered seats baking in the desert.

There was still a little bit of water left over. Gabriel decided the water was a much more important thing to duplicate than the Killing Relic. Che did his standard trick to  produce enough to fill two canteens  for Sabriel, then put the rest  in the little hidden fold-space pocket for hemself.

Sabriel also took along a bag  of trail mix to  eat, and kissed Gabriel goodbye. "We both know they're gonna catch  you, Gabe, but I promise I'll move heaven and Earth to get you free."

It her took two days to walk the thirty miles west and a little south to the town of Roswell. When she was halfway to town she found a small burrow pit in a ravine that was blessedly free of rattlesnakes. There she sheltered  for the night  and contacted Dory to tell her about  the accident. Dory wired money to her from the band's slush fund. Then from the town of Roswell, which like Headwater was the  only outpost  of civilization  for many miles around, Rebekah returned to Franklin by bus. The trip took another three days with all the required bus trans- fers.

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

At the same time the 509th Bomb Group retrieved the saucer from the rancher's land and craned it onto a truck,  but they saw it was just  junk. There was no motor  and no controls. It looked like a playground flying saucer made to entertain some children. Yet the pilots swore they shot it  out of the sky. The .50 cal round that had done Gabriel's leg was still inside the thing to support their claim.

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

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

Then a general  bitched  about  the leak  of  Mogul. Tasked to conceal the  existence of  Mogul, the first  thing that  came to mind was  the big national flying  saucer craze that was  in all the papers. So the Army made an official announcement  that it had recovered the wreckage of a flying saucer.

With that the press went  even more insane. The Army gradually realized it had made a huge mistake. On July 8 they went on the radio in Roswell to retract  the flying saucer claim,  and said naw, it was  really  just  a weather  balloon  they picked  up. Americans were less cynical in those days and let  this go. The military had successfully covered up the coverup.