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  “My sons will not forget this day. Abraham, you please me by not being the last to arrive at the clerics’ summons.”

  Abraham’s father, Rahbin, materialized from the crowd of men, and Abraham cringed as Rahbin extended a hand towards his head. But Abraham soon smiled as his father patted his shoulder. Abraham was thankful that his father was in a good mood, for Rahbin rarely smiled anywhere near the presence of the clerics.

  “This is going to be a glorious occasion.” Rahbin playfully punched Ishmael’s arm. “Tonight, we will please the Maker by killing thousands of unbelievers. My sons, you should feel blessed and proud, for many of your cousins will soon be delivered to the Maker as martyrs.”

  The clerics waited for the last of the village men to arrive at their tower before silencing their blaring horn, an indication that the night was to be one of celebration rather than of condemnation. The Maker’s divine law, as expressed within the Holy Book, allowed only a tribe’s clerics to grow beards, symbols of their spiritual strength. The Maker demanded that no cleric’s beard could grow any longer than that sported by the high cleric, and the high cleric who stepped to the front of the scaffold and stretched a hand towards the gathering possessed a beard that stretched to his chest, a proud and gray beard worn by a high cleric who had served a long tenure overlooking the souls of his flock.

  “Praise be to the Maker!”

  “Praise be to the Maker!” The men returned the cleric’s mantra in a booming shout.

  “There are no stars, no planets and no moons!” The cleric’s voice lifted high into the darkening sky to challenge the castle that hovered above. “There is only the Maker, and all that glimmers in the heavens are but the Maker’s possessions and treasures!”

  “Praise be to the Maker!” The crowd shouted in reply.

  The high cleric pointed towards the darkening, Eastern sky. “Our tribes have served as the Maker’s tools since his breath imparted life to mankind. The Maker has looked through our ancestors’ eyes and has judged the world. Through our hands, the Maker has punished the great devil and his legion of unbelievers to protect the glory of his creation. Tonight marks a momentous occasion in our service to our Maker, for we will carry the Maker’s retribution into the great devil’s purgatory and punish the unbelievers, who foolishly think they might hide from our Maker. We shall burn the unbelievers from the sky just as we have eradicated them from the Earth, and those who refuse the creator’s will shall learn there is no world the glorious Maker cannot reach.”

  A great rumble floated upon the wind, and Abraham turned towards the eastern sky and watched a dozen long, orange plumes of fire rise towards the night’s twinkling stars, blinking in the brilliance of the bright arcs of light and fire that streaked across the sky. Abraham had never seen the rockets rise in such numbers. The unbelievers from the last of the blasphemous cities rode atop those trails of fire in their metallic craft to escape the Maker’s creation and law. They had lost the war, and the clerics preached that their great city was only ruin, and that the population of the unbelievers so dwindled upon the Earth that the tribes, when counted together, possessed far more souls. Abraham never doubted the clerics when they told him the time was coming when the tribes would ultimately eradicate the unbelievers from the Maker’s creation, regardless of the furious weapons the great devil supplied to his arrogant people. Abraham’s heart thrilled to watch the trails of fire rising against the dark sky, for a dozen fingers of fire said that the unbelievers were desperate to escape the Maker’s world, that the unbelievers realized they could never usurp the Maker’s throne.

  “They’re running away,” Abraham whispered. “They know they’re weak, and they’re desperate to retreat into their sky castles.”

  Ishmael spat upon the ground. “The Maker will butcher them even behind those walls.”

  Rahbin smiled at his sons. “The Maker is far from delivering his final stroke.”

  A searing light filled the eastern sky and blinded Abraham’s vision as a roar rolled in his ears. The ground trembled as the brilliant light faded and allowed Abraham’s eyes to see five of those rising plumes explode and expand into blossoms of red, orange and yellow just as a warm wind clapped against his face. The men shouted and cheered as secondary explosions continued to erupt as those five trails of fire tumbled back to the Earth.

  “Praise be to the Maker!

  The high cleric spoke from his tower. “Our holy warriors now fight the unbelievers in the sky. We will soon destroy those foul castles hovering overhead so that our Maker might rebuild according to his vision.”

  “Praise be to the Maker!”

  Ishmael embraced Abraham. “Our cousins bring us glory by giving themselves to bring those rockets down, brother. Pray that it’s not too late for us to play a part in shaping the Maker’s design.”

  Rahbin gripped his sons’ hands. “Don’t fear, Ishmael. Listen closer to what the high cleric says. This is only a new beginning of our war against the unfaithful. It is not an end. We’ve only cleansed the unbelievers from the Earth, and now we must erase them from the purgatory they inhabit between the Maker’s heaven and our ground. My sons will fight in the heavens like winged angels.”

  “Praise be to the Maker!”

  The men of the village continued to chant as the surviving plumes of fire lifted higher into the heavens on their journey to those castles in the sky. After the last plume faded, the clerics again blared their horn, and the men descended their ladders to return back beneath the Earth. No one locked their home that night to their neighbors, and the men moved freely from one chamber to another to taste the dishes other men’s wives prepared for their tribe’s celebratory feast. Many men sang, and many complimented their peers on the quality of craftsmanship expressed in their women’s looms. The clerics passed silently from one underground home to another throughout the night, where they meekly smiled and expressed their gratitude for the fine tea the man of each household served to them. And those clerics observed, and those clerics noted. Their war against the unbelievers remained young, and those bearded leaders suspected they needed to temper their flock before they might deliver their war to its next theater.

  Abraham didn’t follow his brother and father into the chambers of his neighbors, and he instead retreated into his small chamber in his family’s underground home, where he coaxed his burrowing cockroach friend to return with a trail of sugar water.

  “It’s a glorious night, Oscar.” The bug didn’t flinch as Abraham held it within his palm. “I’m going to finish painting your shell in swirls, and I’ll pray my that brush pleases the Maker.”

  The rest of his burrowing cockroach companions soon appeared from his chamber’s shadows, and Abraham was pleased as he set his freshly-painted friend down so that the bug mingled with its insect family, all of them sporting shells painted in fresh decorations that glistened in the lantern’s flame. Abraham traced the shape of an oval with sugar water upon the floor, and he smiled as he watched his painted shells race around the circle.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 3 – The Ultimate Answer

  Governor Praxis sighed as General Thomas Harrison finished presenting his recommendation.

  “Are there truly no better options, General? We’re talking about destruction on an unprecedented level.”

  Governor Aldrich nodded. “We’re supposed to be the civilized ones, General. We’re supposed to be the ones evolved beyond this violence. But your proposal makes any atrocity ever committed by the tribes pale in comparison.”

  Governor Spencer nervously tapped his finger upon his digital notepad. “Why not put all the castles’ laser batteries back into play and rain fire down on the tribes like we once did? Why not respond with that type of firepower?”

  General Harrison refrained from immediately responding and instead poured himself a fresh glass of ice water from the pitcher set upon his desk positioned in front of the assembled governors of all fifty-one space stations. Every governor was in atte
ndance to consider the appropriate response to the tribes’ latest act of terror; none could ignore the gravity of the tribes’ most recent attack. General Harrison anticipated reluctance to accept his proposal, for he had felt that reluctance himself when the engineers and scientists in the defense sector had introduced him to their ultimate answer to finally free themselves of the savage tribes’ menace. His years in his uniform gave him a familiarity with violence none of those governors seated in front of him could appreciate, but General Harrison wouldn’t fault any of those governors for balking in shock at the proposal. Given time, General Harrison felt confident all those governors would accept that proposal just as he had - only General Harrison worried the castles lacked the time needed for each governor to accept the ultimate answer’s wisdom.

  General Harrison’s fingers danced atop his digital notepad to rewind the horrific video of those five rockets exploding in the night soon after they lifted towards the sanctuary of the castles. Each rocket had held close to a thousand civilians, and all of them were gone, victims of the tribal suicide bombers who had infiltrated among the passengers. The tribes had struck their worst blow yet, and General Harrison knew that each governor realized how the threat of savage tribes lifted closer and closer to their sanctuary space stations orbiting the ancient planet they all once called home.

  “Five-thousand, three-hundred and sixty-two civilians and crewmen perished along with those rockets, gentlemen,” General Harrison calmly spoke. “They accomplished it all with only a handful of warriors. I’m afraid the tribes leave us no room for any kind of mercy.”

  “And you think unleashing our castles’ laser cannons on them wouldn’t do any good?” Governor Spencer repeated his question.

  “I believe it would be a waste of resources at a time when we need to marshal our energies to support, protect and expand our off-world settlement programs,” the general responded. “The tribes know how to avoid the brunt of our guns. Their tunnels burrow very deep, and they run very far away from the reach of our orbiting space stations. We might burn out a tribe or two, but it would come at a cost to our power reserves that I strongly believe would be better invested into the efforts of the colony worlds. However, no tribe would survive the execution of the ultimate answer.”

  The governors mumbled and nodded towards one another. General Harrison watched their pens scribble across their digital notepads. He watched their office assistants hurry across the political aisles to confer with the office assistants of other governors. He was winning them, but was he winning them quickly enough?

  The general cleared his throat. “How long have we feared this moment when the tribes would realize their ambition to deliver their bombs and their death beyond the confines of the planet? The tribes have infiltrated our rockets. What might’ve happened if those madmen waited to arrive at our castles before detonating their explosives? I shouldn’t need to remind anyone about how fragile our positions are here in orbit, about what might happen the moment there’s any kind of breach in these stations to expose us to the cold and killing vacuum of space.

  “What happens when those tribes infiltrate one of our great starliners and ride it out to the Martian colonies? Or what happens when the tribes stowaway on one of the light-jumping freighters bound for the planet Regis? Then all the ancient fears, hatreds and gods have spilled into the heavens, leaving none of us any better off than we were before we braved our first steps into the stars. We’ve invested far too much to discover and reach peaceful worlds unblemished by superstition and bigotry. I haven’t fought and bled against the tribes for my entire life just so I can watch our dream for the heavens slip away thanks to those zealots.”

  Governor Praxis leaned forward so that the microphone better captured his voice. “But, General Harrison, there’s no turning back, whatsoever, should we approve of your proposal. Once we press that button, it’s all gone. All of it, as incredible as that is to imagine. Are you saying that we have no other options?”

  General Harrison’s voice didn’t waver. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  Governor Aldrich’s microphone buzzed. “General, I hope you understand why we feel the enormity of your proposal requires unanimous approval before your ultimate answer can be implemented. Are you willing to accept that?”

  “I am, on the condition that the governors take two votes on the matter.”

  Another murmur of governors rolled through the chamber, and the general recognized the moment for the first vote was at hand as he watched governors hurry across the aisles to confer directly with their peers. Governance between the space stations was always an ugly mess of anarchy for most of the time, because it in the end best represented the will of the people who had braved a rocket ride to reach the castles’ sanctuary. He loved to watch all the mumbling disarray, and he missed many a night’s sleep for worrying that the system of government possessed by those castles wouldn’t survive the clutches of the savage zealots and their clerics who wasted old Earth. His nightmares screamed to him that the unforgiving laws of the clerics was the natural way of the evolutionary and cruel chain of survival. He loved the confusion that surrounded him as the governors discussed the merits of his ultimate answer, but he feared any kind of debate would not survive the moment the clerics reached up from their underground shelters to sweep the castles and starships out of the stars.

  Governor Praxis spoke after all his colleagues returned to their seats. “We’d like to go ahead with the vote now, General, unless you have any objections.”

  “I’ve nothing else to offer,” General Harrison nodded.

  General Harrison turned his attention to the large monitor that tallied the anonymous votes cast by the governors. He didn’t expect to win all fifty-one votes on that first round, and the general held a strategy on how he would proceed following the initial tally. He hoped, however, that the first round of voting would show him how close he was to receiving approval for the ultimate answer. He was unsure if winning a unanimous vote on such a terrible proposal was even possible. How far would he go to defend those castles orbiting the remains of a dying planet? Would he fight the governors themselves? Would he overthrow the government he loved, to institute his ultimate answer? General Harrison felt his stomach sour as he watched the votes click on the large monitor.

  Those votes appeared very slowly at first, but they dotted the screen quickly as other governors followed their braver colleagues who first presented their answer. General Harrison emitted a sigh of relief into the microphone at the results, and he hoped the governors would forgive him for his tell of emotion. Did they expect their general to possess an uncaring machine’s heart? He would be a very poor commander indeed if he was composed of metal rather than bone. There was hope expressed on that monitor of votes. Fifty governors expressed their approval for the ultimate answer. The general only waited to see how the last vote fell.

  The final mark flashed upon the monitor, and it was a negative vote against the ultimate answer.

  “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” General Harrison spoke. “I trust all of you still agree to grant me that second round of voting.”

  Governor Aldrich nodded. “We do, General Harrison. We assume that you’ll want to have that vote sooner rather than later giving the gravity of our situation.”

  “I ask for one month.”

  “Then you have it,” agreed Governor Praxis. “Barring no further calamity in the meanwhile, we will reconvene one month from now.”

  General Harrison gathered his papers as the governors fled from the hall, likely to douse their trepidation in whiskey sours and gin and tonics served in the nearest castle bar. He only needed to secure one vote, and he had the mechanism in place to achieve it. Everything would come down to a single governor, and General Harrison didn’t envy the woman or man who would no doubt now felt the weight of old Earth fall upon his or her shoulders. He wondered who hesitated to approve of the ultimate answer, but he didn’t think he would have to wait for very
long before learning the identity of the single governor who denied the plan’s terrible execution.