Kondor looked up.  Given the geometries involved, at two hundred miles above him all he could say for sure was there were versers up there.  It could be one, it could be four–in theory, it could be a dozen, but two hours ago there were only four of them in the universe, so it was unlikely that there were more than that.  However, telling them apart and counting them at this range was impossible.  Still, he hoped they succeeded.  He went back to his watch while Zeke mumbled to himself sleeping beside him in the foxhole.

Of course, the others were on a suicide mission.  None of them saw it that way, because they were all rather optimistic of their gods and their abilities, but he really did not expect any of them to return.  To die while succeeding was his best hope.

“See you in another world, Slade, Shella, Derek, Vashti.”

There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #487:  A World in Space.  Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter.  It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.

As to the old stories that have long been here:

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