Cover image for the anthology Saturn.

I’ve been authorized to let you know that my short story “Saving the Apostle” will be featured in the planetary anthology Saturn which is available for pre-order now to be delivered to your Kindle device on February 2, 2021.

Saturn is not only a planet or a pagan god, but the symbol of time and time travel. My short story is a remarkable marvel in that it presents a wholly Jewish view of early Christianity and particularly of the Apostle Paul. My friend “ProclaimLiberty” was directly responsible for the success of this tale, and without him, it wouldn’t exist, so thank you, good sir.

Almost no modern science fiction publisher would touch this because it’s positive for Christianity, Judaism, and Israel, especially in the age of Biden and Harris. Nevertheless, this voice cannot be silenced. Do not let them silence yours as well.

Here’s an excerpt for your entertainment.

The ceiling and floor of his six-meter long temporal craft shimmered into indistinct light as the middle-aged Jewish Israeli scientist traveled backward, counting down the passing years. Though temporally uncertain, the sleek, cylindrical ship provided a buffer for its contents against the temporal void. In this way, the inventor could travel not only up and down the conduit of his own history, but also diverge into many alternatives.

Once at his destination, he would insert his presence like an unwanted phantom, hopefully brief enough to escape notice, but profound enough to change the course of human history, reconciling the whole world as one people to One God.

Moshe Ben Isaiah tried to relax back into the gel-filled acceleration couch, enveloped in his black, carbon-polypropylene bodysuit, the cables attached to the hood covering his head, his forearms, thighs, and torso snaking outward and into the quantum uncertainty of the time ship’s interior.

Moments ago (subjectively), the physicist and amateur theologian (even he thought that an odd combination) had blinked his eyes and chosen the initiate sequencer routine from the virtual heads-up menu, and then vanished from his personal lab complex in Haifa, just a few kilometers from the Israel Institute of Technology where he had taught graduate studies until he had made his accidental and startling discovery.

He avoided staring into a maddingly disturbing matte black infinity, distracting himself by gazing at an outline of shimmering kaleidoscopic pastel hues playing on the vessel’s titanium-beryllium hull.

With a violent lurch, making Moshe glad he was insulated by the couch, the time craft reasserted itself around him. The canopy was again over his head, and suit cables that had stretched into the void an instant ago, were now attached to sealed control panels at his front and sides. He and the ship were real and whole again, and tilting slightly to the right, being lashed by a violent rainstorm, with near-gale winds buffeting the ship.

“I made it. Malta. The shipwreck.”

# # #

At dawn, as the raging wind and waves continually swept over the tiny, wooden sailing ship, two-hundred and seventy-six men said silent prayers to their gods that they would be saved. It had been fourteen days since hurricane force winds descended upon the merchant ship, her crew, the Roman soldiers, and their prisoners. Everyone on board the doomed vessel save one regretted having sailed from Crete, and the man who advised against it, known by the Greeks as Paul, urged them to take courage, saying an angel of his God told him not to be afraid.

“Centurion, we must release the lifeboat! If those men leave the ship they will not survive” Both Paul and the Roman Julius holding on as best they could, were on the violently rocking desk, soaked and freezing, the waves of the Mediterranean cresting over the ship’s port side, as they were barely able to see the four men attempting to escape.

Julius had learned to trust the Jewish prisoner in the days since they had set sail from Adramyttium, so without uttering a question, he commanded his soldiers, “Men, sever the ropes securing the lifeboat! Heave it overboard!”

The four terrified sailors began to protest, but even under these dire circumstances, armed Roman soldiers were still more fearsome than the gale.

One of the seamen, his courage gone, collapsed on the desk and wept as yet another wave washed over him and his fellows. Yet another peered at the course ahead, though the sunrise was obscured by the relentless sheets of rain. “Ho, land!”

“It’s there!” A soldier held strong to the mast as he fixed his eyes upon their salvation.

“Quickly! Cut the anchors free,” the Captain bellowed above the wind. “Unbind the rudder. Hoist the foresail to the wind, and make for shore.”

While hope filled the hearts of the men aboard, the Roman soldiers knew that if any of the prisoners should leap from the boat and reach the unknown island, they would escape. Giving each other knowing looks, they prepared to kill them all.

###

A wave of dizziness passed, and with it, the time traveler realized, “He’s out there right now. The ship must have just run aground and is breaking up.”