Deborah was uncomfortable. She had been riding in a chariot for hours, and the chariot didn’t have a seat. She looked absolutely resplendent in her cloak of many colors, her dazzling jewelry, and the rings on her fingers. Walter rode in a chariot next to her, also dressed in his finest garb. Nobody questioned them about how they obtained such exotic colors, which was A Good Thing because it spared them from explaining what an aniline dye was. As an expression of military power, 250 horsemen rode in front of her, 200 horsemen rode on either side of her, followed by a dozen carts carrying provisions, followed by another 150 horsemen taking up the rear. Barak rode at her side, with Sisera’s head in a leather sack thrown over his shoulder. They were traveling north on the coastal plain, towards Hazor north of Lake Kinneret (The sea of Gallilee) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Hazor
After three days of travel, they arrived at the gates of Hazor.
“Open the gates and surrender”, Barak shouted.
“Who are you?”
“I am Barak, son of Abinoam. I bring you the head of Sisera”. Barak wasn’t going to mention that Sisera was killed by a woman, it was felt by all that this would be more likely to enrage the residents when what they wanted was a bloodless transfer of power.
“Why should we surrender?”
“I have defeated your army. My troops slaughtered every last man. We wish to enter into a peace agreement with you. We agree not to destroy your city, you agree to turn over rule of the city to my governor. “
“We must confer with King Jabin”
“I will wait until sundown”
“Barak”, Deborah called out, “If we are going to wait a while, would you and your men pitch a tent for me, please?”
“At once”. Barak rode to one of the carts, and spoke with the men. In a matter of moments, the men erected a tent and laid out some mats for a floor. Deborah dismounted from her chariot and sat in the shade of the tent.
After about an hour, a group of men appeared at the gate
“I am King Jabin of Hazor”
Barak walked to the front of the troop. Deborah came out of her tent.
“I am Barak, son of Abinoam, and general of the Israeli army.”
“I am told that you have demanded that I surrender”
“I have here the head of Sisera”, and he removed Sisera’s head from the leather bag.
King Jabin looked at Barak.
“If I surrender, what will you do to me and my city?”
“If you surrender peacefully, then I will put a governor in your place. You will be exiled to a place of safety, you, your wife, and your children. You will never return to Hazor. You and your children will learn to farm the soil and raise animals. We will not harm you”
“And if I do not surrender, what will you do?”
“Have you ever heard of Deborah the Judge?”
“I have”
Deborah spoke up. “I am Deborah, daughter of Sarah, Judge of Israel. If you do not surrender, then I will call upon God to utterly destroy Hazor. You heard of the mighty victories of our ancestor, Joshua?
“I have”
“Those victories were due to the power of God. Our victory over your army was the will of God”
“I cannot defeat your God, not even with chariots. I will surrender. I want you to bless me in the name of your God”.
“I bless you in the name of God”
“What is your God’s name?”
“Our God is so great, mighty, and powerful that he has no name. He is the one true God. As a daughter of Israel, I love him. As a prophetess, I fear him. He has destroyed entire cities, split the sea, caused the sun to stand still in the sky. You are wise to surrender.”
“Who will take over the state of Hazor?”
“My friend, Walter Brown, will take over as governor. Your people will obey his commands as if they came from me. If I hear that you do not obey him, or if you harm him in any way, then I will call upon God to utterly destroy you.”
The surrender of King Jabin
Deborah, Barak, Jabin, Jabin’s wife and children, the Israeli soldiers, and carts of provisions and spoils, went on a road trip. They traveled to the tribe of Dan in the far north. They traveled to the tribe of Judah in the far south. Everywhere they went, they talked about the great victory. Barak commissioned a scribe to compose a poem in Deborah’s honor, which became immortalized as chapter 5 of the Book of Judges.
True to her word, Deborah bought Jabin a farm. She brought in a couple of men with experience in farming, gave them seeds and supplies. Surreptitiously, she spectrographically analyzed the soil, and fertilized it appropriately. She brought in some simple farm implements - shovels, hoes, rakes, made with 24th century steel alloys, so that they would last. She examined the ground with a frequency modulated continuous wave ground penetrating radar and found a good spot to dig a well. They dug the well there and found water right where she said they would. Her reputation soared.
Deborah made a side trip to meet Yael, wife of Heber the Kennite. Heber was not at all pleased at the turn of events, so the two women ignored him. Deborah presented Yael with a golden necklace and 10 kilograms of pure copper. The scribe sang the song. Yael was delighted. Deborah slaughtered a goat. Barak and his men built a fire and they had meat for dinner, a rare treat. After dinner, Deborah ordered some sweet dates and honey beamed down from the replicators, and they enjoyed dessert.
Eventually, Deborah and Barak parted company. Barak returned to his home in Kedesh near the Sea of Galilee, and Deborah returned to Amech and Alisa’s house in Ramah.
Deborah was not really happy with the booth that Lapidot had built: it was too small. Lapidot and Deborah went shopping for real estate. Eventually, they found a place between Ramah and Bethel. It had palm trees, water at shallow depth, and good soil. Deborah dug a well (using the laser pistol). Lapidot worked the land, growing grapes and barley. The grapes were widely praised for their sweetness and the quality of wine that they made. Deborah never mentioned the 24th century geneticists who had perfected the strain. Deborah would sit under a palm tree, and people would come to her from all over to settle their disputes and get advice. Her fame as a fair and wise judge spread far and wide.
Deborah gave birth to 4 girls after Achiya: Shifra, in 1109 BCE; Penina, in 1106 BCE; Tikva, in 1104 BCE; and Irit, 1101 BCE. Then menopause set in. Although Deborah loved being pregnant, she decided that 5 children were enough so she declined the autodoc’s offer of hormone treatments. Deborah hired several servants to help with running the house and raising the children. She also hired field hands to help Lapidot with the farm. That freed her to travel around the country, where she settled disputes, advocated for ethical monotheism and the rights of women.
Deborah did go to the timeship about once a month for a routine physical and to go over intelligence reports about peoples and places all over the planet. She was especially interested in the migration patterns of the people in the Americas. At one of these trips, she saw a tribe of Assyrians massing on the eastern border of Dan, north of Hazor. She contacted Walter, who dealt with the situation quietly but effectively.
She was content.
Achiya married a nice girl, Hodoya, from Bethel in 1102 BCE. The morning after the wedding, Deborah and Hodoya went for a walk.
“What do you want out of marriage?”, Deborah asked her.
“What do you mean, what do I want out of marriage?”
“Why did you marry my son?”
“My father made an arrangement with your husband - you know that.”
“Yes, but you agreed with it”
“Achiya is a special man”
“I think so”
“You raised him that way”
“I tried. But you haven’t answered my question - why did you want to get married”
“I want to have children, especially sons”
“Not daughters?”
“Well, I suppose daughters are good, but it would be better to have sons. Our patriarch, Jacob, had 12 sons”
“And his favorite wife, Rachel, died in childbirth. Is that what you want?”
“I don’t want to die in childbirth - if God wills it, I will have many children”
“Hodoya, I have a present for you. You must keep this a secret between me and you, nobody else must know, especially not Achiya. These are pills. Eat one pill on the 7th day after the end of your period. That will make you more likely to have a baby. Now, if you miss a period, then that means that you are with a child. Stop taking the pills then.”
Deborah then gave Hodoya, a tube of ointment.
“Here’s how you open it.”, Deborah had her unscrew the cap.
“Squeeze gently, and put a drop on your finger”
Hodoya squeezed a drop on her finger.
“Now, put it inside your womb. It will make you more likely to have a son. Do it each time Achiya is about to know you, or maybe better, every night when you are ready to go to sleep, and you can know him, just in case.”
“This will make me have a son?”
“The pill makes you more likely to have a baby. The ointment you put in your womb makes you more likely to have a boy if you have a baby. You need both of these to have a son. Remember, you must keep these a secret. Nobody must know”
“I understand”
Barak died also in 1102 BCE. His funeral was attended by his children and his grandchildren. Deborah went to his funeral and gave a eulogy. Walter showed up, with an honor guard, on a richly decorated chariot pulled by two handsome stallions. Most of the people there were not alive when Barak achieved his great victory over Hazor, and had known only peace and tranquility. His passing was not the event it should have been.
Hodoya had a baby boy, which Deborah named Barak, son of Achiya. Deborah served as midwife, after spending hours in the learning machine studying obstetrics and gynecology. Deborah loved her grandson. For a while, she would sit him on her lap while making judgements, discussing affairs of state, or arguing religion. Eventually, he got to be too much of a distraction, so she had to give him to one of the women while she worked. But she spent every spare moment playing with him.
21 years after the defeat of Sisera, in 1092 BCE, at the tender age of 44, Lapidot died of a heart attack. Unfortunately, he was out in the field in the back, and Deborah was sitting under the palm tree by the road, so she was unaware of the problem until one of the field hands saw him laying on the ground. She rushed him to the autodoc, but it was too late. She considered traveling in time to save him, but the timeship didn’t do backwards short shifts in time very well, and she was concerned that Unrar might be watching and waiting, and she didn’t want to see him again.
In 1078 BCE, Achiya was bitten by an Asp, and died. Again, Deborah arrived too late to help him. Again, she consider traveling in time to save her only son, but she decided that problems with short jumps and the risk of detection by Unrar was too great. She swallowed her grief and buried her son.
In 1073 BCE, 40 years after the defeat of Sisera, Deborah was now 87 years old. She was in superb physical condition. She could still run a kilometer in 7 minutes. She still had all of her teeth. Her farm was doing well. She was surrounded by grandchildren and great grandchildren (It was a peculiarity of her family that all of the women had sons for their first pregnancy, and then a disproportionate number of daughters for subsequent children). She was famous from the mountains of Lebanon to the tip of the Gulf of Elat for her judgements and wisdom. She was superbly content with her life. However, history said that she would judge in Israel for 40 years, and 40 years was up. It was time to go.
Deborah agonized over whether to have an elaborate goodbye party, or simply leave. In the end, she decided that it would best if she left quietly but also left behind something. She wrote individual letters to each and every one of her descendents, saying that she had to go on an errand for God. She didn’t know when she would be back. She urged them to continue to live just, righteous, and peaceful lives. She advocated strongly for women’s rights. She left each descendent 100 kilograms of copper. She pulled out her medallion and pressed the button.
“Adelle”
“yes”
“Beam me up”
And she was gone.
“Walter”
“Hello, Deborah”
“It’s been 40 years since we defeated Sisera. Do you want to go home now?”
“Could I take a concubine with me?”
“She would have to make an informed decision, and I am a little curious how you would explain that she is going to travel three thousand years into the future. How will you explain 21st century technology, never mind 24th century technology? Look how much trouble we had adapting to life in the Bronze age. At least, we understood the technology. She won’t understand anything except the fact that you want to get laid”
“Oh. Good point. When I return, I’ll be a hero”
“Yes”
“I suppose I could find a woman”
“I’m sure you could”
“It’s good to be king”
“You were never king. You were a governor”
“The people of people of Hazor treated me as if I were a king. If I am gone, shouldn’t you appoint a new governor?”
“Good question. I don’t know anybody who is qualified for the job. Most of the people I know are farmers, tradesmen, women. Not politicians. I’ll have to think about it”