"Let's go!" I shouted to Ann. The throbbing sound around the library grew louder as we threw on our clothes. I grabbed my Colt from beneath a pile of abstracts and pounded down the stairs, Ann seizing her handbag and following inches behind.
Something whumped against the side of the building. The subsequent concussion knocked us against the wall.
"Ecclesia!" I yelled in answer to a look from Ann. We scrambled over scattered books and shattered bookcases toward the northern exit.
Instead of the door, though, we clambered out of one of the windows-I figured the bushes outside would serve as cover.
Six unmarked blue Hughes Cayuse helicopters roared over Old Downtown like movie Indians around a wagon train. The tenement capping Auberge flared savagely-a blazing funeral pyre. Thick columns of smoke rose overhead, chopped apart by the copters' propwash. The crowds pouring from the Auberge exits were greeted by machinegun and air-cannon fire.
One of the air-cannon rounds burst a section of the hill away to reveal the crumbling interior of the Auberge Hilton. Bodies lay sickeningly still inside the ruins.
A chopper roared above us, too swift for it to have seen us. It closed in on Bunker Hill. From somewhere within Auberge, the defense systems were retaliating.
Fifteen-millimeter machine guns opened fire on the aircraft. A couple of brave souls crawled to the surface armed with TOW missiles.
"Can't they use their interruptors?" Ann asked.
"Not enough range for the power. Too strong a field would knock out everyone on the fringes." I edged toward the west end of the building, Ann's hand in mine, keeping behind the bushes.
A thunderous explosion shook through us. I looked past Auberge to see the Union Bank building lose its top thirty stories. I had a feeling my office wouldn't be in great shape after that. The chopper that fired the missile landed atop the Bonaventure Hotel to hide from the action below.
"Where are the police?" Ann shouted over the battle's roar. "The army?"
One of the copters disintegrated in midair. The guard who fired the killing shot jumped up triumphantly, only to be blown from his perch by a cannon round from another attacker. His body whirled and danced through the air before tumbling down Bunker Hill and out of sight.
"Why should the cops or the feds get involved?" I said, looking down Fifth Street for a safe escape route. "They figure anyone in Auberge is a criminal of some sort. It'll give them an excuse to crack down on all the undergrounds."
Another copter fell flaming into the World Trade Center.
"Someone high up may even have approved the attack. They'll call it a gangland massacre."
"Dell-over there."
I turned to see pickup trucks racing toward Auberge, the beds loaded with scores of young men-healthy, well-armed, and fit for a new crusade, another jihad.
The Hueys drew back to safety as the boys stormed the hills, firing at anything that moved.
"It touches my heart," I said, "to see how the world's different faiths can work together for a change."
Ann grabbed my arm with painful tightness. "Where's Isadora?"
"I don't know," I said. I was concentrating on the truck pulling up to the library.
"Go sensitive and find her."
"Go what?"
Ann crouched down to where I was peering out at the truck. "You can do it," she whispered. "Just calm yourself and concentrate lightly on her image. Conjure her up in your mind."
"Calm myself? During this?" I felt like a kid on stage with a hypnotist. I wanted it to work. I wanted everything to go fine, even though I knew it wouldn't. I tried as hard as I could to believe that it would work while inside me I felt it was impossible.
"The column of mirrors," I said as if I'd just remembered it.
"See? You're getting something."
I glanced back at the troops leaping out of the truck. Something shook the earth. I stared up in bewilderment as a sleek black Learjet screamed over the library, two Vulcan machine gun pods under its wings chattering like the Fourth of July.
The Lear knocked two of the remaining three copters out of the sky. The third turned to escape, the jet pursuing in an uncontested race. Twin Vulcans blazed for an instant. The Huey's pilot bubble shattered. An instant later, the machine wheeled about, twisting crazily toward the Music Center. It crumpled into the Second Street overpass and hung there unburning-a dragonfly pinned to a rail.
The jet vanished to the northwest. I watched it depart, glancing at the fires of Auberge reflected in the mirrored windows of the Bonaventure.
"She's in the hotel." I whispered.
"Let's go."
I shook my head and pointed toward the young troops. "Wait until they're inside."
It didn't take long. They rushed the building at a dead run, whooping and screaming like a phalanx of John Waynes.
I led her through the bushes to where the walkway turned to block us. We paralleled the steps and hotfooted it into the parking lot, using what weeds grew there for cover. I kept my automatic ready.
The Auberge guards, in control of the high ground, seemed to be turning back the assault. The Wells Fargo building blocked our view as we ran past. We crossed Flower toward the hotel entrance.
Two kids sped around a corner, saw us, and whipped their rifles up to aim. They were too slow. I had already dropped to a kneeling, twohanded shooting stance. Ann crouched behind me. I had a sneaking suspicion she was fumbling for her knife.
I sighted in on the boy to my left-a sandy-haired teenager who looked like the lead in a high school production of The Idiot. The other-a lanky Panarabian-divided his aim between my head and Ann's.
"Neither of you wants to shoot us!" I yelled. "One of you will be dead before I drop!"
"Th-that w-would just mean one m-more soul for Y-Yahveh," the sandy one said. He stuttered like a motorboat, and it wasn't from fear: the hands holding his rifle never wavered.
"One more soul for Allah," the darker boy corrected.
Sandy glanced at the Panarab.
A wisp of smoke from the burning complex drifted between us. It carried a smell of things dead and dying. The Panarabian kid paid it no mind. He'd probably been raised during the Pax Israelia ten years before.
Sandy wrinkled his nose. I took a chance.
"Allah or Yahveh. Which God will get your soul? Which God is supreme?" I split my aim between the two without dropping my guard.
"Allah," said the dark one.
"Yahveh," insisted the light one.
Something whooshed through the air behind me.
"Knock it off with the shiv," I hissed.
Ann muttered something and stopped waving the blade around. The two boys didn't even notice. They were involved in a theological discussion.
"Yahveh."
"Allah."
They glowered, slowly turning their rifles toward each other.
"Allah," the Panarabian said with a low growl.
"Yahveh," Sandy Hair retorted, racking the action on his M-16.
"Kali!" a voice screamed from the nearby underpass.
The boys spun about to look toward the source of the sound. Had they lived long enough, each would have seen a bullet hit him in the chest. Two rifles clattered to the pavement. Two young men followed them shortly.
I jumped up, gave Ann a shove in the direction of the Bonaventure, and commandeered one of the rifles. I sped up to match Ann's athletic pace.
Footsteps raced behind me. I whipped about, a .45 in one hand and an M-16 in the other.
"Tough guy," a gravelly voice rumbled. "Can't even plug a couple of punk kids."
Randolph Corbin trotted his hulk up beside me, one thick hand grasping a Springfield M-1A. The other hand clutched at his belly. His pug face was distorted from breathing as if it were the latest fad. His brown turtleneck shirt and tan slacks appeared to have been redesigned by a chainsaw. Soot stained his clothes, hands, and face. The seat of his pants had been badly singed.
I nodded toward the hotel lobby. "I see you didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition, either."
"Right. And I can see that you were the answer they sought. Duck!"
I drove my shoulder into the sidewalk, rolled over, and brought the rifle up. I fired.
Corbin placed three well-aimed rounds into the chests of as many armed attackers. I dropped the other two with shots to the head-an old trademark of mine and a damned stupid habit.
Somewhere to the south whined dozens of police sirens.
"Finally," Ann said, unimpressed. She tried to open one of the doors set in a long wall of concrete. No luck. We raced toward the main lobby doors.
Corbin wheezed in great exhausted gasps. "You must know the Ecclesia is after you. They attacked Auberge."
"Yeah," I said. "I had a sort of hunch about that."
"Even Auberge management didn't know, and they've got informants everywhere to give them warnings about raids." He looked behind us at the carnage. "I guess they never thought to infiltrate the Ecclesia."
"But you did?" Ann said.
"A Buddhist friend of mine. She dropped too much acid at Bryn Mawr" "In here," I said. A side door surrendered to my kick. We rushed inside.
The Bonaventure was still in use, though it no longer qualified as the luxury hotel it had once been. The radiation problems this far from Arco South posed no danger, but fear was fear. True, a higher class of derelicts and bums inhabited the less-than-gleaming towers. Most even paid rent. But bums were bums.
To our right sat a greasy hotel clerk reading a newsplaque, the racing information onscreen. His gaze drifted lazily up to us, his eyes widening when he saw the three of us armed with rifles, pistol, and knife. His grease turned to sweat.
"No trouble, man," he said in a piping voice. "We've got protection."
My thumb played threateningly with the pistol's slide safety. "You personally? Right now?"
The clerk gulped like a sea bass and added more sweat to his face. Nervous hands gripped the edge of the counter. His newsplaque clattered to the floor.
"We're looking for someone," Ann said. "A dark-haired girl. Have you seen her?"
The clerk shook his head.
"We won't be long," I said. I cased the lobby area.
The light from the registration desk was the only artificial illumination in the atrium. Sunlight shone muddily through the ring of windows at the top edge of the cylindrical interior. It could have been a dim and restful medieval cathedral except for the pair of drunks snoring against each other on a mezzanine couch.
"Which elevator works?" I asked.
"The left one," the clerk said.
Inside, Ann asked me, "Which floor?" She surveyed the array of buttons. Outside the cracked glass of the elevator walls, what once had been a landscaped indoor pond lay dry and choked with cans and Mylar bags. There were even a few glass bottles here and there, which indicated how long the place had been in that condition.
An eerie image appeared amidst the garbage. Before meshimmeringly ghostlike-floated a view of the smoldering battle outside. I seemed to be viewing it from up high.
I punched for the top floor. "We'll work our way down from the restaurant," I said.
This elevator, at least, didn't groan and shudder. It lifted us quickly and quietly upward past the windows of the atrium, out into hazy daylight. The car glided up the interface between the central and northeast columns. Something clunked, and we jerked to a stop.
"I think we can handle things from here on, Corbin." I aimed the M16 at the elevator doors. "You don't have to follow us."
I moved Ann behind me. She stepped around to my side, knife at the ready.
Corbin shrugged and raised his own rifle. He had regained his breath. "You seem to be having more fun up here than I would be down there. Besides"-he grinned wickedly-"you seem to have gotten everyone more stirred up than I ever could."
The elevator doors parted. Nothing greeted us but a quiet restaurant foyer. Corbin slid around the doors to police the hallway. Ann and I wandered out to watch him. His husky figure darted in and out of niches and doorways with guerrillalike precision.
"You weren't a Buckleyite in college," I said. "You must have been a Minuteman."
He turned to grin at me, then said, "All clear. This way to the restaurant."
We stepped into a place that at one time had been one of the finest eateries in L.A. The new owners had let it slide into a lousy gin mill.
"Is the kid you're looking for about four-eight, dark reddish hair, garish clothes?" Corbin asked, gesturing to a booth by the window.
"Shut your fuckin' mouth, asshole."
"Foul tongue, rotten manners, and about three glasses of Plymouth gin in her?"
Isadora Volante sneered at us from behind a half-empty bottle. An ashtray held a pack and a half of cigarette butts.
"An adequate description," Ann said, stepping past us to the kid's table.
Isadora turned her attention away from us back to the scene several hundred feet below. The crack L.A. Fire Department stood about, casually debating the best strategy for extinguishing the blaze. The police munched doughnuts and watched. A few cops took occasional potshots at the remaining Auberge guards for the benefit of the TV crews.
Everything was under control.
"How'd you get here?" I asked the kid.
She tugged at a thin strap that supported a sheer, lime-green negligee.
"I was in Casino Grande when I felt the same sort of evil vibes I got from the old farts back in the hotel room. I begged one of the guards to let me out through the air conditioning shaft inside the Angeles Plaza."
"Sounds as if you breached their security," Corbin muttered.
"I have my ways. How do you think I was able to warn you back on the hill?"
I gazed around the restaurant. "We've got to get out of here without running into cops, feds, or Ecclesia."
"There might be a way," Corbin said, "but we'd have to deal with the Ecclesia." He pointed upward.
"The Huey." I shouted to the anemic old bartender, "You! How do we get to the roof?"
He pointed toward the kitchen door. Corbin ran through to check it out. I turned to the kid. "Let's go."
"Forget it. I'm cutting free. You guys are freaks."
"Auberge is gone, sugar. Look out the window-those're cops you see milling about. They'll be up here when they start thinking about it."
"That scares me like a limp prick," she said in a drunken slur. "I can handle cops. I can head up to Frisco-to Auriga, under Union Square."
Ann put a gentle hand on the child's shoulder. "How will that settle your account with the Ecclesia?" Spoken like a true comptroller.
"Who?"
"The ones who cut you up."
She turned away from Ann's penetrating gaze to stare furiously out the window, chin propped on hand. Down below, the cops had rounded up a few Auberge guards and were enjoying a workout on them with fists and clubs for the benefit of the TV crews. Suddenly, a startlingly bright beam of green light flashed from a slit cut into a concrete slab. Three cops fell down twitching, their abdomens exploding from the unfortunate effects of a high-wattage pulsed laser.
Isadora frowned and turned back to me. "How do you plan to get back at them? Spike their Geritol?"
I smiled and tucked my pistol away to take her by the hand.
"Ever take a ride in a space shuttle?"
Ann, the kid, Corbin, and I climbed through an access shaft that might have been built for a pygmy. Fifteen claustrophobic feet later, we emerged into a shack on the roof of the Bonaventure's central cylinder.
Corbin and I quietly peered through the doorway to see the aircraft sitting motionless on the helipad. The pilot and gunner paced nervously about.
"They're debating what to do next." Corbin raised his rifle to sight in on the gunner. "They don't want to encounter a wire-guided missile or gamble on a run-in with police choppers. What they don't realize is that the missiles are probably keeping the police away, too. Cops know how much their equipment costs." He squeezed the trigger.
The gunner collapsed. The pilot panicked and rushed for the cockpit. Corbin gunned him down.
"Nice," I said. "How do we fly it out of here?"
Corbin grinned and kicked the door open. "The Beast has wings," he said. "Unless, of course, you don't want my help."
I sighed and followed him through onto the helipad. A cold winter breeze blew the smell of the fire up to us. Coolers, vents, and nameless clutter tangled below the landing platform. An orange circle and cross of cracked and curling paint marked the center of the pad.
"Let me guess," I said. "You learned to fly in `Nam."
His fleshy face grimaced as if he'd smelled rotten eggs. "Hardly. I was a merc in Afghanistan, fighting the real Commie menace. I didn't waste my time with orchestrated `police actions.'"
I nodded impatiently. Ann was having trouble with an intoxicated adolescent. I trotted back to render assistance.
"I'm afraid of flying!" Isadora hollered.
"We'll be getting a lot higher than this!" I shouted back. "You should be more afraid of what's down below."
She took a drunken swing at me, missed, and collapsed in my arms. That simplified things. Ann strapped her in.
"Can this crate carry five?" I asked.
Corbin stripped the dead pilot of his radio headset. "Probably. Who've you got in mind?" He strapped into the pilot's seat and fired up the engine.
I grabbed the gunner's helmet and squeezed into his vacant seat. Corbin showed me where to plug into the intercom.
The copter rose a few inches and dropped down the west side of the hotel. Gunning it, he lurched us away from Old Downtown at a stomach-convoluting speed.
"Can you sneak us over to Hollywood?" I asked.
"Hollywood? Sure."
"Great. And watch out for low-flying broomsticks."
Corbin flew nerve-jarringly low, more to avoid radar than brooms. Not that every cop between Old Downtown and Hollywood didn't notice us. If they'd been informed, though, to let the attackers on Auberge get away, then we were relatively safe. Unless they had to do something for the TV crews.
We reached Hollywood in a couple of minutes. Corbin told me how to release the ladder. He also informed me that I was the obvious choice to shinny down.
I shinnied.
Bridget stood in front of her store, staring up in bewildered shock, fists on hips. The propwash swirled street dust and trash around her maroon kaftan.
"What the hell are you up to?" she shouted.
"Time to go!" I shouted back. My feet were planted firmly on the bottom rung. I had a death-grip on the ropes.
"You're a week early!"
"Situations," I yelled, "have forced my hand!"
Bridget threw her arms up in exasperation, turning to walk back into her store. I thought I'd lost her until she reappeared carrying a purple paisley carpetbag.
Kasmira followed her to the ladder, where they conferred for a moment. She kissed her grandmother and gave her a firm, long hug. Bridget returned the kiss.
I despise long good-byes, especially when I'm hanging from a stolen assault vehicle. I jumped from the ladder to take the bag from the old crone's hand. She looked at me, then at the ladder dangling above us. She nodded and turned to give Kasmira a final hug.
I hefted her up to the lower rungs. Corbin dropped the copter another foot or so to accommodate her.
Bridget dug her heels into my shoulders for support. With a grunt of effort she climbed up to hook one foot around the bottom rung. I joined her on the ladder and put an arm around her waist. She pried it off.
"I don't need your help, sonny!"
Sonny? I could tolerate a lot of insults, but that one stung.
She spidered her way up with remarkably unsenile speed. Ann lifted her inside. I reached the top, nearly lost her carpetbag tossing it in, and followed it.
"Haul up the ladder," Corbin's voice buzzed in my earphones. "And tell me where we're going."
"Claremont. The StratoDyne launch site."
"Ten-four."
He punched the engines to full throttle, leaving my stomach somewhere on Hollywood Boulevard.
"I still want to know why you came so early," Bridget said, straining to be heard over the rotor's increased noise.
Isadora recovered from her stupor enough to say, "It's a psychological problem men his age have. Premature evacuation."
Bridget turned toward the child with a sardonic smile. "You're the one, aren't you?" She looked toward Ann for a reply. Ann nodded. The old woman looked back to the kid. "You are an unbelievably powerful broadcasting telepath, child." She patted the kid's head tenderly.
I was surprised she didn't bite the old gal's hand off. Instead, she merely looked out the cockpit, saw where we were, and threw up in an empty ammo box.
Bridget took a handkerchief from a pocket in her kaftan and proceeded to clean the child up.
Corbin flew us low over the hills to Sierra Madre, where he doglegged east toward Claremont. Behind us, the smoke from Auberge reached high into the afternoon sky, a black exclamation point at the end of a jarring surprise. Corbin dropped us to treetop level, and it fell from sight. Another drop delivered us into a canyon that widened to become the StratoDyne complex.
The shuttle stood erect on its launch pad, a shimmering white bird gripping four rust-red boosters.
Corbin set the copter down with a couple of uneasy bumps. Ann and Bridget dragged Isadora out.
"Have a nice flight," he said in a grudging voice. "I hope God doesn't do a Job on you."
"Where are you going?" I asked loudly.
"Are you kidding?" He patted the Huey's controls. "This baby and its weapons stores will fetch a high enough price that the Church of St. Judas will be riding high for years. Months, if I really enjoy myself." He waved at me jauntily with a free hand, folding his second and third fingers down to form the Horns of Androcles-an ancient witches' symbol of good luck.
I tossed the headset inside and sealed the hatch. The copter rose swiftly from its pillar of dust to rotate about and race east toward the national forest-and the desert beyond.
"Impossible," the launch director said. "You can't launch tonight." He was older than I was, balding and soft from too much desk work in bureaucratic surroundings. He leaned back in his console chair to stare at me.
All I needed that moment was a battle of wills. I stared back at him and leaned threateningly forward. I still carried the M-16.
"I don't pay you to say things are impossible."
"That's a good line," he said. "Let me write that down." He picked up a doughnut and bit a hunk out of it, washing it down with a swig of beer.
I leaned farther. The butt of the rifle thudded against the desktop.
"Starfinder is ready. Canfield told me so as I walked in. All you've been doing for the past two days has been flight simulations."
He leaned forward, face-to-face with me. "Listen, Mr. Del Taco, or whatever your name is. I don't think I like what I was hired to do here. There's an awful lot of rumors circulating that you have something to do with that crazy ad campaign. You may not understand this, but to get where you're going requires a specific launch window. I may be helping you accomplish some sort of twisted publicity stunt, but I'm not going to jeopardize my career by doing it clumsily!" He finished the doughnut and returned to his semirecline. "We couldn't possibly consider a flight before calculating a new launch window. There might be one around five or six this morning."
"That's fine for you," I said, taking the beer from his hand and tossing it into the wastebasket. "We, on the other hand, are being trailed by some annoyingly rude characters. The same ones who pureed Old Downtown a couple hours ago. Do you want to be around here running simulations when they show up?"
He frowned, looking for a moment at his empty fingers.
"I could probably work up a launch window a few hours sooner if I calculate a greater liftoff thrust. But with this jalopy, we might blow a fuel pump, and you'll wind up scattered over the Midwest." He folded his arms, daring me to challenge his authority. He didn't know that I was ready to go up against the ultimate Authority.
"Give me odds."
"One in ten."
I carefully laid the M-16 across his desk blotter and grabbed him by his greying shirt's collar to pull him face-to-face again. He made a gulping sound but allowed me to speak.
"The odds of the people on our tail knowing about StratoDyne are fifty-fifty. They aren't interested in taking prisoners."
"Then the sooner you let go of me, the sooner I can reprogram."
I let go.
He straightened his collar and stood. "I'll get the flight programmers working on it immediately. Head over to Flight Prep and find Gunther. Tell him I'll be over in a while."
"Make it quick." I glanced at the three women and nodded toward the door.
"I'll make it right, if you don't mind." The launch director sat back again in his console chair and swiveled toward his terminal. The keyboard rattled like tapdancers on amphetamines.
People rushed past us as we wandered toward Flight Prep. No one wore any sort of uniform or identifying marks. Most of the people were young and energetic, though some very old people moved among them with easy determination. Almost nobody middle-aged was around. My generation had lived through the strangulation of space travel by the world's governments. The younger people didn't remember that time and the older ones could still recall the good old days.
Isadora wasn't impressed. "What sort of blue-jean space program is this?" she demanded.
"You weren't even around when they tried to make it look glamorous, kid. Space travel is just trucking companies now."
She folded her arms, walking in that way until she realized how silly it made her look. "My mom's dad walked on the moon. She told me he was one of the Twelve."
I nodded without paying any attention. Out of one of the building's sliding doors I caught another glimpse of the spacecraft standing tall in the last light of day. The top half caught the darkening red colors that had already passed from the canyon floor. The gantry lights came on just then, small points of tungsten white and sodium orange that glowed like Disneyland. I lost sight of it when we stepped through a pair of doors into Flight Prep.
Gunther was an old man in a tattered lab coat who moved with painfully slow steps.
"You four?" he asked with a trace of a German accent. His hair possessed the texture and color of cirrus clouds under bright sunlight. Beneath skin as tight and aged as a fine old leatherbound book, two bright points of joy twinkled in his gaze. He bent over Isadora.
"I'd wondered for whom was the little monkey suit." He chucked her chin, laughing pleasantly. I hadn't seen a chin chucked in two decades.
She almost bit his knuckles apart. "Keep your mitts off, pervo. What I've got you can't afford."
"What you've got," he said with a mildly stern expression, "wouldn't draw interest even if you could bank it."
"Sir," Bridget interrupted, "we are in quite a hurry, according to Mr. Ammo. Please explain what you would like us to do."
The old coot straightened up to look at her. You could have heard the violins playing.
"Yes," he said when he'd caught his breath. "Why, yes. Of course."
The flight suits hanging on the rack weren't the cumbersome, bulky, outrageously expensive abominations that NASA had utilized to the bitter end. "Pork barrels," Gunther referred to them ungraciously. Our flight suits were composed of just a couple of layers of tight black material that-except for the helmet ring at the neck-looked more like tailor-made wetsuits than like space gear. Our names had been embroidered in gold thread on the left shoulder.
Gunther handed them to us with polite ceremony. First Bridget, then Ann, then the kid. Finally, he handed me mine. Some joker had sewn GodKiller patches over the left breast of each outfit. I had to admit they looked good.
Gunther politely turned his back to the three women. "I apologize for the lack of dressing facilities," he said.
I turned my back to all four of them. The kid horselaughed behind me. Bridget shushed her.
"Are you two men Victorians?" Bridget asked.
"We are apparently both gentlemen," Gunther replied.
The old woman huffed. "Gentlemen do not ignore a woman's body as if it were something hideous."
Gunther turned around halfway through the sentence to do his best at ogling. And the way in which the suits had been constructed gave him plenty of time both to sightsee and render assistance.
The phone rang. Gunther reached it on the third jangle.
"Are you certain?" was all he asked. After a pause, he cradled the phone. Off in the distance a claxon alarm blasted.
"I'm afraid," he said, "that you have just seven minutes left on earth."
"What?" we said, almost as one.
Gunther moved as swiftly as his frail build permitted. "Our low level radar has detected three helicopters coming out of the southwest. The shuttle is being fueled now. They've worked up a trajectory, but it only has a three-minute window." He looked worried.
I closed a couple of intransigent zippers. "Let's go."
We followed the old man to a set of doors that opened to the outside. He pointed toward an ancient Dodge van upon which the fading remnants of psychedelic paint fought a losing battle with an encroaching battalion of rust.
At his speed, I wondered whether we'd have enough time to make it to the vehicle, let alone the launch pad.
We climbed aboard as he gunned the engine into life. Ann hadn't even sat down before he peeled away at a dragster's pace. The rear doors alternated swinging open or shut, depending on which way the van swerved.
After less than a minute of breakneck speed, we arrived at the foot of the gantry. Gunther ushered us hurriedly out, urging us into the elevator.
"T-minus five minutes, thirty seconds," blared a calm voice over the loudspeakers. The claxon continued to wail.
A dozen men and women scurried about the base of the launch pad and up the gantry. The chill cold of liquefied fuels ran down the sides of the boosters. I gazed heavenward.
The sky was almost black. Against the starry backdrop towered Starfinder. Something like awe began swelling inside my throat.
A firm hand shoved me into the lift.
"Move it!" Gunther closed the door and hit the power button. We rose with unsettling speed. Gunther watched us for signs of vertigo.
"Where's Canfield?" I asked him.
"He should be inside running through the checklist."
The elevator jerked to a halt, tossing us a foot into the air. Gunther slid the cage aside and led us across the gantry arm to the cockpit hatch.
"In order to avoid being apprehended," he said, reaching inside the pocket of his lab coat, "I want you to wear these disguises." He handed each of us a pair of Groucho glasses-the ones with the fake nose, eyebrows, and moustache. He paused long enough to laugh at our bewilderment.
"In. In." He pushed us toward the hatch. "Have a textbook flight. We'll see you when you come down."
"Gunther," I said, "those copters may be carrying bombs. You'd better clear everyone out."
He dismissed the warning with a wave of a wrinkled hand. "I survived the raid on Peenemunde. Three whirlybirds are nothing."
He took a loving final look at Bridget, winked, and sealed us in.
The hatch cycled with an ear-pressing sigh. I turned to see the cockpit. Everything was cockeyed. If you took an airplane and stuck it on its tail, the seats would run up the side of wall, too. It wouldn't matter once we were in orbit, and we'd be sitting properly while gliding back home. If we made it that far.
Up in the pilot's seat was a black-clad figure already strapped in. He wore his helmet with the gold-anodized faceplate pulled down. Looking at him, I only saw my own reflection.
"Canfield," I said, "think we can get out of here in time?"
"We will if you put on your helmets and strap in." His voice sounded tinny and odd coming from the speaker mounted on his chest controls.
I helped Bridget, Ann, and Isadora climb up to their seats. Then I had to use their seats as a step to reach the forward right-hand seatthe co-pilot's chair. We retrieved the helmets from the clasps on the seat backs and fastened them onto the metal neck rings.
"T-minus two minutes," Launch Control said in our helmet speakers.
"Get comfortable," our pilot informed us. "We'll be pulling over five Gs at blastoff."
The kid piped up. "Don't you have anything to say to Launch Control?"
"It's nearly all automatic until we reach high earth orbit, little lady." His voice sounded relaxed and self-assured. "I'm here mostly for the unexpected."
Something clanked behind and below us. Canfield turned his helmet toward the hatch, his expression hidden behind golden reflections.
"Gantry arm retracting," Launch Control reported. "All personnel clear the launch pad."
The pilot relaxed in his seat.
At T-minus one minute, a confused chatter of voices jammed the airwaves. The voice of Launch Control shouted, "Quiet!" loud enough to jangle my hearing, then said, "Starfinder, we have choppers reported within our long-range attack boundaries. Do you wish to scrub the launch?"
"Negative, Launch Control." I liked the sound of that. "Continue the countdown."
"I suggest we scrub," Canfield interjected.
"Any technical reason?" I asked.
The pilot shook his head. "No. I simply think we should postpone the launch to a safer time."
"There won't be a safer time. We go now."
"They could pick us off with a heat-seeking miss-"
"They could kill us on the ground as well. We stand a better chance of surviving by launching now!"
Canfield sighed. "It's your choice, Mr. Ammo. I can't make the decision myself."
The ground rumbled beneath us.
"This is it," I said. "Blastoff!"
"Those are bombs!" the pilot shouted. "Abort, man! For God's sake!"
"That's exactly why I can't," I said.
"T-minus ten seconds. Ignition sequence start."
An explosion somewhere to port rocked like thunder over the spacecraft. It coincided with the rumble of four powerful rocket engines firing up.
"There's another one!" shouted Launch Control.
At that instant, a black Huey roared directly in front of our forward windows. It fired all its missiles at once.
But not at us.
"Okay, tough guy," radioed a familiar voice, "you're in the clear! Ace the son of a bitch for me!"
"Corbin?" I managed to mutter as the cabin began to shake like a giant attempting to dislodge us.
"Blastoff," a disembodied voice said, just as the giant started squeezing my chest.
"Yeah," echoed a voice a few million light-years away. "It occurred to me that this chopper might be of some assistance if the Ecclesia found you. Guess I was right. So long again!"
The giant sat on my heart and lungs and other organs for daysmaybe years. I couldn't answer our rescuer. I couldn't hear another word. My senses collapsed into a red-black throbbing mass of dizzying discomfort. I could only think about an amusement park ride I'd been on years before that supposedly shoved riders forward at four times the acceleration of gravity. It lasted a few seconds and made me giddy. This was lasting forever. I was far beyond giddy.
A couple of millennia later, the pounding faded from my ears. A distant voice heralded my salvation.
"Engine shutdown at T-plus six minutes, seventeen seconds. Stand by to jettison outboard tanks."
A sudden feeling of unease washed over me. A feeling of being dropped from a great height. And falling, falling, falling.
Weightlessness.
They didn't call it free fall for nothing. My first instinct was to grip the chair arms and try to hang on. No good. Everything was fallingthat's what it meant to be in orbit. My stomach, though, refused to listen to reason.
Something buzzed on the pilot's side of the control panel. Canfield did nothing. He seemed to be taking it as badly as the rest of us, which didn't make sense.
"Do you read me, Starfinder? Jettison outboard tanks."
The pilot still made no move. A small hand reached forward from behind us to punch a flashing button on the console. Explosive bolts sheared with a sound that vibrated through the shuttle's hull.
"Outboard propellant tanks jettisoned. About time, Starfinder."
The figure in the pilot's seat remained silent.
"Oh, shit," Isadora said, pulling her arm back from the shuttle controls.
"Invoke and ye shall receive," said the pilot. He reached up to unfasten his helmet.
"It's you!"
I had a bad feeling about whom she meant.
"Now that I have a captive audience," Emil Zacharias said, doffing his helmet, "I'd like to discuss our little contract." He smiled as coldly as ever.
"Where's Canfield?" I struggled to get my helmet off.
He laughed and tossed me a brass bottle about the size of a thimble.
"Don't open it," he said. "The cabin's crowded enough as it is." He turned to view the three other passengers. "Crowded with members of the weaker gender." He smiled at them as sweetly as any cat would at cornered rats.
I heard helmets coming undone behind me. One of the three was unzipping her pressure suit.
"I finally have all four of you together and under my power. Ordinary physical power." He looked forward at the steady, unblinking stars that blazed in the Cimmerian darkness of space. He smiled. "By the simple act of smashing this console, our tiresome contract will be canceled regardless of your desires." He turned to smirk at the women. "Or of Her…"
Bridget's hand smacked him on the face and held on tight.
"By the magician's oath with Fate," she cried, "I bind you!"
Zack made a weak sort of hiccupping sound, incapable of speech. Even so, the old crone maintained her grip. A piece of paper crackled crisply inside her palm.
"Nice little trick-"
"Shut up, Dell." She gazed deeply into his hateful, frozen stare. Her voice grew deep, ominous.
"By powers older than your own,
"From spark of Life by Woman grown.
"I bind your soul inside your hate
"And curse you to your chosen Fate!"
Her hand withdrew to reveal a square of parchment stuck to his forehead. A weird, intricate design had been drawn on it in purple ink. Zack just sat there, motionless as a wax dummy.
"How soon till we dock?" she asked calmly.
"Uh, I'll find out." I pulled the stopper from the little brass bottle and pointed it away from me. I don't know what I expected, but after a moment I hazarded a peek inside.
Nothing.
A muffled voice from behind the payload area hatch hollered in bewilderment. The hatch hissed open. A disoriented Canfield-still wearing his coveralls-pulled himself into the cockpit.
"I must've blacked out. I'm-hey! How did we get into orbit? Whenwho's that?"
"A stowaway," I said, unstrapping myself. "Leave him there and use my seat." I floated back to the economy section. At least the events of the last few minutes had distracted my stomach. I was almost getting used to the perpetual sensation of dropping. I unstrapped Isadora and slipped between her and the seat. Strapping us both in securely proved to be a difficult feat in free fall.
Canfield glanced ruefully at the flight suit Zacharias had expropriated. He strapped himself in and made contact with Flight Control.
"CapCom, this is Starfinder. Standing by for, uh…" He gazed at the instruments. "Standing by for target docking."
"Roger, Starfinder. Target is five hundred klicks off your bow at my mark. Mark. Approaching target at point-five klicks per second. Begin braking."
Canfield rotated the shuttle about on attitude jets so that we approached our destination ass-backward. He pulsed the remaining two engines gently, using them as retro-rockets. With every pulse, the kid pressed against me with a feather's weight. This wasn't so bad.
"Are we almost there?" Ann asked.
"Not quite," Canfield said. "We're coming up on an unmanned tug that'll lift us up to synchronous orbit. Right now we're only a thousand kilometers up. We've got another thirty-five thousand to go."
Isadora groaned miserably.
"Don't worry," he said. "Those first few kilometers were the worst."
We docked with the tug-a nondescript cylinder with a StratoDyne logo painted on its side-and made the proper connections by remote control.
After conferring with CapCom, Canfield ignited the engines and we settled into another bout of acceleration.
"Hang on," he said over his shoulder. "Here we go again!"
He had lied. This time it felt worse and lasted longer. Maybe that was due to the kid's weight crushing against me-she was heavier than a bad conscience. She didn't care much for the way I was contoured, either, and said so through distorted lips.
When the engines cut off after a few eons, I was relieved to be weightless again. I was getting my spacelegs at last.
"At least I don't feel like throwing up," I muttered.
"You can't throw up in zero-gee," the dear child piped out. "My gramps told me so. You can only throw out." She grinned.
I wondered whether I could drop-kick in zero-gee.
"Starfinder," CapCom radioed, "you are on approach to VideoSat Three. Please be advised that you are being tracked by Cobra Dane and NORAD. We've received word that the FBI will be visiting us shortly. We are transferring flight control to Pontianak Freeport, Borneo."
"Don't worry," Canfield said, "NORAD can't do anything to us up here. It's the jet escort when we fly home that we'll have to worry about."
I didn't like it. My imagination conjured up visions of killer satellites and secret military spacecraft. "Is there some way they can prevent us from patching into the VideoSat network?" It was the only chance we had to blanket the entire planet's population simultaneously with the neural interruptor field.
"Leave that to me. Just tell me what to do with the stiff here." He jerked a thumb at Zacharias's immobile form.
Bridget spoke up. "Don't touch him. Don't even brush up against him."
The kid squirmed beside me. "Are we there yet?"
Our pilot checked a computer display. "About five minutes. You can see the VideoSat off the starboard side at about two o'clock low."
"This is it, then." I shot an inquiring glance at Ann.
She shrugged, turning calmly to Bridget. "Tell me," she asked, "exactly how do you go about blessing a spaceship?"