"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?"
23
The Spell
Canfield had dug up a pressure suit to replace the one Zack had borrowed. It didn't fit well, but was better than trying to wear either mine or Ann's. After aligning Starfinder according to Bridget's exacting instructions, he floated outside the shuttle, maneuvering a tool kit nearly as large as he was. With a light kick, he drifted across the void toward the communication satellite a hundred meters away.
After making a minor midcourse correction with a small gas pistol, he bumped up against VideoSat Three, which looked like a ten-meterlong oil drum with a couple of dish antennae and wires poking out of it. He attached a tether to one of the antenna struts and lashed the tool kit down.
"He'll be out there for a while," I said. "Let's get ready." I kicked lightly to float back to the cargo bay. The others were already inside.
With a last look at the immobilized body of the Reverend Emil Zacharias, Ann sealed the hatch and cut a large pentagram into the portal with her hog carver.
She sprinkled pixie dust or something so that it hovered in front of the lock. A bounce off the bulkhead brought her over to the rest of us.
Bridget busied herself with her candles, oiling them carefully so that droplets of the smelly stuff didn't fling around the chamber.