"Neural interruptors, satellite broadcasts," she muttered. "All this technology makes me nervous. I've never needed electronic gewgaws in my spells before."
"You said it yourself, sweetheart. `Two great forces must join.' No one's had the opportunity to assassinate God until the Space Age gave us the means. Science and magick are what it takes. Matter and spirit. Thought and instinct."
"If you're not a member of the Craft," she said, "you ought to be. You certainly blather on the way some of them do." She firmly pushed the last of the candles into its holder. The five-pointed silver holders were bolted to the altar to keep them from drifting away. She reached for a black and red cloisonnй matchbox that floated a few feet to her left, withdrew a kitchen match, and struck it on the side of the box. The match glowed for a few seconds, consuming its fuel. It promptly dimmed and expired, leaving behind a tiny globe of smoke.
"Oh, hell," she said. A second try yielded identical results.
Ann hovered over her. "What's wrong?"
"We're weightless. The smoke won't rise. It's choking the matches." She frowned. "It'll extinguish the candles, too."
I tapped at the vanes on the ventilation grill until it blew toward the altar. The breeze would be sufficient to circulate air around the wicks.
"Try again," I said.
She struck a match. The flame wavered gently but remained lit.
I watched Isadora bound around the cargo bay like a moth in a jar. I hoped she wouldn't careen into anything important. She seemed sober enough. I watched the other two at work.
I had given Ann and Bridget complete control over the setup of the magical environment. Bolted at one end of the Quonset-shaped interior was the ash-wood altar. All the knickknacks of Bridget's craft had been securely attached to the rubbed-wood surface with Velcro. At the other end of the bay stood the Theta Wave Amplifier. In the middle of the bay were two tables; one for me, one for Isadora. They weren't really tables, as such. They served to position us in the center of the bay and were attached to retractable pedestals. Hundreds of eyelets had been welded all over the deck and bulkheads.
Flying over to the amplifier, I picked up the lightweight electrode helmet and strapped it on. I looked and felt like Buck Rogers. Until Bridget changed the subject to something closer to Flesh Gordon.
"We should all get out of our clothes. We'll need to free up our body energies to compensate for this, mmm, unusual environment."
Wonderful. My only consolation as I struggled to disrobe in free fall was that I would have more important concerns than what anyone thought of my physique. We'd all be busy.
Isadora sighed. "I've done all sorts of kinky things before, but never an orbital striptease."
"Don't hold your breath, demi-vierge. We're here to work magic, not to give your vicarious libido a workout. Get ready for the ultimate mindfuck-an entire planet. Six billion people, all at once. Think you can handle it?"
She buffed her nails against her naked flesh. "It puts the odds slightly in my favor. Bring `em on, and peel me a grape."
Ann squirmed out of her flight suit and flung it toward a corner where it wedged to a stop. She was even more alluring in zero-G, her hair swirling around her like a turbulent golden cloud at sunrise. Her gaze roamed languidly across her body, then glanced over mine. She smiled.
I smiled back. "`And her beauty was as the tears of the gods-sweet and warm and divine.'"
"Knock off the chatter," Bridget's voice cracked out. "We've got to start the Witch's Cradle." She tossed a big spool of thin red yarn at Ann. Her throw hadn't taken into account the condition of free fall; the spool sailed far afield.
Isadora retrieved it and hand-delivered it to Ann as Bridget withdrew a spool of white yarn from a compartment beneath the altar.
"Time to lie down," said the witch.
I nodded to Isadora, who wadded her flight suit in the corner with Ann's and mine and kicked over to the smaller table.
Beginning at opposite ends of the cargo bay, Ann and Bridget hooked the red and white yarns through the eyelets, working back and forth, up and down and across to create an abstract, intricate web. After snaking just a few strands around the kid and me, Bridget flipped a switch that retracted the tables. Isadora and I floated amidst the thread like flies awaiting a spider.
The formation of the Witch's Cradle took the better part of a quarter-hour. In response to every change in direction, Bridget's gray mane flowed in great arcs around her head like storm-tossed waves crashing on an ancient, hidden shore.
"The world has never seen the likes of this," she marveled. "The greatest spell any Wiccen could cast. The final battle with the Usurper."
"Do I get my drugs now?" Isadora asked. The tangle of yarn prevented her from even turning her head.
"Sorry, kid. You don't get any. They're all for me."
"What!"
"You'll feel the effects, though, when we switch on the amplifier."
"Shit," she said. "Secondhand dope."
Bridget shushed her. They had woven the cords so that most of the lines intersected around us, leaving them room to reach the machinery and the altar.
"Now," the crone said, drifting toward the altar, "an invocation to the Goddess. Ann?"
Ann nodded, her beautiful golden locks bouncing handsomely. She switched on the radio link to the satellite.
"Mr. Canfield," she said, "are the neural interruptors connected?"
"Ten-four," came the proud reply. "We are patched into the VideoSat network. All three satellites are broadcasting a low-level NI beam."
The entire planet was being bathed in a field that subconsciously opened people's minds to pliant suggestibility. Most people wouldn't even notice me when I made contact with their minds via Isadora's broadcasting telepathy.
"Excellent, Mr. Canfield. If you'd like to return to Starfinder and hook on to an umbilical, please do so. I'm afraid you'll have to wait outside the cargo bay."
"I don't mind one bit. It'll give me a chance to sightsee." The radio squelched off.
"There," Bridget announced, tying off the end of the white thread with a strange-looking knot. Ann did the same to the red thread, cutting off the remainder of the spool. The kid and I were held fast inside a crazy maze of lines and angles.
The ventilation system shifted into a moderately higher mode of operation. I smelled the reason why. Bridget had lit a self-igniting tablet of charcoal and spiked it into a spherical censer filled with a sweet, cloying incense. Wire gauze prevented the particles from escaping after she sealed the silver ball up. A bluish-gray cloud filled the cargo bay.
Bridget made a complicated gesture with her hands, then withdrew a sheathed black athame from the altar. This she tied to her waist with a knotted red cord. It was the only thing she wore.
Ann tied her Bowie around her own waist, but the cord she used was deep purple.
"Which way is east?" the naked crone asked with a frown. "We have to start at the east."
Ann shrugged. "Wherever the altar is can be considered east."
Bridget shook her head emphatically. "This has to be done right." She looked over at me. "Has the plane of the altar been aligned with the plane of the ecliptic?"
"Yes," I said, unable to nod.
"And has the bow of the ship been pointed toward the constellation Taurus?"
"Um, yes."
She mused for a few seconds. "And Canfield did orient celestial north above the altar?"
"Yep."
"That means-let's see." She stroked at her left breast while thinking. Without gravity tugging at her, she looked decades younger. "That means Scorpio is aft, Aquarius is port, and Leo starboard. Excellent."