by Victor Koman
“Ready to cast off.”
“Do it,” The air cycled out of the lock and the doors slid open. Huge steel hand cradles the silvery wedge and shoves it
out into the stars. Good move. I press a button and time passes. Press a button and Death Angel is gone forever. Pretty Death Angel wraps herself up in her wings and flies away.
The command chair in the superstructure was as he had left it. He strapped in.
“I want the ship to be on full alert and at battle readiness both times we transfer. The instant we return here, we locate the lifeship, bring it onboard, and transfer to one of the habitable planet’s vicinities. Got it?”
The computer answered, “I’d thought of all that already. Stand by to transfer.”
“Do you really need me to press the button? You can transfer without my help, can’t you?”
“Yes. However, the construction plans include it as a check on the pilot. To let me know you’re still there.”
“Transfer,” Virgil said, folding his arms. One fewer tab for Master Snoop to keep on me. One fewer thing to do each time before I die and die and die and die…
Death Angel, why do you curse me? I never thought I’d die a thousand times for anyone, but here I float in blackness, just dead and ready to die again and again and-
“Stand by-transferring.”
Delia, I can’t take it any more. I can only die so many times.
PROGRESS REPORT: DAY 17 AREA: MEDICAL
SUBJECT IN SECOND WEEK OF COMA.
LEFT HAND GRAFT SUCCESSFUL, NO COMPLICATIONS, NOT TO BE CONSIDERED CAUSE OF COMATOSE STATE.
PULSE: 48/MIN-STEADY BLOOD PRESSURE: 87/55/53 MMHG-STEADY
CORE BODY TEMP: 36.1°C-STEADY
MASS: 63.5 KG-DROPPING
EEG: RANDOM ACTIVITY
CONTINUE GLUCOSE I-V
PROGRESS REPORT: DAY 17 AREA: PLANET STUDY-EPSILON INDI-3, CURRENTLY IN ORBIT.
ATMOSPHERE: N2-55.3% O2-41% CO2-3.1% + TRACES: XE, KR, HE, H2S04, CO, CH4.
MASS: 6.32 x 1027GM
AVERAGE SURFACE TEMP: 280°K
SURFACE: LAND-44.2% WATER + ICE-55.8%.
SÄNGER PROBE OF HIGH I-R AREAS INDICATE LIFE. PROBE INTERCEPTED AND DESTROYED BY CHEMICAL EXPLOSIVE MISSILE. SUGGEST EXTREME CAUTION IN FUTURE CONTACT. FURTHER ACTION PENDING CONDITION OF PILOT. CONTINUING ATTEMPT TO DETECT RADIO EMISSIONS.
Memories wash like gentle waves on a great lake. I see Jenine leaving me, wasting away for no reason I could fathom. Three years and suddenly nothing. As though in an instant, as though I had jumped in time a hundred years. She leaves, and I climb into my powersuit, fly all night. Wind stings my face, the engine warms my back through the insulation. I play chicken with unsuspecting fliers. The thrill of near death tingles. I feel alive. Sunrise and I hit El Capitan at the same time. Dawn makes a much bigger splash. The granite eats into my face, buries itself under my shoulder and back. I slide. I hear bones snap and pierce through skin and suit like sticks breaking inside a sausage. Sunshine warms the blood soaking me. A shadow blocks the light and I am lifted, the feeling of release dragged from me. Lifted high and rebuilt, to try again.
They save me every time. Strangers, all tied into Master Snoop’s network. They’re keeping me alive for something, I think. For what? This. What this? Mad Wizard. Circus Galacticus. Valliardi. You’re a pawn of Master Snoop, who’s using you against himself. You are Nightsheet’s agent, returning to take vengeance on Mad Wizard for burning you from his burnall spear.
Returning? To what?
Earth.
For what? She’ll be lost, dead, old and gone before I can reach her.
She had something to tell you.
But I didn’t hear it! Mad Wizard left before I could. I could. I could.
“Delia!”
“I just feel hungry as hell, is all,” Virgil said, finishing the last bit of chicken on his plate and throwing the bones into the recycling chute.
“As long as you don’t give yourself colic.”
Virgil belched. “I’m sure you have an injection for it, if you can scare up one of those robots I never see to administer it.” Hidden robots that move only when I don’t look. Sneakiest of Snoop’s agents, they hide in the walls, watching. “Have you finished calculating a transfer back to Earth?”
“Yes, but there is a prior program restriction on return to the Solar System.”
“I thought all your restrictions were eliminated.” He caught a bone that had drifted backward out of the chute and threw it back in. With his left hand, still in bandages, he held a piece of cloth that had been knotted up into a wad the size of a handball. He worked his fingers across it with gentle pressure, exercising constantly.
“Not this one. We must transfer to the orbit of Pluto first, with our defenses ready and our receivers monitoring every wavelength.”
“Why?”
“Brennen feared the Triplanetary Recidivists as well as the Belter Autarchists. He is no doubt being cautious”
“Possibly.” So, Wizard’s scheme begins to show. What does he expect me to find? And now that the wizard is mad, what will I find? “I’ll be in Con-Two.”
Making his way to the superstructure from the mess hall, he stopped in the armory. Between rows of laser gloves and larger rifles, packages lay securely strapped to the bulkheads. He took one down and opened it. The pressure suit was simple: Späflex webbing that contracted tightly at body temperature, yet allowed a controlled escape of body moisture and heat, and an oxygen recycler with a small tank of liquid oxygen. Virgil slipped into the suit, sealed it shut, and fought the feeling of entrapment he experienced when the net began to shrink.
Back in sheets again, but this time no DuoLab, no Marsface, no soft room of endless white. Now I wrap up for flight and fight. Now I return to face Master Snoop and Nightsheet and turn Wizard’s plan against them all. I swoop in out of the suns to strike without warning.
The suit allowed for complete mobility. He sealed the head-gear, adjusting the mouthpiece, clear eyeplates, and ear cups until they were comfortable. In the battle station conning tower above the ring amidships, Virgil strapped in to the weapons of fire control. Surrounded by instruments, he switched the ship to battle stations.
“What about the planet we have just encountered, Virgil?”
“What about it?”
“The missile that destroyed our probe-”
“They’ll keep for a few decades.”
“Don’t you feel any awe or wonder at discovering another intelligent race?”
“Do you?”
“You know I don’t. I’m not programmed to.”
“Well, I’m not programmed to either, so enter the coordinates for Pluto and let’s go.” His voice sounded pinched and nasal through the mouthpiece. His right hand tapped at the armrest until the transfer button glowed at the ready. His finger hesitated over the button. For a moment the insides of his eyeplates fogged, quickly adsorbed by the semi-porous plastic.
Have to do it myself. To be sure. Death Angel, I’ll get them all. I’ll find Nightsheet and make him give you back.
“Ready to transfer, Virgil.”
Death Angel, I know you’ll be there to wrap me in your wings when I die the real death. Can’t you be there before then? I’ll have you somehow. I have my own wings, now. Strong wings of warped space and twisted time. Wings to take me wherever you fly. You can’t escape me.
“Virgil?”
His finger jammed against the button, cracking the plastic and extinguishing the lamp beneath.
Death Angel I want you. I am Nightsheet. I am Master Snoop. I am Pusher and Shaker and the Mad Wizard. I snap time like a whip. I die again for you. To die and bring you back from death. Blackness pours upon me and I rush through a corridor so black I am blinded.
Chapter Eight
16 May, 2163
I drifted, once, in a pallid sea of unconcern, locked away in tight DuoLab sheets, so carefully protected from myself and the world. Master Snoop must have known even
then the threat I posed. Nightsheet’s angel freed me but Master Snoop turned the tables. I fooled them all and now through sheets of blackness I see myself, wrapped tight in Späflex against the nothingness of space. On the edge of the corridor, my back to the door I float, waiting for the boot to kick me back again. At DuoLab I drifted, lying still. I knew I’d beat Master Snoop someday and drift no more but find my place. In place now, I see my soul drifting against a tomorrow impossible to see across Einstein’s wall of light. Yes, pale goddess, I know I can do something. That’s why I can’t go with you now. No, I won’t turn around. No.
Something grows through the roar. I sit gently against my chair, watching the corridor recede. Something tries to get my attention. Something from the past, from-
“Virgil!” a voice cried from the speaker. “The transponder on Circus Galacticus has triggered this encrypted message from the moon Charon.
“This is Dante Brennen. You and Circus are in extreme danger-or are likely to be-so listen closely.”
Wizard? No longer mad?
“I’m recording this on December Twelfth, Twenty-One Fifteen. Everything’s gone to hell.”
Virgil shifted his gaze to the viewport. He saw only the black of deep space. A few pieces of broken plastic floated in front of his face. He brushed them away and they tumbled across the command bridge.
“I tried to foresee this,” the recording continued. “The habitats in the asteroid belt finally achieved total independence from Triplanetary with the construction of Ceres Beta, the network of Bernal spheres, factories, and ranches they’ve been building for the last decade. The Autarchists have been able to convince enough of the four and a half billion Belters that trade with Earth had finally become a liability. I tried to develop the Valliardi Transfer in time but it just wouldn’t work. You were the only one, Virgil. The only one.”
Only now, Virgil mused, there is another. And you don’t even know that it’s you.
Brennen paused. There was a sound of ice cubes, of something being drunk. “They stopped trading. It was a net savings for the Belt habitats, since they could finally manufacture everything the Earth had to offer. They got along just fine for a few years. Then Triplanetary, instead of just going to another part of the Belt for raw asteroids, well-they fell in with the Recidivists. The trade cutoff didn’t hurt the Belters, but the Earth needs materials manufactured in the Belt. They need the asteroids and think that the Belters are somehow getting in their way.
“After well over a century of freedom, Earth has a State again.
“Earth and its orbital habitats are the seat of this nascent Empire. Most Martians are staying neutral, but split allegiances abound. And Lunarians, poor doomed misfits, have declared solidarity with the Belt.
“It’s war, Virgil, with you our one chance. Your anti-matter pods-and I pray to God you still have them-could turn the tide in this battle.”
Virgil shook. The restraining straps resisted the violent movements. I was the wild card. Wizard kept me up his sleeve, an ace for the master magician.
“Nobody knows when you’re coming back,” Brennen said. “I kept the secret of your mission. Maybe this will all be over by the time you return. If not, you are the random factor that could tip the scale toward freedom or death. I can’t offer you any advice-I’m behind the curtain of time. I can only warn you and relay encrypted updates to these message posts. I will keep doing this as long as I can. Good luck, my mad friend. You are humanity’s one dim hope.” His voice faded.
Virgil let go a desolate breath. Death Angel, why do you keep testing me like this? Madman speaks and give me runes. Where’s your ghost, pretty Death Angel?
Something crackled and Brennen’s voice returned. It sounded even more desperate.
“Virgil. It’s May Twenty-Second, Twenty-One Sixteen. Angel City has decreed new austerity measures which, as I predicted, are achieving the exact opposite of their intentions. Half the Earth is starving and the local habitats can’t feed them because they’re building warships at an incredible cost. Dissident habitats have been destroyed for attempted desertion. I was able to sabotage the government’s only functioning anti-matter plant and its stockpiles. Yes, I’m on the Belter’s side, but not the Autarchists. They’re becoming as bad as any Recidivist. The Trust has engineered an effective laser shield, which we installed on Bernal Brennen. It’s a rogue habitat now.
“None of the warring factions possesses the Valliardi Transfer. Your ship is the only spacecraft with that capability. Valliardi died under interrogation-he was old. He couldn’t have told them anything more than theory, anyway.” There was a pause, a long swig of something. “You’re our only hope, Virgil, our only hope. Delia Trine-you remember her-she told me that she didn’t want to live through the war.”
No! Don’t wrap yourself up and fly away!
“She’s with about five hundred other people who built a hide-out on Mercury.”
Dead, now. Dead and old and cold and gone. She waited out a war and-
“It’s a cryonic preservation unit, totally automated and run on solar power.”
What?
“She told me to tell you,” Brennen said, “that she’ll wait for you there.”
“Delia?” His teeth clacked against the breathpiece.
“I hope to be able to encrypt another update to you. Good luck, Virgil.”
Wizard’s voice goes beck to blank space where it came from and I sit. A soft roar begins to envelope me.
“I await your instructions,” the computer said.
“No other updates?”’
“None.”
Virgil flexed his fingers under the pressure suit. A stinging itch encircled his left wrist, then subsided quickly. “What year is it now?”
“A transmitting clock on the satellite indicates May Sixteenth, Twenty-One Sixty-Three. Four hundred twenty-six Zulu. I have recalibrated our clock to reflect this.”
“Do you have any preliminary scans of the solar system?”
“That will take several hours.”
“Straight.” Delia, Delia. Why must I always wait? You’ve waited longer, though. Long and frozen. And the years you waited before freezing down. Why wait for me? What has Master Snoop got in mind for you to do to me? Or has the Death Angel merely been waiting to claim her toughest catch? And what has changed since the last message, forty-seven years ago? What made Wizard risk madness to escape Earth? Too much. The roar… the roar!
Under the assault of changing events, Virgil’s battered mind shut down.
The body drifted limply about the confines of the command chair, driven by random muscle twitches and restrained by the single safety harness.
“Wake up,” the computer said, three hours later.
Virgil tried to roll over. “Didn’t anyone program you not to interrupt dreams?”
“What is your name?”
“Call me Ishmael.”
The computer made no sound for a moment. “That name is not entered in my files.”
Damned right. He kept his eyes closed.
“I am programmed to shut down in the event of a security breach by unknown personæ.”
“Virgil, damn it. Virgil Grissom Kinney.”
“Sequence Kinney. Virgil, you had thirteen days of sleep when you were being operated on. That ought to have been sufficient.”
“Where were we?”
“Epsilon Indi.”
“Where are we?”
“Sol.”
Virgil shifted in the chair and smiled. “Then I’ve gone over eleven years without sleep, objectively speaking.”
The computer was not amused. “I’ve finished the preliminary scans.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“The only neutrino flux I can read is from the sun itself. There are some low-level infra-red sources throughout the system, but concentrations are evident near Earth orbit, in the asteroid belt, and here, near the orbit of Pluto.”
Virgil opened his eyes and sat up. “Where’
s Mercury?”
“The other side of the sun.”
“Calculate a transfer there.”
“I would advise transferring first to a position from which we can observe directly our destination. I calculate a possibility that the space surrounding the planet may be seeded with flak.”
“To keep us from transferring in?”
“To destroy us if we do.”
“That’s stupid. You couldn’t fill enough of space to guarantee that.” He began to loosen the headpiece of his pressure suit.
“A density of units of one gram per six million cubic meters would be sufficient to cripple this ship. They could fill space to an altitude of twenty thousand klicks and would require less than four hundred million kilograms of mass.”
Virgil unsealed the headpiece and pulled it back, removing the breathpiece. “They’d go through all that expense not even knowing if I was coming back? That’s ridiculous. It’s uneconomic.”
“True. If we were the only Valliardi ship.”
Could they be scared of the Mad Wizard? “What makes you suspect otherwise?”
“Anything could have happened in the past half century. I think we should be cautious.” Suddenly, the computer changed its speech pattern to one of extreme urgency. “Alert! Put your helmet back on and go to battle stations.”
“Why?”
“We are not the only Valliardi ship. Six of them just appeared eight seconds ago.” Sirens wailed. Virgil fumbled with the head-piece, his left wrist aching. “No offensive action on their part yet. I have lasers trained on each. We’re surrounded. One each fore, aft, port, starboard, topside and below. I await orders.”
Virgil tried to speak with the breathpiece half in his mouth. Words and saliva tumbled over one another. “Don’t fire unless attacked first. They may have Brennen’s laser shielding, if they’ve got the transfer.” His left hand lifted a protector cap from three red switches. “If we can’t get out, I’ll cut the electrostatic fields on the anti-matter pods and erase this portion of space.”
