“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.

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.”