“No!” he screamed, looking out the port at a place where no star shone. The darkness terrified him even more than blazing suns. He jabbed the button.

Out of black into black. The lady calls, urging me into the doorway as a lover, as a friend. I want to go along but Something pulls me back. I almost see it this time. It has to fight harder to pull me-

“Back!”

“Cease transferring,” the computer thundered. “I cannot override. We are in danger of transferring into matter!”

“More darkness than light in the sky!” Virgil cried. “More void than value. Forward!” He shoved his finger into the button again and again.

I’m back and the corridor is dim. No one greets me. Now it is all mine. I run down it and almost reach the door. My fingers scrape the handle and something grabs me and throws me back.

The spaceship sped through a cluster of stars at a velocity that made them streak like meteors. He slammed a fist against the console.

Out of Nightsheet’s flame arcade into cool darkness.

I have to crawl uphill to the door this time. I grasp it and it creaks open. I almost see who seizes me and pulls me down, back into the Circus where I see vast swirls of gas and dust all around me. Reds, yellows, purples, blacks, they boil and snake

and I die again, feeling my heart stop, my blood seize, my muscles

brake. Please free me. Doesn’t death mean an end anymore?

No. I return again and float in the center of a ring of flame encircling two suns in a fiery bolo. I leave and feel myself shoved through a tiny hole that doesn’t exist and I’m falling toward the door. I swan dive, then look behind me to see something white and blinding lasso me and pull me up into the world.

“Why?” An explosion rocked the spacecraft. Virgil pressed the button. Nothing. He whirled around.

Out of the wall it comes, silver and gold, swinging its fist at my head and I just watch it connect and I spin and it bends over me and raises me and pushes me. I can’t move anything but I can watch. Back to the playroom it takes me, Ben’s personal strongarm. I knew they lurked in the walls and now I’ve seen one.

Death Angel sits there wide-eyed, her mouth open. The roar is too strong for me to hear what chokes from inside her. She looks at me, jaw slack and eyelids fluttering like captive moths.

Ben’s robot climbs back inside the walls with Master Snoop and I reach for the bruise on my head. Red comes off on my fingers, matching the red on Death Angel’s ankles and wrists. I move toward her. Ben babbles something in my ears but the roar is too great.

“Damage report: Ship transferred into asteroid belt surrounding massive infrared source. Transfer unit in six-oh-five defeat. Vernier pitch controls damaged. We cannot maneuver or transfer out of orbit. Human assistance required for repairs.”

Death Angel is limp as I unstrap her. She watches through eyes that echo hollow in my gaze. She says something and I strain to hold back the roar. It parts and I hear a complex cipher.

“I’m killed,” she said. “I’m killed. I died there again and again and they tried to comfort me by the entrance but this man kept sending me back. I wasn’t done, he said like a school teacher. I’m done. I’m done.”

She grows all firm in my hands and hits me on the head. I spin away from her and watch her bundle up and scream, her body studded with sweat diamonds.

She screamed again, whipped her head savagely around her, and ran her hands all over her body in a frenzied attempt to wipe away the perspiration. Trembling fingers clutched for the instrument table and pulled her to it. An electrosurgical knife glinted silver in her hand.

Virgil screamed and plunged toward her, seizing her wrist. She tried to drive the knife into her chest anyway. Virgil cursed and cried at the same time.

“Stop, Death Angel! Stupid, stupid to die like that when I can rebuild you. Waste of time!” He winced as the misguided blade sizzled through his shoulder, cutting a shallow groove in his skin. He twisted his arm around to knock the weapon from her hand. It sparked and crackled against a bulkhead.

He grabbed both her wrists. She tried to slash him with her nails.

“Let me die!” she pleaded, kicking at him. He twisted about at the waist, grappling her legs with his. Furious teeth snapped at his arm.

“Sorry,” he said. “Sorry I made you die. Tried to kill Jord, is all. Don’t go crazy, Delia. Death Angel mustn’t die.”

“Have to!” she cried, pulling back and freeing an arm. He caught it before she could deliver a blow to his neck. He pulled her arms as far away from each other as he could. Their faces were inches apart, but still they shouted.

“I can die and die. Why can’t you? What’s wrong? All of you given up to Nightsheet?”

“Death, death-the Reaper Man.”

“Reaper, Nightsheet-all one. We’ve beat him and can keep doing it.”

“No!” She tried to squirm free from the grip of his legs. Her thighs slipped between his, then held fast.

“Don’t make me, Death Angel. Don’t make me-”

“No!” She kicked her legs about, but he tightened his thighs against hers and wrapped his legs around her calves. She moved against him, rubbing against him, trying to wriggle loose. Her head swung at him, lashing him with her hair.

Death Angel stop! Something’s going wrong. I want you to stop struggling but I don’t.

“Virgil. Please. Kill me!” She twisted into him, running her flush skin against his. He held her tighter.

“I can’t kill you. I-I want-t-to-”

“Cut into me, Virgil!” She moved her legs under his, lashed him again with her hair.

“No!” he shouted. He released her legs, let go of her arms. She clung to his shoulders and wrapped her legs around his thighs.

“Please. Cut me deep, Virgil, so deep. I want you to stab into me. I want to feel your blood inside of me.”

He screamed a scream that sank into a powerful sob and clutched her to him. Death Angel moves madly against me and it’s so much what I want but how could I ever tell her when I didn’t even know my most hidden of secret codes. And she cracked it before I cracked hers. I move inside her and the room twists and grows dim and I and I and I see her here and what she’s done and I’ll show her what it’s like to trick me.

Baker grabbed her throat and squeezed. She stared at him, her eyes drifting and refocusing every few instants. “You won’t trick me again, Dee. I’ll tear you apart and rebuild you.”

I’ll be careful to kill you just enough so the boxdoc can save you, bitch. I won’t choke you to death death Death Angel make him let go!

She breaths deep and pulls closer, murmuring and stroking me. I smell her hair against me, wet with her. Nightsheet’s mistress huddles against me and wants me and takes me as I take her and and and I’ll punch her enough to make her think twice twice twice I’ve blacked out and she’s changed toward me. The dead man’s hurting her. Get him back. Get him down. Move faster. Ride away from him on the wings of Death Angel. Wrap me in your wings and take me away from dying and dying and dying dying dying, die die die die!

“Die die die die!” Every word was an angry thrust inside her. She gasped and whimpered.

Die die don’t die don’t Die Die don’t die don’t don’t-

“Don’t,” cried Virgil. “Don’t-” You make me die inside, Death Angel pretty Death Angel lovely Death Angel goddess of darkness and freedom from hurt and care and want and death most of all from death my life goddess my-mine, made you mine and I’m yours all yours my goddess.

Virgil shuddered and stopped moving. Delia held him close and let her tears wet his neck.