"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?"

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.

"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.