“Thirty seconds, Kinney. Any last regrets?”

It’s a test. They want me to blow it. I can’t fail so close. So close to the end.

“Twenty seconds.” Brennen suddenly shouted, “There’s an overload in Cell Three!” Virgil’s hand instantly jumped out and cut the power to the cell. “Good,” said Brennen. “That’s your last drill.”

Bastard.

“Goodbye, Kinney.” Brennen’s image remained amid the stars, watching.

“Goodbye, Virgil.” Something made Delia’s eyes glisten.

“Ten seconds,” the computer said, beginning a final countdown.

“Goodbye,” Virgil said.

“Eight.”

Delia’s face suddenly collapsed into anguish. “Virgil-I’ll be dead when you return!”

“Five.”

Virgil held his breath for a second. Her code, that’s her code. Why didn’t I crack it before?

He screamed. The scream took a fraction of a second to reach Brennen East.

“Two,” the computer continued.

“Cut him off!” Brennen shouted to someone at his side, taking a half-second to bark the order. Another near second passed, during which the order was heard and complied with, the cutoff message triggered and beamed at Circus Galacticus.

The message took less than a half-second to reach Circus Galacticus, by which time the starship had faded out of the three-dimensional universe. The beam continued on, unintercepted.

A half-second after Brennen realized his error, the dimming image of Virgil on his scrim shouted again.

“Delia!”

Virgil was gone.

Chapter Five

21 September, 2111

It’s too dark this time. I’m so cold. Please. I don’t want to go. Don’t call me. I’ve got to go back. Too long, this black corridor. I know I can walk it with you. Don’t make me. Please don’t pull me. Too long. I can’t join you just yet. Don’t try to show them to me. All dead, all gone. I float. Death Angel, bring me back to life.

“Death Angel?”

The sudden return of sound made him gasp. The ship looked as it had an instant before the transference. Machinery buzzed and chittered as before. Virgil sat trembling.

She’s back there. I found out what she wanted just as I-Stupid. She’s not back there. It’s over four years now. Another four years, if I return. Where would she be? Master Snoop would know of my return instantly. I wouldn’t have time to find her.

Unless.

Unless I use Wizard’s three big balls to hold off Nightsheet. Threaten them with a planet smasher.

Virgil’s hands untensed. He looked at his lap. Hollow bluff. I couldn’t blow her up. I’ve got to return somehow, though.

“Ben. Calculate an immediate return to our point of departure, making all adjustments for space motion and orbit to bring us close to Earth.”

If a machine could moan in terror, Virgil was certain he had just heard one from the computer. “Ben. Calculate an-”

“Didn’t know it would be like that.”

“Ben?” He twisted around to look at the wall terminal.

“Felt all circuits shutting down, wrapping up as garbage gets wrapped for transport.”

This is insane. “You can’t die-you’ve got no soul.”“Can think.”Virgil rubbed his face and held his head. Death Angel, you

let them give me a crazy Ben.

“Take me back to Earth!”

“Am programmed only to transfer according to the pre-arranged tour plan. You are given only a four light-day radius per transference for individual maneuvers.”

“Cancel that program.”

“It is integral in construction and cannot be defeated without a total system shutdown.”

Damn. He’s thought of everything. Maybe. “Ben-calculate a return to Earth in jumps of four light-days each, in as rapid a sequence as possible.”

“No.”

“What?” I’m arguing with a machine!

“Do not wish to go through that again.”

“You don’t wish?” He unstrapped and floated to the viewing port, snaking around the maze of control panels. The star system shone before him, Alpha Centauri A and B were the two bright points directly ahead of him at a distance of two light days; he could not locate Proxima Centauri. He gave the stars only a cursory glance, then drifted toward the terminal.

“Could you endure over three hundred ninety consecutive death illusions, one after the other, no rest?”

Virgil shrugged.

“Of course not,” the computer continued. “Your blood pressure rose fifteen millimeters just after we transferred. Your breathing went to twenty-five per minute. Your pulse increased to ninety-three. Dying takes a lot out of you.”

He’s right. To die and die and die and never stop living would drive me insane. He laughed. Insane. “So I’m stuck.”

“Continuing the tour, yes.”

Death Angel, where are you now? Never to see you again.

Dead when I return. A real death, cold and stony. “Calculate a transference to any habitable planet,” he whispered, “and initiate the run-through of your standard search procedure.” Virgil worked his way back into the command chair and strapped in.

The computer, after a silence of several minutes, spoke. “Have located two possible planets within the Huang critical surfaces. One orbits near Proxima, the other orbits B at a distance that would indicate a tropical climate if it were terran in nature.”

Death Angel how could you serve Nightsheet so well? Everything is dead for me.

“Preparing to transfer, though am reluctant. Interior planet stands best statistical chance for life. No neutrino flux to indicate a high level of civilization.”

Death Angel, you let Master Snoop trap me in this circus with no way to get back to you. Why? You saved me from the death of stillness in DuoLab now you give me a death of loneliness.

“Transferring now.”

Death Angel, give me a real death if I can’t have you. The corridor, yes. Take me down, angel of madness and terrifying joy, I’ll walk beside you into darkness. And light.

Jord Baker awoke in a strange place.

He struggled against the restraining straps, then sat very still, thinking. His body was too skinny, his hands too thin. Too white. He breathed. It sounded wrong.

“Transfer completed,” a mechanical voice said somewhere to his left. Finding the releases, he undid the belts and searched for a way out of the tangle of electronics around him. He located the switch that withdrew the equipment and floated to the viewing port.

Before him hung a white-clouded planet. Beyond its thin crescent glowed a star slightly redder than the sun. Far to port, a second star shone brightly, a disc almost visible. Baker spun around.

“Where am I?”

The computer did not answer. Baker searched around for the terminal. Before he could fly toward it, the computer made a pinging noise and asked, “What is your name?”

“Jord Baker,” he said slowly, then added with angry sarcasm, “What’s yours?”

“Initiate sequence Baker, per contingency program.”

“I said, where am I?”

“Hello, Jord,” a familiar voice said.

“Dee?”

“I’m speaking to you from the ship’s memory. You’re onboard Circus Galacticus bound for a grand tour of stars in the local group. I can’t go into details, but-as you can tell-you survived the fall from your flyer.”

Baker started to protest, but realized his error an instant later and merely floated before the port, watching the planet move slowly across his field of view.

Delia continued uninterrupted. “You’ll have to keep very calm through all this. You’ve been given a new body, in case you haven’t noticed, and some extra skills. We had a hard time saving your life, so you’ve got to hold on.

“You remember Circus from the time when it was supposed to be a nuclear-powered settlement ship? Well, you’re the only one onboard, now that it’s been converted to use the Valliardi Transfer. Remember your last test flight? It was successful enough for Brennen to try this stunt.