The Jehovah Contract

Nothing.

A muffled voice from behind the payload area hatch hollered in bewilderment. The hatch hissed open. A disoriented Canfield-still wearing his coveralls-pulled himself into the cockpit.

'I must've blacked out. I'm-hey! How did we get into orbit? Whenwho's that?'

'A stowaway,' I said, unstrapping myself. 'Leave him there and use my seat.' I floated back to the economy section. At least the events of the last few minutes had distracted my stomach. I was almost getting used to the perpetual sensation of dropping. I unstrapped Isadora and slipped between her and the seat. Strapping us both in securely proved to be a difficult feat in free fall.

Canfield glanced ruefully at the flight suit Zacharias had expropriated. He strapped himself in and made contact with Flight Control.

'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