Demon

"That's it."

"Will do." He turned to Nova. "Can you reach them? Those blue outfits."

Nova fumbled with one of the suits until she had it unfolded. It was a light, slightly stiff blue jumpsuit without arms or legs. The carbon-filaments woven through tough plastic would stop any handgun bullet, and give some protection against heavier weapons and bomb fragments.

"What if you get hit in the head?" Nova asked.

"If we get into something, we'll put on those helmets, and the leggings, and the sleeves. Do you need any help with that?"

"I can manage." She lifted herself off the seat, and shoved her pants down around her ankles. The plane lurched to the right, and she looked outside anxiously. "What happened? What's the matter?"

"Nothing," Conal said, and coughed nervously. "Ah, I thought you'd put that on over your pants."

"Does it matter?" She pulled her shirt over her head. The plane only jumped a little that time.

"No, it doesn't matter," he said, and pulled the privacy curtain down from its little niche overhead.

He heard her long-suffering sigh. Then she jerked the bottom of the curtain and let it roll back up. He glanced at her and saw she was holding her clothes over the front of her body. Her eyes were blazing.

"Can I talk to you a minute? Is this okay? Am I decent?"

He gulped. "It's ... Nova, it's not enough."

She ran her fingers through her hair, then tugged at it in frustration.

"Okay. My mother told me about this but I just couldn't understand it, so maybe you can explain it. It's not that you don't like to look at me, is it."

"No, it's not that at all."

"That's what I can't understand. You make me feel ugly."

"I'm sorry." Jesus, where to start, how to explain? He wasn't even sure he could explain it to himself, much less to her. "Dammit, I get upset because I want you, and I can't have you. Seeing you gets me turned on, okay?"

"Okay! Okay! Great Mother, I don't know why you're so worried about getting turned on, but I'll go along with you. I'll cover up the places Robin told me to cover up. But I thought I was doing that now. So tell me, mister male man, what do I have to cover up?"

"You can throw all your clothes out the fucking window for all I care," Conal said, through clenched teeth. "It's your business, not mine."

"Oh, no, I wouldn't want to upset you. I wouldn't want to make you lose your precarious control of yourself. Mother, preserve me." She slammed the curtain back in place, then, a few seconds later, pulled it back up enough to look under it.

"There's one more thing. I didn't have a chance to pee before we took off. Do I have to wait till we land?"

Conal opened a compartment in the dash and handed her the oddly-shaped cup, pulled the vacuum hose from its slot.

"You hook the hose to this thing, then ... hold it to-"

"I can figure it out! I guess you'll want privacy for this, too."

"If you please."

Her reply was more growl than word, and she pulled the curtain down. Conal flew on, simmering, trying to ignore the sounds coming from the other side.

Seven years ago he might simply have gone mad. No telling what he might have done-what a temper he'd had! He'd learned a lot since then. The temper was still there. But it was tightly and permanently under control.

He went through the hard-learned routines to calm himself. When he was done, he felt foolish, as he usually did, for letting himself get so angry. She operated from her own logic, and by her lights he was being very silly.

Hell, he thought. By my own, too. He wished he hadn't allowed himself to get in a shouting match with her. She was right. Her nudity was no kind of assault on him.

He wished he could say those things as clearly as he could think them. But he knew from bitter experience that the words never quite came out right.

When she let the curtain back up she had her pants on over the flak suit. She had folded her shirt and stuffed it in back. She sat with her back straight and looked rigidly forward.

He made very sure he didn't laugh, though he wanted to. He felt a lot better. Now she was the foolish one. She didn't know how to turn off her anger, and that made him feel superior to her, which was a nice feeling. She was still so young.

So he solemnly pulled the curtain back down and quickly got into his own flak suit, and pulled his clothes on over it.

"You watch the radar while I take care of this stuff," he told her, as he opened the curtain again. She nodded and he turned and secured the netting over the loose cargo in back. When he turned back there was still nothing in the empty sky. They flew on, in silence.

In the next hour Cirocco got two signals from the radar. They were all excited the first time, though she had warned them not to be. And they quickly saw it was a solitary blimp. Cirocco veered away. Blimps hated anything to do with fire, and had been quite cool toward her for years after she imported the jets. Which was unfair, as her reason for doing so was to destroy the buzz bombs that had made the skies unsafe for lighter-than-air beings. But you couldn't argue with a blimp.

The second blip proved to be a solitary angel. Spirits rose for a moment, until it was clearly established that this one's wings were the wrong color. She turned off her engine and glided beside him for a few minutes. He was of the Dione Supra Flight. He seemed genuinely shocked that an angel was working for Pandemonium, and swore that his flight, section, and wing remained loyal to the Wizard.

So she attached a match to Snitch and it inspired him wonderfully. After another drop of grain alcohol he was able to talk again, and said the angel was below them now, and slightly behind. She radioed the new heading to Conal.

"Can I ask you something?" Nova said.

"Go right ahead."

It had taken her a long time to get that much out. Now that she had, she found it hard to go on.

Somehow, she had to make sense of this insane world, because she was stuck here for the rest of her life with Titanides and males. She could still feel the impact of Cirocco's palm on her cheek. She loved Cirocco, and Cirocco had hit her, and those two things had to be reconciled somehow, had to be worked out so that Cirocco would never find reason to hit her again. For that to be possible, she had to understand some things.

"What do you think Cirocco Jones meant when she told me I had to join the human race?" Having asked it, she relaxed a little. His answer wasn't going to mean much, she realized. It had been a silly idea to ask him in the first place. Perhaps her mother could explain it, when they had some time alone.

But he surprised her.

"I've been wondering the same thing," he said. "I guess she just didn't have time to say what she meant, so she said something to get your attention."

"So you don't know what she meant, either?"

"Oh, no, I didn't say that. I know what she meant." He frowned, and gave her a wry smile. "I just don't think I can explain it to you."

"Would you try?"

He looked at her for a long time. The look disturbed her.

"Why should I?" he finally said.

She sighed, and turned away. "I don't know," she said.

He shrugged. "I was asking myself. Why should I try to explain something to you, when every time I give you a friendly smile you look at me like I was a cootie bug? Don't you think I have feelings?"

It was just the sort of question Nova didn't want to think about. But not thinking about it had gotten her a slap in the face.

"You weren't thinking about my feelings a while ago."

"I admit I had an unfortunate lapse," he said. "You want to know what I'm going to do about that?" He looked at her again, and gri