Hallie stuck stars to the sky. Immense hands held up that great dark canopy, the universe hummed gently around her, she picked bright stars from a small bowl to lay them in orderly lines whose shape prophets, priests and lovers would spend thousands of years interpreting. She put up the last star and admired her work. One constellation drew up a golden lion, its mane a comet, a knife between bared teeth. Another a reptilian eye, the pupil vertical, in its center a cold star. Another was the World, or what Hallie assumed was the World: a perfect sphere, its volume sharply outlined by lines of stars. A hand reached out of it to grab yet another constellation: a jumble of stars Hallie realized with a shiver was a decapitated head, the eyes bulging, the tongue reaching out in a last panicked scream.

Next to it, a record player.

She pulled up the arm. It fell with a click. She woke up.

Jim was having trouble starting his lighter. Click. Click. Click. Finally, a small gasoline light blared out. He inhaled the smoke from his cigar and let it out. Smoking wasn't allowed on airplanes, but he was too nervous to care. Hallie saw his hand tremble slightly, and the other reach within his cloak - for a gun, perhaps.

"Sorry. I didn't sleep much last -"

"It's fine, Hal. Was about to wake you up. Something's wrong."

Hallie looked around, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Her and Jim were on a plane. Transatlantic flight. New York to London. Orders were to connect with the local branch once there. Nothing further. No expected disruptions on the trip. Just routine.

"What is, Jim?"

She cracked her neck. Jim jumped a bit. They had been partners for years, he had taught her all he knew, but that still weirded him out.

"Dunno exactly. The...hostess?"

"The hostess?"

"All of them. There are four. One is back in economy class," he said turning around to look at her "and the other three went in the pilot's cabin. The first to bring them lunch, which is fair enough. But that was one hour ago. Two went in too, to check after her maybe, and none have come out."

He took another drag.

"What do you think...?", Hallie asked.

Jim shrugged.

"Again, I don't know. Maybe one of the pilots is sick or something. But..."

"You don't like maybes."

"I don't like maybes."

"I'll check."

Jim nodded.

"I'll hold the fort here."

Hallie stepped out of her seat. Some passengers looked at her, curious. The last hostess walked up. Before she could speak, Hallie pulled out her badge. The hostess went pale.

"What's happening?" she asked.

"Nothing, hopefully. Where are your colleagues? Still in there?" Hallie answered, pointing towards the door with a movement of her head.

"We...oh, Lara brought the pilots lunch, Patty and Jess went to check on them and I was about to-"

"So you don't know?"

"No."

"Stay here. Keep the passengers calm, if needed."

The agent turned around and walked towards the pilot's cabin. She felt Jim's eyes on her back. One hand reached for her gun as the other reached for the cabin's door. She pulled it open. The pilots sat in their chairs. No signs of anything unusual. No hostesses in sight. Hallie called:

"Hey! Everything all right in there?"

No answer. The pilots didn't even register her presence. She looked back at Jim. He extinguished his cigar, stood up, walked into the aisle and gestured at her to go in. Hallie pulled out her gun, making sure the passengers couldn't see it, and advanced. On her first step inside the cabin the airplane nosedived.

She slid forward and crouched, barely avoiding the swing of a metallic food plate aimed at her head by someone waiting next to the door. Two people jumped on her, frail bodies armed with plastic cutlery and serving plates. More annoyed than threatened, Hallie shouldered one off and pinned the other to the ground with her knee. She stared into the face of a hostess. Her expression was completely blank, as if her face's muscles had forgotten they could move. Her eyes were completely white, and inside them scrolled, like the credits of a movie, words Hallie was too dumbfounded to read. She started clawing at Hallie's leg, and her head slowly started rotating as it detached from her neck. Cleanly, unnaturally, without any blood or even a clear sign of a cut. Hallie unloaded three shots in her face just as two more hostesses charged her and the plane curved further downwards. She heard Jim call her name. With one hand she stopped a plastic knife from plunging straight into her right eye, coming face to face with what had been Patty or Jess or Lara. She read one word clearly in her assailant's eyes: KILL.

She stopped fighting the airplane's tilt and let herself fall backwards towards the pilots, using her momentum to crush the hostess grabbing her from behind. Hallie pushed an elbow deep into her head and felt the skull break against the floor. The one with the plastic knife lost her footing and fell straight on the agent's gun. Four shots to the chest weren't enough. The agent guessed the head was what needed to be destroyed: she whacked the hostesses', which was rotating half a foot above her neck, with the barrel of her pistol. Her enemy relented for a second, so Hallie got on top of her and emptied her clip in her face. Jim stumbled inside the cabin as she reloaded. The plane went fully vertical. Screams came from the passengers. The pilot's heads were a full foot above their necks.

Hallie cursed and shot them both. Blood splattered on the cockpit. Jim screamed. She screamed. A soft hiss came into the cabin, instantly turning into a roar. A cobweb of cracks spread over the windshield. One or more of the bullets had hit it. The agents held onto the pilot's chairs as the windshield broke. Something grabbed Hallie from behind for just a second before letting go. In her unstable position, it was enough to make her lose her grip.

She fell backwards, catching a glimpse of the pilot which had pulled her back. One of her shots hadn't been straight on: it had cut off a part of the pilot's head and broken the skull, but she could see the brain under was mostly intact. Words still flowed in the blank eyes.

Hallie sunk into the sky. Hallie Phlebas, plunging towards certain death, forgot the mission and the orders, the plane with Jim, the Needle and the Golden Thread with which she was to stitch up the World. The wind embraced her. She thought of her brother and his two mismatched eyes, and of the Swiss chocolate she planned to buy once in Europe.