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face was all innocence, the face of a lovely girl-child, softness and light and wide amber eyes and honeyed hair that moved sinuously in free-fall. But her body was a woman’s, smooth and slim and perfect; a toy woman fashioned on a smaller scale.
    “Brand,” she said, as she hovered above his sleep-web. “Will you show me the fast-friends today?”
    He smiled up at her, his dreams fading. “Yes, angel,” he said. “Yes, today, I’m sure of it. Now come to me.”
    But she moved back when he reached for her, coy, teasing. Her blush was a creeping tide of gold, and her hair danced in silken swirls. “Oh, Brand,” she said. Then, as he cursed and reached to unsnap his web, she giggled at him and pouted. “You can’t have me,” she said, in her child’s voice. “I’m too little.”
    Brand laughed, grabbed a nearby handbar to pull himself free of the web, then whipped himself around it toward the angel. He was good in free-fall, Brand; he’d had ten years of practice. But the angel had wings.
    They flowed and rippled as she darted to one side, just beyond his reach. He twisted around in midair, so he hit the wall with his legs. Then, immediately, he kicked off again. The angel giggled and brushed him with her wings as he flew by. Brand hit the ceiling with a thump and groaned.
    “Ooo,” she said. “Brand, are you hurt?” And she was at his side, her wings beating quickly.
    He grinned and put his arms around her. “No,” he said, “but I’ve got you. Since when is my angel a tease, eh?”
    “Oh, Brand,” she said. “I’m sorry. I was only playing. I was gonna come to you.” She was trying to look hurt, but despite her best efforts, a tiny smile escaped the corner of her mouth.
    He pulled her to him, hard, and pressed her strange coolness against his own heat. This time there was no reluctance. Her delicate hands went behind him, to hold him tight while he kissed her.
    Floating, nude, they joined, and Brand felt the soft caress of wings.
* * *
    When they were finished, Brand went to his locker to dress. The angel hovered nearby, her wings barely moving, her small breasts still flushed with gold.
    “You’re so
pretty
,” she told him, as he pulled on a dull black coverall. “Why do you hide, Brand? Why can’t you stay like me, so I can see you?”
    “A human thing, angel,” he said, hardly listening to her chatter. He’d heard it all before. His boots made a metallic click as they pulled him to the floor.
    “You’re beautiful, Brand,” the angel murmured, but he only nodded at her. Only angels said that of him. Brand was close to thirty, but he looked older; lines on a wide forehead, thin lips set in a too-characteristic frown, dark eyes under heavy eyebrows, and hair that curled tight against his scalp in sculptured ringlets.
    When he was dressed, he paused briefly, then opened a lockbox welded to the locker wall. Inside was his pendant. He took it out and stared. The disc filled his hand, a coolness of polished black crystal with a myriad of tiny silver flakes locked within. The pale silver chain it hung from curled up and away, and floated in the air like a metal snake.
    He remembered then how it had been, in the old days, under gravity. The chain was heavy then, and the crystal stone had a solid heft to it. Yet he’d worn it always, as Melissa had worn its twin. And he wanted to wear it now, but it was such a nuisance in free-fall. Without weight, it refused to hang neatly around his neck; instead it bobbed about constantly.
    Finally, sighing, he slipped the chain over his head, pulled the crystal tight against his neck, then twisted the chain and doubled it over again and again. When he was finished the stone was secure, now more a choker than a pendant. It was uncomfortable. But it was the best he could do.
    The angel watched him in silence, trembling a little. She’d seen him handle the black crystal before. Sometimes he’d sit in his sleep-web for hours, the stone floating above him.