Shax whimpered pitiably as the Brimstone accelerated to escape velocity. Ness held him close under the gel-webbing in sickbay, concerned that he was in so much pain.
"Sh, sh, it will be over soon. We'll be free of the gravity well in just a moment. Hold on, love. Just hold on." He held Shax tighter when he cried out. "My poor Shax. Hush. When this is done, when you're better, I promise there will be more in the way of… sexual relations. I know you've been frustrated with me, with how much I don't know. But I'll do better. I've started researching. Watching instructional videos."
He wasn't quite sure why he was talking, since Shax most likely couldn't hear him yet. The whimpers broke his heart, though. Talking made him feel as if he were doing something. "I'm just glad you're whole and living still. That you're safe now. You do stop my heart sometimes, the things you do. I love you so. I know you can't love me in return. That's all right. I don't need you t—"
"Of course I do," Shax whispered against his throat.
"Pardon?"
"Of course I love you, cupcake." Shax gasped and clung to him, shivering. "Why would I always try so hard to impress you if I didn't love you?"
"You…truly?"
"I thought it was obvious."
"But you never said it."
"Oh. Probably not." A hard shudder wracked Shax and his voice returned, slurred and weary. "Out of practice, I suppose."
"Most likely. Rest, love. I'll get you something for the pain once we're orbiting."
"Mmm."
Ness kissed his forehead gently. Shax probably wouldn't recall the conversation, but it still warmed all the chilled places inside Ness until he felt as if he carried a miniature sun inside him. Shax loved him. Even if he never said the words again, at least now his heart would know.
* * * *
A little over an hour later, the Brimstone had settled into orbit. Ness secured the webbing back in its wall slot and fussed over Shax with meds and blankets until he finally stopped shivering and drifted off to sleep. Even with pain meds making him groggy, he'd needed to see that his coat was safe before he gave up the fight against drooping eyes and drifted off.
Twinges of conscience aside, curiosity had seized Ness over what, exactly, was in the coat.
Shuffling footsteps sounded in the hall and the sickbay door slid open. Corny huffed in, straining under Verin's weight slung across his shoulders.
"Oh, dear. Is he all right?"
"Passed out cold. Think he's lost a good few buckets worth." Corny eased Verin down on the empty med unit with a huff. "Damn, he's heavy. I've carried steer weighed less than him."
"His bones are probably denser," Ness offered softly as he hooked Verin up to the auto diagnostics so the machine could start replacing fluids. "It's a demon thing."
"All those lights and beeps, those'll help him?"
"Yes. I know it's hard when you're not used to all the machines." Ness sighed and unwrapped the makeshift bandage so he could replace it with a nanite unit to repair Verin's poor knee. "I do hope you're here by choice."
"Yep. My decision. I think he's glad I'm here but mad at me for doing it."
"That sounds like Ver. Of course, he's angry most of the time."
"Demon of Impatience, yeah, I know. Not so much with me, though."
"Truly? Well. That's…something." Ness pulled more thermal blankets out of the supply closet and settled them over Verin. Frightening to see both of them like this, lying pale and still. Demons were bundles of energy, these two more than most. Sickbay was suddenly too quiet and oppressive. "Have some coffee with me?"
"Sounds good."
A few minutes later, they both sat on the landing looking out over the hold, mugs of coffee clutched in shaky hands.
"Don't take offense at the question," Corny said after a careful sip. "But did you do something awful to get tossed out of heaven?"
"I refused to kill demons."
"So they branded you a traitor?"
"Something of the sort. I won't kill. Disobedience isn't tolerated."
Corny nodded, staring out over the small sea of frogs. "Don't sound a bit right, somehow. Never did take to all that church stuff, myself."
"Yes, well, Shax agrees with you. Of course, his aversion to killing probably has more to do with the mess than any issue of conscience."
Corny laughed at that. The man smiled and laughed a lot, never loudly or in a mean way, just that soft, rumbling sound. Ness could understand how Verin might find that soothing. He had felt odd about having someone else on the ship, but he thought he could like this man.
And we've dragged him into an impossible situation.
"I'm sorry, if no one else has said it." Ness swung his feet over the edge of the platform, a gray weight of depression settling. "If you stay with us, we'll most likely not have the best life. Drifting from place to place with nowhere to dock."
Corny nudged him with an elbow. "Brisk up, son. You got yourself an amazing ship, good company, and a handsome lover. What's wrong with that?"
"I worry." Ness put his mug down and leaned against a railing pole. "That Shax's mind might be damaged from the continued concussions. That he won't be able to adapt if we never make it back to the correct time."
"Doesn't do to think about things that might not ever be. Just costs you sleep." Corny took another sip. "Has anyone thought about how you might get back?"
"Not yet. I've read everything in the instructions we received for shipping but it's not much help."
"Why don't you tell me, slowly, exactly how this time traveling thing happened."
Ness stared down at the frogs, trying to shove away the shame and anger at himself. Corny wanted an objective, factual recounting, not to listen to him whine. He took a slow breath and began with the acquisition of the frogs on Elistrus. Through the whole recitation from misguided water additions to tank failure to frog orgy to dark matter event, Corny sat like a stone, staring out at the tanks. Ness wondered if it was all too much and he had stopped listening.
Finally, when Ness wound down, Corny moved to take a sip of his cooling coffee. "I wonder…"
"What do you wonder?"
"What if it's like a circle?"
"I don't understand."
"Well, the way I figure, you got sent back a few hundred years because of frog seed spurted all over this machine."
Ness's face heated. "Um, yes."
"So that's the beginning of it, right? The end of it would be eggs hatching."
"Perhaps." He thought on it and it made a strange sort of sense, procreation to birth. "What are you suggesting? That we hatch frog eggs on the generator to see what happens?"
"Could work. And if it doesn't, are you worse off?"
"Only if we blow ourselves up, I suppose."
They waited until Shax and Verin were both awake and more or less lucid. Ness expected pointed arguments from Shax and an angry dismissal from Verin. He received neither.
"There is…a certain elegant if horrifying symmetry in that," Shax said softly from where he reclined on his med unit. Still pale and listless, at least his brain seemed to work properly.
"Hell, things can't get any worse, right?" Verin added from across the room.
"Ver, how many times have I asked you not to say that?"
"Fuck off."
Ness took courage in his two demon captains sounding themselves again. "Good. I've done some reading on the eggs and we need to do it soon. They're all due to hatch. Ms. Ivana says some have begun."
"I hate to bring this up, but we should be in transit when we try it. The Copernicus drive was running the last time." Shax rubbed at his temples with a sigh. "Recreating the initial experiment as closely as possible, yes? Though I draw the line at the whole being flung across the hold again. I want everyone secure this time."
Ness managed a little smile. There's my Shax. "Aye, Captain."
"Ver? That means—"
"Yeah, I get it, bonehead. Someone needs to get me back to the pilot's pod."
"At least you'll be safe there." Shax laid his head back, most likely at the end of his energy. "Ensign Angelus, see to it. Oh, and a kiss for luck first?"
Corny laughed from where he perched on Verin's med unit. "Best idea anyone's had all day." He leaned in to plant a thorough, scorching kiss on Verin's lips.
Ness gaped a moment at the open, shameless display and then turned to give a gentler kiss to Shax.
"You won't break me, sweetheart."
"I know. I promise we'll be more, ah, physical when you're better. We'll sound the alarms when we start, so please make sure you're netted in."
"Promise." Shax reached up to stroke his face. "Be careful. Please be careful."
"You might recall, whenever you promise me that, you get hurt. So I won't make that promise."
"Damn it, Ness."
"I'll come back to you," Ness whispered in his ear and nibbled the lobe. Oh, a shiver. He likes that. "I'll promise you that."
"Enough mushy shit. Let's get this done." With Corny acting as a crutch, Verin had managed to get out of bed, blanket wrapped around his shoulders. If Corny's hold on him was a bit tighter than necessary, no one mentioned it.
A few minutes later, with Rosa secured in her cargo netting and the Copernicus drive chugging along on a course to the outer rim of the system, Ness and Corny stood on the floor of the hold.
"How long do you reckon we have to get clear?"
"At least a minute. Plenty of time."
"Plenty of time for what? Putting our heads between our legs and kissing our asses goodbye?"
Ness blinked, trying to gauge whether Corny was angry or simply nervous. "There's more gel netting just beside Rosa. We'll secure ourselves there."
"Could've said that before."
"Sorry. You seem so comfortable with everything, with the ship, with Ms. Ivana, I forget what you wouldn't know."
"I knew a performer back in Chicago, called himself Elaine. Reminds me of Ms. Ivana. I liked him."
As always, the ship's computer was listening. "Oh, honey, it sounds serious. Was she beautiful?"
"Elaine?" Corny's smile turned wistful. "Yeah."
"I'll take it as a compliment then, Mr. Hot Cowboy."
Ness cleared his throat. "Quite. So, the eggs." He handed Corny a square piece of hard plas from stores. "Scoop them up with that. Carefully, please."
"You do know this'll probably kill the little tadpoles, right? From everything you said."
"Yes." Ness squeezed his eyes shut. "Yes. I hate this. It's horrible. Let's take as few as possible."
"Ness." Corny put a hand on his shoulder. "Let me do this. You've been through the mill and back again these past few weeks."
"I don't—"
"You're a good man with a good heart. Don't break it apurpose when the world'll try it's damndest to do it for you."
Ness swallowed hard, the unexpected kindness setting a lump in his throat. "Thank you."
"I don't have to turn any cranks or knobs?"
"No. Just the placement of frogs on the control panel on top activated it the first time."
"You get yourself over to that net thing so I know where I'm aiming to go." Corny rolled his shoulders and let out a hard breath. "Vaminos."
With a rising feeling of dread, Ness hurried over to the wall and put his hand on the grab bar for the netting. Corny, his smile long gone, stalked to the egg tank, opened the cover, and carefully scooped out a small sample. Moving slowly, he replaced the cover and moved to the dark matter generator's crate as if he walked on eggshells.
"This part on top with all the bumps and circles?"
"Yes, that's it."
Corny placed the eggs inside the crate. He stood there, staring down at his handiwork with a dark frown. "There's lights flashing."
The hum of the generator powering up reached Ness's ears. "Corny, get over here!"
"How do we know it's working?"
"Now, please! You need to move!"
Corny glanced over, and Ness's panic must have finally registered. He raced across the hold, the ever-increasing hum chasing him all the way. Ness reached out and yanked him close while he pulled the grab bar out for the netting.
"Down! Get down!"
The generator's hum became a shriek, a tortured protest over the crime against the laws of physics it was being forced to commit. Ness threw an arm around Corny and dragged him to the wall so they both crouched on the floor as he pulled the netting down with them and slammed the bar into its floor slot. The gel-net molded to them, holding them fast, just as the dark matter exploded.
Icy lead fingers invaded his body, reaching through him, taking him apart, pulling him into million-mile strings of atoms. He wasn't certain if the screams were his or Corny's or some terrible melding of their beings.
* * * *
Shax came back to himself in sickbay still. He patted his body here and there, uncertain if all the parts had come back with him, not that he was sure where he had been. Maybe being thrown across the hold the first time had been better. Having to endure the dark matter wave while conscious was just awful.
"Ver? You all right?"
A soft string of cussing came through the comm. Verin's gravelly voice shook as he answered, "Yeah. I'm…here."
"Oh, good. Here is good. Ness and Corny? Are they answering?"
Silence for a moment, then, "I got nothing. Fuck. It's not like I can make it down there to check." Another hesitation. "Shax? Damn it, do something!"
"All right, steady now. Don't blow your hydraulics all over the deck plates. I'm going down there."
"You can't even walk a straight line," Verin snapped.
"I don't have to. Crawling will do in a pinch."
As it turned out, he managed a staggering wobble through the corridors. His heart stayed lodged somewhere around his larynx with visions of carnage worming into his head. Ness…hell's depths, Ness, you better be in one piece.
Corny too, of course. The cowboy's demise would upset Verin terribly. In fact, a lost love for Verin had never come up before. There was no telling how he might react. Shax pulled his blanket closer on a shiver. It didn't bear thinking.
The door to the cargo hold opened for him as he limped toward it. An eerie quiet greeted him. Even the frogs had stopped making their revolting noises.
"Ness? You all right, cupcake?" Shax's tremulous call echoed in the silence. "Ness?"
He didn't see any mess, no blood spatters, no severed limbs. The remaining frog tanks appeared whole with their occupants intact. Shax couldn't be certain since he couldn't bring himself to look at them. Cargo netting had been pulled down in two places along the right wall. The one lump was too large—Corny's horse. The other…
"Ness!" Shax dropped the blanket and hurried down the steps as fast as his unsteady legs would take him, managing a slide and a stumbling fall at the bottom. He half scrambled, half crawled over the decking until he reached the smaller netted lump.
Hands shaking, terrified of what he might find, he hit the release on the netting and let it slide back up into its slot. Ness and Corny lay tangled together, clinging tight to each other as if the universe might otherwise fly apart.
It did fly apart. It just put itself back together.
"Ness? My love, my own…" Shax reached for him, needing to touch him, dreading the outcome. His heart sank. Ness was terribly cold. He lay so still. "Oh, no. No, sweetheart, don't do this to m—"
Ness's eyes snapped open. He let out a frantic gasp. With his next breath, he screamed.
Shax sat down hard as his heart restarted. "Well. This seems oddly familiar."
"Shax!" Ness stopped screaming, untangled from Corny, and flung himself at Shax. He pulled Shax into his lap, hands roaming everywhere as if he needed to make sure every inch was where it belonged. "I didn't…I'm so…"
"Sh, cupcake. It's all right. You're all right. I hope. Yes, that was fucking awful and I know now why you were so disturbed by it the first time."
"You're all right." Ness buried his face against Shax's neck, hot tears spilling over his skin. "Everything pulled apart. I was so sure you were…gone."
"We would've been gone together, at least."
"Don't say things like that," Ness choked out.
"Deep breath, my brave angel." Shax kissed his cheek. "Corny might need help, and we need to see where we are. Can we do that?"
Ness still shivered hard enough to rattle his teeth but he reached over and checked for Corny's pulse. "He's alive. I hope he's all right. Humans can be so fragile."
"Yes." Logistics of movement were just getting too complicated. "Um, hmm. Can you manage carrying him? I think I can make it on my own to the pod."
"I think so. Maybe."
"We'll go slow." Shax hit the comm on the way out of the hold. "Ver? They're both still with us. On our way up to you."
He got back a muffled sound that he refused to believe was a sob of relief, not from Ver. Never.
The journey was an agonizing shuffle up the stairs and through the corridors with lots of stops to rest, but they made it to the pilot's pod eventually. Shax pulled himself into his chair. Ness propped Corny against the wall next to Verin and then he curled up on the floor by Shax's feet, shaking.
My poor angel. I need to get you in bed and not for the fun stuff.
"System beacons?"
"All my boards went down in that dark matter shit storm. They're coming back up now."
Even though his head was threatening to split in half and roll off his shoulders, Shax put his hands to the boards and assisted in calling them back up. What he saw on his comm channels yanked a strangled sound from him that might have been a laugh under better conditions.
"Beacons! Hell's fires! Beacons!"
"Don't shout, shit for brains," Verin muttered. "Everyone feels like crap."
"Ivana, I can't focus on the readouts. What's the stamp on the perimeter beacons?"
"Nice to see you, too, Captain Imperious. Let's see. Date stamp reads 15.2.2265."
Shax drew in a shuddering breath. "Couldn't ask for much better. A week before we left. We just have to avoid ourselves this week and we'll be fine." He expected a snarky answer from his right, but Verin stared at the boards, his expression disturbingly vacant.
My crew's past done. I'm done. Enough is enough. "Well, it's a big galaxy. Shouldn't be a problem. Ivana, sweetie, we're going auto. I'd like to hold position between beacons…" He checked his boards, squinting through his pounding headache to make out the numbers. "1256 and 1258. Ness, sweetheart, I'll help Ver. You get Corny. We're all off duty until further notice."
He nearly fell with Verin down the two steps from the pilot pod, they were both so unsteady, but they all managed to hobble, shamble, and stumble to Verin's cabin. With Corny tucked into bed with Verin, Ness scooped Shax up without so much as a by your leave. He knew his angel's tight-jawed, glassy eyed expression now. What he had mistaken for anger a few days ago he now recognized as extreme distress. Freaked, as Verin so eloquently put it.
"Do me a favor, cupcake." He let his head rest in the crook of Ness's neck.
"Hmm."
"Stop thinking so hard. Just stop. You're making my head hurt. We're alive. We're back. I need you to knock it off."
"Sorry."
Okay, the stern talking-to didn't help. "Can we just rest, Ness? Please? You need to rest."
Pleading apparently was a better choice. Ness glanced down and kissed his jaw, some of the glacial ice melting. "I'm sorry, love. I don't…feel well. Not at all."
"I know. None of us do. But we will. Give it time."
Ness nodded, his stride more determined as they reached Shax's room. In the profound quiet of engine shutdown, they settled together, cocooned in blankets and Ness's soft wings. The ventilation hissed softly. An occasional thruster burst to keep them stationary punctuated the white noise in a distant rumble.
Heaven couldn't possibly have felt better than this.
* * * *
Four days later, Shax stood in front of his closet making vital sartorial choices. The brown suede trousers, close-fitting but non-threatening. The cream faux-silk shirt with its silver buttons, very upscale. The good brown riding boots, minimal buckles. The matching military-cut jacket with all its pockets, practical and professional.
"Shax? Will you be long?" Ness poked his head around the door, already dressed in his newest angel-cut shirt, blue for his eyes, and black leather for the rest. Dashing and slightly dangerous. He could get away with it since he wasn't the captain.
"Not terribly. Why?"
"The representative from the university called up again and wanted to know what the delay is."
"They can bloody well wait. I have a crew of walking wounded because of them. I'll deal with them when I'm damn good and ready." Big talk. He didn't intend to make them wait longer than necessary. They were holding the moneybags.
Two small gold hoops in the right ear, one in the left and the ruby stud and he called it good. A little dark around the eyes maybe, a little thinner than he should have been but he was still sexy as all hell. "Ensign Angelus, is everyone assembled?"
"Yes, Captain." Ness even managed a little smile. They'd been scarce lately.
"Into the fiduciary fray, then."
Ness and Corny both had screaming nightmares still. Being at the epicenter of a dark matter storm was apparently worse than being on the edges. Verin was perhaps quieter than usual but otherwise himself, and Shax? He had strange moments of disorientation where he thought various parts of his body were coming disconnected and he had trembling horrors if he was anywhere in the dark alone, but he wouldn't admit this to anyone. Certainly not Ness, who had suffered so much more.
He tucked his hand in the crook of Ness's elbow and closed his eyes as they strode through the cargo hold past the tanks of thrice-cursed frogs. He could look at frogs if he wanted to without shrieking. He just didn't want to.
The delegation from the university waited for them at the bottom of the loading ramp, three professor-looking types and two polished, bureaucratic types.
"Captain Goldner?"
"Yes. Mr. Teasely?" Shax shook the man's hand, his best negotiator smile in place. "You have my cargo manifest?"
"We do." Mr. Teasely's pinched little face looked as if he had been sucking alum soaked pickled lemons. "There are some disturbing irregularities…"
"I've explained it all in my report, sir."
"Yes. Your report." The pinched expression soured further. "I'm afraid we'll only be able to pay a fifth of the promised cargo fee since so much of the stock was lost in transit."
"Mr. Teasely." Shax kept his smile acid-etched in place, though he wanted to bite the man. "Your cargo needs to come with clearer warning labels. My crew suffered multiple injuries and dark matter trauma. They're still unable to function fully due to time dislocation effects and emotional anguish. I have a young man with us who, through circumstances beyond his control, has been forced to abandon his correct timeline. I would say a fifth payment is cause for refusal to deliver on my part."
One of the scientists, a gangly stork of a man with bug eyes, sniffed. "What would spacers possibly want with frogs and a Darkmat 3020?"
"Not much. Unless we want to do some more time traveling."
"Yes, Captain, about the time dislocation," the second professor type, this one more rotund with a white tonsure of hair, broke in. "You must give us some time with each of you. We have panels of researchers who must interview you individually."
"Oh, yes?" Shax's smile grew. "We have vid feeds that might be useful, too, and just all sorts of yummy computer data."
"Yes! Whatever you have. You must give us access."
"Dr. Schiffenhauer, please!" Mr. Teasely protested, probably smelling a financial trap.
"There is absolutely nothing that I must do, gentleman, except seek reparations for my crew and my damaged ship." Shax held up both hands when the scientists erupted in protests. "Gentlemen, please. I haven't refused. But it will cost you. Every quarter-hour of my crew's time, every byte of data, every minute of feed, we will be compensated for every last scrap of this vital information that nearly cost my crew's life and sanity."
"How much are you proposing?" Mr. Teasely asked in a tone that implied he would much rather cycle Shax out the airlock.
Shax held out a hand for the man's data pad and entered figures for each of the items he'd rattled off. With a genial smile, he handed the pad back.
"Captain Goldner! This is piracy!"
"Mr. Teasely, what part of 'demon-owned ship' was unclear to you?"
The university contingent fell to arguing in hissing whispers. There was a lot of arm waving and pointing fingers. Shax watched in fascination, wondering if the learned men would come to blows.
Sadly, no. Mr. Teasely turned back to him, his expression openly hostile. "The department has agreed to your demands, Captain, though I release the funds under protest."
Several hours later, Shax watched in satisfaction as the last of the damn frogs and their revolting progeny left his ship. The rounds of interviews had been exhausting and annoying. Verin had lost his temper at one point and had broken a conference table, but they hadn't charged him for it. The fact that he still needed a cane to walk might have excused his short fuse.
He nearly broke several scientists as well when they insisted that Corny had to stay "for further study."
"No," Verin had said with clouds of spark-filled steam puffing from his nostrils and his arm around Corny's waist. "Hell, no. A hundred million fuck no's."
A younger researcher, pretty with golden hair, had asked, "Mr. de Groot, are you under duress? We can protect you here."
"Don't need your sort of protection, ma'am, thank you," Corny told her with a chuckle. "And the only duress I've been under is not being able to find decent tobacco to roll a damn cigarette."
In the end, Shax's bank account fattened by three times what the original delivery fee had been, and even though Ivana declared that she had been violated by all the techs poking in her files, she closed the Brimstone up efficiently enough and got them moving out of dock.
As they moved through Jupiter sector space, heading back out-system, Shax sat his crew down in the kitchen for some cards and some idle net surfing.
"My dear crew mates, we are replete with cash. I believe we've earned a bit of a vacation, don't you?"
"Whatcha got in mind, genius?" Verin growled, his eyes on his poker hand.
"I've booked us a week at an exclusive resort on Opal. Six days of being pampered and overfed. Seven buffets, several spas, recreation of all sorts, and the nice young man at registration assures me that while there are beautiful exotic fish, he guarantees a frog-free experience. What does my brigand crew think?"
"Oh." Ness blinked at him with those bright blue eyes. "Are we allowed?"
"Course we're allowed, Twinkles. Paying customers. They wouldn't care if you were sentient swamp slime."
"Please tell me outer space doesn't have that," Corny drawled.
Shax declined to tell him about certain Aldeberan system swamps. "Good. Done then. We damn well deserve it."
Back in his cabin later, Shax finally had a chance to pull out his haul from the McLaren ranch. He reclined on the bunk with a micro-loupe to his eye while Ness sprawled on the floor with a reader. He was forever studying something or other these days.
"That's rather pretty. What is it?" Ness was leaning on one elbow, looking delicious in only his black leathers.
"Widow Cornell's diamond necklace. It is quite lovely and will be going in the very best pretties box." Shax held it up to the light, then set it aside to pick up his other acquisitions, one by one. "I also have her supposedly diamond bracelet. Pretty, but as much glass as diamond. This sapphire ring from the mayor's wife. It has an interesting flaw that looks like a hawk stooping. And a first-rate gold pocket watch." He held it up by the chain for Ness to see. "Inlaid with ivory and onyx."
"Oh, Shax. Please tell me that's not Mr. McLaren's."
"No, cupcake. It was the mayor's. There are things even I won't do." Shax shot him a wink. "But we can pretend it was and you can punish me for being a bad, bad little demon."
Ness flushed and ducked his head back to his reading. "I couldn't punish you for something you didn't do."
"Not seriously. As a game." Shax gave up trying to explain as he went back to assessing the relative value of his pretties. "Ness?"
"Hmm?"
"You do know I love you, don't you?"
Ness didn't look up, but a little smile twitched at his lips. "Yes. I know. You told me."
"Did I?"
"Yes. It was very sweet."
"Ah. Good. I'm quite sweet when I need to be." He didn't recall but since it was true, he didn't worry about the when and how. Oh, the face of the watch had a hidden catch. Under the face, the gears and springs sparkled. Gold even here, where no one could see. Spectacular. This one, he would keep as well.
"Shax?"
"Yes, my darling several times rescuer?"
"How do you feel about paddles?"
THE END