Angelmass

CHAPTER 27

The Seraph catapult had called in the report while the Gazelle was on its way down, with the result that an ambulance was already waiting when Chandris set the ship down on the landing strip. An ambulance, and a dozen reporters.

"Uh-oh," Kosta muttered under his breath as he eyed the latter group.

"What?" Chandris growled as the ship rolled to a stop. She'd mentioned earlier that this was the first time she'd ever landed the Gazelle on her own; but if she'd found the prospect daunting, Kosta hadn't been able to see it in her face during the approach. Then, as now, her single-minded obsession with Hanan's condition had left no room for anything as trivial as nervousness.

"Those reporters," Kosta said. "The High Senator didn't want anyone knowing he was here."

"Nurk the High Senator," Chandris said shortly, releasing her restraints. "Stay here and watch things—I'm going to open the hatchway."

She all but ran to the door, nearly bowling Forsythe over as he stepped into the control room. A

muttered word that might have been an apology, and she was gone.

"How is Hanan?" Kosta asked.

"Not good," Forsythe said, walking over to Chandris's vacated seat and sitting down. He looked tired. "He doesn't seem to be in any immediate danger, though."

"Any idea what's wrong?"

"Some kind of neural feedback through his exobraces, I assume. Beyond that, I haven't a clue."

Kosta nodded soberly. "I know the feeling. Oh, your cyl's still there in the comm panel. Thank you."

"No problem," Forsythe said, pulling it out and dropping it into his pocket. "You have no idea what's causing these surges, do you?"

Kosta shook his head. "What happened out there is theoretically impossible. At least, by any theory I've ever heard." He threw Forsythe a sideways look. "And it's getting worse."

The High Senator was gazing at the hatchway display and the medics busily preparing their equipment. "You're saying the surges are getting stronger?"

"I meant the whole thing is getting worse theoretically," Kosta said, wondering if he should be telling Forsythe this. The numbers he'd pulled were still highly preliminary, particularly given that they'd been recorded in the middle of that surge.

But if they were right... "You remember when we saw the Hova's Skyarcher I said that it must have gone pretty deep toward Angelmass to have gotten that much radiation damage?"

Forsythe nodded. "Hanan agreed with you."

"Right," Kosta said. "I've pulled the records from the Gazelles inertial navigational system and compared them to the position data from Angelmass Central's beacons. There's a definite discrepancy between the two."

"So the inertial data is wrong."

"I wish it was that simple," Kosta said. "The problem is that during the surge the beacons show us moving closer to Angelmass while the inertial system shows us moving away from it. A drive misfire wouldn't have done that. Neither would the maneuvering jets or the solar wind."

"Which leaves what?"

"Only one thing I can think of. Gravity."

Forsythe frowned. "I don't follow."

"I'm not sure I do, either," Kosta admitted. "But it's the only scenario I've come up with that fits the data. The small test masses in the inertial nav system would respond much faster to a sudden increase in Angelmass's gravitational attraction than the Gazelle itself. And since the test mass movement would be inward, the system would interpret it as an acceleration away from Angelmass."

Forsythe gazed hard at him. "You realize what you're saying?"

Kosta nodded, meeting the other's eyes with an effort. "That the radiation surge was accompanied by a similar surge in gravitational attraction."

"Which I presume is theoretically impossible?"

Kosta nodded again. "Extremely so."

Forsythe held Kosta's eyes another moment, then turned back to the hatchway display. Chandris and Ornina were visible there, standing helplessly back out of the way as the medics got Hanan's stretcher into the ambulance. "Is there any way to get independent evidence?"

"I think so," Kosta said. "If Angelmass's gravitational field was somehow being polarized toward the Gazelle, then the other hunterships operating around it should have registered a drop in gravity at their positions. Not a big one—the Gazelle didn't get all that much of a boost. But again, it'll show up as a discrepancy between their inertial systems and the beacons. And it ought to be measurable."

"Can you get copies of those records?"

"Yes, but not for a while," Kosta said. "Most of the hunterships will be staying out for at least a couple more days, and the Institute won't get their recordings until they return to Seraph."

Forsythe nodded slowly. "Perhaps Central can get them faster. They could contact the hunterships directly, pull copies of their data, and then laser it all back here."

"It won't hurt to ask, anyway," Kosta agreed.

"I'll see what the government center can do," Forsythe said. "You'll be at the Institute later?"

"Ah—yes," Kosta said, frowning. From the way the High Senator had talked earlier—for that matter, the whole reason he'd been aboard the Gazelle in the first place—

Forsythe might have been reading his mind. "There's no way I can keep my presence on Seraph a secret anymore," he told Kosta. "Aside from all this, I need to take Ronyon to the hospital and have him checked over."

Kosta felt a twinge of guilt. Preoccupied first with the Gazelle and then with Hanan, he'd completely forgotten Ronyon's near-collapse before all this had started. "Yes—Ronyon. How is he?"

"Resting in his cabin," Forsythe said. "He seems to have gotten over that panic attack, though that could just be the sedative Ornina gave him. I'll collect him and we'll get off."

Behind them, the door opened and Chandris walked in. "How is he?" Kosta asked her, glancing at the hatchway display in time to see the ambulance drive off.

"He's all right for now," she said tiredly. "Whether he's going to stay that way they don't know yet.

I've got to get the ship off the strip and back to the yard."

"I'll get out of your way, then," Forsythe said, standing up. He glanced at the hatchway display, now showing free of reporters, and moved toward the door. "Mr. Kosta, I'll contact you at the Institute."

He left, the control room door sliding shut behind him. "What was that all about?" Chandris asked as she began shutting down the Gazelle's systems.

"Something strange is happening with Angelmass," Kosta told her. "I don't think I should talk about it right now."

"Fine with me," Chandris said, her thoughts clearly elsewhere. "So you two are getting together later?"

Kosta opened his mouth... closed it again. It had been a perfectly casual question, asked in a perfectly casual way. But this was Chandris, and he was slowly learning that with Chandris you always had to look beneath the surface. And in this case, below the surface meant—"You still gunning for that angel?"

She turned to look at him, her eyes suddenly hard and cold and far older than they had any right to be. "Don't get in my way, Kosta," she said quietly. "I mean that."

"Stealing Forsythe's angel isn't going to solve anything," he said. "All it'll do is get you in trouble."

"Only if I get caught," she countered. "Anyway, why do you care if I get in trouble?"

"I don't know," he shot back. "Probably because you'll drag Hanan and Ornina down with you, and I don't want them getting hurt. That's not why I'm here."

For a long moment Chandris just looked at him, an unreadable expression on her face. "Look," she said at last. "They need money. Desperately. What do you expect me to do, just sit around and watch them go under?"

"Of course not," Kosta said. "But there has to be some other way to raise money than by stealing Forsythe's angel."

"How?" Chandris demanded. "Sell something? Look around you—they haven't got anything of value. Except—never mind."

"Except what?" Kosta asked.

Her lip twisted in obvious annoyance with herself. "They've got a second angel stashed away in the storage room," she said. "But don't tell them I told you—no one's supposed to know about it."

Kosta frowned. "They've got a second angel? Why haven't they sold it?"

Chandris shrugged. "Maybe it helps them stay on good terms with each other. I asked you once whether angels could do that kind of thing, remember?"

Back when they'd first run into each other at the Institute. "Yes," Kosta murmured, his thoughts racing. A spare angel... "How long have they had it?"

"A couple of years at least. Maybe more. Why?"

Kosta shook his head. "Just curious."

From somewhere forward of them came a dull thud. "That's the tow car connecting up," Chandris said, turning back to her board. "You've got about two minutes to get off if you don't want to ride all the way back to the Yard."

Kosta shook himself out of this thoughts. "Right," he said, getting to his feet. "I'll be in touch."

"I'll be at the hospital later if you need me," she told him distractedly, her attention back on her work. Okay.

He paused at the door and looked back at her. A spare angel. A spare angel, moreover, that had spent a good deal of time since its capture in the vicinity of Angelmass. "Say hello to Hanan and Ornina for me," he added to Chandris before ducking out into the corridor.

Because there was a good chance he wouldn't make it anywhere near the hospital himself tonight. A

very good chance indeed.

The Gazelles service yard was dark when Kosta returned that night, in marked contrast to several nearby yards whose outside lights were blazing brightly as huntership crews worked to prepare for early-morning launches. The Gazelle itself was sealed, but that was no problem: on that first trip out, Ornina had given him the combination for the exterior lock.

Inside, it was even darker than the yard outside, with only the dim night panels giving a ghostly glow to the corridors. For a long moment Kosta stood just inside the hatchway, listening for sounds of life. But there was nothing. Obviously, Chandris and the Daviees were still at the hospital.

Alone or not, though, his training had been very specific on the proper procedures involved in breaking and entering. Slipping his shocker from his pocket, he adjusted it for a wide field of fire and got it nestled inconspicuously across his right palm with his thumb resting on the firing stud.

With the angel box he'd borrowed from the Institute in his other hand, he headed for the storage section at the bottom of the ship, wishing his heart wouldn't pound so loudly.

But the flowing adrenaline was all for nothing. He saw no one and heard nothing along the way, and he reached the storage room without incident. Here, as everywhere else, only the night panels were on, their faint light throwing dark fuzzy shadows everywhere. Lowering the angel box to the deck, he reached for the wall switch—

"Don't bother," Chandris said from his left.

—and even as he spun toward the voice a dazzling light flared to life in front of him.

He squeezed his eyes shut, automatically throwing his left arm up to protect his face from the glare.

"Chandris?" he called. "Come on, it's me. Jereko."

"I know," she said, her voice icy. "I was expecting you. I figured telling you about the Daviees's spare angel this afternoon would flush you out."

Kosta winced. He'd done it again. The great Pax spy, making a thorough mess of it.

And, naturally, making a mess of it because of Chandris. "I'm not here to steal the angel," he said, trying to keep his voice steady. "I just need to borrow it overnight to run some tests."

"What, the Institute's run out of angels?" she countered sarcastically.

"Theirs aren't any good for this," Kosta told her. "I need one that's spent a lot of time near Angelmass."

"They've all done that. That's where they come from, remember?"

"That's not what I mean," Kosta insisted. "Look, can't we sit down and talk about this?"

"Stay where you are," she said sharply. "I've got a cutting torch, and I'm not afraid to use it. You give me trouble and I'll slice you in half."

Kosta frowned at the shadow behind the light. "What in the world has gotten into you, Chandris?

Come on—you know me."

"Do I?" she demanded. "Or do I just know the role the Pax taught you to play for us?"

And there it was. The moment Kosta had been dreading ever since his ship and the cocoon had been blown out of the Komitadji's cargo hold into Empyreal space. "It's not a role," he said, a part of him marveling at his own unexpected calm. After all the worrying and nightmares, the actual event had become anticlimactic. "I really am a researcher. They just sort of maneuvered me into this job."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means they came by one day and hauled me out of school," Kosta told her. "Said they needed someone with my expertise to find out what the angels were and how they were affecting the people of the Empyrean. They said the angels were an alien invasion, and that if we didn't stop it both the Empyrean and the Pax would be taken over and destroyed. I guess they convinced me that I could keep that from happening." He shrugged uncomfortably. "Maybe I convinced myself."

"You still believe that?" Chandris asked. "The invasion part, I mean?"

"I don't know," Kosta admitted. "A week ago I would have said no. Now... I don't know." He gestured to the angel box beside him. "That's why I need to borrow the Daviees' angel."

"Is this test of yours important?"

"Very important. Possibly even critical."

"Then why don't you just shoot me and take it?"

Kosta felt his stomach curl up inside him. He'd completely forgotten about the shocker pressed against his right palm. "I didn't think you could see it from there," he said between suddenly stiff lips.

"I know what it looks like when someone's palming something," Chandris said. "You haven't answered my question."

Kosta swallowed, his heart suddenly pounding in his ears. She was right, he realized. At this range, with the shocker still set for wide field, a single shot would take out the light, the cutting torch, and Chandris herself.

A simple, casual tap on the firing stud, and he would be free. He could take the angel, run his tests, then escape back across the Empyrean to Lorelei. There he could hide; and when the Komitadji returned he would be able to face them all with the knowledge that he had succeeded beyond all their expectations. Even Telthorst would have to wipe that smirk off his face then.

He squinted past the light, to where Chandris waited silently with her torch. A torch she could have fired, but didn't... and belatedly it dawned on him that she was running a test of her own here. A test just as critical as the one he had planned for the Daviees' angel.

"I didn't come to the Empyrean to kill people, Chandris," he said quietly as he set the safety on the shocker. Dropping the weapon on the floor, he kicked it her direction. "I came here to help."

For another minute the room was quiet. Then, to Kosta's surprise, the light dazzling his eyes went out. "The light switch is beside the door," Chandris said.

Kosta found it and flicked it on. Behind the light stand she'd rigged up, Chandris was standing by the storage room wall. There was no sign of any cutting torch. "What's this test you want to run?" she asked.

Kosta glanced down. The shocker was still lying on the deck where he'd kicked it. "I want to measure the angel's mass," he said, looking up again. "I think it may help us figure out what's happening to Angelmass."

"You mean with these surges?"

"The surges, and a theoretically impossible shift in its gravitational field," Kosta said. "That's what I was talking to High Senator Forsythe about after we landed."

"You know what's going on?"

"I've got an idea," Kosta said grimly. "I hope I'm wrong."

For a long moment she studied him. Then, abruptly, she nodded. "All right. But you have to promise the angel won't be damaged."

"There's no danger of that," Kosta assured her. "None of the tests I want to run will hurt it."

"And I have to be with the angel at all times." Reaching down, Chandris picked up the shocker.

"Here—put this away somewhere," she said, tossing it to Kosta.

He almost fumbled it in his surprise. "Don't you want to keep it?" he asked. "I mean, as a guarantee of my good behavior?"

She snorted. "Good behavior be nurked. If you think I'm going to risk getting caught with a Pax weapon on me, you're crazy." She brushed past him. "Come on—the angel's in a carrying case in my room. You've got three hours to do your tests."