Angelmass

by Timothy Zahn

  “I’m starting to realize that,” Chandris said, accepting her tray.

  And then nearly dropping it as yet another horrible crack! snapped through the Gazelle, somewhere behind her head. Like the whole nurking ship was coming apart, over and over and over …

  Crack! “Nurk it,” she snarled, wincing at the bite she’d just taken out of her tongue. “Don’t those ever stop?”

  “Not as long as we’re near Angelmass,” Ornina said, stirring some sugar into her tea, “Just keep reminding yourself that they’re completely harmless.” She eyed Chandris over the top of her cup. “And be thankful you are hearing them,” she said, her voice going dark. “The only time you don’t hear gamma-ray sparks out here is when there’s something’s seriously wrong with your electronics.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Chandris muttered, more sarcastically than she’d meant to be. There was another crack—

  Settle down, nurk it, she snarled at herself, wondering what the hell was wrong with her. Less than half a day into this track and she was already ready to pop the cord on it.

  Or, rather, would have been ready if there’d been any way to do it. Out here, millions of kilometers from Seraph or anywhere else, there weren’t a lot of places to run.

  Was that what was bothering her? The fact that there was nowhere to run?

  “Sony about the food quality,” Ornina said.

  Chandris snapped out of her thoughts, realized she’d been picking idly at the pasty food on her tray. “It’s fine,” she said, trying a mouthful.

  “You’re too generous,” Ornina said dryly. “Unfortunately, the diet is another of those things you have to get used to out here. When you spot an angel there’s never enough time to get meals or drinks stowed away before you kill ship’s rotation and zip off after it. This cheap zero-gee stuff stays with the trays better than real food would—makes the cleanup afterward easier.”

  “I understand,” Chandris said, taking another bite. It was still better than a lot of the meals she’d eaten in her lifetime. “How long before that happens? That we spot an angel, I mean?”

  “A few days,” Ornina said, digging into her own meal with an enthusiasm that belied her apology for it. Maybe she’d eaten worse in her lifetime, too. “Gabriel’s pay scale presupposes that it’ll take an average huntership four days out here to capture one.”

  Four days. Chandris felt her stomach tighten up at the thought. Eleven hours out here and already she was falling apart. And she was supposed to do three and a half more days of it? “What happens if you don’t find one in that time?” she asked, though she had a pretty good idea what the answer was going to be.

  She was right. “We stay until we do,” Ornina said around a mouthful of food. “Sometimes you hit an angel the first hour out of the net; other times you don’t find one for a week. It all evens out.”

  “I see,” Chandris murmured. With a sigh, she scooped another mouthful of the paste onto her spoon—

  And, abruptly, a wailing siren split the air.

  Chandris’s teeth spasmed down on the spoon, sending a jolt of pain through her jaw. “What—?”

  “Acceleration alarm,” Ornina snapped, already on her feet. She slapped the lid down on her cup and charged for the door. “Come on—we’ve got one.”

  The Gazelle’s rotation was gone by the time they reached the control cabin. “Strap in,” Hanan barked over his shoulder as Chandris got a grip on her chair and jammed her butt ungracefully down into it Ornina, with farther to go to her own seat, was already strapped in. “Here we go—”

  The Gazelle’s engines roared, and Chandris had to struggle for a second to get the last strap fastened. Swinging her display over in front of her, she keyed for an echo of Ornina’s board. “What do you want me to do?” she called over the engine noise.

  “Get on the backup tracker,” Ornina said, her voice taut. “I’ll figure the vector—you double-check me.”

  “Right.” Another gamma-ray crack flashed momentary white on Chandris’s display; this time, she hardly noticed it On the main display was what looked like a blizzard of white, with hundreds of computer-calculated spirals superimposed on top of it. And in the very center, its trace still being drawn …

  “Got it,” she muttered under her breath. The procedure, memorized from the Gazelle’s manuals, was clear enough in her mind. But her fingers were inexperienced, and she found herself fumbling at the keyboard. Sweating, she tried to keep up with Ornina.

  Abruptly, the engines cut back, and Chandris’s ribs were squeezed against the side of her seat as the Gazelle swung to the right. “Losing charge fast,” Ornina said tightly. “Neutral in maybe fifteen seconds.”

  “Almost there,” Hanan told her. “Chandris?”

  “I’m on it,” Chandris called back. An arrow had appeared at the growing end of the angel’s spiral now, its direction constantly changing even as the spiral began to both fade and straighten out. A pseudo cloud-chamber effect, the manual had called this, with ultra-sensitive detectors utilizing Angelmass’s own particle radiation as background; but Chandris didn’t have to understand it to know what it meant. The angel was picking up lots of other particles, losing the electrical charge that made it detectable. If that happened before they could figure out its final direction, they would lose it.

  “Scoop’s ready,” Hanan said. “Timer?”

  “Five seconds,” Ornina told him. “Four, three, two, one—”

  The trace, a straight line now, disappeared from Chandris’s display.

  “—neutral.”

  “Right,” Hanan muttered. “Scooping now.”

  Chandris listened hard, but the only sound she could hear was the hum of the magnetic field generators and the cracks of gamma-ray sparks. “What happens if we don’t get it on the first try?” she asked. “Is there any way to get a second shot at it?”

  “Not usually,” Ornina said, hunched tautly over her board. “Between the tidal forces, gravity, and the solar wind, most neutralized angels eventually end up falling back into Angelmass.”

  Beside her, Hanan straightened up. “Did we get it?” Chandris asked.

  “Don’t know,” he said. “We scooped about a hundred meters along its last trajectory, but with all the other particles and radiation out there for it to have scattered off of there’s no guarantee it was still there.”

  “We picked up just under four micrograms of material in the scoop,” Ornina added, turning to face Chandris. “The analyzer is running through all of it now. If the angel’s in there—”

  She was interrupted by a sudden two-toned beep from her board. “There’ll be a beep,” Hanan finished for her as Ornina spun back around. “Something like that one.” He smiled at Chandris, some of the lines in his face smoothing out as he did so. “We have it?”

  “We have it,” Ornina confirmed, undoing her straps. “If you want to come down with me, Chandris,” she added as she floated free of the chair, “I’ll show you how to extract it from the collection bin and stow it in a storage box for transport.”

  “Thanks, but I think I’ll save that for next time,” Chandris said, unfastening her own straps. “Someone ought to head back to the kitchen and clean up what’s left of our dinner.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Hanan told her.

  “No,” Ornina agreed, pausing at the control cabin door. “We can tackle that together later.”

  “I insist,” Chandris said firmly. “I haven’t been a lot of help to you so far. The least I can do is a little manual labor.”

  Ornina glanced at Hanan, shrugged. “Okay,” she said. “See you later.”

  It would have been extremely useful, Chandris thought regretfully as she left the control cabin, to see the actual procedure used for storing these angels. But in this case it was a luxury she couldn’t afford. Back on the Xirrus she’d always assumed she’d have at least a couple of days to worm through whatever security they had around the angel and score it. But with Seraph only a
couple of hours away by catapult, her first and only chance was going to be right now.

  She bypassed the kitchen, heading instead down the corridor to a small room the floorplans had identified as a machine shop. It took only a minute to find a multiscrewdriver and small wrench and slip them down her coveralls. However the angel box was set up, those two tools ought to be enough to get into it.

  And if they weren’t …

  For a long moment she stared at the small cutting torch, a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. She’d used a similar one once before, and knew it made a good weapon. But for some reason …

  The sudden roar of the Gazelle’s engines startled her out of her thoughts. “Nurk,” she muttered to herself, grabbing the torch and stuffing it into her coveralls with the other tools. There were, she knew, two ways to approach the angel collection section at the Gazelle’s underside. Acting on the assumption that Ornina would have taken the most direct route from the control cabin, Chandris went the other, longer way.

  She approached cautiously, alert for sounds. But the entire section seemed to be deserted. A good sign; it implied that the storage procedure was a simple one.

  Of course, if Ornina had headed to the kitchen afterwards instead of back to the control cabin … Impatiently, Chandris shook the thought out of her mind. In two hours it wouldn’t matter in the slightest what the Daviees thought of her.

  The collection bin was right where the floorplans had put it: a massive and oddly complicated looking thing built into one of the inner walls of the storeroom. Digging the tools out of her coveralls, she laid them on the floor and started looking for the best way in.

  “It won’t do you any good, you know.”

  Chandris spun around, the sudden movement in the Gazelle’s low gravity throwing her off balance and dropping her to one knee. Her hand lanced out blindly to snatch up the torch.

  They were there: Hanan and Ornina both, standing just inside the door. “Stay back,” Chandris ordered.

  “All right,” Hanan said calmly, showing her his empty hands. “Don’t be afraid. We’re not going to hurt you.”

  “I’m not afraid,” Chandris gritted. “If anyone’s going to get hurt, it’s going to be you two.”

  Hanan nodded. “We understand.” He gestured toward the box behind her. “Ornina’s right, though. Taking the angel won’t gain you anything.”

  “I’ll worry about that, if you don’t mind,” Chandris said, stomach beginning to churn as she tried to figure out what the hell she was going to do now. Disassembling the angel box while trying to hold them both at bay would be well-nigh impossible.

  The box, hell. How was she supposed to bring the damn ship back to Seraph by herself?

  They were still just standing there. Still just watching her. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she told them, feeling sweat collecting on her forehead. “All I want is the angel.”

  “And what are you going to do with it?” Ornina asked.

  Chandris glared at her. “Don’t play stupid,” she snarled. “I’m going to sell it, of course.”

  “To whom?”

  Chandris opened her mouth … closed it again. “I’ll find someone.”

  “No,” Hanan shook his head. “There aren’t any fences for stolen angels, Chandris. No fences, no black markets—no unofficial markets at all, for that matter. The only people who buy angels are the Gabriel Corporation; and even they don’t give out real money for them. All we get is a credit line against goods and services, and it’s good only on Seraph.”

  The torch in her hand seemed to be growing heavier; with an effort, Chandris kept it pointed at them. “Then I suppose I’ll have to take your ship,” she growled.

  Hanan cocked an eyebrow. “Having never flown one before?” he asked pointedly.

  “Who says I’ve never flown before?”

  He sighed. “Come on, Chandris. We may come across as hopelessly naive, but we’re not stupid. We’re perfectly aware that you’ve been lying ever since you came aboard last night. If you’d really gone through a spaceship training course you’d have known far more about Angelmass and black holes in general than you do.”

  “And,” Ornina added, “you wouldn’t have arrived on Seraph as a stowaway.”

  An invisible cord seemed to knot itself around Chandris’s throat. “What are you talking about?”

  “We’re talking about Chandris Lalasha,” Ornina said. “Who boarded the spaceliner Xirrus at Uhuru and disappeared, and was subsequently identified as a female stowaway caught in the upper-class section, who escaped from custody at the Magasca spaceport.”

  “Leaving a whole bunch of security types looking like idiots,” Hanan added with a grin.

  Chandris felt cold all over. They knew. And if they’d called for help before coming down here … “When did you find out?”

  “The news report came through yesterday afternoon,” Ornina said gently. “It included several pictures.”

  For a long moment the only sounds in the room were the muffled roar of the engines and the thudding of Chandris’s own heart. “You’re lying,” she managed at last. “You didn’t know. You couldn’t have.”

  “Why not?” Ornina asked.

  “Because if you had you wouldn’t have let me anywhere near your ship,” Chandris retorted. “You’d have called the police and I’d be sitting in a cell.”

  Ornina shrugged. “Which is more or less why we didn’t call them. Because you’d have wound up in a cell.”

  Chandris snorted. “Save your sympathy. I’ve been in cells before, plenty of them. They’ve never hurt me yet.”

  “Maybe.” Omina’s eyes were steady on her. “But they don’t seem to have helped you much, either.”

  Chandris looked back and forth between them, survival instincts battling with an inexplicable rush of personal pride. If the Daviees really had known who she was last night, then they were a lot softer than she’d first thought. She could switch back to the poor, helpless, victimized little girl role; play for sympathy—

  The pride won out. “And I suppose you thought you could do better?” she snarled. “Well, do me a favor and don’t bother. Even Barrio food goes down easier than charity.”

  For the first time Ornina’s face hardened. “I suggest you lose that word right now, girl,” she said tartly. “Charity means giving things away for free, and that is the absolute last thing you’re going to find here. Flying and maintaining a huntership takes hard work, and lots of it. If you decide to stay you’re jolly well going to pull your weight.”

  Chandris glared back at her … and then, abruptly, the words registered. The words, and the offer behind them. “What are you talking about?” she demanded uneasily.

  “We’re talking about offering you a job,” Hanan said. “Unless, of course, you’d rather keep running.”

  Chandris stared at him, a creepy sensation crawling up her back. There was a trap here—there had to be. “Why?” she asked, stalling for time.

  “Why not?” Hanan countered. “You’re a fast learner, you have a terrific memory for details, and you’re obviously willing to put a lot of effort into getting what you want.”

  Chandris threw a quick look over her shoulder, half expecting to see someone there sneaking up on her. But there was nothing but a blank wall. “You called someone,” she accused them. “You’ve got a police ship or something coming alongside.”

  Ornina shook her head. “We haven’t called anyone. No one knows about you but us.” Her gaze dropped briefly to Chandris’s hand. “So I guess you’ve got a decision to make.”

  Chandris looked down at the torch. There was a trap here. Somewhere. “What if I say no?”

  “Well, it cuts down a bit on the number of possible choices,” Hanan said. “All you’ll have to decide then is whether to kill us and try to fly this tub yourself, or else let us fly you back to Seraph and start running again.”

  “And of course you promise not to turn me in,” Chandris spat, even as her stomach g
ave an extra twist. That was the second time Hanan had specifically mentioned running. Did they know more about her than they were letting on? “I’ve heard that before, too.”

  Ornina seemed to pull herself up to her full height. “Well, then, maybe this will make the decision easier.” Extending her hand, she started forward.

  She got three steps before Chandris shook off the sheer unexpectedness of it. “Hold it!” she snapped, jerking the torch for emphasis. “Go back or I’ll burn you. I mean it!”

  Ornina didn’t even break stride. “It’s all right,” she said, her voice soothing. “We’re not going to hurt you. And you don’t really want to hurt us.”

  “Stay there,” Chandris ordered … but even to her own ears the words sounded more like a plea than a command. “Stay there or I’ll kill you. I swear I’ll kill you.”

  “You’re not a killer,” Ornina told her firmly. Reaching out, she took the torch from Chandris’s suddenly nerveless fingers.

  Chandris took a shuddering breath, an empty feeling twisting her stomach. So it was over … and now when it was too late, she saw the trap. Something in the room—gas or drug or hypnot—had drained her of her will and strength. All that talk had just been them stalling, just like she’d thought, until it could take effect. “So what happens now?” she asked bitterly. “You drop me off at the big spider, or do I get to be strapped to my bed all the way to Seraph?”

  Hanan rolled his eyes theatrically. “Why,” he asked the ceiling, “does this always have to be so complicated?” He lowered his gaze to Chandris. “I’d like to feel we’re at least making some progress. Can we assume that you’ve scratched the option of killing us and stealing the Gazelle?”

  “You’re real funny,” Chandris snarled.

  “Thank you,” Hanan said, tilting his head in a slight bow. “I’m also tired and extremely hungry. Could we please try and get this settled?”

  Chandris stared at him. Looked at Ornina. Back at Hanan. “You mean it,” she said, her voice sounding distant in her ears. “You really mean it”