Angelmass

by Timothy Zahn

  Telthorst snorted. “You’re too kind, Commodore. No, I’ll be along for the invasion. If for no other reason than to make sure you don’t damage anything you don’t have to.”

  Lleshi was saved the need to reply by a chirp from his intercom. “Bodini here, Commodore. You wanted to be informed when the final scrubbing was finished on that last drop pod.”

  “Thank you, Ensign,” Lleshi said, getting to his feet. “I’m on my way.” He moved toward the door—

  “Commodore?”

  Lleshi half turned back. “Yes?”

  “Don’t forget to enter the order for the Komitadji’s course change.”

  Lleshi took a deep breath. “I won’t forget, Mr. Telthorst.”

  Not that, he promised silently as he strode from the room, nor the rest of this conversation. Not a single word of it.

  CHAPTER 14

  A thin trail of smoke curled its way up from the circuit board, tickling Chandris’s nose and sparking bittersweet memories of an electronics assembly shop she’d once tried to score. “Like this?” she asked.

  “Right,” Ornina said from behind her. “Make sure you get a good connection, then use the vac to get rid of the excess before it hardens.”

  Chandris nodded, biting gently on her lip as she concentrated on the task. She knew how the technique was supposed to go—Omina had just showed it to her—but it wasn’t as easy as it had looked. The end of the vac caught on the edge of the board, hissing its annoyance at her fumbling—

  “Take it easy,” Ornina soothed. “It’s one of those things your fingers have to learn on their own.”

  Biting down a little harder on her lip, Chandris tried again. This time she got it right. “That’s it,” Ornina said. “Now do the same thing with those other two and you’re done.”

  “Okay.” Chandris stretched her fingers out once and set to work. “It’s actually kind of fun, once you get the hang of it.”

  “I’ve always thought so,” Ornina agreed. “And it took me a good deal longer to get the hang of it, I can tell you. You’re an amazingly quick learner.”

  “I’ve got a good memory,” Chandris told her, easing the sealant wire against the proper component leg.

  “It’s more than just good,” Ornina said. “You remember everything you read or see, don’t you?”

  Chandris shrugged. “Pretty much.” She paused as a faint sound down the corridor caught her ear. “Someone’s coming,” she said, old reflexes tensing before she remembered she was supposed to be here.

  “Probably Hanan.” Ornina turned toward the door. “Hanan?—we’re back here,” she called.

  “Hi ho,” Hanan’s voice came back, and a minute later he poked his head into the room. “Hello, Chandris,” he said, smiling at her. “Ornina didn’t waste any time putting you to work, I see.”

  “Everything go okay?” Ornina asked.

  “Oh, sure,” Hanan said, an almost-smile playing around his lips as he crossed the room toward the repeater console. “No problems.”

  Ornina glanced at Chandris, back at Hanan. Perhaps she’d seen the smile, too. “What sort of ‘no problems'?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Just a second,” he said, keying the repeater and stepping aside. “I want you to take a look at this, Chandris. I’ve tapped into the vision control monitor from the main launch tower. See the ship there, the one just rolling onto the strip?”

  “Yes,” Chandris nodded. It was rather hard to miss: similar in design to the Gazelle, but considerably larger.

  “Here’s its responder profile,” he continued, indicating a small display below the larger one. “If you’re ever out at Angelmass and this thing comes along and tells you to veer off, you veer off. Right away, without argument. Understand?”

  “Okay,” Chandris said cautiously. “Why?”

  “Because it’s the Angelmass Studies Institute’s very own survey ship,” Hanan told her. “It goes out about once a month, packed to the clavicles with scientists and study gear, and it has absolute priority out there. Just something I thought you should know.”

  “Something else you should know,” Ornina put in darkly, “is that Hanan never lies—he just changes the subject when he doesn’t want to answer a question. What happened at Gabriel, Hanan?”

  Hanan looked at her with that wide-eyed innocent expression of his. “Whatever can you mean, sister dear?”

  Ornina’s mouth twisted sideways. “I mean that they were supposed to have some new trainees starting up soon in receiving. Can I assume one of them was on duty this morning?”

  Hanan looked at Chandris, the innocent expression turning slightly hurt. “I ask you, Chandris: did I say or do anything to deserve this?”

  Ornina folded her arms across her chest. “Quit stalling and spit it out,” she said, a glint in her eye. “What did you do?”

  Hanan spread his hands. “I just asked her to fill out my metals credit form, that’s all.”

  Ornina rolled her eyes skyward. “Hanan, what am I going to do with you?”

  “What’s a metals credit form?” Chandris asked, trying to read the atmosphere.

  “It’s a little official-looking paper Hanan likes to spring on new angel receivers,” Ornina said. “It allegedly requires Gabriel to analyze the spacedust material coating our angel, calculate how much of each element is represented, and then credit the total value to our account.”

  Something icy ran up Chandris’s spine. No. It couldn’t be. Hanan Daviee, certified open-faced soft touch, scoring a track? “What happened?” she said between suddenly stiff lips.

  “Nothing much,” he said, pulling over a chair and sitting down. “I had her running with it for about ten minutes, but then Carlie Sills wandered in and blew the whistle.”

  “What did you do?” Chandris asked.

  He shrugged. “I got my credit and left.”

  “But—” Chandris looked back and forth between them, totally lost now.

  Ornina frowned at her for a moment. Then her face cleared. “Oh, I see. It wasn’t any kind of con game, Chandris. Just a very low form of alleged humor called a practical joke.”

  Chandris blinked. “A practical joke?”

  “Uh-huh,” Hanan said. “Why, don’t they have practical jokes where you grew up?”

  “Oh, sure,” she told him, hearing an edge of bitterness creep into her voice. ‘Tripping people or half-poisoning them or setting fires. Most of the time it ends up in a knife fight.”

  “Good Lord,” Hanan breathed, looking shocked. “Those aren’t practical jokes. That’s just plain cruelty.”

  “Sending a new employee into a tizzy-fit isn’t?” Ornina put in.

  “Of course not,” Hanan said indignantly. “It’s an important object lesson.” He looked at Chandris. “You see, Chandris, this trick only works if the victim is too proud to admit he doesn’t know everything. Which is, when you think about it, the normal state of life in this universe. The minute he’s willing to admit to some ignorance and asks a supervisor— hey, the game’s over. It’s a valuable lesson in humility.”

  “If you want to disagree with him, feel free,” Ornina advised dryly. “I don’t buy any of it, myself. That stunt, in particular, deserves to be retired.”

  “You’re right,” Hanan agreed blandly. “I’m going to have to come up with something else. Most of the other receivers are still willing to play along, but I think the supervisors are getting tired of it.”

  “I should think so,” Ornina sniffed. “I never liked the ones that humiliate a single person, anyway.”

  “I’m not trying to humiliate anyone,” Hanan insisted.

  Ornina shrugged. “I’ll bet it looks that way from the other side.” She looked at Chandris. “Don’t worry—he was much worse when he was younger. He’s actually mellowed some with age.”

  “And I’m certainly not going to try pulling anything on you,” Hanan added. “Not after that reference to knife fights.”

  “That’s comforting,” Chandris m
urmured, still a little uncertain about the whole thing.

  “Anyway; back to work.” Hanan looked at his watch. “I stopped by Serhanabi’s on the way back, Ornina, and they’re not going to be able to get those conduyner coils for us for at least a week. It turns out that there are a pair across town at Khohl Supply, but they can’t deliver. If you can spare Chandris for an hour, she and I can go over and get them and I can start installing them this afternoon.”

  Something flashed across Ornina’s face, too quickly for Chandris to decipher. “Sure,” she said, her voice sounding a little odd. “I’m just showing her around the work areas.” She glanced at Chandris. “But wouldn’t it make more sense for you to stay here and start the prep work while she and I go to Khohl?”

  “Not really,” Hanan said, getting to his feet. “There’s nothing I can do until we have the underwrap in hand. Besides, don’t you still have some work to do on the Senamaec?”

  The look flickered again. “Yes,” Ornina said.

  “That’s settled, then.” Hanan looked at Chandris. “Let’s get out there before someone else beats us to them.”

  A vehicle that looked something like a sawed-off truck was sitting outside the gate. “TransTruck,” Hanan identified it as he opened the door for her. “Like a line car, but privately owned by Gabriel instead of being public. Button number four on the inlock phone if you ever need to call one.”

  Chandris nodded absently, her mind still back on Ornina. She’d seen that same look two nights ago, when they were offering her a job.

  “You all right?”

  She came to, realized with a start that they were already out of the service yard area “Sorry,” she muttered, annoyed with herself for getting distracted. “I was just … wondering.”

  “About that little scene just before we left?”

  She looked at him, a strange feeling curling her stomach. “Yes, actually.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he assured her. “That had nothing to do with you. Ornina’s just got this idea that I shouldn’t be lifting heavy objects like conduyner coils, that’s all.”

  Chandris looked over at him. At the ends of the exobraces sticking a couple of centimeters out of his shirt sleeves …

  “It’s a degenerative nerve disease,” he told her. His voice was very matter-of-fact, but Chandris could see a tightness around his mouth. “Hit me, oh, twenty-one years ago and has been wearing out my arms and legs ever since. Not at all contagious, I might add.”

  “I wasn’t worried,” Chandris said.

  “I know. Actually, it’s more nuisance than anything else, and you can see for yourself that it’s being dealt with. The exobrace system compensates for the muscular weakness and also reroutes most of the neural traffic to my hands and feet. Otherwise I wouldn’t have much control or feeling there.”

  “Can’t they do anything else? The doctors, I mean.”

  “Oh, there are probably some nerve implant things or some such. Waste of time and effort.”

  “And money?” she added without thinking.

  He cocked an eyebrow. “For someone who didn’t think she was worth hiring, you know, you’re pretty sharp.”

  Chandris bristled. “Who said I didn’t think—?”

  She broke off as it suddenly hit her. “You just changed the subject, didn’t you?”

  He grinned. “Well, I tried.” The grin faded, and he grew serious. “Gabriel treats its people more than fairly, Chandris, but this isn’t something they can be expected to deal with. Unlike your stereotypical giant corporation, they run their operation right at the edge of break-even.” He grinned again, briefly. “One of those wonderful balances you get when you work with angels. No matter how rare or valuable the things are, the people handling them don’t line their own pockets at everyone else’s expense.”

  “What about your extra angel?” Chandris asked. “Couldn’t you sell that?”

  He hesitated. Just a split second, but enough. “It wouldn’t be worth enough.”

  “I thought Ornina said you never lie.”

  He threw her a sideways look. “You are sharp, aren’t you? But that wasn’t a lie, just a—well, a creative phrasing of the truth.” He took a deep breath. “You see, Chandris, I’m the only family Ornina’s got left. She’s spent half her life taking care of me; first supporting me in school, then helping me adjust to my illness. Somehow, in all that, she never had the time or the money to have a family of her own.”

  And suddenly it clicked. “Is that why you invited me aboard the Gazelle?'’ Chandris demanded. “So she can pretend I’m her family?”

  “Does that bother you?”

  Chandris bit down on her lip. “I don’t know,” she had to admit.

  “She’s not really pretending, you know,” he said. “At least not in the sense that she’s deluding herself. But it gives her the chance to care for someone else. Someone who—well, never mind.”

  “Someone who desperately needs her?” Chandris finished for him, a slightly sour taste in her mouth.

  “Don’t be offended. If it helps any, you’re in much better shape than most of the others have been. You at least had a marketable skill, even if it was just stealing.”

  Another piece clicked into place. “So that’s why you need to keep the extra angel. Right? Because otherwise you might take someone aboard someday who’d knife you both in your sleep.”

  He shrugged. “Something like that Though of course we do try to screen our guests a shade better than that.”

  “The angel helps you there, too, I suppose?”

  “Actually, no,” he shook his head. “Angels don’t seem to do anything quite that active.” He grinned lopsidedly. ‘To tell you the truth, what’s helped most was all the practical jokes I used to pull when I was younger. You learn how to read people when you’re trying to rig a thimble on them. Don’t tell Ornina that, though.”

  “Yeah, well, if you ask me your practical jokes sound just like scoring a track,” Chandris told him. “Except that no one locks you up when you get caught.”

  “Actually, all the best jokes are ones where no one would have grounds to lock you up anyway,” Hanan said. “The kind where all you’re doing is—oh, I don’t know; putting a slight tilt on the universe. It’s hard to explain.”

  “So show me.”

  He frowned at her. “What?”

  “I said show me,” Chandris repeated.

  Hanan’s lips puckered. “All right. All right, I will. Let’s see …” He patted his pockets. “See what’s in that storage compartment,” he said, leaning over to study the floor.

  Chandris popped open the indicated door beside her knee. “Nothing but a map,” she reported. “Oh, and a couple of candy wrappers and a piece of string.”

  “Nothing useful on the floor,” Hanan grunted. He straightened up, a faraway look in his eyes, and for a minute was silent. “Okay,” he said abruptly. “Give me the string.”

  She dug it out from under the map. It was about thirty centimeters long, frayed at both ends, with splotches of a tarry-looking substance at various points along its length. “What are you going to do?” she asked, handing it over.

  “You’ll see.” For a moment he worked at it with his fingers … “Blast,” he muttered. “Here—can you make a little slipknot in it for me?”

  “Sure,” she said, taking it back and making the knot.

  “Thanks. Now watch carefully.”

  Easing the loop over his right ear, he pulled it tight and then stuck the free end into the right corner of his mouth. “How do I look?” he asked.

  “Ridiculous,” Chandris told him. “What happens now?”

  “The joke, of course.” Hanan peered out the windshield. “That’s Khohl Supply coming up now. Just play it cool and observe.”

  The TransTruck pulled to the curb and they got out. The front door opened as they approached and Hanan led the way inside. The young man at the counter, poring over a display screen, looked up. “Hello, sir,” he smi
led. His eyes flicked to the string, and for just a second the smile seemed to freeze in place. “Ah—what can I do for you?” he asked, his voice suddenly gone odd.

  “I understand you have some Ahandir conduyner coils in stock,” Hanan said. “I’d like to buy two of them.”

  “Ah—certainly,” the clerk said, bobbing his head once. His eyes flicked to the string again, turned resolutely away. “Let me check.”

  He bent over the display again; out of his sight, Hanan gave Chandris a wink. “Yes, we have some,” the clerk said, straightening again, his eyes flicking once again to the string. “You have a Gabriel credit line, I assume?”

  “Yes,” Hanan said, handing over a thin card. The other took it, dipped it briefly into the slot on his display— “I’m sorry. You said you wanted how many?”

  “Two,” Hanan repeated pleasantly.

  “Right,” the other mumbled, bending again to his task. Across the room, Chandris saw, three customers who’d been poring over various equipment displays were staring at Hanan, a fascination that was instantly submerged as Hanan sent a leisurely glance around the store. The clerk finished, straightened— “Ah—will you need help loading them?” he asked, eyes struggling again not to stare.

  “No, thank you,” Hanan told him, leaning over to touch his thumb to the confirmation plate. “My associate here and I can handle them.”

  “Okay. Uh …” Licking his lips, the other craned his neck to look over at the delivery rack running along the side of the store. “They should be out any minute, sir,” he said, his voice starting to sound distinctly uncomfortable.

  “Oh, that’s all right,” Hanan assured him. “We’re not in any hurry.” He looked over at the three customers, who had now moved closer together and were whispering earnestly among themselves. Again, his look was all it took to turn them swiftly back to more innocent activities. From the side came a ping—

  “There they are,” the clerk said, and there was no mistaking the relief in his voice. “If you need help—”

  “Not at all,” Hanan said, stepping over to the rack and motioning Chandris to follow. “As I said, my colleague and I can handle them.”