by Timothy Zahn
“Oh, of course,” Kosta snorted. “Corporations always appreciate someone showing them up as incompetent or negligent.”
Gyasi shook his head. “You’re missing the point, Jereko. This is Gabriel we’re talking about here. They can’t act that way.”
“Why not?” Kosta demanded. “Because they provide a vital service?”
“No,” Qhahenlo said. “Because they deal with angels.”
Kosta looked at her, feeling his arguments catch somewhere halfway down his throat. “But the corporate heads don’t actually handle the angels themselves.”
She nodded. “Yes, they do. Every single one of them, every single day. That was one of the first conditions the High Senate set up when Gabriel was created, precisely to make sure that the standard corporate fixation with bottom-line profits didn’t take hold there. And it worked. Gabriel genuinely cares about the health and safety of its employees, including the huntership crews.”
“Translation: go ahead and write it up,” Gyasi murmured.
Kosta took a careful breath. “All right. I will. In fact, if you’ll both excuse me, I’ll get started right now. Thank you, Dr. Qhahenlo, for running the data for me.”
“You’re welcome,” Qhahenlo said, nodding gravely. “We’ll keep you up to date on what’s happening.”
“Thank you,” Kosta said again, rounding the desk toward the door. “Hopefully, I’ll have my credit line back in a couple of days and be able to keep track of it myself.”
“I’m sure you will,” Qhahenlo assured him.
I was sure, too, yesterday, Kosta reminded himself as he headed down the quiet corridor toward his office. But that was yesterday, and yesterday he didn’t have information the Gabriel Corporation might not want people to hear. It would, he decided, be very interesting to see their reaction when they saw his paper.
And to see what, if anything, they did about it. To the hunterships, or to him.
CHAPTER 23
The wrench slipped and clanged against the edge of the access flange, narrowly missing Chandris’s knuckles in the process. “Nurk,” she gritted, lowering the tool and flexing her fingers. “It keeps coming off.”
“That’s because you’re not setting the line-lock solidly enough against the connector,” Hanan told her, his voice calm and soothing. “If it’s tight enough, it won’t slip.”
“Well, I can’t do it,” Chandris growled, offering him the wrench. “If you can, you’re a genius.”
“Hardly,” Hanan huffed. But it was a pleased sort of huff. “Let me show you.”
Chandris stepped aside, maintaining her frustrated scowl as Hanan busied himself with the wrench. His hands, she could see, were still not a hundred percent steady; but she could also see that her modified little-miss-helpless routine was doing wonders for his morale. With any luck, he wouldn’t catch on to what she was doing until his nervous system had gotten back in synch with the exobraces’ electronics.
And when that happened, it would be time for her to leave.
“There,” Hanan grunted, stepping back and gesturing with a slightly shaky hand at the wrench handle protruding from the access hatch. ‘Try it now.”
“Thanks,” Chandris said, getting a grip on the wrench and giving it a tug. This time it stayed on. “That’s it, all right”
“Just one of those things you pick up with experience,” Hanan said modestly. “You’ll get it in time. That is, if you stay.”
“Where else would I go?” she countered, keeping her eyes on her work.
She sensed Hanan shrug. “Back to running, I suppose. You were running when you first came here, if you remember.”
With a final tug, Chandris got the connector loose. “I’m not much interested in running anymore, thank you,” she told him, in a tone carefully designed to discourage further questioning.
It was a waste of good voice control. “You know, you never did give us any details about this crazy man you said you were running from,” Hanan commented. “He must have been really crazy for you to have run all the way to Seraph to get away from him.”
“He was,” Chandris said briefly. “You have a spare grommet there?”
“Sure.” He found one, handed it to her. “Tell me about him.”
“Why?”
He sighed, just audibly. “So that maybe we can help you find a way to get clear of him. Before you leave us.”
Chandris felt her throat tighten. “Who says I’m leaving?”
“Ornina. She was right, you know: we do need you here.”
Chandris snorted. “That’s the trouble with you two. You talk too much to each other.”
“She talks and I listen, anyway,” Hanan said, a hint of his usual flippancy peeking through. “I’m serious, though, about wanting you to stay. For starters, who else will play this helpless-maiden routine with me if you go?”
Chandris grimaced. So much for him not catching on. “Maybe that’s why I want to leave,” she growled. “Maybe I’m tired of playing games. Ever think of that?”
For a long minute he was silent. Chandris finished attaching the new connector, then set the wrench’s line-lock on the next one and broke it loose. “We’re all running from something, Chandris,” he said at last, quietly. “Did Ornina ever tell you I wanted to be a surgeon?”
Chandris paused, the connector halfway off. “No,” she said.
“It’s an art, you know, surgery,” Hanan said, his voice oddly distant. “One of the few real arts left. Maybe the only one where you can genuinely feel that you’re doing some good for people.”
Chandris heard the faint whine of his exobraces as he moved his arm. “How far had you gotten?” she asked.
“I was in my second year of college when our parents died,” he told her. “Ornina had just finished basic, and insisted on going to work to help me pay my way. I was able to work some, too, but she was the one who kept us afloat. I let her do it because I knew that when I got into practice I could afford to send her to college, too. To pay her back for everything.
“I was six months from finishing when the disease showed up.”
Chandris blinked away sudden moisture. “They couldn’t do anything about it?”
“Well, that’s the point, you see,” Hanan said, his tone suddenly strange. “They could have.”
She turned around to look at him, expecting to see anger in his eyes. But all that was there was sadness. “I don’t understand,” she said carefully.
He let out his breath in a gentle whoosh. “It could have been cured, Chandris,” he said, gazing at his trembling hand. “Not just helped; cured. All it would have taken would have been some highly specialized neural surgery and six months of intensive treatment … and about two million ruya to pay for all of it.”
Unbidden, a memory from the Barrio flicked into Chandris’s mind: old Flavin, limping painfully along on an ankle that could easily have been replaced. “I’m sorry,” was all she could think of to say.
Hanan’s eyes came back from his hand and his memories, and he threw her a tight smile. “So was I,” he said. “For a long time I was pretty bitter about it, I can tell you. I wasn’t asking for charity, you know—I could almost certainly have paid all of it back over a lifetime of surgical work.”
Chandris nodded, an old saying floating up from the depths of her memory. ‘“The rich get richer,’” she quoted.
“‘And the poor get babies,’” Hanan finished.
“What?”
“My own version. Skip it.” He cocked an eyebrow. “So. Your turn.”
She felt her stomach tighten. “His name is Trilling Vail,” she told him. “For two years he was—” she hesitated, groping for the right word.
“Your lover?” Hanan suggested delicately.
“Yes, that too. But he was a lot more.” She shook her head. “You have to understand what the Black Barrio was like, Hanan. Poor people, lots of scorers and koshes—probably a lot like that part of Magasca near the spaceport.”
�
�Sounds pretty grim.”
“It wasn’t fun. I started out as a trac—that’s someone who plays decoy or distraction for a scorer—and worked my way up to where I was the one doing the scoring.”
“All of this by yourself?”
“I was never really alone,” Chandris said. “But there wasn’t anyone who really cared about me, either. Mostly the people who kept me around did so because I was useful.
“And then, when I was fourteen, I met Trilling.”
She turned back to the access panel, unwilling for Hanan to see her face. “He was real nice at first. He took care of me like no one else ever had. Taught me all sorts of tricks, got me involved with his friends, let me move in with him.”
Bittersweet memories flashed past her eyes, making her throat hurt. “What can I say? He took care of me.”
There was a brief pause. “What happened?” Hanan asked quietly. “Another woman?”
Chandris snorted. “Not Trilling,” she said. “He always said he was a one-woman man. As far as I know he never tommed around while I was with him. No, what happened was that he started acting … strange. I mean really strange. He’d try to score tracks he wasn’t ready for, and then go crazy-mad when they popped. He’d get mad at me for no reason at all, or else drop into a black pit for days at a time. He’d disappear, too, at strange hours and blow up when I tried to ask where he’d been. And he started playing around with reeks a lot.”
“Sounds like someone on the glide path to a mental breakdown,” Hanan said. “Did you try to get him to talk to someone?”
“About twice a week. But he blew up every time I suggested it. Besides, there wasn’t much of anyone left for him to talk to; most of his friends had chopped and hopped by that time. They said he was a crash waiting to happen and didn’t want to be around when it did.”
“Some friends,” Hanan murmured.
“The Barrio was like that,” Chandris told him. “No one ever did anything for anybody unless there was something in it for them.”
“Well …” Hanan scratched his cheek. “Pardon me for pointing it out, but you stayed with Trilling. And it doesn’t sound like you were getting much out of it.”
Chandris felt her lip twist. “Don’t try to make me look noble, Hanan. I wasn’t. Even at his worst Trilling was the most security my life had ever had, and I didn’t want to lose that. Or maybe just didn’t want to admit that it was already lost. You lie to yourself a lot in a place like the Barrio.”
“People lie to themselves a lot everywhere.”
Chandris shrugged. “Anyway, it finally got to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore. I decided I had to get out.” A sudden, violent shiver ran up through her at the memory. “And then, like a complete fool, I went and told Trilling I was leaving.”
Hanan took a step closer to her, his arm slipping around her shoulders. “Did he hurt you?” he asked gently.
Chandris shivered again, the memories flashing across her vision. “He never even touched me. All he did was stand there, staring at me with a crazy look in his eyes. And then he told me, in complete detail, what he would do to me if I ever even tried to leave him.”
She shook her head. “I still don’t know how I got away the way I did. I guess he didn’t really believe I was serious.”
For a long minute they stood there in silence. Chandris found herself leaning into Hanan’s side, feeling the warmth and strength and security of his presence. In some ways it reminded her of how things had once been with Trilling; and yet, in other ways, it was an entirely new experience. There was no sexual content to the hug, none of the underlying current of predator ferocity that had seemed to saturate everything Trilling said or did. Hanan’s touch was one of friendship; nothing more, nothing less. And it asked nothing more or less in return.
Which was only going to make it that much harder when she left.
She blinked back the tears from her eyes and straightened away from him. “I’m all right,” she murmured. “Thanks.”
Hanan dropped his hand away. “It’s not always a blessing having a perfect memory, is it?”
“It’s not a blessing at all,” she said bitterly. “It’s a tool that’s been useful in scoring. Nothing more.”
And speaking of tools … With a sigh, she reached for the wrench again—
And from the gate behind them came the sudden clink of the latch.
Trilling! Chandris jumped, banging her head on the underside of the Gazelle, feet scrambling for traction as she came down. She spun around, hand darting to the tool tray for something—anything—she could use as a weapon. Grabbing a long screwdriver more by luck than design, she twisted to try and get around Hanan’s bulk—
It wasn’t Trilling. It was Kosta, frozen like a startled animal halfway through the gate. “Uh … hello,” he managed, eyes flicking to the screwdriver gripped in Chandris’s hand and then back to her face. “Have I come at a bad time?”
“No, no,” Hanan said cheerfully, his serious mood vanished without a trace. “That was nothing to do with you. I told a bad joke and Chandris was taking exception to it. Come in, come in.”
Slowly, obviously not convinced, Kosta resumed his interrupted trip through the gate. “Because if it’s a bad time—”
“No, really,” Hanan waved him forward. “Chandris, put that screwdriver down. What brings you out this way, Jereko? You need another ride out to Angelmass?”
“I’m sure his credit line must be unsnarled by now,” Chandris put in before Kosta could answer, tossing the screwdriver back into the tool tray in disgust. Kosta, anytime, was an annoyance. Right now, he was a flat-out intrusion.
She looked back up in time to see a muscle in Kosta’s cheek twitch. “As it happens,” he said, “it’s not.”
“Odd,” Hanan frowned. “I thought it was just some sort of clerical error.”
“So did I,” Kosta agreed. “Apparently, it’s something more complicated than that. What, exactly, I don’t know. Director Podolak’s still having trouble getting straight answers.”
They probably caught on to whatever track you’re trying to score, Chandris thought with sour satisfaction. Now if only Hanan would wish him well and send him on his way …
“Well, we’ll be going up again in two days,” Hanan offered. “If you want to come along, you’re certainly welcome.”
Kosta’s eyes flicked to Chandris. “I somehow doubt the invitation is unanimous. Anyway, for now there’s not much point in my going up. I want to look for the kind of conditions the theory says ought to precede these radiation surges, but until my credit line gets unfrozen I can’t get any new equipment.”
“Can’t you do anything with your original experiment?” Hanan asked. “Modify it somehow?”
“That’s what I’m trying,” Kosta nodded. “So far it’s going pretty slowly.”
“Well, if you need any tools, you’re welcome to use ours here,” Hanan said. “Sorry that we can’t offer you anything else, but hunterships tend to run on a tight budget.”
“Oh, I understand,” Kosta assured him. “And thank you for the offer. Actually, the main reason I came by was to see how you were doing.” He glanced again at Chandris, his eyes a little hard this time. “For some reason, I’ve been having trouble getting hold of you by phone.”
“Oh?” Hanan asked, throwing Chandris a speculative look.
“We’ve been having problems with the Gazelle’s phones,” she told him evenly. “The system’s been locking out some incoming calls. I’ve been working on it.”
“Ah.” Hanan held her gaze a moment longer, then turned back to Kosta. “Sorry about that. However, as you can see, I’m pretty well recovered. Certainly enough for Ornina to put me back to work. You mentioned a theory in the works about these radiation surges?”
The cheek muscle twitched again. “So they say. Dr. Qhahenlo thinks it’s a self-focusing effect triggered by something falling into Angelmass from one of the hunterships. I’m not convinced, myself.”
“I don’t recall you liking the Acchaa theory much, either,” Chandris put in. “Are there any theories you like?”
He glared at her. “Actually, I’m rather partial to the idea that the angels are a deliberate alien invasion,” he said tartly. “Here to turn everyone in the Empyrean into something non-human.”
“Unfortunately, we don’t need alien help to become less than human,” Hanan murmured, glancing at Chandris. “Matter of fact, Chandris and I were just discussing that.”
Kosta looked back and forth between them, then shrugged. “Anyway, I wrote the whole thing up—results, comments, and everybody’s theories as to what happened. We’ll see what kind of response I get.” He hesitated. “Incidentally, I also discussed your trapped-alien theory with a couple of people. They said that the idea’s been around for quite a while.”
“Old doesn’t necessarily mean wrong,” Hanan pointed out. “Did any of them actually refute it, or did they all just make the usual learnedly snide comments?”
“The latter, mostly,” Kosta conceded. “One of them compared it to the ancient epicycle theory of planetary motion. Said it complicated matters without really explaining anything.”
“You agree with that?”
“I don’t know,” Kosta admitted. “That’s the other reason I came by, actually; I wondered if you’d be willing to discuss it some more with me. When you’re not so busy, of course,” he added hastily.
“I’m sure that would be fine,” Chandris put in, letting a little acid drip off her tone. “Look us up in about six months. Eight, if we keep getting interrupted.”
Kosta reddened. “I’m sorry,” he said, taking a step back toward the gate. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your work.”
“Oh, don’t mind Chandris,” Hanan told him. “Though if you’ve got the time, we actually could use an extra pair of hands. You interested?”
“Uh—” Kosta looked at Chandris, a wary look on his face. “Well … sure. Sure, why not?”
“Good.” Hanan stepped away from Chandris’s side. “Why don’t you give Chandris a hand with the connector replacements while I go inside and get the leak-checker warmed up.”