by Timothy Zahn
In that case, he now had a clear shot at that, too. Either way, whatever happened would be on Forsythe’s head. Penance, as it were, for his sin of deception.
And for his sin of pride.
The police weren’t waiting when the line car pulled up to the Gazelle’s enclosure. But there was a lone visitor pacing restlessly back and forth in front of the gate.
It was Ronyon.
He was at the line car’s side even before the vehicle had rolled to a complete stop. I’ve been waiting for you, he signed, his hands again moving so fast in his agitation that Chandris could barely keep up.
“It’s okay, Ronyon, we’re here,” Chandris said as she opened the door and climbed out. “Are you okay?”
There’s big trouble. Oh—Jereko, Ronyon added as Kosta climbed out of the line car behind Chandris. Mr. Forsythe let you go?
“What’s going on?” Kosta muttered as he turned to help Hanan out. “You can understand him?”
“Mostly,” Chandris said, keeping her face turned so that Ronyon could see her lips. She’d always hated it when people talked behind her back; Ronyon probably felt the same way. “He says there’s trouble.”
Kosta snorted. “Yeah, I’ll bet.”
Trouble with Angelmass, Ronyon signed. It’s moving!
“He says Angelmass is moving,” Chandris translated.
“What’s that?” Hanan puffed as Kosta got him out of the line car. “Moving how?”
“Rising and sinking in its orbit,” Kosta said. “Forsythe’s aide Pirbazari was talking about it last night. I tried to tell them about the intelligence experiments we did on angels, and what that might mean for Angelmass itself. I don’t think they believed me.”
Ronyon’s eyes were wide. Intelligence? he signed. You mean Angelmass is smart?
“We’re not sure,” Chandris admitted, glancing around. Still no police in sight, but that could change any second. “Let’s get inside. It’ll be a lot more comfortable.”
“And Ornina probably has the teapot on,” Hanan added, limping noticeably as he headed for the hatchway. “Last one in has to wash the dishes.”
Ornina did indeed have the teapot on. Five minutes later, they were all squeezed around the galley table, a steaming cup of tea in front of each of them. “All right, let’s dig into this thing a little more,” Hanan said. “I suppose I can accept this song and dance about how Angelmass could be intelligent—”
“Speak for yourself,” Ornina murmured.
“—but even if I give you that,” Hanan went on, ignoring the comment, “how can it possibly change its orbit? There aren’t any forces acting on it, and it hasn’t got any reaction mass it can throw away.”
“Actually, in a sense it does,” Kosta said. “Those focused radiation surges, remember? It may be that it’s using those like a jet exhaust. Sort of like a natural ion drive. I tried to find out from Pirbazari whether that was part of it, but he never answered me.”
“Part of it?” Hanan prompted.
“Problem is, that’s a pretty slow way to go,” Kosta said. “Ion drives just don’t turn out much in the way of acceleration. For Angelmass to be making enough headway for them to evacuate the station, there has to be more to it.”
“Wait a minute,” Ornina said. “They’re evacuating Central? They never evacuate Central.”
It’s already empty, Ronyon signed.
“Maybe not before, but they’re doing it now,” Kosta said. “Forsythe gave the order last night. I don’t know whether or not it’s been carried out”
“Ronyon says it has,” Chandris said, watching the big man’s hands as he continued signing. “They sent a shuttle … and as of four o’clock this morning, everyone was back on Seraph.”
Ornina shook her head. “I don’t believe it,” she said, half to herself. “Central has been open continually since it first went online eighteen years ago. It’s like the end of the world.”
“You may not be far off,” Kosta said grimly. “Ronyon, do you know if they shut everything down on their way out?”
I don’t know, Ronyon signed. I didn’t see them say anything about that.
“Let’s hope they didn’t,” Kosta said. He was gazing into his tea, a haunted expression wrinkling the corners of his eyes. “We’re going to need that catapult.”
“You can’t run that way, Jereko,” Ornina said gently. “That catapult doesn’t connect to anything but the Seraph huntership net.”
“I’m not planning to run,” Kosta told her. “And as for the huntership net … Ronyon, what else did they say about Angelmass?”
It’s getting closer to the station, Ronyon signed. The one that looks like a big spider?
“How much closer?” Chandris asked.
Lots, Ronyon signed. I don’t know any of the numbers. But it’s really strange. They said it was weaving up and down and shooting at the station.
“Shooting at the station?” Hanan echoed, frowning, when Chandris had translated. “What has it got to shoot?”
“He must be talking about more radiation surges,” Kosta said. “Aimed at Angelmass Central. It’s already chased everyone off the station. Now it wants the station itself out of there.”
It wants. The words dripped into Chandris’s brain like drops of water off the edge of a roof. It wants. Up to now she hadn’t truly believed Kosta’s theory about an intelligent and malevolent black hole. Not down deep, anyway.
Now, suddenly, with those two words, she did. Angelmass was indeed alive and intelligent.
And it hated people. People on the station. Maybe the people on Seraph, too?
God help them all.
“Jereko, you said there was more to the course changes than just the surges,” Hanan said. “Such as?”
“Such as brand-new physics,” Kosta said bluntly. “I hate to fall back on mysterious forces mankind has never discovered; but in this case, I don’t think we have a choice. Something is moving Angelmass, and it’s not any force we’ve ever come across.”
“Yes, but how could an entire force hide from us this long?” Hanan protested.
“How many black holes have we been up close and personal with?” Kosta countered. “All sorts of odd things happen near the event horizon, from huge tidal forces to variations in time. Personally, I’m voting on it having to do with gravity, either a polarization of the fields themselves or else something related to the time differential.”
“I didn’t know physics had become a democracy,” Hanan murmured.
“It hasn’t,” Kosta said. “When I say I’m voting that way, I mean that’s the theory I’m going to risk my life on. Maybe all our lives.”
“Wait a minute, slow down,” Chandris said. “Who’s risking what here?”
“We can’t just let Angelmass move around the Seraph system at will,” Kosta told her. “Right now it’s playing with gravity, figuring out how to use it. That’s why it keeps bouncing up and down in its orbit. But sooner or later, it’s going to get really good at it.”
“If it hasn’t already,” Ornina said, a shiver running through her. “If it’s attacking Central, it must be pretty confident.”
Hanan shook his head. “A confident black hole,” he said. “That sounds so strange.”
“So what do we do about it?” Chandris asked.
“The only thing we can do.” Kosta looked her straight in the eye. “We get rid of it.”
She blinked. “What?”
“We use Central’s catapult to throw it somewhere else,” he said. “Somewhere deep in interstellar space, where the only gravitational fields it has to play with are tiny ones.”
“How are you going to pull that off?” Hanan asked. “Like Ornina said, the catapult there is linked to the Seraph net.”
“Then we’ll have to disable the Seraph net, that’s all,” Kosta said. “There must be a way to shut it down from Central. We just have to figure out the codes.”
“What if shutting down the Seraph net doesn’t do it?” Hanan argue
d. “What if it just makes the catapult nonfunctional?”
“Then we’re in big trouble,” Kosta conceded. “But we have to risk it. I have to risk it, anyway.”
“Suppose it all works like you say,” Chandris said. “What then? Angelmass is a lot more massive than a huntership.”
“I’m sure the catapult can be recalibrated,” Kosta said. “It should be just a matter of feeding in new numbers and shunting the right amount of power.”
“And if you can’t do it?” Chandris persisted.
In the artificial light, Kosta’s face seemed to have gone a little pale. “Then, again, I’m in trouble,” he said. “It’s still worth a try.”
Hanan looked at Ornina, and Chandris could see a silent message flash between them. “All right,” Hanan said briskly, starting to his feet. “I’ll get the ship prepped—”
The end of the sentence became an agonized hiss as he froze halfway to his feet, his face twisting in pain. “Hanan!” Ornina exclaimed, scrambling up and taking his arm.
“No, what you are going to do is get back to the hospital,” Chandris said firmly, standing up and taking his other arm. “Both of you. Kosta and I can take the ship out to Angelmass.”
“Don’t be silly,” Hanan said between clenched teeth. “You can’t do this alone.”
“Well, we sure can’t do it carrying you,” Kosta pointed out, coming around behind Chandris. “Chandris, I’ll help Ornina get him outside. You go ahead of us to the hatchway and call a line car.”
A tentative hand touched Chandris’s shoulder, and she looked over to see that Ronyon was on his feet, too. I can call a line car, he offered, looking at Hanan as if he were an injured puppy. You could go and start the ship.
“You sure you want to get involved with this?” Chandris asked, frowning at him.
I’m not very smart, Ronyon signed. But I know that Angelmass is hurting people. I want to help.
Chandris hesitated. She really didn’t want to get Ronyon in trouble with Forsythe. But it would save them a few minutes; and if Kosta was right, they might need all the minutes they could get.
Besides which, if the police were scanning line car orders looking for her name or Kosta’s, this ought to throw them off the trail a little. “All right, Ronyon, thank you,” she said. “Go ahead.”
“Where’s he going?” Kosta asked as Ronyon turned and hurried out of the galley.
“He’ll call the line car,” Chandris explained over her shoulder as she followed him. “I’m going to go get the ship prepped. I hope they got everything put back together.”
“Chandris?” Hanan called after her.
She turned back. “Yes?”
“Be careful, child,” he said softly. “And come back. You hear?”
She managed a confident smile. “Don’t worry,” she said. “After all we’ve been through, you’re sure not going to get rid of me now.”
She turned again and left, careful not to look back.
CHAPTER 41
“They’re starting to come up into orbit,” Campbell reported as Lleshi stepped onto the balcony. “Looks like they’re going pretty much all out to meet us.”
“Yes, I see,” Lleshi said, blinking the last bits of sleep from his eyes as he studied the tactical display. With roughly an hour to go before the Komitadji reached close-orbit distance, the Empyreals were emptying the planet, putting everything they had into space in preparation for the upcoming battle.
But unless they had a lot more in reserve than it appeared, it wasn’t going to be nearly enough. “What about the communications and weather satellites?” he asked.
“They finished mining them about two hours ago,” Campbell said. “At least, that’s when the shuttles they had poking around headed back down. While they were at it, they put another hundred or so smaller casings in orbit, too.”
“More mines.”
“Firecrackers,” Campbell said with a contemptuous sniff. “Even subnukes that size wouldn’t be worth much, and the readings don’t show any radiation telltales. Probably mining explosives like the ones those suicide ships in Lorelei system were using.”
“Whatever else you say about these people, they’re certainly single-minded,” Lleshi said. “Anything else happen while I was asleep?”
“Surprisingly little, actually,” Campbell said, tapping some keys. Over by Lleshi’s station, one of the displays changed to a page full of numbers. “We’ve been monitoring their communications; and while there’s been lots of traffic on the official and Defense Force channels, the civilian and media ones haven’t shown any unusual activity at all. In fact, Comm Group says they don’t think the people have even been told about us.”
“Really.” Lleshi rubbed his chin, frowning at the tactical. “Interesting. Either they’re supremely confident that they can take us on, or else they simply don’t want to start the panic before it’s absolutely necessary.”
“Most likely the latter,” Campbell said. “Tactical Group’s been over everything we’ve seen them do, and they agree unanimously that the Seraph defensive array is pitifully weak. We should be able to cut through it in no time.”
“We’ll soon find out,” Lleshi said. “Keep a close watch for atmospheric craft lurking beneath clouds and in high mountain cubbyholes. They might be banking on our fighters not handling as well in atmosphere as theirs do.”
“In which case they’re in for a bad surprise.” Campbell cocked his head slightly. “Speaking of fighters, sir, are you going to send a squad ahead to clear a path?”
“As Adjutor Telthorst wants, you mean?” Lleshi said sourly. “You’re the tactical officer, Mr. Campbell. You tell me.”
Campbell hesitated. “There is a certain logic to it,” he hedged. “Depending on the strength and type of mines, they could pose a significant danger to the Komitadji’s hull-mounted sensors and weapons emplacements.”
“Do you think that’s what Mr. Telthorst is concerned about?” Lleshi pressed.
Campbell glanced down onto the main command deck floor, as if checking to see if Telthorst was on his way back from his own rest break. “Not really, sir, no,” he conceded. “I think he mostly wants to keep the Komitadji in pristine condition for the victory flyover of the Supreme Council cathedra.”
“That was my impression, as well,” Lleshi said. “So that’s agreed. We ignore him.”
“Yes, sir,” Campbell said, not looking particularly happy. “Sir … permission to speak freely?”
“Certainly.”
Campbell seemed to brace himself. “Any Adjutor assigned to a ship like the Komitadji is by definition a highly placed official. He has a great deal of power; and you and he have not gotten along as well as everyone might have hoped.”
“So far, you’re stating the obvious,” Lleshi said. “Are you suggesting I abandon my military duty in favor of watching my political back?”
“I’m suggesting it might be prudent to try to find some middle ground,” Campbell said. “A compromise that allows him to save face while at the same time not putting our people at unnecessary risk.”
“I see,” Lleshi said, studying his face. “And all of this wise counsel is welling spontaneously from your own sense of decency and compassion?”
Campbell’s lip twisted, just noticeably. “Mr. Telthorst called me into his cabin yesterday after we chased away the net defenses. He told me that you had brought the Komitadji to Seraph without orders, and said that if your irrational defiance persisted he might have to relieve you of command.”
“And he offered you my job?”
“No, I think he intended to put on the commodore’s tunic himself,” Campbell said, a trace of disgust seeping through his rigid control. “He mostly wanted to see whose side I would be on if that happened. To find out whether or not I would join in mutiny against lawful authority, I believe is how he put it.”
“Interesting,” Lleshi murmured. “I appreciate your candor. And I won’t ask what answer you gave him.”
; Campbell’s face reddened slightly. “Sir—”
“Carry on, SeTO,” Lleshi said, turning and stepping back to his station. Seating himself, he swiveled away from Campbell and called up the Komitadji’s fuel consumption for the past four hours.
So there it was at last. It had been a long time in coming; but Telthorst was finally preparing to challenge his control of the Komitadji. And for him to be sounding out Lleshi’s senior officers, he must be feeling pretty confident that the time and opportunity were rapidly approaching.
Lleshi sighed, a silent lungful of air that seemed to come from the center of his soul, his thoughts drifting back to the day he’d been given his first commission and sent aboard his first ship. Then, the Pax Defense Fleet had been exactly that: a bulwark of protection for the people of Earth and her fellow worlds. The Supreme Council had been supreme in fact, not just in name, and the Adjutors simply an advisory arm of the government charged with watching finances and expenditures.
Now, nearly half a century later, it had somehow all turned inside out. The military’s primary mission had become one of conquest, its strategy and tactics driven by money and profit and gain. Money to feed the Pax’s hungry coffers, profit for the delight of the shadowy men who were the real power behind the Council; gain that was immediately turned around and used to finance the next conquest.
The Komitadji had been built for only one purpose: to be so huge and so terrifying that its very appearance would frighten wayward colonies into surrendering without wasting valuable resources on useless defiance. Perhaps even as they had reluctantly authorized the necessary funds the Adjutors had looked forward to the day when they could take the ship for their own, to control it without having to work through the military chain of command.
Now, it seemed, Telthorst was ready to make that move.
And as far as Lleshi was concerned, he was welcome to it.
It was a surprising thought, one that was almost as stunning to Lleshi himself as it surely would have been to Telthorst if he’d heard it. For a flag officer to quietly give up his ship to a civilian—especially a brash, inexperienced, coin-bisecting Adjutor—would have been unthinkable to the young Ensign Lleshi fresh aboard his first ship.