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 a.s.sembly 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-Ornina 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. "h.e.l.lo, 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 Angelma.s.s 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 Angelma.s.s Studies Inst.i.tute'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 a.s.sume 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 a.n.a.lyze the s.p.a.cedust 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 cruelly."

"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 murmured, 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. b.u.t.ton 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 a.s.sured 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."