"Good," Hanan said cheerfully. "Then that's settled." He raised the wrench, made a small

adjustment. "Now: watch closely and I'll show you how this is done."

"Right," Chandris said, putting on her best submissive student persona and trying hard not to let her clenched teeth sound through her voice. So that was how it was going to be. She'd called it, and she'd

been right. The Daviees, heavily under the influence of their angel, were apparently incapable of protecting their ship anymore.

So okay. She would just have to do it for them.

Watching Hanan work, listening to his running monologue and making suitable noises where

required, she began to plan out her strategy.

CHAPTER 20.

"...and this, obviously, is the control cabin," Ornina said, ushering Kosta in.

"h.e.l.lo again," Hanan greeted him, barely looking up from his final pre-flight check.

Chandris, helping from her own board, didn't look up at all. But she made sure to keep Kosta visible

in the corner of her eye. "Everything all right below?" Hanan added.

"Yes, thanks," Kosta said. "The package is secure and-"

"He was talking to Ornina," Chandris told him, giving him an exaggeratedly patient look.

She had the minor satisfaction of seeing him blush. "Sorry," he muttered.

"That's all right," Hanan a.s.sured him cheerfully. "You know how it is. Big ship and all, makes for

ma.s.s confusion all around. Ornina?"

"Everything's fine," she said, showing Kosta to one of the two normally unused seats off to the side.

"You'll have to excuse my brother's warped sense of humor, Jereko; he was dropped on his head

when he was a baby and hasn't been the same since."

"Except for the two o'clock feedings," Hanan offered. "I still rather like those. Donuts, especially, or sometimes sausage. But I can't seem to get Ornina to-"

"Hanan-"

"Anyway, better strap down," he added blandly. "We're tenth in line to launch. Five minutes, the

way they're running today."

It took just over half that time for Ornina to show Kosta how to work his seat's restraint system and

then to strap in herself. "So, Jereko," Hanan said when everyone was finally settled. "How long have you been with the Inst.i.tute?""Just a few weeks," Kosta told him. "Actually, I'm not exactly with the Inst.i.tute; I'm just a visiting researcher."

"Visiting from where?" Ornina asked.

"Clarkston University," Kosta said. "Cairngorm, on Balmoral."

"Never been to Balmoral," Hanan said. "Pretty rocky place, I understand. So tell us about angels."

The sudden shift in subject seemed to catch Kosta off guard. "What do you mean?"

"Angels," Hanan repeated, waving a hand airily. "Weird little particle things everyone's crazy to get

their hands on."

"Yes, I know what they are," Kosta said, his voice sounding cautious. Trying to get a feel for Hanan,

Chandris decided, and not doing too well. Though from what she'd seen of Kosta that was probably about normal for him."Good," Hanan said. "Then you can tell us what they-oops; wait a minute. Here we go."Keeping half an eye on Kosta, Chandris gave her board one last check. The Gazelle lifted into the air, flew out over the launch dish- "Friz!" The word that exploded from Kosta's mouth was half bark, half hiss. And on his face...

"I take it, Jereko," Hanan said without turning around, "that you've never watched a launch dish

operate."

Kosta's eyes jerked away from the display to the back of Hanan's head... and for a single instant all the normal defenses were gone.

And in his face Chandris saw complete confusion.

The moment pa.s.sed. "As a matter of fact, I haven't," he said with a fair imitation of calm. "It's...

rather spectacular."

"You get used to it," Hanan shrugged, ramping up the Gazelle's drive and making a slight adjustment to the ship's vector. "You were about to tell us about angels.""I was?" Kosta glanced at Chandris, his expression suddenly wary. Maybe remembering how easily she'd drawn him out on the subject back at the Inst.i.tute. "I doubt I could tell you anything you don't already know-"

"Tell them about the Acchaa theory," Chandris said.Kosta looked visual knives at her. She held his gaze, reminding him with lifted eyebrows that she could tell them about it herself.

For a wonder, he got the message. "Acchaa is one of the theories currently in vogue at the Inst.i.tute," he growled. "Basically, it says that angels are quantized chunks of good."

"Of what?" Ornina asked, frowning.

"Of good," Kosta repeated. "You know: the stuff behind ethics and justice." He looked pointedly at Chandris. "And honesty."

"Doesn't work," Hanan shook his head decisively. "The theory, I mean."

Back when she'd talked to him at the Inst.i.tute, Chandris remembered, Kosta had seemed to have his

own doubts about it. But the challenge in Hanan's tone was apparently too much for him. "I don't think it's all that obvious," he said, bristling a bit."Sure it is," Hanan said. "I suppose the idea is that all the quantum black holes that have evaporated since the Big Bang have scattered these angels around the universe like cosmic rays?"

"That's one possibility," Kosta said. He seemed surprised that Hanan had picked up on the idea so quickly. "Another is that the Big Bang itself created the bulk of them."

"Okay," Hanan said. "Either way, we wind up with a fairly even distribution. Right?"

"Right," Kosta said cautiously.

"Fine. So. I presume you're also a.s.suming that the angels that landed on Earth were the cause of all

that was good and fair and n.o.ble throughout human history."

"Not necessarily all of it," Kosta said. "Individual human beings may be able to add to or subtract

from their effect, too. That's how, historically, an overall pattern of good and evil can fluctuate within an area or group."

"You have a mechanism for that?"

"Not yet," Kosta said. "But there's at least one theory about field effects that might allow for humans to affect the angels."

"What about the biochemistry of the angel/personality interaction?"

Kosta pursed his lips. "They're working on that, too."

Hanan nodded. "So we agree there's still a lot to learn. So let me ask you a question. When mankind invented the hypers.p.a.ce catapult and moved out onto new planets, was there any noticeable change in their behavior?"

He paused, but Kosta didn't reply. "Because there should have been, you know," Hanan added, twisting half around in his chair to look at the other. "Fresh worlds-lots of untouched primordial angels lying around-"

"Yes, I understand the question," Kosta said, his forehead wrinkled in thought. In slightly worried thought, if Chandris was reading him right. "I'm afraid I don't know enough history to answer that."

"Well, I do," Hanan said.

And for the first time since she'd met him Chandris heard a trace of genuine bitterness in his voice. "The answer is a loud, flat no," he said. "The people who arrived on Uhuru spouted all kinds of pious p.r.o.nouncements about peace and freedom and equality when they landed. But less than thirty years later they were already on the way back to the cla.s.s separation and elitist power structure they'd originally turned their backs on."

"Maybe the old patterns were too hard to break," Kosta suggested slowly.

"In which case they should be too strong to break now," Hanan said, a note of decisiveness in his voice. "But they are breaking. Slowly and from the top down, maybe; but they are breaking." He shook his head. "Eventually, Jereko, you people at the Inst.i.tute are going to have to accept the fact that Angelma.s.s is unique."

"I'm sorry, but I don't see how that can be," Kosta disagreed. "Black holes have the most limited set of parameters of anything in the known universe: ma.s.s, spin, charge, and one or two others that are still being debated. I don't see how any combination of those could give rise to angels."

"Ah." Hanan lifted a finger. "But that a.s.sumes the angels are a purely natural phenomenon. What if, instead, they're a form of life?"

Kosta seemed to shrink into himself, just a little. "You mean like a wormhole alien invasion?" he asked warily.

"Not at all," Hanan shook his head. "You know anything about hypers.p.a.ce catapult theory?"

Kosta took the abrupt change in subject better this time. "I know a little."

"Okay. Suppose you threw a ship across s.p.a.ce via catapult and its vector pa.s.sed through a quantum black hole like Angelma.s.s. What would happen?"

"No one knows," Kosta said. "The equations break down at too steep a gravity gradient." "Exactly." Hanan turned from his board again to look Kosta square in the eye. "And I think that's just what happened. Sometime in the past, a ship-human or alien-tried to go through Angelma.s.s. And in the process left one or more lifeforms trapped at the event horizon."

He paused, and Chandris waited for the inevitable grin and punchline. But Hanan's expression remained serious, and after a long moment Kosta spoke. "If this is supposed to be better than the Acchaa theory," he said, "it isn't. How are these fragments of a nonphysical lifeforce supposed to have been changed into solid particles, for starters?"

The endburn alert pinged. "I'd guess it's a piggyback sort of arrangement," Hanan said, turning back to his board. "The lifeforce attaching itself to the angel for some reason. Or possibly the angel forms around it, the way a raindrop coalesces around a dust particle." He tapped a few keys and the dull roar of the Gazelles drive faded to a whisper.