"Good," Forsythe said as he pushed open the door and hurried out into the quiet corridor, still with its night lighting in place. "I want a courier of our own sent to Lorelei right away, with a collapsed skeeter catapult aboard."

"You think that's a good idea?" Pirbazari asked carefully. "The only way for the Pax to have destroyed the skeeter catapults at all four nets would have been for them to have overwhelmed the defenses there. Those sectors will be crawling with Pax ships."

"True," Forsythe said. "But follow it through. If they've destroyed the defenses at the nets, there's a fair chance they also destroyed the nets themselves."

"Which would mean the whole system would be open to their incoming ships," Pirbazari pointed out.

"And to ours," Forsythe reminded him. "If we can put something small into the system, maybe at a good distance from anything the Pax would be interested in-"

"There's a fair chance it could sit there quietly and put together a skeeter catapult without being noticed," Pirbazari finished for him, the first hint of cautious hope tugging at his voice. "It might work. But what if there's still one net working?"

"Then we'll have lost a courier," Forsythe said. "Hardly worth counting after we've lost a whole system."

"I suppose not," Pirbazari murmured.

Forsythe threw a sideways look at him. "Something?"

"I was just wondering," Pirbazari said slowly. "All those mining ships we armed."

"What about them?"

"We gave them targeting systems," Pirbazari said. "But we never gave them any instruction about tactics or strategy. I hope they've organized themselves into some kind of guerrilla-style resistance among the asteroids instead of just throwing themselves uselessly at incoming Pax ships."

Forsythe grimaced. "Let's hope they were smart and not just brave," he said. "In the meantime, let's see if we can find out what's going on."

CHAPTER 32.

The receptionist on the Stardust Metals executive floor was regally seated behind a desk the size of the Gazelles machine shop, working diligently at a pet.i.te little computer terminal as Chandris pulled open the heavy door and stepped from the hallway onto a wide expanse of light gray carpet. To the casual observer, she supposed, the receptionist would probably have appeared totally engrossed in her work, oblivious to the newcomer's approach.

But to Chandris's street-trained eye, it was clear the whole thing was an act. The receptionist was fully aware of the younger woman's presence; and from her body language Chandris could guess she was wondering who this intruder was.

Who, or what. Chandris still hadn't really nailed down the proper upper-cla.s.s clothing styles, and she'd had even less to work with on Seraph than she'd had aboard the Xirrus. Dressed in the best outfit she'd been able to throw together, she probably still looked a mess.

But there was no time for anything better now. And besides, she wasn't going for the sophisticated seductress role now. This time she was going straight for an even more basic human motivation.

Greed.

She was three steps from the desk before the receptionist finally looked up. "Good morning," she said. Her voice was polite enough, but there was a slightly contemptuous edge to the look she sent up and down Chandris's outfit. "May I help you?"

"Yes," Chandris said, nodding toward the five doors set into the curved wall behind the receptionist. The upper-cla.s.s voice and gestures, at least, she had down cold, and she could tell the receptionist was taken slightly aback by it. "Please tell Mr. Amberson Toomes that Chandris Adriessa is here to see him. We met on his last flight from Lorelei aboard the Xirrus."

For a second she thought the woman was going to refuse, or at least ask for some ID first. But the upper-cla.s.s mannerisms had apparently triggered her standard business reflexes, and without a word she picked up the phone and touched a b.u.t.ton. "A Miss Chandris Adriessa to see you, Mr. Toomes," she announced.

For a minute she listened in silence, her eyes occasionally flicking to Chandris. Chandris returned her gaze with the best air of unconcern she could manage, mentally running through possible escape routes in case she had to chop and hop. If Toomes was calling the police...

The receptionist replaced the handset. "He'll see you now, Miss Adriessa," she said coolly. "Center door behind me."

"Thank you," Chandris said, circling the desk and heading for the indicated door. This didn't prove anything, either. Toomes could just be giving her a little more stall-rope while the police collected themselves and got over here.

The door opened as she reached it. Holding her head high, she stepped inside the room.

Toomes was standing beside a thickly padded chair in a contoured work area probably twice the size of the receptionist's, across a room that made the desk look relatively small by comparison. "h.e.l.lo, Chandris," he said. "It's been awhile, hasn't it?"

"It's good to see you, Amberson," Chandris said, studying him as she walked toward the desk. He was exactly as she remembered him from the Xirrus, only not as drunk. There was the same easy charm, the same air of ego and self-absorption, the same predator's smile aimed in her direction.

Or perhaps not. All the surface cues were still there; but as she got closer she could see that underneath was an edge of caution or tension that was new since the last time they'd been together. Perhaps because they were here in his office, surrounded by people he worked with, instead of in the relative anonymity of a s.p.a.celiner?

Or was it because the last time he'd seen her she was being escorted under guard to a landing boat?

"So," he said, coming out from behind the desk as she approached, easing his way through the narrow aisle between the desk and the display table with its multiple status monitors. His timing was perfect; he arrived at the front of the desk just as she did. "What have you been doing with yourself?"

For a split second she wondered if he was expecting her to kiss him. But something warned her off. "Keeping busy," she told him, glancing over at the chairs and couches over by the right-hand wall.

He took the hint. "Let's get more comfortable, shall we?" he suggested, gesturing her toward a long couch that seemed to be upholstered entirely in white feathers. "Then you can tell me all about it."

A dozen thoughts raced through her mind on that long walk to the couch. Was he expecting what he thought he'd been getting aboard the Xirrus? Or was he just toying with her, playing the feline half of a game of cat and mouse while he waited for the police?

She reached the couch and sat down at one end. To her mild surprise, he didn't sit down beside her. "I trust you cleared up that little customs problem?" he suggested, choosing one of the chairs facing her.

It was an obvious invitation to lie. A little too obvious. "You know better than that," she chided him gently. "It wasn't anything to do with customs. I was a semi-stowaway."

" 'Semi?' "

"I had a ticket to Lorelei," she told him, watching his face carefully. There wasn't a single atom of surprise there that she could detect. Clearly, he'd already been over the official version of the whole incident. "Lower cla.s.s section. I decided to continue on to Seraph."

"Why?"

In the old days, she would have had a sugar-story all set and ready to spin. "I was running," she said instead. "There was a man I needed to get away from. I didn't have the cash in hand to do it."

"Did you get away?""I think so," Chandris said, shivering involuntarily at the thought of Trilling Vail lurking in some shadow behind her. "This isn't the kind of place where he would look for me."

Toomes lifted his eyebrows. "I trust you don't mean that the way it sounds," he warned. "My office is hardly equipped for live-in occupation."

"This isn't the 'here' I was referring to," Chandris said. "I meant Shikari City in general."

"Ah," Toomes said. He sounded relieved, but his face didn't match the voice. "So. What do you want?"

So much for any chance he might still be feeling romantic toward her. "I came here to offer you a business deal," she said.

For the first time his expression twitched. "Really," he said. "What sort of deal?"

"You give me money; I give you information," Chandris said. "Information a businessman like yourself would find exceedingly useful."

He pursed his lips. "What exactly does this information concern?"

"It concerns Angelma.s.s," she said. "That's all I can say for now."

"Really," he commented, leaning back and crossing his legs. "You surprise me, Chandris. A good

business strategist never gives away anything for free."

"Perhaps I'm not a good strategist, then," Chandris said evenly.

Toomes smiled. "Having had you run me around the track a few times, I hardly think that likely."

Chandris inclined her head slightly in acknowledgment of the point. "In that case, I'll concede it

would have been obvious anyway once you heard your side of the bargain.""That sounds more like it," he agreed. "Go on.""I fly with a huntership that's been badly damaged," she told him. "I need it repaired."Toomes's smile abruptly hardened. "The Gazelle?""That's the one."He was frowning openly at her now, and behind his eyes she could see the news stories of the incident replaying themselves. The damage to the Gazelle, the damage to Hanan- And High Senator Arkin Forsythe standing with reluctant prominence amid the chaos.

"Well," he said at last. "Interesting, indeed. But I thought Gabriel handled huntership repairs."

"Gabriel works at bureaucratic speeds," Chandris said. "We need it fixed now."

"We?"

Chandris hesitated a fraction of a second. But Toomes wasn't going to give her what they needed without something more. "I'm working with a researcher at the Angelma.s.s Studies Inst.i.tute," she said. "His name's Jereko Kosta."

"Kosta," Toomes repeated, studying her carefully. "I'll be checking with him, of course."

Chandris gestured toward his desk. "Call him now, if you'd like. I'll wait."

For a half dozen seconds she was afraid he was going to take her up on the offer. No problem; except that if he called out of the fog like this, Kosta the naive spy was likely to tell him everything they knew or suspected about Angelma.s.s. That would be a lot of something for nothing, and Toomes could well decide it was all he needed.

Too late, now, she wished she'd told Kosta what she was planning and prepped him a little. But he'd been so sure she was going to pull something illegal that she'd figured he deserved to stew in his own juices a little.

But Toomes merely shrugged. "Later will do," he said. "Bottom line: how much are these repairs going to cost?"

Chandris braced herself. The estimate from the service crew foreman had come in from Ornina just as Chandris arrived at the Stardust building. This was not going to be pretty. "A hundred eighty thousand ruya."

Toomes's eyebrows went up again, but at least he didn't laugh out loud. "That's a lot of money," he said. "What makes you think this information will be anywhere near that valuable?"

"It's worth considerably more than that," Chandris said. "I'm not exaggerating when I say that this has the potential to drastically affect the entire economy of Seraph system. Possibly the entire Empyrean."

"Really," Toomes said. "Something of such devastating import, and you're proposing we keep it to ourselves?"

"Of course not," Chandris said. "We couldn't bury this even if we wanted to. And we don't. All I'm proposing is that you get the report a day before anyone else does."

"Inside information," he said. "What you're suggesting skates very close to the edge of illegal activity."

"You're supplying a service to us," Chandris pointed out. "That makes you something of a partner. It seems to me you're ent.i.tled to have our data as soon as we collect it."

"And of course, everyone else would have to wait until we could draft a proper news release," he said. "Naturally, the wording on such things is very important. I'm guessing it could take as long as three days to get it done properly."

Chandris felt her heartbeat speed up. Toomes was going for it. He was bargaining with her, angling for more time to work whatever business or stock manipulation he might want to do with his inside information. "I don't know," she said, putting reluctance into her voice. "Kosta's writing skills are pretty good. I don't think it would take us more than a day."

"This isn't something you want to rush into," Toomes warned. "If you're right, this news will be a major topic of conversation across the entire Empyrean. The release itself could conceivably be quoted verbatim in history texts for generations to come. The wording will be incredibly important. It has to take three days."

"You're right about the historical significance, of course," Chandris conceded. "But even so, I can't see it taking more than two days at the absolute most."

For a long moment he gazed at her. "All right," he said at last. "Two days." He lifted a finger.

"Plus."

She frowned. There was an unpleasant glint in his eye. "Plus what?"

"I'll have a credit chit here for you at five-thirty tomorrow afternoon," Toomes said. "One hundred eighty thousand ruya. At that time-" He lifted his eyebrows. "You and I are going to do it."

Chandris felt her blood freeze. "It?"

"That's right," Toomes said. "You see, for all the time we spent together on the Xirrus, I somehow can't remember us actually doing anything personal together. It makes me wonder if we ever really did."

"You drank an awful lot on that trip," Chandris said between stiff lips. Oh, no. No. Not this.

"Yes, I did," he said. "I can't help wondering why."

"I wasn't ordering your drinks for you."

"No," he said. "But perhaps there was subtle encouragement." He waved a hand. "It doesn't matter. The point is, whatever did or didn't happen on the Xirrus, it's going to happen tomorrow afternoon."

He stood up. "The office staff leaves promptly at five," he said. "Be here at five-thirty if you want your money."

Chandris stood up, too. "I'll be here," she said, gazing at his face. It hadn't been a predator's smile she'd seen when she came in, she realized now. It had been the smile of injured pride seeing a chance to balance the books. "Goodbye, Amberson."

Stardust Metals' main clerical area was three floors below the executive floor, a warren of small offices and large, desk-filled s.p.a.ces. It was crawling with busy people and filled with the kind of controlled chaos that seemed to go with every bureaucratic operation Chandris had ever seen.

In the midst of all that activity, it was inevitable that someone would leave a hand computer lying around unattended somewhere.

She found one in two minutes flat and retired to the privacy of the women's restroom with her prize. On the Xirrus, she'd had to fry her borrowed computer's ID register to keep it from spotting unauthorized usage. Here, she didn't need to be nearly that fancy. All she wanted this time was a few cozy minutes with Stardust's central computer.