necks is that the High Senate has convinced them the angels are an irresistible alien force."

"Perhaps," Podolak said. "Still, if it wasn't that excuse it would be something else. The Pax just likes to conquer people."

Kosta looked around at his stacks of equipment boxes. "So what is it you want me to do?" he asked.

"The same thing that all good scientists want," Podolak said. "I want you to find the truth."

"And then?"

"Let the political and social chips fall where they have to," Podolak said, standing up. "Now. You

and Mr. Gyasi need to get going, I expect. Unfortunately, neither of you can check out this much

equipment at once."

She smiled faintly. "Which means I need to go to the gate with you. You'd better call for some luggage carts; you're going to need them."

CHAPTER 34.

It was five-thirty precisely, and most of the Stardust Metals building had gone deathly quiet, as Chandris arrived at Amberson Toomes's office door and rapped against the panel. Toomes was clearly ready and waiting; the door slid open immediately. Squaring her shoulders, Chandris stepped inside.

He was waiting, all right. He was seated on the feather-upholstered couch, dressed in an elaborately embroidered ankle-length robe. Chandris couldn't tell whether he was wearing anything under the robe or not, but she rather expected she would soon be finding out.

"You're on time," he greeted her, his predator's smile back in place. "I like that."

He waved a call stick, and the door slid shut behind her. "I'm glad you approve," she said, walking toward him. There was a small clothing-style box on a corner of his desk; she pretended not to notice it. "You're all ready, I see."

"I am," he said. "But you're not. There's a box on my desk. Open it."

She changed direction to the desk. The box was smaller than it had looked from the door, she saw now. If it contained a robe like Toomes's, there wasn't going to be a lot of material to it.

She opened the box. No robe, but a full outfit nevertheless: bra, panties, leggings, and a short covering sarapi with bright red ribbon-ties. She was right about there not being much actual cloth involved, though.

"You want me to put this on, I suppose," she said, gazing down at the filmy material.

"If you would," Toomes said. As if she really had a choice.

"What about the money?" she asked.

Toomes gestured. "Pick up the outfit."

Chandris did so. The promised credit chit was lying at the bottom of the box. One hundred eighty thousand ruya, just as agreed.

"Leave it there for now," Toomes ordered, stretching ostentatiously and setting the call stick on the floor beside the couch. His robe opened slightly with the movement; he wasn't wearing anything else above the waist, anyway. "You can pick it up on your way out."

For a brief moment Chandris considered simply grabbing the chit and making a run for it. The money was there, and once she had it there was nothing Toomes could do to freeze or block the transaction.

But Toomes was surely smarter than that. The door was probably locked, with the call stick the only way to open it. There was nothing she could do but go through with this.

Or at least, part of the way through. "All right," she said.

"You can change in the bathroom back there," Toomes went on, pointing toward a door in the far side of the office. "Don't be too long."

A bathroom on the far side of the office, half a room away from the credit chit and a full room away from the call stick. "This is pretty," she said, dropping the filmy sarapi casually onto the desk beside the box. "But it won't be necessary."

"Why not?" Toomes asked. "I thought you wanted to be nice to me."

The word jarred oddly against Chandris's ear. Nice. Nice.

No. What Toomes wanted wasn't the definition of nice. Nice was what Hanan and Ornina had been to her when she'd come straggling along, cold and hungry, with nowhere to go. Nice was what they'd been to Jereko Kosta. Nice was what Forsythe was to his ever-cheerful handicapped aide, Ronyon.

Nice was even what Trilling had been to her, back in those early days.

Would Trilling have asked her to do something like this? Of course not. He'd taught her how to use her face and body, certainly; to distract men, or to weaken their resolve, or to pump them for information. But he would never have asked her to go all the way with anyone. Only with him had she ever had that kind of special closeness.

And now, after living with the Daviees and their angel all these months, she was even less interested in letting Toomes tom her. It was wrong for him to demand it-just plain wrong. He was already getting his money's worth; Kosta's information about Angelma.s.s would be worth far more than a mere hundred eighty thousand ruya. Toomes was just being vindictive, or childish, or predatory.

And that made it just as wrong for Chandris to let him get away with it.

"Of course I want to be nice," she said, smiling seductively. "But I can do better than this on my own."

She started slowly across the office toward him, putting an exaggerated sway into her hips. "Let me try."

The predator smile was still there, but there was an edge of caution to it. But a man like Toomes would never admit to being worried that she could outsmart him. Not again, anyway. "Okay," he said, looking her up and down appraisingly. "I'm game. Let's see what you can do."

She took her time crossing the room, teasing down the sealing strip of her blouse as she went. She reached the couch and stopped an arm's length away from him, slipping the blouse fully open. The bra she had on underneath wasn't nearly as fancy as the one she'd left on the desk, but it should do for the purpose required. Toomes still looked a little uncertain, but it was clear he found this interesting enough to let her do it her way a little longer.

Hopefully, long enough. She didn't dare glance at the carved-rim wall chrono over his head. He would surely pick up on that, and she couldn't afford to let him get suspicious now. But she had a pretty good time sense, and she didn't think she would have to drag this out more than another two minutes.

Barring an agonizing stretched-out moment she'd once spent cowering in the shadows watching angry police charge past, it was probably the longest two minutes of her life. Toomes stared unblinkingly up at her as she eased off her clothing, occasionally licking his lips. His expression was that of a hungry tiger playing games with a lamb before moving in for the kill.

Chandris played it as slowly and sensuously as she could. She'd never done anything like this herself, but some girlfriends of Trilling's buddies had once had an impromptu compet.i.tion at a party, and she had that slightly disgusting memory to draw on.

But even slow and sensuous, it was clear she was running out of time. Toomes's breathing had become short and erratic, his muscles visibly trembling as he watched the show. She could smell alcohol on his breath, which added another couple of turns to his coiled-spring tightness. The man was primed and ready for action, and it wouldn't be long before impatience and desire overwhelmed whatever limited self-control was left in that reek-fogged brain.

And when that happened...

When that happened, she would do whatever she had to. Whether it was right or wrong, whether it was utterly repulsive or merely horribly unpleasant, she would do whatever she had to. Hanan and Ornina were counting on her.

And people were dying out at Angelma.s.s.

She had undressed to the waist, and was beginning to roll her panties slowly down over her hips, when the fire drill she'd programmed into the building's housekeeping system the day before finally went off.

"What's that?" she gasped, spinning around and nearly losing her balance as she accidentally stepped on one of her shoes. "Amberson-it's the police!"

"No, no," Toomes said, his voice almost unrecognizable. "It's just a fire drill. Some idiot must have reset the-"

"Fire?" Chandris gasped, jerking like she'd been shot. "Fire?"

"It's a drill," Toomes insisted. "Just a griffy little-wait!"

It was too late. Chandris had already scooped up her discarded blouse-and with it Toomes's call stick-and was running on bare feet toward the desk. "Wait!" Toomes shouted again, his voice accompanied by the squeak of embroidered cloth against feathers as he leaped up and charged after her. Chandris didn't even pause at the desk, simply s.n.a.t.c.hing up the credit chit on the fly and making for the door.

"Hey-get back here," Toomes snarled, his voice suddenly ugly as the prospect of frustrated l.u.s.t loomed before him. He was running now, trying to cut her off at the door.

But he was on bare feet, too, and was wearing a full-length robe, and Chandris was already up to speed. The sliding panel opened with gratifying promptness as she keyed the call stick at it, and she beat him to the doorway with three paces to spare. There was a brief tickling of air on her bare back as he swung a hand in an unsuccessful grab, and then she was out and racing across the reception room.

Toomes followed, alternately cursing and cajoling and pleading. Chandris was younger and lighter, but Toomes was in pretty good shape, and as she reached the door to the hallway she could tell he was still right behind her.

Behind her, and showing no signs of fading in the stretch. As far as he was concerned, he'd paid a lot of money for this chance, and he was not going to let it get away without a fight. And with a small maze of doors, hallways, and elevators lying between Chandris and the street, it seemed inevitable that he would eventually drag her back to the feather couch, by her hair if necessary.

The outer reception door, she remembered, swung outward. Lowering her shoulder, she slammed into it full tilt, getting it open but losing precious momentum in the process. Even as she stumbled out into the hallway, Toomes's hand raked down her back. With a squeal of triumph, he caught the back of her panties. "Got you, you little-"

The noun never came. An instant later he skidded to a startled and terrified halt, his fingers dropping their grip on Chandris's panties as if the cloth had suddenly caught fire.

Judging by the stunned expressions on their faces, the eight men and women standing on and under the scaffolding flanking both sides of the hallway were probably at least as startled to see Toomes as he was to see them. They stood there gaping, their sprayers and cans of paint hanging forgotten in their hands, as Toomes scrambled madly to get his robe closed over what was left of his dignity.

Chandris didn't bother with either the dignity or the embarra.s.sment. Clutching the blouse haphazardly to her chest, she charged down the center of the gauntlet, still babbling about fires.

No one tried to stop her. No one, as far as she could tell, even moved, except maybe to follow her with their eyes, as she sprinted down the bank of elevators halfway down the hall. Across from the elevators was the stairway, and with a final gasp of relief, she vanished through the doorway and started down the stairs.

Two floors down, she emerged again and slipped into a nearby women's restroom. The spare clothing she had stashed there on her way into the building fifteen minutes earlier was undisturbed, and a few minutes later she was back on the stairs, dressed in a typical cleaning woman's outfit.

Instead of the earlier mad dash, she took this part of the trip a little easier. Caught red-handed in the act of a.s.saulting a half-naked girl a third his age, Toomes wouldn't be in any shape to continue the chase any time soon.

Eventually, of course, it would occur to him to wonder who in the world had logged in an order for the executive-floor corridor to be painted that particular evening. Hopefully not before she was out of the building and beyond his reach.

Still, she couldn't help but feel a twinge of conscience as she got into the line car she'd called. She didn't consider what she'd just done to be cheating, but Hanan and Ornina might not see it the same way she did. Better, maybe, that she just keep the details to herself.

And of course, there was no way in h.e.l.l and eggs that she was going to tell Kosta. No way at all.

Predictably, Kosta was waiting near the gate as the line car let her out. "How did it go?" he asked, his voice sounding more anxious than he probably intended it to.

"Better than expected," Chandris said, handing him the credit chit as she gave the Gazelle a quick once-over. None of the workers she'd left here earlier were in sight. "How are the repairs going?"

"Same way," he said, peering at the number on the chit and then tucking it carefully away in his pocket. "They've got an automated setup in the bow doing radiation-hardening on the new electronics, and another one in the engine room doing likewise. There's nothing they can do either place until that's finished, but the foreman says it should only take a couple more hours. They've all gone off to dinner until then."

"That's going to be a pleasantly long dinner," Chandris said, gesturing up at the gaping holes still scattered across the Gazelle's hull where damaged plates had been. "What about out here? I told him I wanted the hull finished by tonight."

"It will be, mostly," Kosta a.s.sured her. "They've got all the old plates out and are fabricating the replacements back at their shop. He said they'll have them finished tonight and can start putting them on in the morning."

"They can start putting them on tonight," Chandris retorted. "What's this 'tomorrow' stuff-they've got spare work crews. Where's that foreman, off at dinner with the rest of them?"

"Actually..." Kosta hesitated. "I think Ornina told them they could knock off on the rest of the hull work until tomorrow. It's okay," he added hastily. "I can't get all my stuff wired up until tomorrow, anyway."

"I don't care if you can't get it wired until next week," Chandris growled. "I told him we wanted it as soon as possible. Tomorrow is not as soon as possible."

"I know," Kosta said. "But-"

He broke off, his eyes shifting to something over Chandris's shoulder. "Can I help you?"

Chandris turned around, expecting to see one of the workers.

And froze.

"Sure can," Trilling Vail said genially, smiling an insane smile as he walked toward them. "My

name's Trilling. I've come for my girl."

CHAPTER 35.

For that first brief second Kosta didn't get it. The name meant nothing, and the man's smile seemed

pleasant enough.

And then, with a strange little whimper, Chandris backed hard into him... and suddenly, somehow he knew.

Chandris had been running since the first day he had seen her across that Xirrus dining room. And the smiling man coming toward them was the reason.

He caught Chandris's shoulders with his hands, steadying her as he slipped around her right side and slid himself between her and the other man. "I think you have the wrong ship," he said.

Trilling's lips didn't lose their smile. But suddenly, the lines around his eyes tightened and hardened.