"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 Angelma.s.s?"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 Angelma.s.s 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. Angelma.s.s was indeed alive and intelligent.

And it hated people. People on the station. Maybe the people on Seraph, too?

G.o.d 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 Angelma.s.s, 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 Angelma.s.s 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

s.p.a.ce, 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 argued. "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? Angelma.s.s is a lot more ma.s.sive

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 Angelma.s.s.""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 Angelma.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce 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 c.o.c.ked 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."