"Raymont, sir. Traffic controller on the Seraph Angelma.s.s Catapult. It's-well, it's a little late now, sir; they've already gone through. I was wondering if you wanted us to send a backup shuttle along with them. Or behind them, now."

"If this is supposed to be making sense, it's not," Forsythe growled. He didn't have time for games. "Who and what are you talking about?"

"Why, the rescue mission, sir," Raymont said. "The blue-three code. The woman on the Gazelle said-"

"The Gazelle?" Forsythe cut him off.

"Yes, sir," Raymont said. From the sound of his voice, it sounded like he was suddenly having trouble breathing. "She said someone had been accidentally left aboard Central, and that you'd personally authorized a rescue mission even though the catapult was officially shut down, because a blue-three supersedes other orders..." He trailed off.

"I see," Forsythe said, his voice sounding calmer than he would have expected it to. Preoccupied with the incoming threat, he'd completely forgotten about Kosta and his theories about Angelma.s.s. "When did they go through?"

"About two minutes ago, sir," Raymont said, sounding thoroughly miserable now. "Shall I send a shuttle after them? We could have something prepped in fifteen minutes."

Forsythe looked up at the tactical. "No, don't bother," he said.

"Or one of the EmDef ships could get there even sooner," Raymont offered. "We could recalibrate while it gets here-"

"I said don't bother," Forsythe repeated firmly. "Close down the catapult again, but leave your net operating. Sooner or later, they'll be wanting to come back."

"Yes, sir," Raymont said. "I'm... yes, sir."

Forsythe closed the phone, noting peripherally that General Roshmanov had disappeared sometime during the call. "Kosta?" Pirbazari asked quietly.

"And Lalasha, and the Gazelle," Forsythe confirmed, putting the phone away. "They've gone to Angelma.s.s."

"I see," Pirbazari said, his voice gone suddenly hard and cool. "I guess I should have sent someone to the huntership yards after all."

Forsythe frowned at him. The other's expression matched his voice. "You have something to say, Zar?"

"We could have stopped him," Pirbazari said, his voice just loud enough for Forsythe to hear over

the background noise. "Instead, you let him go. A confessed Pax spy; and you deliberately let him go. Way the h.e.l.l out to Angelma.s.s, where he'll be conveniently out of the way when the Komitadjigets here."

"What exactly are you accusing me of?" Forsythe asked quietly.

"I'm just wondering if you made some sort of deal with him," Pirbazari said. "If you did, shouldn't the rest of us be brought in on it?"

For a long minute Forsythe gazed at him, a part of him marveling at how rapidly it was all

unraveling. A single decision not to wear an angel... and now it had come down to suspicion of treason. "I made no deals," he said at last. "But perhaps I should have."

Pirbazari's eyes twitched. "What's that supposed to mean?""The Komitadji is an impressive weapon," Forsythe said. "Very powerful, very dangerous. But as everyone is so fond of pointing out, the Pax wants conquest, not destruction."

He nodded fractionally toward the sky. "Angelma.s.s is a different matter. It's already attacked several hunterships, and it looks like it's gunning for Central next."

Pirbazari snorted. "If you buy Kosta's theory."

"Dr. Frashni confirmed what Kosta said about his experiment," Forsythe reminded him.

"It's a long road from a nine-angel logic circuit to a mad killer black hole," Pirbazari argued.

"Agreed," Forsythe said. "And the first step down that road is to gather more data. Which is precisely what Kosta's doing."

"So he says," Pirbazari countered. "Maybe he just wanted to get himself out of the way of a fight."

"No," Forsythe said firmly. "Think about it. Every huntership in the yard has been grounded, which

means he could have taken his pick of them. Why take the Gazelle, which would logically be the first place we would start looking for him?""Maybe because he knew we wouldn't be looking for him," Pirbazari said bluntly."He took the Gazelle because it had his test equipment aboard," Forsythe said. "He's there to find out what's going on."

Pirbazari's eyes were still hard, but Forsythe could see the suspicion fading a little. "And not because you offered him a deal to let him sit out the battle?"

Forsythe gave a snort. "If you think the vicinity around Central is safer right now than facing down the Komitadji, you're welcome to go sit out the battle with him."

Pirbazari's mouth tightened. "That was uncalled for, High Senator."

"So was yours, Zar," Forsythe said. "Are we clear now?"

Pirbazari seemed to measure him with his eyes. "For the moment."

"Good," Forsythe said. "Then let's see if the rest of the ships are in place yet."

Chandris had never been aboard Angelma.s.s Central before, but she had studied the floorplans and procedures once during a quiet hour between angel hunts. Getting the Gazelle into the axis docking bay without inside personnel to a.s.sist was a challenge, but she managed it without too many false starts. The interface between the non-rotating bay and the rotating part of the cylinder was also a bit tricky, but again they got through without anything more serious than a bruised shin on Kosta's part.

"Quite a place," Kosta called down to her over the chatter of gamma sparks as they headed down a narrow access ladder toward the operations area. "Must have been fun duty being a.s.signed here."

"I don't think it was usually this noisy," Chandris called back up, feeling her heart thudding in her ears. The gamma sparking wasn't nearly to the noise level that it had been during the radiation surges, but it was definitely heading in that direction.

"I just hope it doesn't get any worse," he called back. "These electronics can't take this kind of beating forever."

The station's designers had apparently had similar thoughts. The main catapult control complex, when they reached it, was considerably quieter than the approach had been. "They must have laid on extra shielding here," Kosta said as he turned in a slow circle, studying the softly glowing lights and displays. "Looks like they left everything on. Good."

"Including the net," Chandris said, looking around and then starting up the ladder again. "I'm going to go across to the other end and shut it down."

"Wait a minute," Kosta said, grabbing her ankle. "There must be a way of doing that from in here."

"I'm sure there is," Chandris agreed. "But it'll take time to find it. You want Forsythe and EmDef charging in on us while we're looking through manuals?"

Kosta let go of her ankle. "Go," he said.

She got back up to the cylinder's centerline corridor and made her way along it through the crew quarters and supply areas toward the other half of the station. Both sets of blast doors leading to the midway connection tunnel were sealed, but they opened quickly enough at her punched-in command. The midway tunnel itself was rather eerie: a relatively short corridor lined all around with red-rimmed hatchways leading to the double ring of escape pods she'd seen on her first trip to Angelma.s.s.

She got the blast doors at the far end opened and pa.s.sed through a mirror-image layout of supply rooms and crew quarters until she arrived at the proper access ladder and climbed down to the net control complex. A quick glance at the monitors to confirm that Forsythe and EmDef weren't yet coming through the net, and she began to go down the boards, systematically throwing every switch.

Two minutes later, the boards and monitors were totally dark. So was that entire half of the station. Groping her way along in the dim glow of the emergency lighting system, she headed back.

She reached the catapult control complex to find Kosta seated at one of the stations, gazing at a display and flipping back and forth between what looked to be at least three different instruction manuals. "Net's down," she reported. "How's it going here?"

"Slow," he said, not looking up. "In order to recalibrate for Angelma.s.s, it seems I need a crash course in catapult theory."

"Great," Chandris said. "How long?"

"Call it an hour. Maybe a little less."

"And then we still have the actual reprogramming to do?"

Kosta nodded. "I'd guess another thirty to sixty minutes on top of that for the programming and the fine-tuning of the charge on the catapult's capacitors."

"So we'd better count on this taking a full two hours."

"Right." Kosta looked significantly across the room. "I just hope we've got that long."

Chandris followed his gaze, to a monitor showing the blazing speck that was Angelma.s.s bearing inexorably down on them. Staring at the display, she could have sworn she could see the black hole visibly gaining on them. An optical illusion, of course. "What can I do?"

He rubbed his forehead. "How are you at electronic tech stuff?"

"I learned the Gazelles systems in three days."

"Close enough." He gestured to the chair beside him. "First thing you need to do is find out how to shut off the Seraph net from here-the last thing we want is to send Angelma.s.s into a low planetary orbit. After that, start learning the mechanics of the reprogramming procedure. Once I've got the physics and math figured out, I don't want to have to wade through a tech manual, too."

"Got it," she said, sliding into the chair. Pulling up the procedures manual, she glanced again at Angelma.s.s.

It was an optical illusion, of course. It had to be.

CHAPTER 42.

"The moment has come, Commodore," Telthorst said, his eyes steady on Lleshi's face, his voice just a few stages too loud. "If you're going to launch a fighter screen to protect the Komitadji, you need to do it now."

"Thank you, Mr. Telthorst," Lleshi said, striving to keep the disgust out of his voice. As far as Lleshi was concerned, the decision had been made several hours ago. Telthorst's question was nothing but a pathetically obvious challenge, an attempt to make points with the command crew for his upcoming power bid. Who among them, after all, could possibly argue against anything that would help ensure the Komitadji's safety?

But Lleshi wasn't going to play Telthorst's game. Not yet. Military procedure, as well as simple basic battle ethics, dictated that he first give Seraph the option of surrender. "Open a broad-spectrum comm blanket to the planet," he ordered.

The comm officer nodded briskly. "Channel open, Commodore."

"This is Commodore Vars Lleshi of the Pax warship Komitadji," he stated firmly, as if the Empyreals hadn't already figured that out. "I declare the Seraph system to be returned to the jurisdiction of Earth and the Pax. I call on you to withdraw your military forces to the surface and prepare to turn over the civilian government and infrastructure to my command."

He paused, but the only response was silence. "If you do not comply, my orders are to take control of this system by whatever means necessary, using whatever force is required," he went on. Telthorst's eyebrows twitched at the word orders, but the Adjutor said nothing. "You have ten minutes to respond. After that, I will take whatever action I deem appropriate."

He tapped off his microphone switch. "Mark ten minutes," he ordered.

"Yes, sir."

"Very n.o.ble," Telthorst murmured. "You don't really expect them to just give up, do you?"

"You had better hope they do," Lleshi warned. "If they decide to fight, you're going to have a much smaller collection of plunder to present your fellow poachers at the cathedra."

Telthorst's eyes flashed. "How dare you refer to the Adjutors that way?" he demanded. "And while we're at it, how dare you pretend you had orders to come here? This was nothing more than a blatant

attempt on your part to steal some glory for yourself. Here, in the midst of-""Komitadji, this is High Senator Arkin Forsythe of Lorelei," a deep, measured voice boomed from a dozen command deck speakers. "What are your terms of surrender?"

"Unconditional, of course," Telthorst called before Lleshi could answer. "You will immediately

remove your warships-"

"This is Commodore Lleshi, High Senator," Lleshi cut him off. "You misunderstand our purpose here. This is not so much a surrender as it is merely a return of wayward colonies to the Pax family."

"A fine distinction, some would say," the High Senator commented.

"Perhaps," Lleshi said. "However, that is the reality of the situation. Upon your acceptance, you will immediately gain the same rights and privileges as any world and people of the Pax."

"And the same duties, I presume?"

"No rights exist without corresponding responsibilities," Lleshi reminded him.

"No, of course not," Forsythe said. "I would like the opportunity to discuss the details before we