Timothy Zahn - Angelmass

"What did he say?" Kosta asked.

"He asked why we couldn't just stop the war," Forsythe translated. "In that case, you wouldn't be an enemy and you could stay here."

"Makes sense to me," Ornina murmured.

"Wait a minute," Kosta said, frowning. "Is it really that simple? If we weren't at war with the Pax would that solve the problem?"

Forsythe gazed across the table at him, forehead wrinkled with thought. "Not entirely," he said at last. "But it would certainly be a start. The automatic categorization of you as an enemy of the Empyrean would become moot, and we could shift the focus purely to your various activities here."

"Why?" Pirbazari put in, his tone edged with sarcasm. "You know a way to make the Pax go away and leave us alone?"

"As a matter of fact," Kosta said slowly, "I do."

Forsythe and Pirbazari exchanged looks. "We're listening," Forsythe invited cautiously. "What do we have to do?"

"And how much is it going to cost us?" Pirbazari added.

"It won't cost you anything at all," Kosta said. "Do you have the coordinates for the Scintara system?

It's in the Garland Group of worlds."

"I'm sure we can find it," Forsythe said. "Why?"

"That's where the operations for this mission are centered," Kosta explained. "Most of the top Pax commanders are there monitoring the invasion, plus probably a scattering of government officials waiting to take credit for your surrender."

"So what do we do, send them an ambassador?" Pirbazari scoffed.

"No," Kosta said quietly. "We send them the Komitadji."

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Chandris twitch her head around to look at him. "What?" she demanded.

"It was the glory of the Pax Fleet," Kosta said, a hard lump in his throat as his mind flashed back to his single brief trip aboard the massive warship. To the awe and excitement he had felt at being aboard a legend... "The ship that couldn't be defeated. To see it not just defeated, but completely wrecked, is going to shake them straight to their boots."

"But they'll know it wasn't actually defeated," Pirbazari objected. "Surely they'll be able to figure out it was destroyed by Angelmass."

"Doesn't matter," Kosta said. "Whether we've figured out how to use Angelmass as a weapon or whether we conned them into running into it themselves, the point is still that we managed to destroy it."

"No, the point is that dropping it on their doorstep is an invitation to dance," Pirbazari retorted.

"They'll want to move in quick and slap us down hard before we can use Angelmass against them again."

Kosta shook his head. "You're thinking like a military man," he said. "Or like a politician, who has to worry about prestige and public opinion. But that's not who's running the Pax. The Adjutors give the orders; and all the Adjutors care about is money."

"That doesn't make sense," Pirbazari growled. "Are you saying they'll leave us alone simply because we've cost them a lot of money? That's not warfare. That's..." He groped for words.

"That's balance-sheet economics," Kosta agreed. "But that really is all they see. They'll leave us alone because the Empyrean has already become a negative number on the profit-loss scale. Because with the Komitadji destroyed, they've already spent more here than they could ever hope to gain.

Why waste more time and money conquering us when they know they won't break even anyway?"

Hanan stirred in his seat. "I think our entire civilization has just been insulted," he muttered under his breath to Ornina.

"No, your entire civilization just has no idea how much the Komitadji cost to build," Kosta countered. "And if there's one thing the Adjutors simply do not do, it's throw good money after bad."

"Maybe not normally," Forsythe said. "But you're forgetting Angelmass itself. The Adjutor I spoke to—Telthorst—was spinning great and lofty plans for using Angelmass's energy output to build an entire fleet of ships the size of the Komitadji. That may be an asset they'll still consider worth fighting for."

"No," Pirbazari said thoughtfully. "Not any more. Not after they see what it did to their fancy birthday-cake warship. They won't dare risk putting a shipbuilding facility anywhere near the thing."

"He's right," Kosta said. "Even if they decide to rebuild the Komitadji, they won't do it here."

"What if they rebuild it in the Pax?" Ornina asked.

"They might," Kosta conceded. "After all, there are still a few other wayward colonies out there waiting to be conquered. But even if they do, you'll never see it in Empyreal space."

"You really believe this is how they'll react?" Forsythe asked, his forehead wrinkled uncertainly.

"I'm sure of it." Kosta hesitated. "But if you think it would help, I'm willing to go back with the Komitadji and spell it out for them."

"No," Chandris said firmly before Forsythe could respond. "You leave now and they'll never let you come back."

Kosta blinked. There had been an unexpected intensity in her tone. "That would bother you?"

For that first split second she actually looked flustered. It was, in Kosta's experience, a new look for her. "Of course it would," Hanan jumped smoothly into the gap. "It would bother all of us. You're our friend."

"He won't have to go, will he?" Ornina asked anxiously. "Please?"

"I don't think it will be necessary," Forsythe said. "The Komitadji should deliver the message clearly enough without Mr. Kosta's assistance."

"A recorded message from you might be useful, though," Pirbazari suggested. "Especially if they interpret it as you being turned to our side by the angels. It might discourage them from sending in more spies."

Kosta nodded. "No problem."

Hanan chuckled. "There's a potful of soul-searching for you," he commented. "Angels make people good; and now they've turned Jereko against the Pax. Wonder what the Adjutors will make of that?"

"You know what they say," Ornina reminded him. "The love of money is the root of all evil."

"That is what they say." Hanan leaned forward a little to look at Kosta. "So is that what angels do, Jereko? Take away the love of money?"

"Well..." Kosta paused, wondering if he should be talking about this now. But if not now, when?

"Actually, I think they work one layer beneath that."

"You sound like you know something the rest of us don't," Forsythe said, eyeing him closely.

"I have a theory," Kosta said. "Not about what the angels are, exactly, but about what they do to people."

"I thought they made you be good," Chandris said, sounding puzzled.

"They don't make you do anything," Kosta told her. "All they do is let you be good. What I mean is that they help you turn your attention outward, toward other people, by suppressing the major factor that drives human selfishness and self-centered attitudes."

"What's that, the love of money?" Hanan suggested.

"Or basic corrupt human nature?" Pirbazari added cynically.

Kosta shook his head. "Fear."

There was a brief silence around the table. "Fear," Forsythe said, his voice flat.

"But there isn't anything evil about fear, Jereko," Ornina protested, sounding confused.

"I didn't say it was evil," Kosta said. "I said it tends to focus a person's attention inward and pushes away consideration of others. It tends to make you selfish; and selfishness, carried too far, is what drives most of what we consider anti-social and criminal behavior."

"Are we talking about the same thing here?" Forsythe asked, frowning. "Fear is a perfectly normal part of the survival instinct."

"Right, but I'm not talking about the kind of immediate danger that sends adrenaline pumping into your blood," Kosta said. "I don't think the angels do anything to affect that kind of physical response."

"So what are you talking about?" Forsythe asked.