Timothy Zahn - Angelmass

"True," Chandris murmured, searching her memory. A light-minute?—right, the distance light traveled in sixty seconds. At three hundred thousand kilometers a second...

Surreptitiously, she tapped at the calculator on her board. Three hundred thousand times sixty times twenty... three hundred sixty million kilometers.

She stared at the number, a chill running through her. The Barrio had extended maybe two kilometers at its widest; the whole of New Mexico City had stretched only thirty. Only once before in her life had she ever been further from home than she could walk if she had to, and even then it had only been a hundred-kilometer plane flight to Ankh.

Three hundred sixty million kilometers. For the first time, it was beginning to sink in just how different this world was she'd puff-talked her way into.

"I'll get some spin going," Ornina said. "Course vector check, Chandris?"

"Right away," Chandris said, shaking off the strangely depressing sense of not belonging. She keyed her comp arm, glanced at the main display—

And looked back again. Centered in the display, all alone in pitch blackness, was the brightest star she'd ever seen.

Angelmass.

"Impressive, isn't it?" Hanan said.

Chandris started; she hadn't realized she'd so obviously been staring at it. "Very," she agreed. "I didn't expect it to be so bright."

"It's a lot brighter than that," Ornina told her soberly. "At this distance it would blind you in a second if the sunscreens didn't automatically crank the gain down to tolerable levels. On Seraph you can sometimes see it in the daytime. Pretty impressive, especially for something that's only a few atoms'

widths across."

Chandris frowned. Angelmass was that tiny? Somehow, she'd had the vague idea that black holes were huge things, big masses of nothingness that could eat up the whole centers of galaxies, or suck in stuff from hundreds of kilometers away.

Were those just a different kind of black hole? Or was Angelmass something totally unique?

Beside her, the display board suddenly beeped. "What was that?" she asked, starting.

"High-energy gamma ray, probably," Hanan told her. "The ones at the high end of the spectrum can punch right through the hull, and of course they're not bothered by the magnetic deflectors."

"What did it do?" Chandris asked, eying the display warily. It seemed all right now.

"Probably kicked a false signal through one of the optical switches," Hanan shrugged. "Nothing serious. After a while you get used to the equipment pinging and flickering and burping at odd times."

"There's no need to be worried," Ornina added. "Remember that these hunterships were designed to handle all the radiation and heat out there. The only real dangers are from those high-energy gammas and the occasional antiparticle that might get through the magnetic fields."

Chandris blinked. "Antiparticles?" she asked.

"From Angelmass's Hawking radiation," Hanan explained. "The tidal forces at the edge of a black hole this small are strong enough to create particle/antiparticle pairs. Like proton and anti-proton, or electron and positron. Anyway, sometimes one of the particles escapes while the other falls back in.

That's what's called Hawking radiation; and in fact it's where almost all of the particle flux out here comes from."

"Everything except some radiation from gravitational infalling," Ornina said. "And the angels, of course. No one's quite sure where they come from."

Chandris gritted her teeth. "Of course," she agreed, knowing even as she said it how stupid she sounded. She was supposed to know this stuff. Instead, she was totally lost.

And she'd nurking well better correct that, and fast. This track was far from solid... and if it popped, there was nowhere to run. "Speaking of angels," she said, "you said we wouldn't start hunting for them for another hour?"

"Oh, we'll fire up the detectors in about half an hour," Hanan said. "But we're not likely to get anything for awhile after that. An angel picks up a coating of positive ions really fast, and you have to be pretty close in to spot 'em before that happens."

Chandris nodded. "In that case, maybe I'll go back to my cabin for awhile. Unless you need me, of course."

"No, go ahead," Ornina said. "Anyway, it may be days before we spot an angel—you might as well start learning now how to pace yourself."

"Thank you," Chandris said, unstrapping and getting gingerly to her feet. "I'll be back in half an hour."

"No hurry," Ornina called after her.

Chandris stepped to the door, slid it open... and paused, looking back into the control cabin as an odd thought struck her. If the radiations from Angelmass could affect the Gazelles electronic gear, could they also affect Hanan's exobrace system? And if so, what would it do to him?

Impatiently, she shook the thought aside. Considering what she was planning, the state of Hanan's health was hardly something she needed to be concerned with.

Stepping through the door, she closed it behind her and headed back toward her room. With any luck at all, the Gazelles computer would have a fair amount of information on Angelmass. She had just half an hour to learn it all.

They followed the herald and the Speaker into the room; and as the herald stepped to the front, Forsythe let his eyes sweep around the intricately carved walls and vaulted ceiling. It was just as he remembered it: the Common Chamber of the High Senate, rich with grandeur and history and a sense of power.

For Forsythe, though, it was much more than any of those. It was like coming home.

He took a deep breath, the delicate scent of leather and brass and exotic wood triggering a kaleidoscope of bittersweet memories. Watching from the gallery above during session as his father spoke to the assemblage. Curling up in one of the huge leather chairs late in the evening, or wandering around looking at the carvings on the walls, waiting for his father to finish a conversation and take him home. The first time that, as one of his father's assistants, he had had to come right into the middle of session to deliver some last-minute papers, feeling proud and scared and horribly conspicuous all at the same time.

Standing there, helpless, as his father quietly but firmly handed in his resignation.

Lowering his eyes, Forsythe focused on the men and women sitting in the tiered seats beneath the dome of the ceiling. At the glitter of the angel pendants hanging around each of those high and mighty necks...

The herald pounded his ceremonial staff on the stone floor, the thud echoing through the chamber and quieting the last murmurs of conversation from the tiers. "The High Senate of the Empyrean is now in session," he intoned. "Let all rise and prepare their hearts and minds for service to the people of the Five Worlds."

There was a general shuffle of cloth on leather as the High Senators obediently rose to their feet.

Stepping past the herald, the Speaker walked over to stand beside his own high-backed chair, and for a minute the room was silent. Then, at an unseen signal, the herald pounded his staff again. "May God grant wisdom, compassion, and courage to all who serve," he said. Pounding the staff a third time, he turned and went to his small archway at the back of the room.

The Speaker sat down, the chair creaking slightly with his weight. "Greetings to you all," he said gravely as the rest took their seats in turn. "I welcome you to the thirty-second session of the Empyreal High Senate; I trust you all came back ready to work." He glanced down at the desk display on his left. "Our first order of business this morning will be to welcome three newly elected members into our midst: Karym Daryani of Uhuru, replacing the late Bharat Jain; Arkin Forsythe of Lorelei, replacing the retiring Gabre Kassaie; and Vladmr Grosdova of Sadhai, replacing the late Raimon Sabatyat."