Timothy Zahn - Angelmass

"Is it manned?"

"Usually, though the people are mostly there to help in case of huntership emergencies. The station is automated enough that you could set it up to run pretty much by itself if you had to. You can also turn the major systems on and off from Seraph."

Kosta nodded, thinking about people sitting in the outer radiation field of a blazing quantum black hole for weeks or months on end. The shielding technology alone that that implied was incredible.

No wonder the Komitadji's lasers and plasma jets hadn't put a dent in those Lorelei defense ships.

"The gamma-ray clicking must drive them nuts," he murmured.

Gyasi grinned. "You get used to it. Just like you do riding around in zero-gee. You look like you're feeling better."

"I am," Kosta confirmed, nodding. This time his head didn't even threaten to come off. "That stuff works fast when it finally gets around to it."

"Only the best for us folks at the Institute," Gyasi said. "You feel up to heading forward and checking out some of the gear?"

"Sure." Carefully, Kosta gave himself a push away from the restraint straps and drifted across the room. Gyasi caught his arm as he approached, deftly helping him through the door. "I never got a chance to ask if you had any experiments aboard," he said as they headed down the corridor.

Gyasi shook his head. "I don't personally, though the head of my team does. Most of what I'm working on can be done easier in the lab." He grinned, his face a little dreamy looking. "I just like to come out here and look at Angelmass."

"So to speak," Kosta murmured.

"Well, not directly at it of course," Gyasi agreed. "But even through fifteen filters it's still an impressive sight. Here we are."

They had arrived outside a door marked starboard analysis room. It slid open at a tap on the touch plate, and Gyasi led the way inside.

The view in here was impressive, too. The room was long and relatively narrow, its entire length taken up on both sides by displays and tangles of equipment. Perhaps thirty people floated around and through it all, making adjustments or taking notes or just watching. A murmur of quiet conversation competed with the hum of cooling fans and cryogenic pumps, all of it punctuated every few seconds by a gamma-ray click. "Did they leave anything at all behind in their labs?" he asked.

Beside him, Gyasi chuckled. "This is nothing. On some trips the place gets really crowded."

"Right," Kosta said dryly. A monstrous apparatus at the far end caught his eye: a huge spherical tank wrapped with cables and metal coils. "What's that thing?" he asked, indicating it.

"Ah, that," Gyasi said. "Dr. Ciardi's angel decay detector. One of the three permanent experiments aboard; and heaven only knows how they're going to get it out of the ship if and when they're done with—"

"Wait a second," Kosta interrupted him. "Decay detector?"

"Right," Gyasi nodded. "Dr. Ciardi's one of those who isn't ready to believe in the Acchaa theory—he still wants angels to be nothing more than highly metastable subatomic particles. If his theory is right, an angel should spontaneously decay into a particular group of other subatomic particles. That thing is busy looking for that specific particle-track signature."

"Wouldn't it be simpler to just take one into his lab and sit on it?"

"Oh, he's doing that, too," Gyasi said. "But that could take a while—his theory predicts a half-life in the fifty-thousand-year range. I've heard he tried to get hold of a whole bunch of angels to help speed things up, but Director Podolak turned him down."

"Academic censorship?"

"Simple arithmetic. The High Senate and most of the top EmDef people have angels now, along with all the planetary governors and senators and a lot of judges. But there are still lower-level politicians, leaders of industry—you know the list. Maybe in ten years or so Director Podolak will be able to take fifty or a hundred angels out of the pool for that kind of study. But not now."

Kosta nodded, feeling more hopeful than he had in days. If the plan was going to require another ten years to complete, then perhaps there was still time to save these people.

Provided he, Kosta, did his job.

And finding out more about this Ciardi's theory might be a good place to start. If he could help sow doubt as to what the angels really were—

"Mr. Gyasi?" a woman's voice called from the other end of the room. "Can you give me a hand?"

"Sure," Gyasi called back. He kicked off the wall, bouncing his hands against walls and ceiling to skillfully maneuver himself through the maze of other occupants. Kosta followed more slowly, wondering just how often Gyasi had taken this trip.

He arrived at the far end of the room to find Gyasi and a middle-aged woman poring over a maze of circuit cables. "Ah—Jereko," Gyasi said, glancing up. "Dr. Qhahenlo, this is my new officemate, Jereko Kosta. This is Dr. Rae Yanda Qhahenlo, my supervisor."

"Honored, Mr. Kosta," Qhahenlo said briefly, not bothering with the usual greeting routine. "You know anything about mid-range samplers?"

"A little," Kosta said cautiously, hovering over their shoulders. He knew a great deal about midrange samplers, actually. But Pax samplers, not their Empyreal counterparts. Even if the designs turned out to be parallel, translating the terminology might be tricky. "What's the trouble?"

"Output signal is way too noisy," Qhahenlo grunted. "I thought it was the 'sponder, but replacing it didn't seem to help."

"Um." Kosta looked over the apparatus. "What's in all that tubing?"

"Siitalon," Qhahenlo said. "Cryogenic heat-pump fluid—keeps the detectors cool."

"Fluorine-based?"

Qhahenlo frowned at him. "I think so. Why?"

"Well, it looks like you've got one of the line connections right over the 'sponder feed," he pointed out. "If you've got a small leak there, you may be getting some fluorine adsorption onto the line.

Maybe enough to cause your noise."

Gyasi blinked. "You're kidding. I've never heard of anything like that."

"Actually, I have," Qhahenlo said, already searching through her tool kit. "I'd completely forgotten it, though. Let's see..."

For a minute she worked in silence, tightening down the suspect connection with a zero-gee wrench and then molding extra sealant around it. "Okay, give it a try."

Gyasi busied himself with the control board. "Well, it looks a little better," he said doubtfully, studying the display. "Wait a minute; there it goes." He looked up. "Nice call, Jereko."

"Thanks," Kosta said, letting out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Somehow, it had been vitally important to him to be right on this. "Lucky guess."

"One of my own favorite investigative tools," Qhahenlo said dryly. "Thank you, Mr. Kosta." She eyed him thoughtfully. "You must be new to the Institute."

Kosta nodded. "Just got here a couple of days ago. Still finding my way around."

"Any of the other research teams press-gang you yet?"

"Uh..." Kosta glanced at Gyasi, found no cues there. "No. Should they have?"

She cocked an eyebrow. "If this is a sample of your skills, they certainly will. Good diagnosticians are in high demand."

Kosta glanced at Gyasi again. Was Qhahenlo trying to hire him? And if so, did he have any say in the matter? "I do have some projects of my own I'm working on," he said carefully.

She smiled. "Don't worry—I'm not talking about kidnapping you away from your other work," she assured him. "But I would like you to work with my team. Even just on a consulting basis, if that's all the time you can spare."

"Though as a matter of fact," Gyasi put in, "you'll probably wind up working with Dr. Qhahenlo sooner or later anyway. That ion shell project of yours could be useful when the V/E experiment is finished."