Timothy Zahn - Angelmass

The trouble was with him. His life the past few years had been immersed so thoroughly in academic surroundings and people that he'd completely forgotten how to deal with anyone who didn't fit into that neat little mold.

If he'd ever known how to do it at all.

He watched the girl cross the main entrance road below, a wave of self-disgust souring his stomach.

He could kid himself all he wanted, but it wouldn't make a scrap of difference to the universe at large. The plain, simple, brutal truth was that he'd been a socially incompetent child, a socially incompetent adolescent, and was well on his way to becoming a full-fledged socially incompetent adult.

He couldn't even handle his own culture without freezing up or babbling like an idiot. And so, of course, he'd been selected for an undercover mission to a totally foreign culture.

Why?

He'd asked his instructors that question during those long weeks of his espionage training. Had asked it a dozen different times, in a dozen different ways. And yet, somehow, he'd never gotten a straight answer to it. At the time he'd been too busy to pay much attention to the evasion; now, remembering back, he could see more clearly the half answers and smooth subject changes that had always seemed to happen.

They'd manipulated him. Like that Chandris girl out there, they'd manipulated him. And had done it just as successfully as she had.

But you can deal with the academic types like Gyasi and Qhahenlo, the thought whispered in the back of his mind.

It was a valid enough point, in its way. Probably the one they'd used to talk him into this mission in the first place, though he didn't remember that conversation very clearly. He did remember they'd made a big deal about his tridoctorum degree including neural physiology along with astrophysics and tech design, and there did seem to be a fair amount of neural data in the Institute's files.

But surely there were other people in the Pax with as much expertise and better social polish. If Chandris was at all representative of the average Empyreal, he was probably damned lucky he'd even made it to Seraph without being exposed for who and what he was.

Unless that was exactly what they'd wanted.

For a long minute he stared out the window, not seeing anything at all. Could that really be what all this was about? Not a research mission at all, but just some kind of throwaway decoy to cover up the Komitadji's real operation?

Because if it was, his life wasn't worth the plastic his phony ID was printed on. He'd be caught—sure as anything he'd be caught. They'd have made sure of that.

Behind him, the door opened.

He jumped, twisting awkwardly in the air, hand clawing uselessly for the shocker buried out of reach in the bottom of his pocket. He came down, trying to land in the combat stance they'd taught him—

"Hi, Jereko," Gyasi said absently, barely glancing up from the printout balanced across his left forearm as he ambled into the room and over to his desk chair. "What's new?"

Kosta swallowed hard, knees trembling with relief and reaction. "Nothing much," he said, striving to sound casual.

He obviously didn't succeed. Midway through turning a page Gyasi looked up, a frown on his face.

"You okay?"

"Sure," Kosta said. "Fine."

"Uh-huh." Gyasi peered at him. "Come on, what's wrong?"

"It's something personal," Kosta told him, hearing the edge in his voice. "I just need some time to think."

Gyasi frowned a little harder, but then shrugged. "Okay, sure. You need someone to talk to, I'm right here."

"Sure."

Gyasi threw him a quick smile and, for all practical purposes, disappeared back into his printout.

Kosta watched him for a moment. Then, with an effort, he made his way back to his own chair, feeling both relieved and more than a little foolish. Of course the Pax hadn't thrown him to the sharks—the whole idea was crazy. Aside from anything else, this mission must have cost a fantastic amount of money. And if there was one thing everyone knew about the Pax, it was that no one in government deliberately threw away fantastic amounts of money. Not with the Adjutors hovering like hungry vultures over everything they did.

No, what they must have been counting on was something far more subtle: namely, the nonsuspicious attitude the angels seemed to create in their subjects. It was the same mindset that had allowed him to breeze through interplanetary Empyreal customs and into a sensitive facility without his credentials ever being challenged, and it would very likely allow him to gloss over any cultural blunders as well. At least, with anyone who mattered.

"Oh, by the way," Gyasi said, looking up again, "what's the status of that angel-production paper I keep nagging you about? Anything new?"

"The research is done," Kosta told him. "I'll be writing it up this afternoon."

Gyasi's eyebrows went up. "Great. I'd like to show a copy to Dr. Qhahenlo before you put it on the net, if I may."

"Sure."

After all, the reason he'd joined this mission in the first place had been to help free the Empyreals from alien domination. Risky though it might be to draw attention to himself, it might be the only way to shake up the general complacency around him. To try and get the people in charge to take a good, hard look at their most basic assumptions.

And as to the other part of his mission...

"Speaking of Dr. Qhahenlo," he said, "is that offer from her still open?"

"I'm sure it is. You looking to join the team?"

"I'd at least like to do some consulting," Kosta said. "You people know so much more than I do about angels, and there's a lot I still need to learn."

"Great," Gyasi smiled, getting to his feet. "Let's go talk to her."

Kosta stood up, too, forcing a smile of his own. And wondered uneasily why the deception seemed to hurt his stomach.

"Well, we're off," Ornina said, tucking the flat angel holding box solidly under her arm as she made yet another adjustment to her floppy-brimmed hat. A horrendous hat, to Chandris's way of thinking, but Ornina obviously liked it. "We should be back within four hours at the latest."

"Sooner than that if the couplers at Glazrene's are down to their usual standard of quality," Hanan added, twirling his credit-line card around in his fingers with obviously strained patience as he waited for his sister to finish her primping. "Still, hope springs eternal, or some such thing."

Chandris nodded silently, her eyes on the spinning card. It was a strangely fascinating routine, very much like the palm-and-switch techniques of the three card monte scorers she'd known in the Barrio.

Someday she would have to ask Hanan where he'd learned how to do that.

"Well, come on, Hanan," Ornina said briskly. "Let's get this show on the road. Good-bye, Chandris; we'll see you later. Enjoy the silence."

They headed outside and down the outer stairway. Chandris stood there, listening... and a minute later heard the sound of the TransTruck driving off down the street.

And she was alone. Alone with the Gazelle. Alone with several million ruya worth of equipment.

Alone with the angel.

For several minutes she just wandered the aft part of the ship, listening as her footsteps punctuated the now familiar sounds of the Gazelle at rest. But only the quieter sounds: engines and pumps, generators and fans. There was none of the music Ornina always played while she worked; none of Hanan's alleged singing and distinctive, slightly clumping walk.

She was alone. In the silence.

With the angel.

The samovar in the galley was, as usual, simmering gently with one of Ornina's long repertoire of tea blends. Peppermint, this one, a drink Chandris had developed a particular taste for over the past four weeks. She helped herself to a cup, throwing in an extra stick of peppermint, and carried it carefully up to the control cabin. There, amid the quietly glowing displays and flickering status boards, she pulled the restraint straps away from her chair and sat down.