Timothy Zahn - Angelmass

"Right. Are we ourselves profiting financially from any of this?"

Pirbazari quirked a smile. "Hardly."

"Are we profiting politically, then?" Forsythe persisted. "Am I likely to make a great name for myself this way?"

"Well..." Pirbazari's eyebrows came together. "I suppose it's possible. The man who was prepared when no one else was and all that. But you're just as likely to look paranoid and even a little silly if nothing happens, so it's really not that good a gamble."

Forsythe spread his hands. "So in other words this doesn't gain me anything at all," he concluded.

"So where's the ethical problem?"

Pirbazari pursed his lips. "The ethical problem is that we're lying to the High Senate," he said bluntly. "A lie of omission, perhaps, but a lie just the same."

Forsythe gazed at him, a chill running up his back. Oh, no, he thought. Not Pirbazari too. "We're not lying to them, Zar," he said. Quietly, soothingly, as if talking to an upset child. "I've tried to tell them that the Empyrean's in danger. You know how I've tried to tell them that. But it's something none of them wants to hear. And you know as well as I do that if someone doesn't want to hear something you can't force them to listen to it."

"Don't patronize me, sir," Pirbazari said, an edge to his voice. "Just because I'm concerned about ethical matters doesn't imply I've lost the capacity for rational thought."

"Sorry," Forsythe apologized, mind racing. Somehow, he needed to deflect this line of questioning.

"For a minute there I slipped into Ronyon mode," he added. "The way he insists on thinking about the universe in straight black/white, good/bad terms."

The tactic worked. Pirbazari seemed to straighten up, a slightly defensive expression flicking across his face. "I didn't mean to imply I thought that, sir."

"Oh, I know you didn't," Forsythe assured him. "It was just the way you said it, I guess." He locked gazes with the other. "I know it looks a little odd, Zar, but you're just going to have to trust me on this. Trust that I really do have the best interests of the Empyreal people at heart."

"I know you do, sir," Pirbazari said.

"And," Forsythe added, tapping his chest, "I am, after all, the one wearing the angel."

Pirbazari's face relaxed. Just a little, but enough. "There's that," he conceded. "Well. Unless there's something else, I'd better get back to my desk. I have a call in to Ardanalle about some 501's they're trying to dump. Not quite as good as the 601's; but if we could get them aboard some of the ore transports it would give them remote spotter capability."

"Good idea," Forsythe nodded. "Keep me informed."

"Yes, sir." Pirbazari glanced at his watch. "Don't forget you have a committee meeting in half an hour."

"Yes, thanks, I remember," Forsythe smiled. "Talk to you later."

He held the smile until Pirbazari had closed the door behind him. Then he leaned back in his chair and said a word he'd had to teach himself never to say in public.

It was backfiring. All of it. The work, the planning, even the expense of having his office remodeled to careful specifications—all of it would be for nothing if his staff came under the influence of the damned angel. Even if he himself remained free, because a High Senator without an able staff was a sound mind trapped in a crippled body.

One of the many things he'd learned from his father.

All right, don't panic, he told himself firmly. If the problem was all the other angels around here, there wasn't much of anything he could do about it. But if it was his angel that was at fault...

He frowned up at the decorative chandelier hanging over and just in front of the formal guest chair.

Yes—that had to be it. The reason for having the chandelier put up in that particular place had been to keep the angel close to any visitors; but obviously it was also too close to the less formal deskcorner chairs that Pirbazari and the others used when they came in for private conversations.

Which meant that all he needed to do was find someplace else to stash the thing when his aides came to call.

Reaching down, he pulled open his lower left-hand desk drawer. It came easily; the flat safe he'd had installed there was heavy, but the motor assist more than compensated for the extra weight. He worked the combination lock and opened it, letting the lid swing smoothly up to lean back against the edge of the desk, then opened the carved wooden jewelry box sitting inside among the papers and cyls. Picking up his call stick, he went over to the door, making sure to give the chandelier a wide berth. He keyed the stick for code transmission and tapped four buttons.

The motors in the safe, installed by people who knew what they were doing, were totally silent. The motorized track system inside the false ceiling, installed by him, wasn't quite that good. But it was good enough. At the door, five meters away, he could just barely hear the hum, and only because he knew what to listen for. Mentally, he traced the track's movement: from the chandelier's hollow center up into the gap behind the decorative false ceiling, diagonally through the gap above the desk to the movable tile directly above the open safe...

The tile swung open, and in a glitter of gold and crystal the angel pendant appeared. It dropped leisurely toward the open safe on its telescoping memory plastic tendril, disappearing inside with a soft metallic chink. A second coded signal sent the tendril retracting back into its hiding place; a third closed the safe and the drawer.

Stuffing the call stick into a pocket, Forsythe went over to the guest chair and climbed up on it, balancing awkwardly with one foot on the seat cushion and the other on one of the arms. The ceiling tiles weren't fastened down but were simply resting on their framework; pushing one of them up, he stuck his head up and took a look.

One look was all he needed. The straight-line path between chandelier and desk had been the easiest for him to set up, but there was plenty of room up there for him to add a second track to the system.

That one would allow him to send the angel pendant all the way to the side of the room, well away from his aides when they were in the office.

But he'd have to do that later, after everyone else had gone home. Right now he had a meeting to go to, and one chore to take care of before he left. Ducking down, he dropped the tile back into place and got down off the chair, pulling it back to its normal position beneath the chandelier. With his call stick he signalled for Ronyon, then crossed the room to the main computer access system he'd had set up in the corner and punched up a section of the daily report.

He was sitting there, pretending to be engrossed in an analysis of commerce projections for northern Sadhai, when Ronyon arrived. You wanted me, Mr. Forsythe? the big man signed.

Yes, Ronyon, Forsythe signed back. I have a meeting to go to soon. Would you mind coming with me?

Ronyon's face lit up, as if he hadn't done this countless times in the past six weeks. Sure, Mr.

Forsythe, he signed eagerly. You want me to get the angel?

Yes, please.

He watched as Ronyon went over to the desk, a not quite comfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was one thing to run rings around Pirbazari and his new-formed if still nebulous conscience. It was something else entirely to continue pulling this charade on Ronyon.

And the really troublesome part was that he didn't really know why it bothered him the way it did.

He took a deep breath. It doesn't matter, he told himself firmly. Ronyon's feelings, that child's trust and loyally of his—in the vast scheme of things all of that was expendable. All that ultimately mattered was Forsythe's duties to the people of Lorelei and the rest of the Empyrean. And if it took lying to Ronyon or anyone else to fulfill those duties, it was a small price to pay.