Timothy Zahn - Angelmass

For a second she thought the woman was going to refuse, or at least ask for some ID first. But the upper-class mannerisms had apparently triggered her standard business reflexes, and without a word she picked up the phone and touched a button. "A Miss Chandris Adriessa to see you, Mr. Toomes," she announced.

For a minute she listened in silence, her eyes occasionally flicking to Chandris. Chandris returned her gaze with the best air of unconcern she could manage, mentally running through possible escape routes in case she had to chop and hop. If Toomes was calling the police...

The receptionist replaced the handset. "He'll see you now, Miss Adriessa," she said coolly. "Center door behind me."

"Thank you," Chandris said, circling the desk and heading for the indicated door. This didn't prove anything, either. Toomes could just be giving her a little more stall-rope while the police collected themselves and got over here.

The door opened as she reached it. Holding her head high, she stepped inside the room.

Toomes was standing beside a thickly padded chair in a contoured work area probably twice the size of the receptionist's, across a room that made the desk look relatively small by comparison. "Hello, Chandris," he said. "It's been awhile, hasn't it?"

"It's good to see you, Amberson," Chandris said, studying him as she walked toward the desk. He was exactly as she remembered him from the Xirrus, only not as drunk. There was the same easy charm, the same air of ego and self-absorption, the same predator's smile aimed in her direction.

Or perhaps not. All the surface cues were still there; but as she got closer she could see that underneath was an edge of caution or tension that was new since the last time they'd been together.

Perhaps because they were here in his office, surrounded by people he worked with, instead of in the relative anonymity of a spaceliner?

Or was it because the last time he'd seen her she was being escorted under guard to a landing boat?

"So," he said, coming out from behind the desk as she approached, easing his way through the narrow aisle between the desk and the display table with its multiple status monitors. His timing was perfect; he arrived at the front of the desk just as she did. "What have you been doing with yourself?"

For a split second she wondered if he was expecting her to kiss him. But something warned her off.

"Keeping busy," she told him, glancing over at the chairs and couches over by the right-hand wall.

He took the hint. "Let's get more comfortable, shall we?" he suggested, gesturing her toward a long couch that seemed to be upholstered entirely in white feathers. "Then you can tell me all about it."

A dozen thoughts raced through her mind on that long walk to the couch. Was he expecting what he thought he'd been getting aboard the Xirrus? Or was he just toying with her, playing the feline half of a game of cat and mouse while he waited for the police?

She reached the couch and sat down at one end. To her mild surprise, he didn't sit down beside her.

"I trust you cleared up that little customs problem?" he suggested, choosing one of the chairs facing her.

It was an obvious invitation to lie. A little too obvious. "You know better than that," she chided him gently. "It wasn't anything to do with customs. I was a semi-stowaway."

" 'Semi?' "

"I had a ticket to Lorelei," she told him, watching his face carefully. There wasn't a single atom of surprise there that she could detect. Clearly, he'd already been over the official version of the whole incident. "Lower class section. I decided to continue on to Seraph."

"Why?"

In the old days, she would have had a sugar-story all set and ready to spin. "I was running," she said instead. "There was a man I needed to get away from. I didn't have the cash in hand to do it."

"Did you get away?"

"I think so," Chandris said, shivering involuntarily at the thought of Trilling Vail lurking in some shadow behind her. "This isn't the kind of place where he would look for me."

Toomes lifted his eyebrows. "I trust you don't mean that the way it sounds," he warned. "My office is hardly equipped for live-in occupation."

"This isn't the 'here' I was referring to," Chandris said. "I meant Shikari City in general."

"Ah," Toomes said. He sounded relieved, but his face didn't match the voice. "So. What do you want?"

So much for any chance he might still be feeling romantic toward her. "I came here to offer you a business deal," she said.

For the first time his expression twitched. "Really," he said. "What sort of deal?"

"You give me money; I give you information," Chandris said. "Information a businessman like yourself would find exceedingly useful."

He pursed his lips. "What exactly does this information concern?"

"It concerns Angelmass," she said. "That's all I can say for now."

"Really," he commented, leaning back and crossing his legs. "You surprise me, Chandris. A good business strategist never gives away anything for free."

"Perhaps I'm not a good strategist, then," Chandris said evenly.

Toomes smiled. "Having had you run me around the track a few times, I hardly think that likely."

Chandris inclined her head slightly in acknowledgment of the point. "In that case, I'll concede it would have been obvious anyway once you heard your side of the bargain."

"That sounds more like it," he agreed. "Go on."

"I fly with a huntership that's been badly damaged," she told him. "I need it repaired."

Toomes's smile abruptly hardened. "The Gazelle?"

"That's the one."

He was frowning openly at her now, and behind his eyes she could see the news stories of the incident replaying themselves. The damage to the Gazelle, the damage to Hanan—

And High Senator Arkin Forsythe standing with reluctant prominence amid the chaos.

"Well," he said at last. "Interesting, indeed. But I thought Gabriel handled huntership repairs."

"Gabriel works at bureaucratic speeds," Chandris said. "We need it fixed now."

"We?"

Chandris hesitated a fraction of a second. But Toomes wasn't going to give her what they needed without something more. "I'm working with a researcher at the Angelmass Studies Institute," she said. "His name's Jereko Kosta."

"Kosta," Toomes repeated, studying her carefully. "I'll be checking with him, of course."

Chandris gestured toward his desk. "Call him now, if you'd like. I'll wait."

For a half dozen seconds she was afraid he was going to take her up on the offer. No problem; except that if he called out of the fog like this, Kosta the naive spy was likely to tell him everything they knew or suspected about Angelmass. That would be a lot of something for nothing, and Toomes could well decide it was all he needed.

Too late, now, she wished she'd told Kosta what she was planning and prepped him a little. But he'd been so sure she was going to pull something illegal that she'd figured he deserved to stew in his own juices a little.

But Toomes merely shrugged. "Later will do," he said. "Bottom line: how much are these repairs going to cost?"

Chandris braced herself. The estimate from the service crew foreman had come in from Ornina just as Chandris arrived at the Stardust building. This was not going to be pretty. "A hundred eighty thousand ruya."

Toomes's eyebrows went up again, but at least he didn't laugh out loud. "That's a lot of money," he said. "What makes you think this information will be anywhere near that valuable?"

"It's worth considerably more than that," Chandris said. "I'm not exaggerating when I say that this has the potential to drastically affect the entire economy of Seraph system. Possibly the entire Empyrean."

"Really," Toomes said. "Something of such devastating import, and you're proposing we keep it to ourselves?"