Timothy Zahn - Angelmass

"She never told me how she pulled it off," Kosta countered. "But Ornina checked up on this Stardust Metals group after Toomes called me. The business is legitimate, anyway, even if whatever Chandris has planned isn't. Come on, let's get this stuff out of here."

Gyasi's face twisted. "Well, actually..."

He didn't seem inclined to finish the sentence. As it turned out, he didn't have to.

Across the room the door swung open. Kosta turned toward it, his hand twitching reflexively toward his pocket before he remembered he'd surrendered his shocker to Hanan.

"Hello, Mr. Kosta," Director Podolak said, stepping into the room. "I see you've been busy."

"Director Podolak," Kosta said, the words coming out as a half sigh. It was worse than the police.

Worse even than Empyreal security. Those he could have resisted, maybe even successfully.

But not Podolak. Not the woman who'd done so much to help him over the past few months. Not the woman who'd supported his work at every step along the way.

Not the woman who'd trusted him.

"I'm surprised we still have an Institute out there," Podolak commented wryly as she walked into the room, glancing at each stack of boxes as she passed it. Doing a mental inventory, no doubt; she probably knew exactly how many test tubes and marking pens each lab was supposed to have.

"Looks to me like half of it is right here."

"I need it to run an experiment," Kosta said. To his mild surprise, his voice was clear, his tongue working without tangling over itself. A far cry from the fumbling, easily panicked amateur spy he'd been when he first landed in the Empyrean. "My credit line is still frozen. I didn't think we had time to waste jumping through bureaucratic hoops."

"I see." Podolak shifted her gaze to Gyasi. "Mr. Gyasi, would you excuse us a moment?"

Gyasi stood up without a word, flashing a single glance at Kosta as he stepped out the door and closed it behind him.

"This is very disappointing, Mr. Kosta," Podolak commented, sitting down in the chair Gyasi had just vacated. "I would have thought that by now you'd know you could come to me with problems like this."

"I know that," Kosta conceded, feeling a flush of shame. There was no anger in her voice or face that he could detect, but her quiet calmness had an undercurrent of hurt to it. "I didn't want you involved.

It was my idea, my gamble. I didn't want anyone else in trouble if it didn't work out."

"What about Mr. Gyasi?"

Kosta lifted his hands. "I didn't want him, either, but he insisted. Anyway, he was already in on it."

"In on this theory of yours that Angelmass has become a focus of evil?"

Kosta grimaced. Gyasi would have told her everything, of course. "I know it sounds crazy," he admitted. "But I've already found indications that something in or near Angelmass has an eroding effect on angels."

"But no actual evidence?"

Kosta thought about the Daviees' angel, and his promise to keep its existence a secret. "Nothing I can use, no," he told her. "That's what all this equipment is for. To see if I can find and identify an anti-angel, the equivalent quanta of evil."

Podolak shook her head. "There is no quantum of evil," she said quietly. "Any more than the angels themselves are quanta of good."

Kosta frowned. "I thought the Acchaa theory was pretty well accepted around here."

"Acceptance doesn't equal truth," Podolak said. "I don't know what the angels are, or how exactly they affect the people they come in contact with. But the idea that they're little chunks of something as vague and undefinable as 'good' simply doesn't work."

"Why not?"

"Because they do not, in fact, force people to do the right thing," Podolak said. "Not always."

Kosta studied her. Podolak's eyes were steady on him, an odd layer of tension about the corners of her mouth. "What do you know," he asked carefully, "that the rest of us don't?"

Her lips tightened. "That in the past ten years, with the angel program well established, no fewer than seven High Senators have been caught in embezzlement, fraud, or influence-peddling."

Kosta felt his jaw drop. He'd been expecting her to trot out some esoteric data from the Institute's angel-control studies. "Are you serious?"

"In that same time," she added, "at least fifty other angel-wearers have also skated over the edge."

"And you managed to keep all this a secret?"

"The High Senate has been very good at covering up the problems," she said. "And for what it's worth, most of the people involved turned out to have serious mental or emotional instabilities they'd managed to hide up until then."

"Even so," Kosta protested. "Isn't this something the people ought to know about?"

"Yes, it is," she admitted. "And if it were up to me, they would."

"So who is it up to?" Kosta asked. "The High Senate?"

"Even most of the High Senators don't know," she said. "Only the top leaders, plus a few senior EmDef officers. Their view is that seven High Senators in ten years is hardly a terrible failure rate."

Kosta snorted. "More likely they just want to cover their tails after all these years of telling the people how safe the angels have made them."

"No, I don't think so," Podolak said. "The problem is that the angels do work, at least most of the time. They've made the High Senate run more smoothly and efficiently, as well as drastically lowering the crime rate."

"How drastically?"

"Substantially," Podolak said. "In the twenty years before the introduction of the angels, over two hundred High Senators were indicted, censured, or removed from office for illegal or unethical behavior."

"I guess that is significant," Kosta conceded.

"And the same pattern has translated over into EmDef and the local government sector of angelwearers,"

Podolak said. "So you can see their point in not rocking the boat at this stage."

"But you don't agree."

Podolak sighed. "You're right, the angels have made the people feel safe. The problem is, they've made them feel too safe. The normal vigilance a population needs to maintain toward its elected officials has been dulled, if not completely eliminated. Even if the angels were perfect, that wouldn't be a healthy thing. As it is, it's more than a little dangerous for the society."

Kosta felt his throat tighten. "Not to mention the Pax. The whole reason they're breathing down our necks is that the High Senate has convinced them the angels are an irresistible alien force."

"Perhaps," Podolak said. "Still, if it wasn't that excuse it would be something else. The Pax just likes to conquer people."

Kosta looked around at his stacks of equipment boxes. "So what is it you want me to do?" he asked.

"The same thing that all good scientists want," Podolak said. "I want you to find the truth."

"And then?"

"Let the political and social chips fall where they have to," Podolak said, standing up. "Now. You and Mr. Gyasi need to get going, I expect. Unfortunately, neither of you can check out this much equipment at once."

She smiled faintly. "Which means I need to go to the gate with you. You'd better call for some luggage carts; you're going to need them."

It was five-thirty precisely, and most of the Stardust Metals building had gone deathly quiet, as Chandris arrived at Amberson Toomes's office door and rapped against the panel. Toomes was clearly ready and waiting; the door slid open immediately. Squaring her shoulders, Chandris stepped inside.

He was waiting, all right. He was seated on the feather-upholstered couch, dressed in an elaborately embroidered ankle-length robe. Chandris couldn't tell whether he was wearing anything under the robe or not, but she rather expected she would soon be finding out.