Timothy Zahn - Angelmass

The third person, however, was a very familiar face. He was sitting slightly hunched over at one of the desks, the glow from the computer display playing across a very troubled expression.

It was Forsythe's aide, Ronyon.

There was no way she could pop the door lock, not with two bored guards watching her every move.

Fortunately, she didn't need to. She started to knock on the glass, remembered in time that Ronyon was deaf, and instead gave a sweeping wave.

The movement caught Ronyon's eye. He looked up, and abruptly the frown lines on his face cleared into a kind of eager hope. He scrambled to his feet, an awkward-looking motion with someone that big, and hurried across the room to the door. He unfastened the lock and pulled the door open, his free hand gesturing excitedly.

"Wait a minute," Chandris said, holding up a hand as she stepped into the suite. "Not so fast," she added, making sure to enunciate the words clearly. Ronyon could read lips, she knew, but she wasn't sure how well he could do in the suite's semidarkness.

Still, he would certainly be better reading her lips than she would be reading his hands. She'd leafed through a signing dictionary a couple of days ago, while sitting in the Gazelles storage room waiting for Kosta to try to steal the Daviees' spare angel, and she had all the signs memorized. But knowing all the words of a foreign language didn't necessarily mean she could understand a native who was speaking it. This was likely to be a long process. "Come on, let's sit down," she invited, taking his arm and coaxing him away from the door.

Okay, he signed, letting her lead him to the nearest work station. Chandris would have preferred to go back to his desk, so that she could see what he'd been reading on his computer, but it was a little too close to the guards for comfort. Even if they couldn't read Ronyon's sign language, they would probably be able to hear her side of the conversation from back there.

And she was beginning to suspect that this was one conversation she didn't want anyone eavesdropping on.

She sat Ronyon down behind the desk and pulled another chair up to face him, making sure her back was to the guards so as to muffle her words even more. "Now," she said. "Slowly, please. Tell me what's happened."

Mr. Pirbazari brought Jereko in here awhile ago, Ronyon signed, obediently moving his hands with exaggerated deliberation. He said he was a spy!

Chandris fought back a grimace. So she'd been right. "Did he say how they found out?" she asked.

I don't know, Ronyon signed. I think Mr. Forsythe just figured it out. He's real smart.

"Yes, I know," Chandris agreed. Half-right, anyway; it didn't look like Kosta had turned himself in.

And if he hadn't, then any noble statements he might have made about Chandris and the Daviees being innocent bystanders went straight out the window. If Forsythe came out of that office and saw her here, he was likely to jump to a completely wrong conclusion. "Is he in there with Mr. Forsythe now?" she asked, trying to sound casual.

Ronyon's face puckered in a frown. No, Mr. Forsythe isn't here, he signed. Jereko is just in there by himself.

It was Chandris's turn to frown. "He's alone?" she repeated, resisting the impulse to turn and look behind her. Forsythe wouldn't lock a Pax spy in his own office and then just walk off and leave him there for the night, would he?

But Ronyon nodded. Mr. Forsythe talked to him for awhile, and then Mr. Pirbazari went in, and they took a cot and some food in, and then they all left. And one of the workmen came and turned the lock around on the door, he added, his face lighting up briefly with remembered interest.

The memory faded, his face creasing with concern again. What are they going to do to Jereko? Are they going to hurt him?

"I don't know," Chandris said, her mind still back behind her in that office. So those men were guarding a lone prisoner, not simply standing by while he was being interrogated.

But that still didn't make any sense. Surely Magasca had enough real prison space for even such a supposedly high-profile criminal like a master Pax spy. There was no reason Forsythe should have to turn his office into a makeshift cell.

Unless the High Senator didn't want him talking to anyone else.

And then it all fell together, and she found herself looking at Ronyon with sudden new understanding. Of course. Kosta wouldn't have wanted to go to jail—he wanted to get out to Angelmass, and there would be no chance of wheedling his way there once he was officially charged. He would have tried to talk Forsythe into holding off on an official arrest while he went and did his experiment, probably nobly offering to turn himself back in when it was finished.

And when that hadn't worked, he had played his trump card.

The fact that Forsythe wasn't wearing his angel.

"So Mr. Forsythe talked to Jereko," she said. "Did he say anything to you when he came out?"

He told me not to tell anyone about Jereko, Ronyon signed, his face suddenly going uncertain halfway through the sentence. Uh-oh. I wasn't supposed to tell you this, was I?

"It's okay," Chandris said hastily. "I'm sure he just meant not to tell anyone who didn't already know."

Ronyon blinked. You already knew?

Chandris felt her throat tighten, seeing a deep hole suddenly open up in front of her. Admitting to Ronyon that she knew about Kosta might get him to talk more freely, but it would also damn her as an accessory to espionage if he ever repeated that to Forsythe.

But she had no choice. Not if she was going to help Kosta. "Yes, I knew," she said. "He told me a couple of days ago, when we were discussing what to do about Angelmass."

Ronyon shivered, his shoulders hunching like he was trying to make himself smaller. That's a bad place, he signed, his eyes looking haunted. It scared me a lot.

"It scares me, too," Chandris assured him. "And Jereko, and a lot of other people."

She leaned toward him slightly. "That's why Jereko and I need to go out there. We need to find out some things about it, so that no one will have to be scared anymore. Can you help us?"

His face puckered even more. I don't know, he signed, the words starting to come out faster in his agitation. Mr. Forsythe told me not to tell anyone, and now I have. If I help you, he's going to be real mad at me.

"He'll be mostly mad at me," Chandris assured him. "If you get in trouble, I'll tell him it was my fault, that you didn't have anything to do with it."

He peered down at her hands, his face twisted almost like he was going to cry. But that wouldn't be true, he signed. You aren't making me do anything. Mr. Forsythe says when somebody does something wrong they should take the blame themselves.

"He's right," Chandris conceded. Except for Forsythe himself, she added silently, the thought of his fake angel pendant flitting through her mind. But it was no use bringing that up. Ronyon was clearly a willing accomplice to the fraud, which meant that Forsythe must have spun him some sort of story to make the whole thing seem legitimate. Trying to argue the point now would only confuse him.

I mean, I want to help, Ronyon went on, signing so fast now she could hardly keep up. You and Jereko helped me a lot when we were out on the ship and I got scared. But Mr. Forsythe told me not to tell anybody—

"Yes, I know," Chandris said, touching his hand soothingly. "It's all right. It's my fault—I shouldn't have asked you. I'm sorry."

He blinked. That's all right, he signed, almost shyly. I'm not mad at you. I like you.

She smiled. "I like you too, Ronyon," she said, and meant it. There was something about his earnest, childlike innocence that touched a chord deep inside her. She would go a long way, through a lot of pain, rather than deliberately hurt him. "Don't worry, it'll be all right. You and I will be fine."