Angelmass. Part 19

The targ grimaced. "You may be right," he said at last, reluctantly. "Probably are." With a sigh, he dropped his hand empty to his side. "So much for that."

"They're probably still worth a couple of ruya at a coin shop," Chandris told the scorer helpfully. "Or else you could just keep them as a souvenir."

"Thanks," the other murmured, lip twitching in a wry smile. A smile solely for the targ's benefit. "Thanks for your help. A lot."

"You're welcome," she said. For a long moment she held his gaze, warning him with her eyes. Then, turning her back, she continued on her way.

Heading nowhere.

She knew it right away, down deep. But she walked another block before finally admitting it to herself. She'd had the chance to lock in with the Seraph underground, or at least one small corner of it. Had had the chance to get off this nurking planet, to be rid of the Daviees and their nurking hunters.h.i.+p and their nurking middle-cla.s.s naivete.

And she'd blown it. She'd deliberately blown it.

And the most frightening part was that she didn't know why.

The only alcohol she could find on the Gazelle was four small bottles of cooking sherry stuck way back in one of the galley bins. It tasted terrible, especially chased by peppermint tea. But she managed.

She had finished three of the bottles and was working on the fourth when the Daviees finally returned.

"Well-home at last," she growled when they poked their heads in the galley door. "Have a good little shopping trip?"

"We got what we needed, yes," Ornina said cautiously, her eyes taking in the empty bottles. "I see you've been having a little party. Any particular occasion?"

"I'm drinking to stupidity," Chandris told her. "Yours."

Their reactions were a great disappointment. She'd been hoping for anger or hurt, or at least surprise. But all she got was that maddening patience of theirs.

And, of course, jokes. "A wide ranging subject, that," Hanan said, clumping into the room to sit down across the table from her. "Our stupidity has been toasted from here to the south edge of Magasca. Toasted by experts, too, I might add. You're not going to set any records with four bottles of cooking sherry.""Is that your answer to everything?" Chandris snapped. "Jokes?"Hanan shrugged, his eyes hardening just a little. "What's your answer? Getting drunk?"Chandris glared at him, trying hard to hate the man. But up his s.h.i.+rt sleeves she could see the glint of his exobraces...

She looked at Ornina. Maybe she'd be able to hate her. "You want to know why you're stupid? Do you? Well, I'll tell you why. You left me here alone. Here. With your s.h.i.+p. Alone.""We trust you," Ornina said quietly."Well, you shouldn't," Chandris flared. "What kind of fools are you, anyway? You know what I am-I'm a thief, d.a.m.n it." Abruptly, she ducked down to haul the angel holding box up off the floor. "You see this?" she demanded, banging it down on the table. "You see it? It's your stupid nurking angel, that's what it is."

"I see it," Ornina said. "I also see that it's still here.""No thanks to you," Chandris bit out. "You leave the d.a.m.n thing just sitting there, the first d.a.m.n place a thief would look. You don't have any alarms or trippers or-nurk it all, I had it out of the s.h.i.+p and halfway to the d.a.m.n Gabriel office."

Ornina nodded. "And then you brought it back."

"Only so I could tell you what I thought of you before I left." Chandris got to her feet, grabbing for

the table as her head suddenly went foggy. "Let me alone!" she snapped, jerking back as Hanan reached out a hand. "I don't need your help-I don't need anybody's help." She started around the table, cursing as she banged her knee on the edge of the chair.

"Where are you going?" Ornina asked.

"Where do you think I'm going?" Chandris retorted. "Thanks for everything. Don't bother writing me a reference."

Ornina raised her eyebrows slightly. "The mood you're in, I don't suppose you care, but out here in

the real world it's considered proper etiquette to give at least a week's notice before quitting a job."

"Funny woman," Chandris snarled. "Leave the jokes to Hanan-he does a better job with them."

"I'm not joking," Ornina said, taking a short step sideways to block the doorway. "If you really want

to leave, of course you're free to go. But I want to hear it from you first."

Chandris stared at her. Was she actually saying...? "Are you people completely crazy? I just tried to steal your angel."

"But you didn't," Ornina pointed out. "That's the important part."

"No, it isn't," Chandris shot back. "Maybe I just figured I couldn't sell it. Next time I'll know enough to take something else. I'm a thief, d.a.m.n it.""No," Hanan said from behind her. "You're a cat."She spun around, almost losing her balance again. "What?"

"You're a cat," he repeated. "Ever see a cat kill a mouse? A pet cat, I mean, not a wild one."

She frowned at him, the sheer unexpectedness of it sidetracking her anger. It was the setup to a joke, probably, and she wasn't in any mood to listen to Hanan's jokes. But he looked so serious...

What the h.e.l.l. "I saw a cat take out a small rat once," she told him. "There were a lot more rats than mice in the Barrio."

He nodded. "So he killed it. Did he eat it?"

She had to think back. "No. He stalked it and killed it, but then he just walked away."

"That's because he wasn't hungry," Hanan said. "Cats behave like that. A hungry cat will locate some prey, stalk it, capture it, kill it, and eat it. If he's not really hungry enough to eat, he'll still stalk and capture and maybe even kill. But if he's not hungry at all-" he waggled a finger at her for emphasis-"he'll still stalk and capture, but then let it go without hurting it."

She eyed him. Even with three and a half bottles of sherry inside her it was obvious where he was

going with this. "And that's supposed to be why I brought it back?"Hanan shrugged. "It's an interesting system," he said, as if she hadn't spoken. "Hunting and stalking take up a lot of time. If the cat starts the routine before he's really hungry, chances are that by the time he is hungry he'll have caught himself some dinner."

Chandris gritted her teeth, feeling her resolve slipping away. "I'm not a cat."

"No," Ornina agreed softly. "You're a little girl. And I'd say you've been hungry a long time."

Her vision was beginning to swim; angrily, Chandris clenched her throat against the tears. She

would not cry. No matter what, she would not cry. "I can't stay here," she said harshly. "There's a

man looking for me. A crazy man, getting crazier all the time. If he finds me here, he'll kill all of us."

Hanan and Ornina looked at each other, communicating in that wordless way of theirs. Chandris held her breath, wondering what they would decide. Wondering what she hoped they'd decide.

"Considering the circ.u.mstances," Hanan said suddenly, "I'd say we've got a case here of a subconscious being smarter than the person it's attached to."

Chandris blinked. "What does that mean?"

"I thought that was obvious," he said, still straight-faced but with that twinkle back in his eye. "You wanted to steal our angel and run; but your subconscious knew you'd be safer if you stayed here with us."

"Your friend will expect you to keep running," Ornina added. "Or else to hide out with other thieves and con artists." She raised her eyebrows. "Admit it: this is the absolute last place in the Empyrean he would ever think to look."

"You mean...?" She swallowed, unable to finish the question.

"We mean," Hanan said, "that since we can always use a little extra intelligence around here-" he

paused dramatically-"your subconscious is hereby invited to stay aboard." He shrugged. "And it can bring the rest of you along if it wants to."

"You're too generous." Chandris's voice broke on the last word, and once again she had to fight back

the tears.

"I'm like that," he said with a flippant wave of his hand. But the flippancy was an act-she could see that in his eyes. A feeble attempt to shunt away some of the emotion charging the room.

"Are you going to stay?" Ornina asked.

Chandris took a deep breath. "I suppose I have to," she said, trying to match Hanan's tone. "Without

me here, sooner or later someone's going to steal this s.h.i.+p right out from under you."

"Great," Hanan said cheerfully. "Just what I've always wanted: our very own guardian angel."

Ornina threw him that look of hers. "Hanan-"

"So, that's settled," he said, ignoring the warning. "Now. Can we eat?"

Ornina rolled her eyes. "Of course. You feel up to helping, Chandris, or would you rather go lie

down for a bit?"

"I can help," Chandris said. Grabbing the table for stability, she headed for the pantry.

There would, she knew, be a lot of stuff to sort out later, after the haze of the sherry wore off. Things

about the decision she'd just made, and how she felt about it. But for now, there was one thing that stood out clearly.

For the first time in her life, she actually felt safe.

The coc.o.o.n had been drifting through Lorelei system for over a month. Gathering data on the net

fields, integrating it, correlating it, storing it, hypothesizing about it.

And now, at last, it was ready.

The vast computer system understood the net fields. They were, as its programmers had suspected, a straightforward if imaginative inversion of basic hypers.p.a.ce catapult theory.

And with the theory understood, the technology involved was a fairly trivial extrapolation. Deep within the false asteroid, the fabricators came to life.

Quietly, stealthily, they began to build.

CHAPTER 18.

The report flowing across the display came to an end. Not, to Forsythe's mind, a particularly satisfying end. "And that," he said, looking up, "is six weeks worth of work?"