Angelmass

"He must be talking about more radiation surges," Kosta said. "Aimed at Angelmass Central. It's already chased everyone off the station. Now it wants the station itself out of there."

It wants. The words dripped into Chandris's brain like drops of water off the edge of a roof. It wants.

Up to now she hadn't truly believed Kosta's theory about an intelligent and malevolent black hole.

Not down deep, anyway.

Now, suddenly, with those two words, she did. Angelmass was indeed alive and intelligent.

And it hated people. People on the station. Maybe the people on Seraph, too?

God help them all.

"Jereko, you said there was more to the course changes than just the surges," Hanan said. "Such as?"

"Such as brand-new physics," Kosta said bluntly. "I hate to fall back on mysterious forces mankind has never discovered; but in this case, I don't think we have a choice. Something is moving Angelmass, and it's not any force we've ever come across."

"Yes, but how could an entire force hide from us this long?" Hanan protested.

"How many black holes have we been up close and personal with?" Kosta countered. "All sorts of odd things happen near the event horizon, from huge tidal forces to variations in time. Personally, I'm voting on it having to do with gravity, either a polarization of the fields themselves or else something related to the time differential."

"I didn't know physics had become a democracy," Hanan murmured.

"It hasn't," Kosta said. "When I say I'm voting that way, I mean that's the theory I'm going to risk my life on. Maybe all our lives."

"Wait a minute, slow down," Chandris said. "Who's risking what here?"

"We can't just let Angelmass move around the Seraph system at will," Kosta told her. "Right now it's playing with gravity, figuring out how to use it. That's why it keeps bouncing up and down in its orbit. But sooner or later, it's going to get really good at it."

"If it hasn't already," Ornina said, a shiver ru

Hanan shook his head. "A confident black hole," he said. "That sounds so strange."

"So what do we do about it?" Chandris asked.

"The only thing we can do." Kosta looked her straight in the eye. "We get rid of it."

She blinked. "What?"

"We use Central's catapult to throw it somewhere else," he said. "Somewhere deep in interstellar space, where the only gravitational fields it has to play with are tiny ones."

"How are you going to pull that off?" Hanan asked. "Like Ornina said, the catapult there is linked to the Seraph net."

"Then we'll have to disable the Seraph net, that's all," Kosta said. "There must be a way to shut it down from Central. We just have to figure out the codes."

"What if shutting down the Seraph net doesn't do it?" Hanan argued. "What if it just makes the catapult nonfunctional?"

"Then we're in big trouble," Kosta conceded. "But we have to risk it. I have to risk it, anyway."

"Suppose it all works like you say," Chandris said. "What then? Angelmass is a lot more massive than a huntership."

"I'm sure the catapult can be recalibrated," Kosta said. "It should be just a matter of feeding in new numbers and shunting the right amount of power."

"And if you can't do it?" Chandris persisted.

In the artificial light, Kosta's face seemed to have gone a little pale. "Then, again, I'm in trouble," he said. "It's still worth a try."

Hanan looked at Ornina, and Chandris could see a silent message flash between them. "All right,"

Hanan said briskly, starting to his feet. "I'll get the ship prepped—"

The end of the sentence became an agonized hiss as he froze halfway to his feet, his face twisting in pain. "Hanan!" Ornina exclaimed, scrambling up and taking his arm.

"No, what you are going to do is get back to the hospital," Chandris said firmly, standing up and taking his other arm. "Both of you. Kosta and I can take the ship out to Angelmass."

"Don't be silly," Hanan said between clenched teeth. "You can't do this alone."

"Well, we sure can't do it carrying you," Kosta pointed out, coming around behind Chandris.

"Chandris, I'll help Ornina get him outside. You go ahead of us to the hatchway and call a line car."

A tentative hand touched Chandris's shoulder, and she looked over to see that Ronyon was on his feet, too. I can call a line car, he offered, looking at Hanan as if he were an injured puppy. You could go and start the ship.

"You sure you want to get involved with this?" Chandris asked, frowning at him.

I'm not very smart, Ronyon signed. But I know that Angelmass is hurting people. I want to help.

Chandris hesitated. She really didn't want to get Ronyon in trouble with Forsythe. But it would save them a few minutes; and if Kosta was right, they might need all the minutes they could get.

Besides which, if the police were sca

"Where's he going?" Kosta asked as Ronyon turned and hurried out of the galley.

"He'll call the line car," Chandris explained over her shoulder as she followed him. "I'm going to go get the ship prepped. I hope they got everything put back together."

"Chandris?" Hanan called after her.

She turned back. "Yes?"

"Be careful, child," he said softly. "And come back. You hear?"

She managed a confident smile. "Don't worry," she said. "After all we've been through, you're sure not going to get rid of me now."

She turned again and left, careful not to look back.

CHAPTER 41

"They're starting to come up into orbit," Campbell reported as Lleshi stepped onto the balcony.

"Looks like they're going pretty much all out to meet us."

"Yes, I see," Lleshi said, blinking the last bits of sleep from his eyes as he studied the tactical display. With roughly an hour to go before the Komitadji reached close-orbit distance, the Empyreals were emptying the planet, putting everything they had into space in preparation for the upcoming battle.

But unless they had a lot more in reserve than it appeared, it wasn't going to be nearly enough.

"What about the communications and weather satellites?" he asked.

"They finished mining them about two hours ago," Campbell said. "At least, that's when the shuttles they had poking around headed back down. While they were at it, they put another hundred or so smaller casings in orbit, too."

"More mines."

"Firecrackers," Campbell said with a contemptuous sniff. "Even subnukes that size wouldn't be worth much, and the readings don't show any radiation telltales. Probably mining explosives like the ones those suicide ships in Lorelei system were using."

"Whatever else you say about these people, they're certainly single-minded," Lleshi said. "Anything else happen while I was asleep?"

"Surprisingly little, actually," Campbell said, tapping some keys. Over by Lleshi's station, one of the displays changed to a page full of numbers. "We've been monitoring their communications; and while there's been lots of traffic on the official and Defense Force cha

"Really." Lleshi rubbed his chin, frowning at the tactical. "Interesting. Either they're supremely confident that they can take us on, or else they simply don't want to start the panic before it's absolutely necessary."

"Most likely the latter," Campbell said. "Tactical Group's been over everything we've seen them do, and they agree unanimously that the Seraph defensive array is pitifully weak. We should be able to cut through it in no time."