Angelmass

Forsythe smiled faintly. "You would have made a wonderful politician of the old school, Miss Lalasha. Very well. Mr. Daviee will have his operation."

"Sir—" Pirbazari said urgently.

"But." Forsythe leveled a warning finger at her. "Not because you've pressured me into it. Because you're right: you and Mr. Kosta have earned it."

He looked around the table. "Then unless there's anything else, this meeting is adjourned."

With a final nod to each of them, he stood up, and he and Pirbazari strode side by side from the room. Ronyon paused long enough to grin and wave a hand in farewell, then followed.

"You didn't have to do that," Ornina said, reaching past Kosta and half pulling Chandris out of her chair. Standing up with her, she enveloped the girl in a massive bear hug. "But thank you. Thank you so much."

"For me, too," Hanan said, stepping over and wrapping his arms around both of them. "Group hug, Jereko," he added, winking down at Kosta. "Want to join in?"

Kosta smiled. "Another time, thanks."

"You young people," Hanan said, mock sorrowfully. "Missing out on all the good things of life."

"Oh, be quiet, Hanan," Ornina chided as the hug broke up.

"Story of my life," Hanan said, mock-sorrowfully. "That was a brilliant analysis, by the way, Jereko.

I'm with Mr. Pirbazari—I'm not sure I buy a single word of it. But it was brilliant nevertheless."

"You were wrong about one thing, though," Chandris said. "The angels do affect danger-type fear, at least a little. When Trilling attacked us, I was a lot calmer than I should have been."

"Come to think of it, so was I," Kosta agreed, frowning as he thought back over that incident. The adrenaline had been pumping, all right, but his mind had still been clear to function. U

"Maybe why the High Senate has always seemed so calm in the face of Pax threats," Hanan rumbled. "Even though they never seemed to be doing anything."

"They were, though," Kosta said. "That net-and-catapult setup of theirs is a terrific defense. They got that in place, then just refused to keep worrying about it."

"I wonder how the Pax got through," Chandris said.

"I don't know," Kosta said. "I imagine we'll find out once they've pulled their ships out and we can talk to Lorelei again."

"What will you do now, Jereko?" Ornina asked. "Do you need a place to stay?"

"No, I should be fine," Kosta said. "I've still got my room at the Institute."

"At least for another week or two," Hanan said.

"Oh, longer than that," Kosta assured him. "Mr. Pirbazari's dire predictions aside, the Institute isn't going out of business any time soon. Maybe not at all. Even if they agree to dump the angels back in, we'll certainly want to keep a few out to study."

"Will that be safe?" Ornina asked.

"I'm sure it will," Kosta assured her. "After all, it took an imbalance of several thousand anti-angels to make Angelmass what it is. A few or even a few dozen shouldn't be a problem."

"The question is, what will you do?" Chandris asked, looking at Hanan and Ornina.

"What do you mean 'you'?" Hanan countered. "Don't you mean 'we'?"

"You are staying with us, aren't you?" Ornina added.

"Well..." Chandris flashed a look at Kosta. "I'd like to, sure. But if there isn't any work, how can you afford to keep me on?"

"You mean how can we afford not to keep you on," Hanan said firmly. "Face it, Chandris, you're part of the team now."

"We wouldn't know what to do without you, dear," Ornina added gently.

"I wouldn't know what to do without you, either," Chandris confessed in a low voice. "But if there isn't any work—"

"There'll be plenty of work," Hanan insisted. "Shipping, transport, tourist rides—we'll find something."

"Actually, I don't think you'll have to worry about that," Kosta spoke up. "Forsythe strikes me as the persuasive type; and if he talks the High Senate into dumping the angels, they're going to need people like you for the job."

"What do you mean, people like us?" Ornina asked, frowning.

"Well, you can't just drop them in front of Angelmass like a row of space pops and expect it to gobble them up," Kosta pointed out. "All the outward radiation pressure will be pushing them away, especially if Angelmass is smart enough to figure out what's going on. They'll have to be basically force-fed down its throat."

"And the only ships that can get close enough to do that will be hunterships," Hanan said, his face brightening. "How wonderfully convenient."

"Don't get too excited about it," Kosta warned. "You won't be heroes any more, creating a better world for the ordinary people of the Empyrean. You'll be busily taking that better world away for reasons half the people won't believe in the first place."

"We all do what we have to," Ornina said quietly. "Besides, we didn't go into this business to be heroes."

"No," Kosta agreed. "I guess for some people it just happens that way." He stood up. "I'd better get back to the Institute and start working up a nicely threatening letter to send to Lorelei."

"We'll see you later?" Chandris asked.

Kosta reached out and took her hand. He'd always rather been afraid of Chandris, he realized suddenly. For that matter, he'd always rather been afraid of all women. Part of his general social ineptitude, he'd always thought, and had cursed the awkwardness and nagging fears of youth.

But that was before he'd faced death, out there at Angelmass, and suddenly all the fears of saying or doing the wrong thing had become utterly trivial. Maybe that had matured him. Maybe he had finally grown up.

"Sure," he told her. "Count on it."

Or maybe, the thought whispered through his mind, it was only the angels.