Angelmass

Gyasi snorted gently. "I know people in Rungwe who think that, too. A pity, particularly when there are so many more interesting theories to choose from." He cocked an eyebrow. "You were told, weren't you, that we're not supposed to discuss angel theories with people outside the Institute?"

"Not specifically, no," Kosta said, wounded pride vanishing in a surge of interest. Angel theories, plural?

"Well, consider yourself told," Gyasi said. "That goes for any other findings, too. You can write them up on the Institute's own net, but nothing gets released outside without prior approval."

"I understand." That was more like it. Maybe the Empyreals had some understanding of security after all.

"Good," Gyasi said. "It's no big deal, really, but after the Flizh embarrassment it's been standard policy to hash things out in private before we let the public in on the party."

"I understand." Kosta took a deep breath, phrasing his next question carefully—

"So what specifically are you going to be working on?" Gyasi asked.

"Uh..." With an effort, Kosta shifted gears. "First thing will be a lit search. I've more or less volunteered to see if anyone's ever proved that it's the central particle alone that constitutes an angel, as opposed to the particle plus its accumulated matter shell."

Gyasi frowned. "The angel's the central particle, of course. What does the ion shell have to do with it?"

Kosta shrugged. "Maybe nothing. Maybe a great deal. Either way, I'd like to find out for sure."

Gyasi peered at him. "You're not trying to revive Chandkari's old theory, are you? I thought that died its final death five years ago."

"I'm just looking for the truth," Kosta said, feeling a sheen of sweat breaking out on his forehead and wishing he knew who Chandkari was. It had probably been somewhere in the list he'd just waded through. "I'd like to keep an open mind while I do it."

"Yeah." Gyasi shrugged. "Well. An open mind is a nice thing to have, but don't forget that certain kinds of junk make it fill up real fast."

"Sure," Kosta agreed. "I just have a hard time believing that a single sub-atomic particle could create the kind of ethical effect angels are supposed to have."

"A lot of us do," Gyasi nodded. "That's what makes Dr. Qhahenlo's Acchaa theory so attractive. It fits the data, makes real, verifiable predictions, and practically requires that the angels be single particles." He jabbed a finger at Kosta. "Mark my words: in three years—four at the outside—the physicists will be scrambling to see how the Acchaa theory fits into Reynold's Unified."

"That'll be worth seeing, all right," Kosta agreed, allowing himself to feel a bit patronizing. In the Pax, the Grand Unified Theory had been modified and tacked onto so many times that it wasn't even called by Reynold's name any more. "Do I have to wait until then to hear what this Acchaa theory's all about?"

Gyasi gri

Kosta shrugged, thinking furiously. "Like I said, I wanted to come to Seraph with an open mind," he improvised. "Anyway, I figured half the theories I could have read about back on Balmoral would have been thrown out the window by the time I got here."

"Point," Gyasi conceded. "We are talking about Balmoral, after all."

"Cute," Kosta growled, remembering this time to stick to his role.

Gyasi gri

The grin vanished, his expression becoming serious. "You see, the thing is that the angels can't be just another subatomic particle. If they were, they couldn't possibly be stable, not with that kind of mass and charge. That's why the Acchaa theory works so well; according to it, they're actually quanta—basic building blocks, just like photons and electrons. And quanta, by definition, have to be stable. You see?"

"I do know a little something about quantum theory, thank you," Kosta said, perhaps a little too dryly. "Balmoral isn't that far behind the times. So what exactly are they supposed to be quanta of?"

Gyasi seemed to brace himself. "They're quanta," he said, "of what mankind has always called good."

For a long minute Kosta just stared at him, the word ricocheting around his brain like an angry grasshopper trying to escape from a jar. "This is a joke," he heard himself say. "Right? It's a joke you play on newcomers."

Gyasi shook his head. "It's no joke, my friend." He gestured to Kosta's display. "Look it up yourself if you like—there are enough papers on the Acchaa theory to require two separate listings."

Kosta's brain was still spi

"Why not?" Gyasi asked.

"Why not?" Kosta clamped his teeth tightly together. "Come on, Gyasi. Good and evil don't exist in a vacuum—they're the results of things people do."

Gyasi held his hands out, palms upward. "Light is the result of hydrogen molecules fusing in the center of a star," he pointed out. "Or of someone flicking a switch. That doesn't mean that light isn't quantized."

"That's a fallacious argument," Kosta insisted. "You're talking about two entirely separate things."

"How so?"

"Well..." Kosta floundered a moment. "Well, for one thing, photons of light are the same everywhere. There's no such universal standard for defining good and evil. It's all culturally based."

"Interesting argument," Gyasi nodded. "Does that mean, then, that there aren't any common definitions of good and evil among human societies?"

Kosta eyed him, sensing a trap. "You tell me," he challenged. "You're obviously the expert."

"Oh, hardly," Gyasi shook his head. "But like everyone else here I've given it a lot of thought over the past few years. And if I haven't got all the answers, I have come up with some interesting questions."

"Such as?"

"Such as how good people can continue to exist in a culture that most outside observers would label as evil. And not just exist, sometimes, but actually turn the whole direction of the culture around."

"Big deal," Kosta growled. "Evil people can do that too."

Gyasi nodded. "Exactly. The reverse of the same coin. Then there are a whole group of questions that I guess would fall into a 'folk medicine' sort of category. You know—little bits of advice that people pass along generational lines; things they accept as true even if they don't understand the mechanism involved. The standard mothers' warning against getting into bad company, for instance, or the idea that you can change a person's character if you put in the time and effort and love to do it.

Or even the question of whether there's some deeper physical significance to the fact that good is so often equated with light, which is itself quantized."

Kosta blinked. "Huh?"

Gyasi gri

"Trust me," Kosta assured him. "But this still doesn't make any sense. You've got the whole thing backwards."

"Do I?" Gyasi asked, serious again. "Well, then, try looking at it this way: what's the difference—the observational difference, I mean—between a person doing something bad and therefore creating evil; and the evil influencing the person to then go and do something bad?"

Kosta stared at him, searching for a quick and glib answer. He couldn't find one. "It's still backwards," he finally said.

"There are parts of it that bother me, too," Gyasi admitted. "The concept of free will, for one thing, which I'm not quite ready to give up on. But I can't give up on Acchaa, either." He gestured around him. "Because the angels work."