Angelmass

She made her way up the fifteen wide marble steps leading to the main entrance, grousing at each one along the way. It had been over two hours now since Kosta had pulled his disappearing act from the hospital, and a long and weary process of elimination had finally brought her here. If he wasn't inside, she was completely out of ideas.

But she had a feeling he was. A very bad feeling. Kosta, noble and idealistic and stupid, had already talked once about turning himself in. Now, still caked with his own blood from Trilling's attack, he'd apparently gone ahead and taken the plunge.

All of it to protect her and Hanan and Ornina, undoubtedly. Never mind that they'd all agreed he should keep his mouth shut for now. Never mind that the threat of Angelmass far outweighed whatever anyone might think the Pax could possibly be doing with or through him.

If there was anything left after High Senator Forsythe finished with him, she told herself darkly, she was going to personally feed it to the fish.

At this hour of the night, of course, the outer door was locked. One more a

She had expected the place to be dark and essentially deserted. To her surprise, the lights were blazing, with a fair number of people still buzzing about the halls and offices. All of them seemed to be hurrying or talking together in urgent, hushed tones, some doing both at once.

It was highly disconcerting, rather like walking into a bank with a cutting torch and set of burglar tools, only to discover a police convention being held on the premises. But old habits quickly kicked in, turning on the air of arrogant importance that had gotten her into many places where she didn't belong, past people who should have known better. A glance at the directory as she passed, and she was on her way to the fifth floor and Forsythe's temporary office complex.

Deep down, she was still hoping that Kosta had somehow come to his senses in time and kept his identity secret. But the more people she strode past, and the more bits of conversation she caught, the more it became clear that these people weren't here so late just for the overtime pay. They were angry, worried, and frightened.

And the word "Pax" kept coming up.

Which meant that Chandris was too late. Kosta had indeed confessed; and chances were he'd already been transferred to some secure prison somewhere. Like the two hours of searching that had gone before it, this little side trip was starting to look very much like a waste of time.

Still, as long as she was here, she might as well keep going. At the very least, maybe she could shake loose some information from some gullible clerk. Arriving at Forsythe's office suite, she stepped up to the plate glass wall that separated it from the corridor.

She had expected this to be the center of all the activity she'd passed through on her way here—after all, unmasking a Pax spy was the kind of publicity coup that even a High Senator didn't stumble across every day. If Forsythe was any kind of politician he ought to be milking it for all it was worth.

But once again, her expectations turned out to be oddly off target. The office suite was only dimly lit, and virtually empty.

For a moment she stood outside the glass, peering in. The suite was arranged a little like Amberson Toomes's office complex: a large outer area with a handful of doors leading from the back walls into what were presumably private offices. Where Toomes's outer office had been the province of only the one receptionist, though, the room now facing her was crowded with a dozen desks and workstations. A common work area, then. Briefly, she wondered how much of the space was Forsythe's and how much was controlled by other local governmental agencies. Each of the doors at the back had a nameplate, but she was too far away and the light too dim for her to read them.

There were only three people in the room. Two of them stood flanking one of the rear doors, their postures and the guns belted to their sides marking them as guards. Chandris had never seen these particular men before, though the insignia on their jackets marked them as local governmental security officers.

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 begi

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 i

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.