Part 15 (1/2)

”Jereko?” Gyasi's voice came from the open doorway.

Kosta looked up, being very careful not to move his head too quickly lest it fall off. ”Mm?” he muttered, wondering vaguely if he looked as rotten as he felt.

If Gyasi's expression was anything to go by, he did. ”I take it,” Gyasi said, ”that you haven't had much experience with zero-gee s.p.a.ce travel.”

There was room there for some kind of witty reply, but Kosta was too ill to bother. ”I'd say that's a fair statement,” he said instead.

”Uh-huh,” Gyasi nodded. ”Well, if it helps any, they'll probably be rotating the s.h.i.+p on the way back to the catapult. Unfortunately, they can't do that on the way in-it would foul up too many of the experiments.” Gyasi looked at his watch, a frown creasing his forehead. ”You know, that stuff you took should have taken effect long ago.”

”Oh, it is,” Kosta told him. ”Starting to, anyway. I'm not feeling quite as queasy as I was.”

”Ah. Good.” Gyasi peered at him. ”You must have a pretty exotic metabolism for it to have taken this long.”

If you only knew how exotic, Kosta thought. But he was feeling better, and improving by the minute.

”How long till we get to Angelma.s.s?” he asked.

”Maybe twenty minutes,” Gyasi said. ”That's to the inner radiation region. We've been inside the outer field since we 'pulted.”

”I know.” It wasn't something Kosta could have missed; the gamma-ray clicks from the s.h.i.+p's electronics were pretty distinctive. Also just a little bit scary. ”That base-Angelma.s.s Central-it sits out here permanently?”

”Sure does,” Gyasi nodded. ”Has to, you see-hunters.h.i.+ps come and go across the clock, and the net and catapult have to be running at all times.”

”Is it manned?”

”Usually, though the people are mostly there to help in case of hunters.h.i.+p emergencies. The station is automated enough that you could set it up to run pretty much by itself if you had to. You can also turn the major systems on and off from Seraph.”

Kosta nodded, thinking about people sitting in the outer radiation field of a blazing quantum black hole for weeks or months on end. The s.h.i.+elding technology alone that that implied was incredible. No wonder the Komitadji's lasers and plasma jets hadn't put a dent in those Lorelei defense s.h.i.+ps. ”The gamma-ray clicking must drive them nuts,” he murmured.

Gyasi grinned. ”You get used to it. Just like you do riding around in zero-gee. You look like you're feeling better.”

”I am,” Kosta confirmed, nodding. This time his head didn't even threaten to come off. ”That stuff works fast when it finally gets around to it.”

”Only the best for us folks at the Inst.i.tute,” Gyasi said. ”You feel up to heading forward and checking out some of the gear?”

”Sure.” Carefully, Kosta gave himself a push away from the restraint straps and drifted across the room. Gyasi caught his arm as he approached, deftly helping him through the door. ”I never got a chance to ask if you had any experiments aboard,” he said as they headed down the corridor.

Gyasi shook his head. ”I don't personally, though the head of my team does. Most of what I'm working on can be done easier in the lab.” He grinned, his face a little dreamy looking. ”I just like to come out here and look at Angelma.s.s.”

”So to speak,” Kosta murmured.

”Well, not directly at it of course,” Gyasi agreed. ”But even through fifteen filters it's still an impressive sight. Here we are.”

They had arrived outside a door marked starboard a.n.a.lysis room. It slid open at a tap on the touch plate, and Gyasi led the way inside.

The view in here was impressive, too. The room was long and relatively narrow, its entire length taken up on both sides by displays and tangles of equipment. Perhaps thirty people floated around and through it all, making adjustments or taking notes or just watching. A murmur of quiet conversation competed with the hum of cooling fans and cryogenic pumps, all of it punctuated every few seconds by a gamma-ray click. ”Did they leave anything at all behind in their labs?” he asked.

Beside him, Gyasi chuckled. ”This is nothing. On some trips the place gets really crowded.”

”Right,” Kosta said dryly. A monstrous apparatus at the far end caught his eye: a huge spherical tank wrapped with cables and metal coils. ”What's that thing?” he asked, indicating it.

”Ah, that,” Gyasi said. ”Dr. Ciardi's angel decay detector. One of the three permanent experiments aboard; and heaven only knows how they're going to get it out of the s.h.i.+p if and when they're done with-”

”Wait a second,” Kosta interrupted him. ”Decay detector?”

”Right,” Gyasi nodded. ”Dr. Ciardi's one of those who isn't ready to believe in the Acchaa theory-he still wants angels to be nothing more than highly metastable subatomic particles. If his theory is right, an angel should spontaneously decay into a particular group of other subatomic particles. That thing is busy looking for that specific particle-track signature.”

”Wouldn't it be simpler to just take one into his lab and sit on it?”

”Oh, he's doing that, too,” Gyasi said. ”But that could take a while-his theory predicts a half-life in the fifty-thousand-year range. I've heard he tried to get hold of a whole bunch of angels to help speed things up, but Director Podolak turned him down.”

”Academic censors.h.i.+p?”

”Simple arithmetic. The High Senate and most of the top EmDef people have angels now, along with all the planetary governors and senators and a lot of judges. But there are still lower-level politicians, leaders of industry-you know the list. Maybe in ten years or so Director Podolak will be able to take fifty or a hundred angels out of the pool for that kind of study. But not now.”

Kosta nodded, feeling more hopeful than he had in days. If the plan was going to require another ten years to complete, then perhaps there was still time to save these people.

Provided he, Kosta, did his job.

And finding out more about this Ciardi's theory might be a good place to start. If he could help sow doubt as to what the angels really were- ”Mr. Gyasi?” a woman's voice called from the other end of the room. ”Can you give me a hand?”

”Sure,” Gyasi called back. He kicked off the wall, bouncing his hands against walls and ceiling to skillfully maneuver himself through the maze of other occupants. Kosta followed more slowly,

wondering just how often Gyasi had taken this trip.

He arrived at the far end of the room to find Gyasi and a middle-aged woman poring over a maze of circuit cables. ”Ah-Jereko,” Gyasi said, glancing up. ”Dr. Qhahenlo, this is my new officemate, Jereko Kosta. This is Dr. Rae Yanda Qhahenlo, my supervisor.”

”Honored, Mr. Kosta,” Qhahenlo said briefly, not bothering with the usual greeting routine. ”You

know anything about mid-range samplers?”

”A little,” Kosta said cautiously, hovering over their shoulders. He knew a great deal about mid- range samplers, actually. But Pax samplers, not their Empyreal counterparts. Even if the designs turned out to be parallel, translating the terminology might be tricky. ”What's the trouble?”

”Output signal is way too noisy,” Qhahenlo grunted. ”I thought it was the 'sponder, but replacing it didn't seem to help.”

”Um.” Kosta looked over the apparatus. ”What's in all that tubing?”