Part 19 (2/2)

Chandris gritted her teeth, feeling her resolve slipping away. ”I'm not a cat.”

”No,” Ornina agreed softly. ”You're a little girl. And I'd say you've been hungry a long time.”

Her vision was beginning to swim; angrily, Chandris clenched her throat against the tears. She

would not cry. No matter what, she would not cry. ”I can't stay here,” she said harshly. ”There's a

man looking for me. A crazy man, getting crazier all the time. If he finds me here, he'll kill all of us.”

Hanan and Ornina looked at each other, communicating in that wordless way of theirs. Chandris held her breath, wondering what they would decide. Wondering what she hoped they'd decide.

”Considering the circ.u.mstances,” Hanan said suddenly, ”I'd say we've got a case here of a subconscious being smarter than the person it's attached to.”

Chandris blinked. ”What does that mean?”

”I thought that was obvious,” he said, still straight-faced but with that twinkle back in his eye. ”You wanted to steal our angel and run; but your subconscious knew you'd be safer if you stayed here with us.”

”Your friend will expect you to keep running,” Ornina added. ”Or else to hide out with other thieves and con artists.” She raised her eyebrows. ”Admit it: this is the absolute last place in the Empyrean he would ever think to look.”

”You mean...?” She swallowed, unable to finish the question.

”We mean,” Hanan said, ”that since we can always use a little extra intelligence around here-” he

paused dramatically-”your subconscious is hereby invited to stay aboard.” He shrugged. ”And it can bring the rest of you along if it wants to.”

”You're too generous.” Chandris's voice broke on the last word, and once again she had to fight back

the tears.

”I'm like that,” he said with a flippant wave of his hand. But the flippancy was an act-she could see that in his eyes. A feeble attempt to shunt away some of the emotion charging the room.

”Are you going to stay?” Ornina asked.

Chandris took a deep breath. ”I suppose I have to,” she said, trying to match Hanan's tone. ”Without

me here, sooner or later someone's going to steal this s.h.i.+p right out from under you.”

”Great,” Hanan said cheerfully. ”Just what I've always wanted: our very own guardian angel.”

Ornina threw him that look of hers. ”Hanan-”

”So, that's settled,” he said, ignoring the warning. ”Now. Can we eat?”

Ornina rolled her eyes. ”Of course. You feel up to helping, Chandris, or would you rather go lie

down for a bit?”

”I can help,” Chandris said. Grabbing the table for stability, she headed for the pantry.

There would, she knew, be a lot of stuff to sort out later, after the haze of the sherry wore off. Things

about the decision she'd just made, and how she felt about it. But for now, there was one thing that stood out clearly.

For the first time in her life, she actually felt safe.

The coc.o.o.n had been drifting through Lorelei system for over a month. Gathering data on the net

fields, integrating it, correlating it, storing it, hypothesizing about it.

And now, at last, it was ready.

The vast computer system understood the net fields. They were, as its programmers had suspected, a straightforward if imaginative inversion of basic hypers.p.a.ce catapult theory.

And with the theory understood, the technology involved was a fairly trivial extrapolation. Deep within the false asteroid, the fabricators came to life.

Quietly, stealthily, they began to build.

CHAPTER 18.

The report flowing across the display came to an end. Not, to Forsythe's mind, a particularly satisfying end. ”And that,” he said, looking up, ”is six weeks worth of work?”

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