Part 24 (2/2)

”He is that,” Ornina murmured.

Chandris clenched her teeth; but they were both right. Much as she'd love to do so, she really couldn't blame Kosta for this one. ”Well, next time make sure he's not already doing something, all right?” she growled.

”For whatever it's worth to you, there probably won't be a next time,” he reminded her stiffly. ”By the time we get back to Seraph my credit line ought to be untangled, and we can go our separate ways.”

”Good,” Chandris muttered. She glanced at Ornina; went back for a closer look. The older woman was gazing studiously at her displays, a slight but unmistakable smile playing around her lips. ”What?” Chandris demanded.

”Nothing,” Ornina said, the smile vanis.h.i.+ng into the same sort of innocent look Hanan always used when he was about to close the trap on one of his jokes. ”I must say, Jereko, that your work sounds fascinating. What exactly is this particular experiment supposed to do?”

”I'm going to be sampling several small bandwidths of Angelma.s.s's radiation spectrum,” Kosta told her. ”Hopefully, it'll give me some clues as to why the angel emission has been increasing over the past few months.”

”It's been increasing?” Ornina frowned.

”That's what my numbers tell me,” Kosta said. ”And yours, too, for that matter.” He looked at Chandris. ”Didn't Chandris tell you?”

Ornina looked at Chandris, too, eyebrows raised. ”It didn't seem important,” Chandris said with a shrug.

”Probably isn't,” Ornina agreed. ”Still, you can't always tell what's going to wind up being important down the line.” She turned back to Kosta. ”But enough shop talk. Tell us something about yourself, Jereko.”

Kosta took a deep breath, and Chandris turned back to her board, permitting herself a tight smile. The same territory she'd just gone over with Kosta below, territory she now knew by heart. This could, she decided, be very interesting.

It was, too, though not in the way she'd expected. Kosta never contradicted any of what he'd told her, never slipped up on historical events or on the physical details of the places he said he'd lived. He was articulate enough, accurate enough, and apparently sincere enough for all of it to be true.

But it wasn't.

There was plenty of evidence she could point to, at least to someone who knew the drill. A few flowery phrases that sounded like they'd been pulled from a Balmoral Visitors' Guide; an occasional exact quote from their conversation below, something she knew from experience was exceedingly rare; an underlying preciseness in his voice that showed he was watching every single word he said. It was definitely puff-talk. Detailed and well rehea.r.s.ed, but puff-talk just the same.

But at the same time, there was something missing, something that any scorer good enough to have worked up such an elaborate background ought to have had. A sense of daring, perhaps, or some of the oily arrogance that had been a part of all the really expert puff-talkers she'd known back in the Barrio. Kosta played more like an actor parroting someone else's lines.

Which made Kosta... what?

Chandris still didn't know. But she intended to find out.

And so she sat at her board, listening to every word he said and letting the Gazelle more or less fly itself toward Angelma.s.s.

And with her full attention on Kosta, she completely missed the first subtle clue that something had gone terribly wrong.

”...and so, rather to my amazement, the Inst.i.tute accepted my application,” Kosta concluded. ”I didn't give them time to change their minds. I booked pa.s.sage on a liner and-” he shrugged ”-here I am.”

”Here you are, indeed.” Ornina shook her head-in wonderment, Kosta hoped, not disbelief. ”That's quite a story, Jereko. I certainly hope you can get your finances straightened out quickly. It'd be a shame if such a promising career was derailed by something as trivial as a clerical error.”

”I'm sure it will be,” he a.s.sured her. He threw a glance at the back of Chandris's head, feeling some of his tension draining away. He'd poured a lot of hours into memorizing his cover story, but it had been time well spent. He'd gotten through it without making any errors, and with a certain degree of panache besides. Maybe he was finally starting to adapt to this spy stuff.

And just then, in the back of his mind, a quiet alarm went off.

He froze, searching frantically through what he'd just said. Had he, at the very end, made some kind of fatal blunder in his story?

And then he got it. The gamma-ray sparks-those d.a.m.ned noisy ubiquitous gamma-ray sparks-had stopped.

Which meant... what?

He was just opening his mouth to ask when an electronic scream split the air.

He jerked hard in his seat, pressing himself up against the restraints. Ornina spun back to her board, jabbing at it- The wailing cut off as suddenly as it had begun.”-h.e.l.l was that?” Chandris snapped in the ringing silence.

”Emergency call,” Ornina said tightly. ”Get on the tracker and locate the signal. I'll try to raise them.”

Chandris was already busy at her board. ”Got it... no. No, it's wavering.”

”Must be heavy radiation out there,” Ornina muttered, her hands dancing across her board. ”Let's see if this helps. This is the Gazelle, calling distress s.h.i.+p; Gazelle, calling distress s.h.i.+p. Can you respond?”

There was a roar of static from the speaker, a roar punctuated by an incredible rapid-fire stutter of gamma-ray sparks. ”Gazelle, this is Hova's Skyarcher,” a barely audible voice came through the noise. ”We're caught in a radiation surge-losing control of everything. We need help.”

”Chandris?” Ornina asked.

”I can't get a fix on them,” Chandris said, her voice strained. ”The radiation's messing up the calibration.”

”You got anything even approximate?”

”Yes, but-””That'll do for now,” Ornina cut her off. ”Hova's Skyarcher, we're on our way. ETA, maybe ten minutes.”

A sound that might have been a word, and then the static and signal were gone. ”What did he say?”

Kosta asked.”He said 'hurry,' ” Ornina said grimly. The Gazelles engines, which had been idling softly, roared to full life. ”Keep trying to get a fix on him, Chandris.”

”I am.” Chandris glanced over her shoulder. ”Make yourself useful, Kosta-get on the intercom and

get Hanan up here.”

”Don't bother,” Hanan said from the doorway even as Kosta moved to comply. ”You can hear that siren all the way down at the pumps. What's going on?”

”Radiation surge,” Ornina told him, getting out of her chair as Hanan slid into it. ”It's got Hova's Skyarcher.”

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