Part 35 (1/2)

Chandris nodded, looking at the big box still centered on the screen, and the other equipment stacked on the table behind it. All that, just to measure the weight of a tiny little angel. ”How much smaller than the other angels do you think it'll be?”

He sighed. ”I don't know,” he said. ”According to everything we think we know about quantum theory it shouldn't have lost any ma.s.s. By definition, a quantum is as small as that particular package can be. Unless Dr. Qhahenlo's quantum bundle theory is right. But I've never really liked the mathematics she used to cook that one up.”

”So who decided it had to be a quantum?”

”It's a subatomic particle with a ma.s.s in the quadrillions of AMUs,” he said. ”Nothing that big has any business being stable unless it simply can't break down into smaller pieces.”

”So who decided it had to behave like everything else you've ever found?” she persisted. ”And don't give me any of that 'if you were an expert you'd understand' c.r.a.psy.”

”I wasn't going to,” Kosta said. But he was staring hard at the display, his forehead furrowed with concentration. ”I wish I knew, Chandris. But I don't. I'm not sure I know anything at all.”

She thought about that, watching him out of the corner of her eye. ”Your masters aren't going to be very happy with you, are they?” she commented at last.

He snorted in derision. But even as he did, the vague demons swirling across his face seemed to recede a little. ”I'm beyond caring what they think of me,” he said. ”What gave me away, if you don't mind my asking?”

She snorted. ”What didn't give you away? You might as well have hung a sign around your neck saying you didn't belong here. That background story you spun for Hanan and Ornina was part of it. Too good and too well-memorized for an amateur con man, but without the flair a professional would have put into it.”

Kosta nodded. ”I could tell there was something about it that bothered you. I guess my trainers didn't expect me to run into someone with your expertise.”

”But it was that snide comment you made about aphrodisiacal perfumes that finally cracked me into you,” Chandris went on. ”I'd never heard of anything like that, but I didn't get around to checking up on it until tonight. Turns out they don't exist. At least, not in the Empyrean.”

”Aphrodisiacal perfumes,” Kosta said ruefully. ”I don't even remember making that comment.”

”You did. Trust me.”

”Oh, I believe you,” he said. ”I'm not all that surprised I did, either. Too much information was the number-one fatal error on my trainers' list. Given the rest of my record, it was inevitable I'd trip over the most amateurish mistake in the book.”

Chandris was still trying to come up with a response to that one that wouldn't sound too sarcastic when the door opened behind them and Gyasi came in. ”Anything?” he asked, nodding toward the computer display.

”Not yet,” Kosta told him, leaning forward and tapping a key. ”Still working the baseline.”

”This ma.s.s tracer's always been a little slow,” Gyasi said as he slid into the chair beside Kosta. ”While we wait, you might want to take a look at the package that just came in for you.”

Kosta sat up straighter in his seat. ”The hunters.h.i.+p data from High Senator Forsythe?”

”I didn't see a name on it,” Gyasi said. ”Sending address was Angelma.s.s Central, though. I wasn't sure if your files would be accessible, given your funding freeze, so I dumped it into one of mine. You want me to pull it up for you?”

”Please.”

Gyasi swiveled a terminal over and keyed in a command. ”So this is from a High Senator, huh? I swear, Jereko, you're getting more interesting stuff done since your funding froze than you ever did when things were purring along.”

”You have no idea,” Kosta said, hunching a little closer to the display. ”Here it comes.”

Chandris frowned at the screen. A fuzzy ball made up of short multicolored vector lines had appeared in the center, rotating slowly around its vertical axis. ”I was right,” Kosta said softly. ”d.a.m.n. I was right.”

”About what?” Chandris asked, a creepy sensation sending a s.h.i.+ver through her. Kosta's demons seemed to be contagious. ”What is all that?”

”It's a global vector map of Angelma.s.s's gravitational s.h.i.+fts during that last radiation surge,” Kosta told her. ”Those s.h.i.+fts go clear across the board.”

”I don't believe this,” Gyasi breathed, his voice sounding awestruck. ”Look at that scale-those decreases are up to a tenth of a percent in places.”

Chandris's mind flashed back to the conversation aboard the Gazelle. ”Could it be something statistical?” she asked. ”You said the Gazelle didn't give you enough data points.””There are more than enough data points here,” Kosta said. ”It's not a mistake, either. Or a malfunction, or-”

”Hang on,” Gyasi interrupted, tapping the screen. ”What's this coming up?”

A narrow cone of brightly colored red was becoming visible as the vector map rotated, a red cone with a thin white line down its center.

And suddenly Chandris felt her stomach trying to turn inside out. ”It's the same picture,” she

identified it, her voice sounding strange in her ears. ”The one you got when you plotted out the surge that killed the Skyarcher. The same picture exactly.”

”It's close, anyway,” Gyasi said cautiously. ”We'd have to run a curve comparison to be sure.””Don't bother,” Kosta told him. His voice, Chandris noticed distantly, was trembling slightly. ”If Chandris says it's the same, it's the same. And there it is-there; that blue point that the white line's cutting through. That's where the Gazelle was.”

Gyasi shook his head. ”This is insane, Jereko,” he insisted. ”A black hole hasn't got any internal structure. None. What possible theoretical mechanism could exist to explain something like this?”

”Angelma.s.s isn't a normal black hole,” Kosta said. ”Not anymore.”

Chandris eyed him closely. There was a tension around his eyes, a graveyard look to his face. ”What do you mean, not anymore?” she asked.

A muscle in Kosta's jaw twitched. ”I've got a theory. But you're not going to like it.”

”More than I don't like impossible gravity fluctuations?” Gyasi countered. ”Come on, let's hear it.”

Kosta hesitated, then shook his head. ”Let's wait on the ma.s.s reading,” he said. ”This is crazy enough

that... no, let's just wait.”

”I hate waiting,” Gyasi declared, getting to his feet. ”I'm going to go check on the tracer.”

He left the room. ”So which way are you hoping it goes?” Chandris asked.

Kosta rubbed his eyes. ”I'm a scientist, Chandris,” he reminded her. ”We're not supposed to hope

data goes one way or the other.”

”Yeah,” she sniffed. ”Right.”