Part 59 (1/2)

”I don't know,” Forsythe said. ”But I'm sure that if you ask nicely, Mr. Kosta will be happy to give

you the complete story when he gets back.”

Lles.h.i.+'s reaction to Kosta's name was little more than a lifted eyebrow. Telthorst's was much more dramatic. ”Kosta?” he repeated. ”Kosta?””Yes,” Forsythe said. ”I see you know the young man.”Telthorst flashed a dumbfounded look at Lles.h.i.+, looked back at Forsythe. ”Kosta,” he muttered.There was a tentative plucking at Forsythe's sleeve. Mr. Forsythe? he signed, an oddly intense expression on his face. Jereko and Chandris didn't go to study Angelma.s.s. They went to throw it away.

Forsythe frowned. ”What?””What?” Telthorst asked.”Just a minute,” Forsythe said, leaning toward Ronyon. ”What do you mean, throw it away?””Throw what away?” Telthorst demanded. ”What are you talking about?””Just a minute,” Forsythe snapped back. ”Ronyon, tell me again. What are Jereko and Chandris doing?”Ronyon threw a furtive look at the other end of the table. Jereko said Angelma.s.s is going to try to hurt people, he signed. He said the only thing they could do was use the catapult to throw it out of the system.

”That's crazy,” Forsythe said. ”He can't be serious.”

”Bad news, High Senator?” Lles.h.i.+ asked calmly.

Forsythe looked over at him, wondering what he should say. The truth? Or something that sounded

at least plausible? ”He says Kosta believes Angelma.s.s is too dangerous to stay here,” he said. ”He says they're going to try to use Central's catapult to throw it somewhere out of the system.”

Telthorst inhaled sharply. ”Is that even possible?” Lles.h.i.+ asked. ”I was given to understand that the

Seraph and Angelma.s.s nets and catapults were linked together.”

”They are,” Forsythe murmured, the shutdown of the Seraph net suddenly making sense. ”But if he shut down the net at this end... I don't know. He might be able to do it.”

”And he has shut it down, hasn't he?” Lles.h.i.+ asked. ”He's shut down both nets, in fact.”Forsythe nodded. There was no point in lying; a well-equipped wars.h.i.+p like the Komitadji would certainly have picked that up. ”We were guessing he didn't want company.”

”This is a trick,” Telthorst put in, his fingertips rubbing restlessly against the table top. ”He's making all this up.”

Lles.h.i.+ pursed his lips. ”Mr. Campbell?” he called.

”Crypto Group confirms, Commodore,” a disembodied voice replied briskly from one of the upper corners of the room. ”He's using a dialect of the old Unislan sign language, and we've got enough for a baseline. Actual message: 'Jereko says Angelma.s.s will hurt everyone. He says they must throw it away out of the area using the catapult.' ”

”Thank you,” Lles.h.i.+ said.

”Nonsense,” Telthorst insisted, jabbing a finger toward Ronyon. ”An idiot like that? No one would trust him with that kind of information. I tell you it's a trick.”

”Why are you getting so upset, Mr. Telthorst?” Forsythe asked, frowning at him. ”I thought the

whole reason for the Pax coming down on us in the first place was to protect us from the angels. You

should be happy someone wants to get rid of the source.”

For a long moment Telthorst just stared at him, his agitation and uncertainty coalescing into something hard and certain and vicious. ”So that's how it is,” he ground out. ”You turned him. Kosta figured it out, and you turned him, and he told you.”

”Told us what?” Forsythe asked carefully.

Telthorst turned to Lles.h.i.+. ”Get the Angelma.s.s net reactivated,” he ordered. ”Right now. We have to go out there and stop him.”

Lles.h.i.+ blinked. ”What in the world are you talking about?”

”You fool,” Telthorst bit out contemptuously. ”Don't you understand? Angelma.s.s is the reason we're

here. It's the only reason we're here.”Lles.h.i.+ threw an odd look at Forsythe. ”But if the angel threat is removed-””To b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l with the angels!” Telthorst snarled. ”What do the angels matter? What does anything from this flea-speck group of third-rate planets matter?”

He shot a look around the table. ”It's Angelma.s.s that we want,” he said, his voice low and brittle. ”It blazes out more energy in a second than this entire miserable world probably uses in a year. Terawatts and terawatts of power, just waiting for someone to tap into it.”

”And that's what this is all about?” Forsythe asked, staring at him in disbelief. ”Energy?””Why not?” Telthorst countered. ”Energy is the road to wealth and power. It always has been. And free energy, like this, is nothing less than a gift from the laughing fates. Angelma.s.s could run an entire floating colony, or give us a cheap way to terraform worlds-””Or power a s.h.i.+pyard?” Lles.h.i.+ asked.”Indeed it could,” Telthorst said, his eyes suddenly s.h.i.+ning. ”You've seen what the Komitadji has accomplished already, in a bare handful of years. How much more could you accomplish with a

dozen more s.h.i.+ps just like it? Tell me that.””The question isn't what I could do,” Lles.h.i.+ said quietly, his tone that of a man who has suddenly found the solution to a private puzzle. ”The question is what the Adjutors could do.”

Telthorst's lips compressed into a thin line. ”Order the Angelma.s.s net reactivated, Commodore.”

”And if I refuse?”

Telthorst drew himself up. ”Then I will be forced to take direct command of this vessel,” he said, his

voice suddenly stiff and formal as he pulled a folded sheet of paper from inside his jacket. ”I have authorization from the Adjutor General himself.”

Lles.h.i.+ looked down at the paper, but made no move to touch it. ”Mr. Campbell?”

”Sir?” the voice came again, sounding considerably more subdued than it had been the last time.

”Do we know how to reactivate the Angelma.s.s net?”

”I believe so, sir, yes,” Campbell said. ”We have the telemetry readings from when it was turned off earlier, plus the signal it sent to deactivate its Seraph counterpart. Comm and Crypto say they can invert the instructions to turn either or both back on.”

”Then do so,” Lles.h.i.+ ordered. ”Both of them. If the Seraph net goes on, we can a.s.sume the