"Sounds like someone on the glide path to a mental breakdown," Hanan said. "Did you try to get him to talk to someone?"

"About twice a week. But he blew up every time I suggested it. Besides, there wasn't much of anyone left for him to talk to; most of his friends had chopped and hopped by that time. They said he was a crash waiting to happen and didn't want to be around when it did."

"Some friends," Hanan murmured.

"The Barrio was like that," Chandris told him. "No one ever did anything for anybody unless there was something in it for them."

"Well..." Hanan scratched his cheek. "Pardon me for pointing it out, but you stayed with Trilling.

And it doesn't sound like you were getting much out of it."

Chandris felt her lip twist. "Don't try to make me look noble, Hanan. I wasn't. Even at his worst Trilling was the most security my life had ever had, and I didn't want to lose that. Or maybe just didn't want to admit that it was already lost. You lie to yourself a lot in a place like the Barrio."

"People lie to themselves a lot everywhere."

Chandris shrugged. "Anyway, it finally got to the point where I couldn't take it anymore. I decided I had to get out." A sudden, violent shiver ran up through her at the memory. "And then, like a complete fool, I went and told Trilling I was leaving."

Hanan took a step closer to her, his arm slipping around her shoulders. "Did he hurt you?" he asked gently.

Chandris shivered again, the memories flashing across her vision. "He never even touched me. All he did was stand there, staring at me with a crazy look in his eyes. And then he told me, in complete detail, what he would do to me if I ever even tried to leave him."

She shook her head. "I still don't know how I got away the way I did. I guess he didn't really believe I was serious."

For a long minute they stood there in silence. Chandris found herself leaning into Hanan's side, feeling the warmth and strength and security of his presence. In some ways it reminded her of how things had once been with Trilling; and yet, in other ways, it was an entirely new experience. There was no sexual content to the hug, none of the underlying current of predator ferocity that had seemed to saturate everything Trilling said or did. Hanan's touch was one of friendship; nothing more, nothing less. And it asked nothing more or less in return.

Which was only going to make it that much harder when she left.

She blinked back the tears from her eyes and straightened away from him. "I'm all right," she murmured. "Thanks."

Hanan dropped his hand away. "It's not always a blessing having a perfect memory, is it?"

"It's not a blessing at all," she said bitterly. "It's a tool that's been useful in scoring. Nothing more."

And speaking of tools... With a sigh, she reached for the wrench again—

And from the gate behind them came the sudden clink of the latch.

Trilling! Chandris jumped, banging her head on the underside of the Gazelle, feet scrambling for traction as she came down. She spun around, hand darting to the tool tray for something—anything—she could use as a weapon. Grabbing a long screwdriver more by luck than design, she twisted to try and get around Hanan's bulk—

It wasn't Trilling. It was Kosta, frozen like a startled animal halfway through the gate. "Uh... hello," he managed, eyes flicking to the screwdriver gripped in Chandris's hand and then back to her face.

"Have I come at a bad time?"

"No, no," Hanan said cheerfully, his serious mood vanished without a trace. "That was nothing to do with you. I told a bad joke and Chandris was taking exception to it. Come in, come in."

Slowly, obviously not convinced, Kosta resumed his interrupted trip through the gate. "Because if it's a bad time—"

"No, really," Hanan waved him forward. "Chandris, put that screwdriver down. What brings you out this way, Jereko? You need another ride out to Angelmass?"

"I'm sure his credit line must be unsnarled by now," Chandris put in before Kosta could answer, tossing the screwdriver back into the tool tray in disgust. Kosta, anytime, was an annoyance. Right now, he was a flat-out intrusion.

She looked back up in time to see a muscle in Kosta's cheek twitch. "As it happens," he said, "it's not."

"Odd," Hanan frowned. "I thought it was just some sort of clerical error."

"So did I," Kosta agreed. "Apparently, it's something more complicated than that. What, exactly, I don't know. Director Podolak's still having trouble getting straight answers."

They probably caught on to whatever track you're trying to score, Chandris thought with sour satisfaction. Now if only Hanan would wish him well and send him on his way...

"Well, we'll be going up again in two days," Hanan offered. "If you want to come along, you're certainly welcome."

Kosta's eyes flicked to Chandris. "I somehow doubt the invitation is unanimous. Anyway, for now there's not much point in my going up. I want to look for the kind of conditions the theory says ought to precede these radiation surges, but until my credit line gets unfrozen I can't get any new equipment."

"Can't you do anything with your original experiment?" Hanan asked. "Modify it somehow?"

"That's what I'm trying," Kosta nodded. "So far it's going pretty slowly."

"Well, if you need any tools, you're welcome to use ours here," Hanan said. "Sorry that we can't offer you anything else, but hunterships tend to run on a tight budget."

"Oh, I understand," Kosta assured him. "And thank you for the offer. Actually, the main reason I came by was to see how you were doing." He glanced again at Chandris, his eyes a little hard this time. "For some reason, I've been having trouble getting hold of you by phone."

"Oh?" Hanan asked, throwing Chandris a speculative look.

"We've been having problems with the Gazelle's phones," she told him evenly. "The system's been locking out some incoming calls. I've been working on it."

"Ah." Hanan held her gaze a moment longer, then turned back to Kosta. "Sorry about that. However, as you can see, I'm pretty well recovered. Certainly enough for Ornina to put me back to work. You mentioned a theory in the works about these radiation surges?"

The cheek muscle twitched again. "So they say. Dr. Qhahenlo thinks it's a self-focusing effect triggered by something falling into Angelmass from one of the hunterships. I'm not convinced, myself."

"I don't recall you liking the Acchaa theory much, either," Chandris put in. "Are there any theories you like?"

He glared at her. "Actually, I'm rather partial to the idea that the angels are a deliberate alien invasion," he said tartly. "Here to turn everyone in the Empyrean into something non-human."

"Unfortunately, we don't need alien help to become less than human," Hanan murmured, glancing at Chandris. "Matter of fact, Chandris and I were just discussing that."

Kosta looked back and forth between them, then shrugged. "Anyway, I wrote the whole thing up—results, comments, and everybody's theories as to what happened. We'll see what kind of response I get." He hesitated. "Incidentally, I also discussed your trapped-alien theory with a couple of people. They said that the idea's been around for quite a while."

"Old doesn't necessarily mean wrong," Hanan pointed out. "Did any of them actually refute it, or did they all just make the usual learnedly snide comments?"

"The latter, mostly," Kosta conceded. "One of them compared it to the ancient epicycle theory of planetary motion. Said it complicated matters without really explaining anything."

"You agree with that?"

"I don't know," Kosta admitted. "That's the other reason I came by, actually; I wondered if you'd be willing to discuss it some more with me. When you're not so busy, of course," he added hastily.