And as they walked, Forsythe permitted himself a brief grimace. Kosta and Chandris were up to something, all right. He could read it in their reactions to him as readily as he could read Ronyon's signing. All he had to do was to figure out exactly what it was.

And hope like fury that whatever it was wouldn't interfere with his plans to stop the flow of angels.

Outside, the tow car took up the slack; and with a jerk, the Gazelle started rolling. Ronyon, still carrying the bedding, was caught off-guard by the sudden motion and staggered slightly, bumping into the corridor wall.

It was the opportunity Chandris had been waiting for. In an instant she was at his side, steadying his arm and pressing against him.

A couple of seconds were all she got before he was back on balance again and she had to pull away.

But a couple of seconds were all she needed. Her senses had not, in fact, played her false during that conversation a minute ago with Kosta and High Senator Forsythe.

Ronyon was carrying an angel.

An angel. She repeated the word silently to herself, her thoughts spinning with old plans and fresh possibilities. An angel. Not the Daviees' spare, which she'd promised herself not to take, but a government angel. One of thousands. One that would probably never be missed.

All it would take, Hanan had told her, would be some highly specialized neural surgery and six months of intensive treatment... and two million ruya to pay for all of it.

I'm reformed, she reminded herself. But the words sounded hollow and meaningless. And anyway, she'd never said she was reformed. The only reason she hadn't stolen anything lately was that she hadn't happened across anything worth the effort.

Until now.

They reached Hanan's cabin and Ronyon went inside, smiling cheerfully at Chandris as he set the bundle of bedding on the desk. "You want me to do the beds?" Chandris asked before remembering he couldn't hear her. But even as she tried to think of how best to act out the question, Ronyon shook his head and tapped his own chest. Turning to the bunk, he began to strip it.

So he could read lips. Interesting that Forsythe had neglected to mention that fact. In fact, he'd strongly implied exactly the opposite, that Ronyon could only communicate through sign language.

For a long moment she stood in the doorway, gazing at Ronyon's broad back while he worked, the old juices starting to flow again as she considered how to make the approach. Picking his pocket would be the simplest if she knew where he was carrying it. But she didn't; and anyway, out here in the middle of nowhere she wouldn't exactly have the option of chop-hopping if he noticed the loss.

The best way would be for him to give it to her, for whatever reason she could concoct. A man of his obvious limitations should be easy to score.

Ronyon finished the cot and turned back, seemingly surprised to see her still there. But he smiled again as he collected the other set of bedding. She smiled back, moving out of the doorway to let him pass. The smile faded as he crossed the corridor and went into Hanan's room. An easy score...

except for one minor detail.

The track in this case was deaf.

Chandris bit at her lip, a swirl of uncertainty like she hadn't felt in years swishing through her stomach. She'd never scored a deaf person before; and up to now she'd never properly appreciated just how much of her talent was tied up in her voice. Her tone, her vocabulary, the texture of her phrasings—those were what made the tracks see someone who wasn't really there. Even more than basic disguise and body language, it was what had given her her edge through the years.

Only here, that edge was gone.

Across the room, the intercom pinged. "Chandris?" Ornina's voice called. "Where are you?"

She stepped to the desk and tapped the switch. "I'm in your room," she said. "Helping Ronyon get the bed changed."

"Ron—? Oh, right—the High Senator's aide," Ornina said. "I hadn't caught his name. I wanted to let you know we're almost to the launch strip."

Chandris grimaced. "I'll be right up."

The intercom clicked off. For a moment Chandris just stood there, staring some more at Ronyon's back and trying furiously to come up with a scheme she could run within the next sixty seconds. If she let this chance slip away...

She took a deep breath. Relax, she told herself firmly. Don't push it. There'll be time enough later.

She touched Ronyon on the shoulder. "I have to go to the control cabin," she said when he turned around, being careful to enunciate her words clearly. "Do you want to go with me so that you know the way?"

He looked down at the half-made bed, forehead wrinkled in thought, and shook his head. His hands began to trace out a pattern in the air in front of him—

"I don't understand that language," Chandris said, reaching out to gently stop his hands. "Maybe later you can teach me. Are you going to stay here?"

He nodded. "All right," Chandris said. "I'll see you later."

The roar of the Gazelle's drive faded into a dull rumble, weight fading away with it. Kosta set his teeth carefully together, focused on the back of Hanan's head directly across from his jumpseat, and concentrated on not being sick.

"We're on course now for the Seraph catapult, High Senator," Hanan said, half turning. "It'll take about an hour to get there. I've started the Gazelle spinning—we should have enough for at least a little gravity in a couple of minutes."

"Thank you," Forsythe said. Kosta risked a look that direction, saw no trace of freefall sickness in the High Senator's face. As usual, Kosta seemed to be the only one having trouble. "How much of a wait will there be at the catapult?"

"Ideally, there shouldn't be any wait at all," Hanan said. "Turnaround is usually pretty much as we get there."

"Even with three launch dishes feeding one catapult?" Forsythe countered. "That sounds like a situation begging for a logjam."

"You're right, it does," Hanan agreed. "Oddly enough, though, that doesn't usually happen. For one thing, there's no problem with coordinate-setting; the catapult and Central's net are binary linked. As long as they're both functioning, you can't go anywhere else. Same thing coming home, too."

"What about mass settings?"

"The readings are taken by the launch dish," Hanan explained. "They're then transmitted directly to the catapult. That's usually the only time problems crop up, come to think of it: when ships get out of order and the mass settings are therefore scrambled."

"Interesting." Forsythe looked at the doorway. "I'd very much like to go over more of the operational details with you later, Mr. Daviee. But first, I should probably go and find Ronyon."

"Actually, I can just—no, I can't," Hanan interrupted himself. "He can't hear the intercom, can he?"

"No," Forsythe said. "I have a call stick, but that won't do any good unless he knows where I am."

"He was making the bed in Ornina's cabin when I left him," Chandris offered. "Shall I go get him?"

Forsythe shook his head. "Thank you, no."

"It's no trouble—"

"I said no," Forsythe repeated; and this time Kosta heard a slight edge in his voice. "It'll be better if I—"

He broke off as a sound Kosta had never heard came from Ornina's control board. "What was that?" he asked.

"EmDef ID," Ornina said, turning back to her board. "Someone with high priority is coming through... oh, God," she added, very quietly.

"What?" Kosta asked.

"It's Hova's Skyarcher," she said in the same quiet voice. "They're bringing it home."

"What, only now?" Forsythe frowned, leaning forward as if he would get a better look that way.

"It wasn't easy to retrieve," Hanan said. "Very close in to Angelmass. They had to send an autobooster in to push it out to where the towship could get it without frying the crew."