The woman awoke with a start. "What—?"

"Shh, it's all right," Chandris hastened to assure her. "It's just me, Chandris."

Ornina sagged tiredly in her chair. "Oh, Chandris, you startled me," she said with a sigh. "Wait, let me get the light."

"No, don't," Chandris said. "I don't want to wake up Hanan."

"It's all right," Hanan said from the bed. "I'm already awake."

Chandris grimaced. "I'm sorry," she apologized as Ornina groped for the small light on the bedside table and flicked it on. The glow was dim, but Chandris still blinked a couple of times before her eyes adjusted. "I was trying to be quiet."

"And you succeeded admirably," Hanan said, his voice as cheerful as always. But his face in the faint light was drawn and seemed to Chandris to be deathly pale. "I just don't sleep well in hospitals, that's all. Probably the food."

"We missed you here earlier tonight," Ornina said. "Visiting hours—" She squinted at her watch.

"Aren't they over yet?"

"Long over," Chandris admitted, feeling even more uncomfortable about this intrusion. "And I wouldn't have bothered you so late at night except—look, I need some advice."

"You've come to the right place," Hanan said, nodding toward the other guest chair against the back wall. He did not, Chandris noted uneasily, raise a hand to point to it, as he normally would have. Not a good sign. "Pull up a chair and tell us all about it."

Chandris took a deep breath. "The reason I wasn't here earlier—"

She broke off as, behind her across the room, the door swung stealthily open and a figure slipped inside. She spun around, automatically scrambling for a cover story to tell the nurse—

"Ah," Kosta said lamely, his face a study in awkward surprise. "Uh—"

"Is it a party?" Hanan said cheerfully into Kosta's discomfiture. "I love parties."

"What are you doing here?" Chandris demanded.

"I'm sorry," Kosta said, sounding thoroughly chagrined now. "I'll go."

"No, please," Ornina said, getting up from her chair. "Here; sit down."

"No, no," Kosta said hastily. "I'll go. I just thought..."

The pieces suddenly clicked. "You thought I came here for Ronyon's angel, didn't you?" Chandris accused. "You followed me from the Institute."

Even in the dim light she could see Kosta's face redden. "Do you blame me?" he countered. "You tell me to trust you; and then you head straight here to the hospital. What was I supposed to think?"

"Whoa, everyone," Hanan cut in. "Could we get a little annotation on this argument? For starters, what do you mean, Ronyon's angel? Don't you mean High Senator Forsythe's angel?"

"Forsythe isn't wearing an angel," Chandris told him. "Ronyon's got it. I was thinking that since everything about that was illegal anyway, one good crime deserved another."

"Or to put it another way, she was planning to steal it," Kosta said. "She's been planning it as far back as the Gazelle."

"Oh, Chandris," Ornina said. The sorrow and disappointment in her voice was like a twisted knife in Chandris's stomach. "Please. Don't."

"I just wanted to find a way for Hanan to get well," Chandris said, hearing an unaccustomed note of pleading in her voice. "He needs it more than ever now."

"I'll be all right," Hanan assured her. "Really I will. The Gabriel Corporation's picking up the bill for all this, and the doctors say the long-term prognosis is hopeful."

"I don't want hopeful," Chandris said, the taste of bitterness in her mouth. "I want you well."

"I know," Hanan said, smiling sadly. "And I appreciate it, Chandris, more than you can ever know.

But this isn't the way to do it."

"Maybe not," Chandris muttered. She still wasn't ready to let this drop, but there was no point in discussing it any further now. "But in the meantime," she added, looking pointedly at Kosta, "there's been another development."

"You're engaged?" Hanan asked hopefully.

Chandris snorted. "Hardly," Kosta said. "Mr. and Mrs. Daviee—"

"Hanan and Ornina," Ornina corrected him mildly.

"Mr. and Mrs. Daviee," Kosta repeated stubbornly, "I must inform you that I am an agent of the Pax, sent here to study Angelmass and the angels."

"Really," Hanan said. "And she's right, by the way: it's Hanan and Ornina."

Kosta frowned at him. "Did you hear me?" he asked.

"Of course," Hanan said, lifting his eyebrows toward Ornina. "Pax spy, here to study Angelmass."

"That's what I heard, too," Ornina confirmed, nodding. "Have you found anything interesting?"

Kosta looked at Chandris, clearly completely confused now. "Don't look at me," she told him with a shrug. "These are the same people who knew I was running from the cops when they hired me. They don't rattle easy."

"We have a secret weapon against the rattles," Hanan said with a conspiratorial grin. Against the backdrop of his strained face, Chandris thought, the grin looked forced. "So tell us. What have you found out about these angels of ours?"

They were four hours on their way toward Lorelei when the first sign of resistance appeared.

"They appear to be mining ships, Commodore," Chief Sensor Officer Dahlgren said, peering back and forth between his displays. "About thirty of them, moving in on individual intercept vectors. The nearest ones have started tracking us. Looks like they've got fairly low-grade target acquisition systems, possibly something adapted from a mining sensor package."

"Weaponry?" Lleshi asked.

"Minimal," the other said. "The best they've got are medium-focus lasers, again probably adapted from standard equipment, plus some probe rockets with small, primitive warheads."

"How primitive?"

Dahlgren shrugged. "They're non-nuclear, just a few kilograms of high explosive each. Frankly, sir, they look almost handmade."

Lleshi exchanged frowns with Campbell. "Did he say primitive or pathetic?" Campbell asked. "What in the worlds do they think they're doing?"

"Maybe trying to distract us," Telthorst put in. "Ever think of that?"

Lleshi lifted his eyebrows to Dahlgren. "Lieutenant?" he invited.

"No other craft showing, in either inner or outer scan range," Dahlgren said. "And we're coming to the edge of the main asteroid mass, which means they're running out of places to hide. I suppose they could have mines planted on some of the rocks we haven't passed yet, but if so they're going to be pretty low-yield."

"And still only HE?" Lleshi asked.

"No radiation readings to indicate nuclear."

"I don't like it," Telthorst growled. "They can't just be sacrificing men and mining ships this way. I strongly recommend we launch fighters and engage them at a safe distance from the Komitadji."

Again, Lleshi and Campbell exchanged glances, this time looks of mutually strained patience. "That won't be necessary, Mr. Telthorst," Lleshi said. "The Komitadji's defenses are quite capable of dealing with this threat."

"Unless it's a feint."

"It's not a feint," Lleshi said, feeling his temper beginning to strain. "This is the tactics of desperation; nothing more. The Empyreals are throwing whatever they have at us in an attempt to slow us down until they can bring real warships into the system."

"They almost certainly don't realize there's still a net left in the system and that we control it,"

Campbell added. "They'll be counting on defense forces from the other four systems being able to sweep in on us. With that assumption, any delaying action will seem reasonable to them, no matter what the cost."

"At any rate, dropping and regathering fighters would take time I'm not willing to waste," Lleshi concluded.

"What's the hurry?" Telthorst asked. "As you say, there's nothing the Empyreals can do."