Free Chronospace by Allen Steele

patterns. Service panels gaped open on the floor and ceiling, exposing densely packed nanocircuitry and bundled wiring. Through the single rectangular porthole above the console, he saw a space worker hovering just outside.
    Vasili Metz was seated in the pilot’s seat, his head and shoulders thrust beneath the console. “Hello, Dr. Lu,” he said, not looking up. “You’ve seen Sanchez, I take it.”
    “We met with him a couple of hours ago.” Pushing himself over to the chair, Franc grasped the seatback and let his feet dangle in the air. “He told us about the Miranda. They say they spotted an angel.”
    “Yep. That’s what I’ve heard from Brech.” Beneath the console, Metz’s penlight moved back and forth. “It was only for a couple of seconds, but Hans mentioned it in his reports, and I’ve spoken with him about it. Did Paolo give you my recommendation?”
    “Yes, he did. We discussed it for a while, and decided to proceed with the C120-37.”
    Metz said nothing. Franc waited patiently until the pilot finally backed out from beneath the console and sat up straight in his chair. “You know,” he said at last, “I should be surprised, but I’m not. Figures you’d ignore this.”
    “I’m not ignoring anything. I’m just refusing to be deterred by something we can’t explain.”
    “I can’t explain them either.” Metz clicked off the penlight, shoved it in the breast pocket of his jumpsuit. “I just know that they show up when something’s about to go wrong.”
    Franc knew all about angels. They had been spotted during two previous CRC expeditions: luminescent, vaguely man-shaped apparitions that suddenly appeared in the close vicinity of timeships, then winked out of sight just as quickly as they had appeared. Each time, only CRC historians or pilots had seen them; they never appeared when locals were present. Although no one knew what they were, several theories had been advanced to explain the sightings, the most popular being that they themselves were chrononauts, yet from farther up the timestream. They had never directly interfered with an expedition or caused any historical disturbances, but timeship pilots in particular regarded them as harbingers of misfortune. This fear wasn’t entirely unwarranted; the first time an angel had been spotted, it was during the C119-64, when a historian had been lost during the Battle of Gettysburg, and the secondsighting was during the C220-63, when two researchers had been inadvertently photographed by contemporary bystanders in Dealy Plaza during the Kennedy assassination.
    “But nothing went wrong during the C314-65, did it?” Franc asked. “The Miranda came home safely, right? No mishaps, no paradoxes?” Metz reluctantly nodded. “Then don’t worry about it. Whatever these things are, it’s nothing we should worry about.”
    Metz seemed unconvinced. “I still don’t like it. It’s a bad omen. . . .”
    “We can always find another pilot, if it makes you that nervous.”
    Franc tried not to sound too hopeful, but Metz shook his head. “No time to train another pilot. Miranda launches at 1800 hours, and Oberon follows at 0600 tomorrow.” He glanced toward the passageway. “Speaking of which, where’s Lea?”
    “Up at Artifacts Division, making sure our outfits are ready.” Franc gazed around the control room. “Is this tub going to be flightworthy by tomorrow morning?”
    “Routine maintenance. I always tear Oberon apart before we make a trip.” He scowled as he pulled an electric screwdriver from his tool belt. “And don’t call my ship a tub,” he added. “She’ll get us there and back, so treat her with a little respect.”
    “Right. Sorry.” One more reason he didn’t much care for Metz: he got along better with machines than people. Franc released the seatback, turned toward the door. “All right, then. I’ll see you at 0500 for the prelaunch briefing.”
    “I’ll be there.” Metz was already crawling back