That got a thoughtful look, a long and thoughtful look. “I wasn’t so hard a target.”
“For her? No. You were young. You were as young as I am now.”
“I don’t think you’ve had the chance to be,” he said, “not that young. Not that stupid. I was, once. At an absolutely emotional pitch, caught between her and him. I don’t like that territory. I don’t intend to go there again.”
“I don’t want you to,” she said, and kept her hand off his arm, much as the urge was there to touch, to plead, even, for a kinder look. “Justin, I asked you here because I didn’t want to meet him and have any question in your mind what we said.”
“And because he’d have exploded if I wasn’t here. A whole complex of reasons. I get them.”
“I hope you get all of them,” she said, “because they add up to my doing this because I’d like to stop this upset, and I don’t want you ever having to do things like give Florian that card.”
He looked at her a long moment. “I’d be as glad not to have to. I’d be as glad to live under a regime where that’s not an issue.”
“I’m trying. I’m honestly trying. Those sets you’re going over—a lot of those are my security. Or they’re going to be.”
“I had an idea they were, from the skill-sets involved.”
“Don’t give me anybody I can’t rely on. Help me set this up right this time.”
“As if you can’t read them yourself.”
“I do. I have. But I want a partner. I want backup. A double-check. I do.” This time she did touch him, gently, briefly. “Justin, I need you. Maybe the first Ari didn’t need your father as much: she didn’t need people. But I do. I want people. I like people. I don’t even mind people who argue with me. Jordan’s all right, Justin. He really is, or he would be, if he could just stop short of trying to take over.”
Justin’s expression grew very somber. “You said it. The first Ari couldn’t work with him. Are you better than she was?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I know I’m not, yet.”
“Good night,” he said firmly, cutting off any hope of longer conversation. “Good night, Ari.”
He was upset with her and with Jordan. She was sorry for that. But she’d had the truthers running, the while, and she had a load of data for Florian and Catlin to sift, before they gave any instructions to the new people.
Questions remained. Doubts didn’t. Justin had firmly stepped to her side. He just had to reconnoiter a bit, and settle his stomach about it. He was upset. But he stayed hers.
Jordan—Jordan was still Jordan. That hadn’t changed. But she knew him better because of this evening. And that was also very useful.
BOOK ONE Section 3 Chapter v
MAY 3, 2424
1003H
It was more home than it had been, the new office, with the quasi-window showing a rainy day and blue flowers brightening up the corner. The color-sorted cabinet still grated on the nerves, but the annoyance was fading.
Mostly the phone stayed quiet this morning. And for that, Justin found himself very grateful, considering the scene last night.
But it worried him. Jordan had more than one way to work on his nerves.
“Coffee?” Grant asked. Grant rose from his own desk to pour a cup. Justin held his out mutely, swivelled his chair around, and received it back when Grant had poured it.
“No phone call,” he said.
“Enjoy it,” Grant said.
“She’s trying to make peace with him. It’s not going to work.”
“It won’t, likely. But that’s his choice, isn’t it?”
“They’ve been fair with him,” Justin said. “Sometimes I just want to shake sense into him.”
“I’m only content he doesn’t try his version of that with you,” Grant said, and sat down with his own cup. He leaned back, crossed long legs in front of him. “Young sera, however, trusts you. And this, frankly, is a better thing. This is, mind you, a logical judgement. Or I believe it is.”
“Believe it is.”
“Convincing Jordan of her isn’t likely,” Grant said. “Young sera remains somewhat flexible.”
“No matter if she deviates from what she was born, she can’t deviate from what she was born to. She’s going to be what Jordan flatly won’t accept, that’s the bitter truth. Any director of Reseune is in his way, I’m afraid that’s the sum of it, and that’s what she’s going to be. So it’s a chimera we’re chasing, peace with Jordan. Doesn’t exist.” He thought of the monitoring and looked at the ceiling. Grant’s eyes traveled the same direction, and met his, and he shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I said it last night. I said it all last night.”
“We live in a glass box,” Grant said with a shrug of his own. “But it’s quieter for it.”
“If I have any guilt in the world,” Justin said soberly, “it’s on your account. All the things you could do, and you spend far too much time worrying about my family, my future, my problems.”
Grants brow, generally azi-like, innocent of frowns, acquired one. “If I were burdened with choices, I’d still choose to be where I am. I’m relatively sure of it, given the requisite information.”
“What? If someone told you you’d be linked up with the clone of an egotistical problem case in a lifelong feud with a dead woman, you’d jump at the chance?”
“I’d at least find it an interesting proposal,” Grant said. “A source of unique experiences.”
“God.”
“Not all pleasant experiences, true, but I’ve found no need to run tape at all, not in this whole year. Which indicates I’m perfectly adjusted.” Grant gave a violent twitch of his shoulder. “Mostly.”
He had to laugh, in spite of it all. “I wish there were tape that could cure me of worrying about the damned son of a bitch.”
“Oh, I know there is for me, but there you are, the disadvantages of being a born-man. Just shut down, go peacefully null—”
“You can’t do it so well yourself nowadays, you know.”
“Curiosity is a plague. Contagious. I can’t help it. I want to know.”
“You’re right it’s contagious. Jordan’s a carrier. God, I wish he’d use good sense. Just—calm down and let it all flow past him. But no. He’s got to be in the dead center of the flow, going upstream while he’s at it. In some ways I can admire him—” Momentarily he’d all but forgotten about the bugs, twice in five minutes, and consciously, wearily amended it: “—and in others I know he’s a lunatic.”
“There’s nothing wrong with his sanity,” Grant said.
“No. There isn’t. Everything’s perfectly reasonable if you realize he wants to manage Reseune and he thinks second prize doesn’t matter. Why he wants to—” He tried to make it make sense and simply shrugged. “He doesn’t like to be inconvenienced. And anybody else’s orders are an inconvenience.”
Grant laughed softly. “That’s one way to look at it.”
“God, I want to love him. But he doesn’t give a damn. That’s the bottom line. I stopped being his project, and he washed his hands of me. Second prize again—isn’t good enough for him. Things are perfect or they’re garbage. Thank God for you, Grant, or I’d be—God knows what I’d be. Not as good as I am, for damn certain.”
“Nor would I,” Grant said with a nod of his head, “be anything worthwhile, in that household. I escaped, along with you, and I have just enough born-man ego to be glad of that fact.”
“Nothing wrong with your ego,” Justin shot back. “Perfectly well-exercised.”
“Oh, now—”
A knock at the door—which opened.
Florian.
Face of an angel and inevitably the bearer of bad news. Grant sat still. Justin nodded a welcome.
“I don’t suppose you dropped by for coffee.”
“No, ser, thank you,” Florian said. “I came to ask your help.”
“My help.”
Florian let the door shut, reached into his jacket pocket, pulle
d out a small card, and handed it to him. It had a number hand-written. “This is Dr. Patil’s number.”
“I gave it to you. I don’t want it back.”
“We understand that. But, purely in an investigative way, we’d like you to call it and simply find out what the reaction is. Are you willing to do that?”
His heart began a thoroughly familiar acceleration of beats. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, Grant set his cup down, as if he was considering entering into the conversation.
“And say what?” he asked, forestalling that, and straightway protested, though he marginally thought he was believed on this point: “I’ve told you I don’t know this woman.”
Florian reached in his pocket, drew out a folded piece of paper, and gave it to him.
The printout said: Your father gave you the number, and you assumed he wanted you to convey his good wishes and Dr. Thieu’s. Possibly you became curious.
You wish to warn Dr. Patil that there is some concern here because of her relationship with your father. You feel that you can be of use in that matter because of your connections with me.
“This comes from Ari,” Justin surmised. “Me means Ari.”
“You understand that this entire thread of conversation is classified.” Florian said. “Sera suggests this line of conversation as an assistance.”
“Florian, I can’t lie. I’m terrible at lying.” Begging off, abjectly, and in front of Grant—was undignified. Embarrassing. But survival, Grant’s safety, everything was suddenly at issue. “I can’t do this.”
“You’re a certified Supervisor, ser,” Florian said smoothly. “You’re not lying if you make these representations to this woman. You’re temporarily adjusting her reality, just as you might maneuver one of us for good reasons, to reach a point. If, out of her own reality, she chooses to believe certain things about your motives, that’s hardly your fault.”
“God, Florian, it’s not the same situation. You know it’s not.”
“I’m sure sera will understand if you refuse. But she urges me to say you could do a great deal for Dr. Patil, should she be innocent of any suspicious action—and for Reseune, since Dr. Patil is scheduled for a very sensitive appointment. On my own judgement, let me inform you of one other matter: Yanni Schwartz, on his return from Novgorod, discussed the resurrection of the Eversnow project with sera; within the same hour, Jordan left his apartment on his way to dinner at Jamaica, carrying in his pocket the business card of the woman meant to be in charge of the Eversnow project. Jordan gave you that card in full view of surveillance. Does that make sense to you?”
His heart reached max. He looked at Florian and froze inside.
But he had to ask it. Cold and clear. “What’s my father up to? Do you know?”
“We don’t. We do want to know why that peculiar juxtaposition of events.”
Florian was leveling with him: Justin had that sense. That was a situation both reassuring for his own future and as precarious for Jordan’s as he could conceive. He didn’t know what he’d been dragged into.
“I’m sure you want to know,” he said to Florian, and picked up his coffee and had a sip to steady his nerves, looking, meanwhile, at Ari’s script for a phone call to a woman who might either be, like him, a target, or someone he wished his father had never heard of.
Nanistics, for God’s sake. Jordan had nothing to do with nanistics. Jordan had had nothing to do with Abolitionists, either, but had once had phone numbers of people who themselves had ties in such dark places, twenty years ago. Jordan’s political contacts had nearly cost him Grant that night. And since that time he had taken nothing at face value, where it regarded Jordan’s correspondents.
Grant sat over at his desk, silent, impassive—he glanced in Grant’s direction and met Grant’s eyes. Expression touched Grant’s face, a nod, support for whatever he opted to do…when Grant would assuredly suffer right along with him if he made the wrong choice or the wrong move.
Grant was an alpha, and there was a limit to how much information anybody could make him unlearn…if anything untoward should happen to his CIT Supervisor. He couldn’t forget that.
“Maybe you should take a break,” he said to Grant.
Grant shook his head slightly. “I don’t think so. You’re going to do it, are you?”
“I don’t want trouble,” he said, “but I don’t want trouble from my father, either. Damn him, Grant. Damn him.” He had another sip of coffee, a larger one. “Florian, I’ll try it. Let me wrap my mind around this note of Ari’s.”
“Sera trusts you more than any other CIT in Reseune,” Florian said quietly. “Her staff will protect you, ser. Those are our orders. That’s why, of all CITs outside ReseuneSec, you are the only individual we have informed of the connection Director Schwartz has with this set of circumstances; and you’re the only person we’ve told what connection the Eversnow project has with this woman in Novgorod. We trust you understand how important it is that this goes no further and how closely we are tracking vectors of information. Sera hopes Yanni is conducting his own investigation, that it might involve Jordan, and that this could explain the coincidence of your father’s possession of this card. Her security assumes no such thing. Be very clear that you hold highly restricted information on several matters. You should deal with it very carefully.”
“No question,” Justin said. He had compartments in his head, for things that couldn’t get out, mustn’t get out. He’d developed those containments, oh, years ago. Grant had the same ability. He’d meet Yanni; he’d not let on. He didn’t remotely believe ill of Yanni—but he wouldn’t let on.
He read and reread the script, fixing the sequence in his head—trying to concentrate past a rising sense of panic. No side thoughts. Deep-think. Internalize the message.
He glanced at Florian, then picked up the phone and input the number, with the script laid out in front of him.
God, he hoped the woman wasn’t in at the moment. He’d just leave a message. He’d say—coherently—
A recording answered. “This is Dr. Sandi Patil’s residence. Input your code.” He cast a troubled glance at Florian, but then the message continued. “Or record your message and state your business.”
It beeped. He was in the clear. She wasn’t in. Thank God. He could get her to call him back, and ask what he wanted, which created a far easier information flow. He could envision that. He knew how he’d handle it.
“This is Justin Warrick, Jordan Warrick’s son. I—”
Someone picked up mid-word. “Patil here.”
It disconcerted him. He scrambled for a recovery. “Justin Warrick, Dr. Patil. My father is Jordan Warrick, in Reseune. He gave me your number, suggested I call you—he’s busy going through the lab certifications right now—” Lie. Complete lie. “But he gave me your business card, and I assume he wanted me to call you and pay my respects.” He saw Florian nod approval of the tack he was taking. “I’m sure he’d want to convey his own.”
“I’d heard Jordan Warrick was back.” Dead silence then. He was supposed to say something inventive. Fast. Possibly you became curious, the script said.
“I’m sure he’d want to express the same from Dr. Thieu, out at Planys,” he said, and decided against the curiosity gambit. “I understand you’re a friend of his.”
“Former student. Colleague.”
“So I understand.” The script said: You wish to warn Dr. Patil that there is some concern here because of her relationship with your father. And his effort wasn’t going well. There was chill, clipped response from Patil—interspersed with equally chill silence. “Look. Let me level with you. My father’s a bit of a hothead. I’m sure you know that. He’s picked a fight with Reseune Admin. Admin’s cut off his contacts for the next couple of weeks. You understand? I had this number, last thing he gave me before he picked a fight that’s got me worried. I don’t know what your relationship was with him, or is, but I know your reputation is impeccable, and I know he’s prone to pic
k fights that sometimes have fallout.”
“If you’d come to the point, ser.”
“I thought I should call, and apologize if my father’s caused you any inconvenience. I hope he hasn’t.”
“I don’t know your father. I know of him, in common with most people who remember the last administration. I’m aware he was at Planys. Dr. Thieu mentioned him as an acquaintance, that’s all. Thank you for your concern, but it’s misplaced.”
“I’m afraid you don’t understand.”
“I understand that I’m a very busy woman with no possible connection to your father’s problems. I don’t know how he came by my card or why he gave it to you, but—”
She was going to hang up. He grabbed for the strongest word he could think of. “Murder, sera. Murder of Ariane Emory.” And improvised. “He didn’t do it. They sent him to Planys for something he didn’t do. I know that for a fact. He wants the matter reopened, which isn’t—isn’t exactly what Reseune would like to see, for various reasons. So I’m pretty sure they’ll be asking Dr. Thieu, probably you—”
“Look. I have absolutely no knowledge of your father or his case.”
“I’m sure Dr. Thieu has put you current with it, at least.”
“Not a thing.”
“Dr. Patil,” You feel that you can be of use in that matter because of your connections with me. “Forgive me, but he gave me this card with your number right before he put himself at odds with Admin, and I’m sorry if I’ve been forward in calling you, but I felt I owed you a warning.”
“And I tell you I don’t know him.”
Time to back off. “I understand.” As if, finally, he could take a hint. “I apologize for the inconvenience. I feel I need to bring this matter up with Admin, to be on the level with them—I know young Emory. I know her quite well. Her influence isn’t to discount—should you find yourself crosswise of any investigation. She’s mentioned your name. She doesn’t want you inconvenienced.”
“Where are you calling from?” Sharp tone. Very sharp tone.