“The Gehennans, you mean.”
“Yes, the Gehennans. The Science Bureau is going to advise the Alliance ambassador we need some real close communication—that’s what’s going on right now. But that’s the Bureau and the Secretary; and Councillor Harad’s office. I think everything’s going to work out fine.”
Time, well time, to calm the situation down: that was her job; and Giraud’s; and Harad’s.
“There’s no truth to the rumor about a secret base on Gehenna.”
She made a deliberate surprise-reaction. “Absolutely not. No. It’s not about that at all. I can let something out: they’re going to make an official statement tomorrow morning: there was some real illegal bacteriological stuff done there. It was our fault. It shouldn’t have happened. And we don’t need that stuff coming back.”
The reporters got excited. They were supposed to. And it was absolutely true, it was one of the cautions, the one they could give out right away, and one of the most urgent ones. “What sort of bacteriological stuff?” they asked.
“Designed stuff. Viruses. It’s not fatal to humans; the Gehennans tolerate it fine. But there are a lot of questions. They did some stuff back in the war that shouldn’t have been done. I can’t talk about more than that. Councillor Harad said I could say that; he’s going to hold a news conference tomorrow morning. I’m sorry—I’m awfully tired, and they’re signaling me come on—”
“One more question! Is the rumor accurate the Councillor is going to propose talks with Alliance?”
“I can’t talk about that.” Thank God Catlin just grabbed her by the arm and Florian body-blocked and adult Security and uncle Denys’ staff got there, Seely in plain-clothes, like always, and Amy and Maddy and Sam closing in—doing the Family-homecoming number—getting her out of there—
Getting her all the way to the bus, where she could hug Amy and Maddy and Sam for a whole different reason, for real, because Giraud had let her in on the secret, that a Family reception at the airport was the best way in the universe to get a wedge in on the reporters, get her out, and still give the cameramen the kind of human-interest endshot that left the right kind of feeling with everybody—who showed up to do the airport-rescue depended on the kind of impression they wanted to give out.
So uncle Denys sent her the youngers, no official stuff, no indication to the outside world what Reseune’s official reaction was, no high administrators who could get caught for follow-up by the reporters—just a real happy group of kids slipping in with the Security people, real Family stuff.
Damn, they carried it off smooth as Olders could have.
And left the reporters to guess who they were and to focus on something just human, about Reseune, about the fact Reseune wasn’t long-faced and worried and just ordinary kids showed up to welcome her home, after they had seen so much of Reseune Security and asked questions about the chase planes.
Fade-out on happy kids.
People grabbed on to things like that real fast.
“I want to sleep,” she said.
“Bad news,” Amy said. “They’re waiting for you in the front hall.” Amy patted her shoulder. “Everybody wants to see you. Just to say welcome back. You were great, Ari. You were really great.”
“Oh, God,” she mumbled. And shut her eyes. She was so tired she was shivering all over. Her knees ached.
“What happened in the hearings?” Maddy asked.
“I can’t say. Can’t. But it was all right.” Even her mouth had trouble working. The bus made the turn and started up the hill. She opened her eyes and remembered she had her hair against the seat back. She sat up and felt to see if it was mussed, and straightened it with her fingers. “Where’s my comb?”
Because she was not going into the hall with her hair messed if people had come to see her.
Even if she was falling on her face.
Uncle Denys himself was at the door; she hugged him and kissed him on the cheek and said into his ear: “I’m so awful tired. Get me home.”
But Florian had to go ahead to check the Minder before she could even have her bed. Especially now.
And she walked the hall through all the Family and the staff; and got hugs and flowers and kissed Dr. Edwards on the cheek and hugged Dr. Dietrich and even Dr. Peterson and Dr. Ivanov—him a long, long moment, because whatever else he had done, he had put her together right; and she had gotten mad at him, but she knew what he had done for her—“You and your damn shots,” she said into his ear. “I held together fine in Novgorod.”
He hugged her till her bones cracked and he patted her shoulder and said he was glad.
She got a little further. Then: “I’ve got to rest,” she said finally to sera Carnath, Amy’s mother, and sera Carnath scolded everybody and told them to let her through.
So they did; and she walked to the lift, went up and over to her hall, and her apartment, and her bed, clothes and all.
She woke up with somebody taking them off her, but that was Florian and Catlin, and that was all right. “Sleep with me,” she said, and they got in, both of them, one warm lump, like little kids, right in the middle of the bed.
viii
The Filly loved the open air—there was a pasture bare of everything, where the horses could get a long run—good solid ground, and safe enough if you kept the Filly’s head up and never let her eat anything that grew in the fields. Sometimes the azi that worked the horses when Florian was busy used her and the Mare’s daughter to exercise the Mare instead of using the walker; but when the Filly was out with her or Florian on her back she really put on her manners, ears up, everything in her just waiting for the chance to run, which was what the Filly loved best.
It made uncle Denys nervous as hell when he got reports about her riding all-out.
Today she had Florian by her on Filly Two, both horses fretting at the bits and wanting to go. “Race you,” she said, and aimed the Filly at the end of the field, to the kind of stop that had once sent her most of the way off, hanging on the Filly’s neck—she had sworn she would kill Andy and Florian if they told; and she was very glad no one had had a camera around.
All the way there with both horses running nearly neck and neck; and it would have taken somebody on the ground to see who was first. Florian could try to be diplomatic. But the fillies had different ideas.
“Easier back,” Florian said. The horses were breathing hard, and dancing around and feeling good. But he worried when they ran like that.
“Hell,” she said. For a moment she was free as the wind and nothing could touch her.
But racing was not why they were out here, or down in AG, or why Catlin had special orders up in the House.
Not why Catlin was walking out of the barn now—a distant bit of black; with company.
“Come on,” she said to Florian, and she let the Filly pick her pace, which was still a good clip, and with ears up and then back again as the Filly saw people down there too, and tried to figure it out in her own worried way.
ix
Justin stood still beside Catlin’s black, slim impassivity, waiting while the horses brought Ari and Florian back—big animals, coming fast—but he figured if there were danger of being run down Catlin would not be standing there with her arms folded, and he thought—he was sure…that it was Ari’s choice to scare him if she could.
So he stood his ground while the horses ran up on them. They stopped in time. And Ari slid down and Florian did.
She gave Florian her horse to lead away. She had on a white blouse, her hair was pinned up in Emory’s way; but coming loose all around her face. The smell of the barn, the animals, leather and earth—brought back childhood. Brought back the days that he and Grant had been free to come down here—
A long time ago.
“Justin,” Ari said. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“I thought you would,” he said.
She was breathing hard. But anyone would, who had come in like that.
Catlin had called hi
s office, said come to the doors; he had left Grant at work, over Grant’s objections. No, he had said; just—no. And gotten his jacket and walked down, expecting—God knew—Ari, there.
Catlin had brought him down here, instead, and no one interfered with that. But no one likely interfered much with anything Ari did these days.
“Let’s go sit down,” Ari said now. “Do you mind?”
“All right,” he said; and followed her over to the corner where the fence met the barn. Azi handlers took the horses inside; and Ari sat down on the bottom rail of the metal fence, leaving him the plastic shipping cans that were clustered there, while Catlin and Florian stood a little behind him and out of his line of sight. Intentionally, he thought, a quiet, present threat.
“I don’t blame you for anything,” she said, hands between her knees, looking at him with no coldness, no resentment. “I feel a little funny—like I should have put something together, that there was something in the past—but I thought—I thought maybe you’d gotten crosswise of Administration. The family black sheep. Or something. But that’s all history. I know nothing is your fault. I asked you to come here—to ask you what you think about me.”
It was a civilized, sensible question. It was the nightmare finally happening, turning out to be just a quiet question from a pretty young girl under a sunny sky. But his hands would shake if he was not sitting as he was, arms folded. “What I think about you. I think about the little girl at the New Year’s party. About the damn guppies. I think about a sweet kid, Ari. That’s all. I’ve had nightmares about your finding out. I didn’t want what happened. I didn’t want fifteen years of walking around the truth. But they couldn’t tell you. And they were afraid I would. That I would—feel some resentment toward you. I don’t. None.”
Her face was so much Ari’s. The lines and planes were beginning to be there. But the eyes were a young woman’s eyes, worried—that rare little expression he had seen first that day in his office—over a jar of suffocated baby guppies. I guess they were just in there too long.
“Your father’s at Planys,” she said. “They say you visit him.” He nodded. A lump got into his throat. God. He was not going to break down and go maudlin in front of a fifteen-year-old.
“You miss him.”
Second nod. She could feel her way to all the buttons. She was Emory. She had proved it in Novgorod, and the whole damn government had rocked on its pinnings.
“Are you mad at me about it?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“Aren’t you going to talk to me?”
Damn. Pull it together, fool!
“Are you mad at my uncles?”
He shook his head again. There was nothing safe to say. Nothing safe to do. She was the one who needed to know. He knew everything. And if there was a way out for Jordan it was going to be in her administration—someday. If there was any hope at all.
She was silent a long time. Just waiting for him. Knowing, surely, that he was fracturing. Himself, who was thirty-four years old; and not doing well at all.
He leaned forward, elbows on knees, studied the dust between his feet, then looked up at her.
No knowledge at all of what the first Ari had done to him. Denys swore to that. And swore what he would do if he opened his mouth about it.
I won’t, he had said to Denys. God, do you think I want her into that tape?
She hasn’t got it, Denys had assured him. And won’t get it.
Yet—had been his thought.
There was nothing but worry in the look Ari gave him.
“It’s not easy,” he said, “to be under suspicion—all the time. That’s the way I live, Ari. And I never did anything. I was seventeen when it happened.”
“I know that,” she said. “I’ll talk to Denys. I’ll make it so you can go visit when you like,”
It was everything he had hoped for. “Right now—” he said, “there’s too much going on in the world. The mess in Novgorod. The same reason they have you flying with an escort. There’s a military base right next to Planys. The airport is in between the two. Your uncle Denys is worried they might try to grab my father; or me. I’m grounded until things settle down. I can’t even talk to him on the phone.—And Grant’s never even gotten to go. Grant—was like his second son.”
“Damn,” she said, “I’m sorry. But you will get to see him. Grant, too. I’ll do everything I can.”
“I’d be grateful.”
“Justin,—does your father hate me?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“What does he say about me?”
“We stay off that subject,” he said. “You understand—every call I make to him, every second I spend with him—there’s always somebody listening. Talking about you—could land me back in Detention.”
She looked at him a long time. Shock, no. But they had not told her that, maybe. There was a mix of expressions on her face he could not sort out.
“Your father’s a Special,” she said. “Yanni says you ought to be.”
“Yanni says. I doubt it. And they’re not even going to allow the question—because they can’t touch my father—legally—so they don’t want me unreachable. You understand.”
That was another answer that bothered her. Another moment of silence.
“Someday,” he said, “when things are quieter, someday when you’re running Reseune—I hope you’ll take another look at my father’s case. You could do something to help him. I don’t think anyone else ever will. Just—ask him—the things you’ve asked me.” But, O God, the truth…about that tape; about Art; the shock of that—no knowing what that will do to her.
She’s not like her predecessor. She’s a decent kid.
That tape’s as much a rape of her—as me.
God, God, when’s she going to get the thing? Two more years?
When she’s seventeen?
“Maybe I will,” she said. “—Justin, why did he do it?”
He shook his head, violently. “Nobody knows. Nobody really knows. Temper. God knows they didn’t get along.”
“You’re his replicate.”
He lost his breath a moment. And got caught looking her straight in the eyes.
“You don’t have a temper like that,” she said. “Do you?”
“I’m not like you,” he said. “I’m just his twin. Physical resemblance, that’s all.”
“Did he fight with a lot of people?”
He tried to think what to say; and came up with: “No. But he and Ari had a lot of professional disagreements. Things that mattered to them. Personalities, mostly.”
“Yanni says you’re awfully good.”
He wobbled badly on that shift of ground and knew she had seen the relief. “Yanni’s very kind.”
“Yanni’s a bitch,” she laughed. “But I like him.—He says you work deep-set stuff.”
He nodded. “Experimental.” He was glad to talk about his work. Anything but the subject they had been on.
“He says your designs are really good. But the computers keep spitting out Field Too Large.”
“They’ve done some other tests.”
“I’d like you to teach me,” she said.
“Ari, that’s kind of you, but I don’t think your uncle Denys would like that. I don’t think they want me around you. I don’t think that’s ever going to change.”
“I want you to teach me,” she said, “what you’re doing.”
He found no quick answer then. And she waited without saying a thing.
“Ari, that’s my work. You know there is a little personal vanity involved here—” Truth, he was disturbed; cornered; and the child was innocent in it, he thought, completely. “Ari, I’ve had little enough I’ve really done in my life; I’d at least like to do the first write-up on it, before it gets sucked up into someone else’s work. If it’s worth anything. You know there is such a thing as professional jealousy. And you’ll do so much in your life. Leave me my little corner.”
She
looked put off by that. A line appeared between her brows. “I wouldn’t steal from you.”
He made it light, a little laugh, grim as it was. “You know what we’re doing. Arguing like the first Ari and my father. Over the same damn thing. You’re trying to be nice. I know that—”
“I’m not trying to be nice. I’m asking you.”
“Look, Ari,—”
“I won’t steal your stuff. I don’t care who writes it up. I just want you to show me what you do and how you do it.”
He sat back. It was a corner she backed him into, a damned, petulant child used to having her way in the world. “Ari,—”
“I need it, dammit!”
“You don’t get everything you need in this world.”
“You’re saying I’d steal from you!”
“I’m not saying you’d steal. I’m saying I’ve got a few rights, Ari, few as they are in this place—maybe I want my name on it. And my father’s. If just because it’s the same last name.”
That stopped her. She thought about it, staring at him.
“I can figure that,” she said. “I can fix that. I promise you. I won’t take anything you don’t want me to. I don’t lie, Justin. I don’t tell lies. Not to my friends. Not in important things. I want to learn. I want you to teach me. Nobody in the House is going to keep me from having any teacher I want. And it’s you.”
“You know—if you get me in trouble, Ari, you know what it can do.”
“You’re not going to get in any trouble. I’m a wing supervisor. Even if I haven’t got a wing to work in. So I can make my own, can’t I? You. And Grant.”
His heart went to long, painful beats. “I’d rather not be transferred.”
She shook her head. “Not really move. I’ve got a Wing One office. It’s just paper stuff. It just means my staff does your paperwork.—I’m sorry.” When he said nothing in her pause: “I did it.”
“Damn it, Ari—”
“It’s just paperwork. And I don’t like having stuff I’m working on lying around your office.—I can change it back, if you like.”