Cyteen

  xiii

  The vote totals ticked by on the top of the screen and Giraud took another drink. “We’re going to make it,” he said to Abban.

  After-dinner drinks in his Novgorod apartment. Private election-watch, with his companion Abban, who very rarely indulged. But Abban’s glass had diminished by half since the Pan-paris figures had started coming in. Pan-paris had gone for Khalid in the last election. This time it went for Jacques by a two percent margin.

  “It’s not over,” Abban said, dour as usual. “There’s still Wyatt’s.”

  The stars farther off the paths of possible expansion were very chancy electorates for any seat. The garrisons tended to be local, resisting amalgamation into other units, and voted consistently Centrist.

  But Pan-paris augured very well…coming out of the blind storage on Cyteen Station: the computers spat up the stored results of other stations as Cyteen polls closed simultaneously, on-world and up at Station, and the tallies began to flood in.

  “I told you,” Giraud finally felt safe to say. “Not even with Gorodin’s health at issue. Khalid’s far from forming a third party. He certainly can’t do it with support eroding inside his own electorate. Then we only have Jacques to worry about.”

  “Only Jacques,” Abban echoed. “Do you think he’ll keep a bargain? I don’t.”

  “He’ll appoint Gorodin. He knows damn well what reneging on that deal would do for him. All we have to hope is that Gorodin stays alive.” He took a drink of his own. “And that he hurries and makes an appearance. Hope he’s not going to wait overlong on proprieties.”

  The moderate do-nothing Simon Jacques for Councillor; Jacques to appoint Gorodin as Secretary of Defense, then Jacques to resign and appoint Gorodin proxy Councillor, back to his old seat—after which there was bound to be another round with Khalid.

  But by then they had to have a viable Expansionist candidate ready to contend with Khalid. The two-year rule applied: meaning Khalid, having lost the election, could not turn around and re-file against the winner until two years had passed; which meant Jacques could hold the seat for two years without much chance of challenge—but if Jacques resigned directly after election, it would be a race to file: whoever filed first, Gorodin or Khalid, could preclude the other from filing because they were each a month short of the end of the prohibition from the election that had put Khalid in: which was sure to mean a Supreme Court ruling on the situation—the rule technically only applying to losers, but creating a window for an appeal on the grounds of legal equity.

  That meant it was wiser to leave Jacques in office for as long as the two-year rule made him unassailable—while Gorodin—the health rumors were not fabricated this time—used what time he had to groom a successor of his own…because the one thing no one believed was that Gorodin would last the full two years.

  A successor whom of course Jacques was going to support. Like hell. Jacques knew himself a figurehead, knew his own financial fortunes were solidly linked with Centrist-linked firms, and the next two years were going to be fierce infighting inside Defense, while Khalid, stripped of his Intelligence post, still had pull enough in the military system to be worrisome. The estimate was that Lu, tainted with the administrative decisions Gorodin’s war record to some extent let him survive, had a reputation for side-shifting that did not serve him well in an elected post; and he was old, very old, as it was.

  “We’re running out of war heroes,” Abban said. “Doubtful if Gorodin can find any of that generation fit to serve. This new electorate—I’m not sure they respond to the old issues. That’s the trouble.”

  Seventy years since the war—and the obits of famous names were getting depressingly frequent.

  “These young hawks,” Giraud said, “they’re not an issue, they’re a mindset. They’re pessimistic, they believe in worst-cases, they feel safe only on the side of perceived strength. Khalid worries me more as an agitator than as a single-electorate hero. He appeals to that type—to the worriers of all electorates, not just the ones who happen to be in Defense. It’s always after wars—in times of confusion—or economic low spots, exactly the kind of thing a clever operator like Khalid can find a base in. There are alarming precedents. Lu would be the best for the seat, still the best for the seat and the best for the times—but this damned electorate won’t vote for a man who tells them there are four and five sides to a question. There’s too much uncertainty. The electorate doesn’t want the truth, it wants answers in line with their thinking.”

  “One could,” Abban said, “simply take a direct solution. I don’t understand civs, I especially don’t understand civ CITs. In this case the law isn’t working. It’s insanity to go on following it. Eliminate the problem quietly. Then restore the law.” Abban was a little buzzed. “Take this man Khalid out. I could do it. And no one would find me out.”

  “A dangerous precedent.”

  “So is losing—dangerous to your cause.”

  “No. Politics works. When the Expansionists look strong, these pessimist types vote Expansionist. And they’ll turn. We had them once. We can have them again.”

  “When?” Abban asked.

  “We will. I’ll tell you: Denys is right. Young Ari’s image has been altogether too sweet.” Abban’s glass was empty. He filled Abban’s and topped off his, finishing the bottle. “When our girl took into Khalid in front of the cameras—that threw a lot of Khalid’s believers completely off their balance, but you mark me, they blamed the media. Remember they always believe in conspiracies. They weren’t willing to accept Ari as anything solid—as anything that can guarantee their future. And won’t, until she makes them believe it.”

  “Which alienates the doves.”

  “Oh, yes. When she went in front of those cameras head to head with Khalid—it was damned dangerous. She pulled it off—but there was a downside. I argued with Denys. Her insistence on bringing Gehenna out public again—I’m sure inflamed the hawks and scared the hell out of a few doves—enough to bring the Paxers out in force. She may have attracted the few peace-pushers who aren’t more scared of her than him, and may have lost him a few of his, but she didn’t gain any of his people. It’s Gorodin they’re re-electing. Gorodin’s an old name, a safe name. They’re not about to go with a young girl’s opinion. Not the worry-addicts.”

  More figures ticked by. Widening margin, Jacques’ favor.

  “I’ll tell you what worries me,” Giraud said, finally. “Young Warrick. He’s going to be very hard to hold. How’s our man doing—the one with the Planys contact?”

  “Proceeding.”

  “We document it, we find some convenient link to the Rocher gang or the Paxers and that’s all we need. Or we create one. I want you to look into that.”

  “Good.”

  “We need to leave the Centrists with very embarrassing ties—There have to be ties. That will keep Corain busy. And keep young Warrick quiet, if he has any sense at all.”

  “Direct solutions there are just as possible,” Abban said.

  “Oh, no. Jordie Warrick himself can be quite a help. We keep putting off the travel passes. Start a security scandal at Planys airport. That should do. Leak the business about young Warrick going on rejuv. Our Jordie’s damned clever. Just keep the pressure on, and he’ll get reckless—he’ll throw something to the Centrists; and our man just funnels it straight to the Paxers. Then we just turn the lights on—and watch them run for cover.”

  “And young Warrick?”

  “Denys wants to salvage him. I think it’s lunacy. At least he took my advice—in the case we have a problem. The Paxers have handed us a beautiful issue. The doves hate them because they’re violent—the hawks hate them for the lunacy they stand for. Let our Ari discover the Paxers are plotting to kill her, and that Jordan Warrick is involved with them; and watch those instincts turn on in a hurry. Watch her image shift then—on an issue of civil violence and plots. Absolutely the thing we need. Attract the peace-party and the hawks—and cultivate enem
ies that can only do her political good.”

  “Mark me, young Warrick is a danger in that scenario.”

  “Ah. But we’ve been very concerned with his welfare. Planning for his long life. Giving him rejuv puts that all on record, doesn’t it? And if Ari’s threatened—she’ll react. If Jordan’s threatened—so will young Warrick jump. You give me the incident I need, and watch the pieces fall. And watch our young woman learn a valuable lesson.” A moment he stared at the screen and sipped at the wine. “I’ll tell you, Abban: you know this: she matters to me. She’s my concern. Reseune is. Damned if Jordie Warrick’s son is going to have a voice in either. Damned if he is.”

  Cyteen Station results flashed up, lopsided.

  “That’s it,” Abban said. “He’s got it now.”

  “Absolutely. I told you. Jacques is in.”

  xiv

  Catlin brought sera coffee in the home office, while sera was feeding the guppies in the little tank she had moved in from the garden-room—sera was quite, quite calm, doing that: it seemed to make her calm, sometimes, a sort of focus-down. Catlin could figure that. She also knew that it was a bad time, sera was waiting for answers from a protest she had filed with Administration; sera—outward evidence to the contrary—was in a terrible temper, not the time that Catlin wanted at all to deal with her. But she tried.

  “Thank you,” sera said, taking the mug and setting it on the edge of the desk, and fussing with the net and a bit of floating weed.

  Sera never even looked her way. After a while Catlin decided sera was deliberately ignoring her, or was just thinking hard, and turned and walked out again.

  Or started to walk out. Catlin got as far as the hall, and found herself facing her partner’s distressed, exasperated look.

  So Catlin stopped, drew a large breath, and went back to stand beside sera’s desk, doggedly determined that sera should notice.

  She had, she thought, rather have run a field under fire.

  “What is it?” sera said suddenly, breaking her concentration.

  “Sera,—I need to talk to you. About the Planys thing. Florian said—I was the one who heard. So it’s mine to say.”

  It took a moment, sometimes, for sera to come back when she was really thinking, and especially when she was mad, and she brought some of that temper back with her. Because she was so smart, Catlin thought, because she was thinking so hard she was almost deep-studying, except she was doing it from the inside.

  But that was a keyword—Planys. That was precisely what sera was mad about; and sera came right back, instantly, and fixed on her.

  “What about Planys?”

  Catlin clenched her hands. You’re best at explaining things, she had objected to Florian. But Florian had said: You’re the one heard it, you should tell it.

  Because Florian came to pieces when it came to a fight with sera.

  And it could.

  “This Paxer group in Novgorod,” she began.

  There had been another subway bombing in Novgorod. Twenty people killed, forty-eight injured.

  “What’s that to do with Planys airport?”

  “In security. They’re—” She never could go through things without detail. She never knew what to leave out with a CIT, even sera, so she decided to dive straight to the heart of it. “Sera, they’re pretty sure there is some kind of contact. The Pax group—they’re the violent part. But there’s a group called the Committee for Justice—”

  “I’ve heard about them.”

  “There’s overlap. Security is saying that’s definite. One is the other, in a major way. They’re doing stickers in Novgorod, you understand—someone just walks through a subway car and puts one up. Most of them say Committee for Justice. Or Free Jordan Warrick. But a few of them say No Eugenics and Warrick Was Right.”

  Sera frowned.

  “It’s very serious,” Catlin said. “Security is terribly worried.”

  “I understand how serious it is, dammit.—What does this have to do with Planys airport security?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Explain it. I’m listening. Give me all the details. What does Security know?”

  “The Novgorod police know the Paxer explosives are homemade. That’s first. There’s probably just a handful of people—real Paxers—in Novgorod. The police are pretty sure they’re a front for Rocher. But they can’t find Rocher. So they’re sure he’s living on somebody else’s card. That’s not hard to do. Nothing’s hard to do, when there are that many people all crowded up in one place. There’s probably a lot of connection between the Committee and the Paxers and Rocher—everybody. So the Novgorod police got the Cyteen Bureau to get Union Internal Affairs on it, on the grounds it’s a problem that crosses the boundaries between Reseune and—”

  “I know Reseune Security is on the case. But tell it your way.”

  “—and Cyteen. Which lets the Justice Bureau call on us to help the Novgorod police. They can’t do the kind of stuff we’d like to—Novgorod is just too big. The police are talking about card-accesses on every subway gate, but that just means they’ll always have somebody else’s keycard, and they’ll kill people to get them. A lot of things they could do to stop the bombings are real expensive, and they’d slow everybody down and make them take hours getting to and from work. They say Cyteen Station is getting real nervous and they are doing keycard checks and print-locks and all of that. So they’ve decided the only real way to get the Paxers is to infiltrate them. So they have. You just send somebody inside and you get good IDs and you start searching the keycard systems on those markers and you start taking a few of them out, you aggravate whatever feuds you find—make them fight each other and keep increasing your penetrations until you can figure their net out. That’s the way they’re working it.”

  “You mean you know they’re already doing it.”

  Catlin nodded. “I’m not supposed to know. But yes, sera, they are. And they know the airports are one of the places where some of the illegal stuff they get is getting through security, and that’s how it’s going to spread outside Novgorod, which is what the rumor is. That there’s going to be a hit somewhere else. That’s what’s going on out there.”

  “They’re not grounding traffic, are they?”

  “No, sera. People don’t know it’s going on. They don’t need to know. But they’re most worried about Planys and Novgorod. Novgorod because it’s biggest and there’s the shuttleport. And Planys because they think there’s a problem there.”

  Sera closed the lid on the tank and laid the net down. “Go on. Take your time.”

  “They’re terribly worried,” Catlin said. “Sera, they’re not talking about Jordan Warrick in the posters. It’s against you. People are scared about the subways. That’s the Paxers’ job. People aren’t being very smart. They have all these signs to tell them to watch about people leaving packages, and there’s a rumor out that the police have installed this kind of electronics at the subway gates that’ll blow any explosives up when it passes through that point, but that’s not so. People are calling the city offices and asking about more ped-ways, but that’s stupid—you can leave a package in a ped-tunnel that can kill just as many people. So all they can do is put up with it, but people are getting really upset, that’s what they’re saying, and when they’re upset enough, the Committee comes out more and agitates with some lie they’ll make up about you when they need it. They’re not sure even this isn’t something Khalid’s behind, but that’s just something Security wishes they could prove. But that’s why they’re doing all this stuff with the airports, and that’s why Justin can’t get a pass. And that’s not the worst, sera. There is somebody who’s getting stuff in and out of Planys. It’s connected to Jordan Warrick. That’s what’s going on. That’s why they’re stopping Justin and Grant from going there.”

  Sera stayed very still a moment. Mad. Terribly mad and upset.

  It was not hard to figure why sera partnered with Justin Warrick: Catlin knew the rea
sons in that the way she had known, after she had seen Florian attack a problem, that Florian was everything she needed in the world.

  And when somebody was your partner, you felt connected to them, and you had rather anything than think they could fail you.

  A long time sera stood there, and finally she sat down at her desk. “I don’t think they know,” sera said.

  “Not unless there’s somebody working inside Reseune, sera. And that’s not likely. But not everybody at Planys is Reseune staff. That’s where the hole is. And they’re not going to plug it. They’re going to see what’s going on first. Jordan Warrick is linked to the Abolitionists. And maybe to respectable people. Nobody knows yet. They’re trying to find out if those groups are doing this.”

  Sera’s face had gone terribly white, terribly upset.

  “Sera?” Catlin said, and sat down in the interview chair and put her hand on her sera’s knee. “Florian and I will go on trying to find things out, if you don’t tell Denys about us knowing. That’s the best thing. That’s what we need to do.”

  Sera’s eyes seemed to focus. And looked at her. “There’s not a damn thing Justin knows about it.”

  “They’re going to let him talk to his father, sera. They’re going to monitor that—very closely. They’re going to give his father a lot of room, actually let up the security—”

  “To trap him, you mean. God, Catlin, to push him into it, what do they think people are made of?”

  “Maybe they will,” Catlin said. “I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about Justin being here. I’m worried because he’s going to be upset when he can’t go to his father. Sera,—” This was terribly hard to say. She had it in her hands of a sudden, the whole picture that had been worrying her and she made a violent gesture, cutting sera off, before she lost the way to say it. “The trouble is in Novgorod. With people who hate you. And Jordan Warrick was with these people a long time ago. It doesn’t matter whether it’s his fault or their fault—what matters is they’re making him a Cause. And that’s power. And when he’s got that—”