He walked around the edge of the pit, to the front of the bar.
“I apologize.”
“Apologize won’t handle it. I want to know—simply and clearly—what you want.”
“You can always ask that. Isn’t that the agreement?”
“Don’t push me. Don’t push me. I’m still trying to save your butt, hear me?”
“I understand you.” He leaned against the bar and looked at Florian. “Florian.”
“Ser?”
“Scotch and water. Do you mind?”
“Sera?”
“My usual. His. It’s all right, Florian.” She walked down the steps and sat down on the couch, and Justin came down and sat. Put his elbow on the couch-back in the same way as all those years ago, unconscious habit or scene-following as deliberate as hers…she did not know. “All right,” she said, “I’m listening.”
“Not much to say. Except I trusted you.”
“Trusted me!—For what, a damned fool?”
“It was just—there. That’s all. What would I do? Work in your wing, be your partner another twenty years till Denys dies? Keep my head down and my mouth shut and attend all those damn parties, twenty lousy years of going through every social function, all the department functions, everything—with every CIT in the House feeling like he has to explain himself to Security or your uncle if he’s spotted talking to me? Hell of a life, Ari.”
“I’m sorry,” she said shortly. Which was true: she had had a dose of it too, in growing up; and she had seen it happen to him and felt it in her gut. “But that still doesn’t say why you did it. Why you had to wait for a damned sensitive time—I just got things smoothed over with Denys, I just got things settled, and you throw me a move like that.”
“Sorry,” he said bitterly.
“Sorry?”
“Times are always sensitive—Always. It’s always something. I’m cut off from my father again, dammit, because of Giraud. I’ve got your word he’s safe. That’s all I’ve got.”
His voice wobbled. Florian set the whiskey down by his hand, on the shelf behind the couch, and ghosted her direction, putting the vodka-and-orange by hers.
“Which,” he continued, after a drink, “I don’t doubt. But that’s why. Others do doubt my father’s safety. Giraud is one. So damned easy to have an incident—a confusion on the part of some poor sod of an azi guard—isn’t it? Terrible loss—a Special. But as you say—Giraud’s dying. What can he care? You underestimate him—if you think he’s not going to try to be rid of my father—except—except if he finds things aren’t settled at Reseune, and I’m a threat he can’t get at. Next to you. Then he’ll doubt. And Giraud, scheming bastard that he is,—never makes precipitate, reckless moves. I want his attention. I want it on me until he’s dead. It’s that simple.”
It made sense, it made a tangled, out-of-another-mindset sense, if you were Justin Warrick, if you knew Giraud, if you had no power and nothing to bluff with except Ari Emory and a potential for trouble.
“So,” he said, “I just—saw a chance. I didn’t thoroughly plan it. I just saw what you did with the Carnath girl—Amy—and thought—if you blew up, well, maybe I could patch it. If you covered me—it’d get to Giraud. Maybe it’d look like more than it was and worry hell out of him. I’m sorry if it’s fouled you up; but I doubt it has; fouled up your plans to keep me pure in Security’s sight, maybe; worried Denys, I’m sure;—but messed up anything for you, personally,—I very much doubt it.”
“Nothing like the mess you’ve made for yourself.”
“Good. On both counts.”
“You’re a damned fool! You could tell me, you know, you could trust I can keep an eye to Jordan—”
“No, I can’t trust that. I can’t trust that, when you’re not in contact with the military, when you’re not in Giraud’s position and you’re not in Denys’ chair either. I can’t depend on your knowing what they’re up to, I’m sorry.”
He didn’t know Base One’s extent. Had no idea. And there was no telling him. Not on any account. She sipped her vodka-and-orange, set it down and shook her head.
“You could at least have consulted me.”
“And put you on your guard? No. Now done’s done. I’m being honest, since you’ve asked. I’m asking you one more thing: run a probe if you like, but don’t give the tape to Denys.”
“Who said I did?”
“I don’t know. I just have my suppositions what would appease Denys. Don’t give this one out. It can only harm my father. It sure won’t make me look any better to either one of the Nyes.”
“Except if I don’t they’ll be sure I’m going along with what you did.”
“So you are turning the tapes over.”
“The ones I admit to running. I’ve never let them have Ari’s notes on you. I’ve never shown them what I did to settle some of the damage Ari left. The unresolved stuff. I’ve never shown them the little intervention that lets you be here, this close to me, without sweating.”
“Without worse than that. Without much worse than that. I’m still getting tape-flash now and again. But most of the charge is gone. I only remember—at much more distance than I’ve ever had—or I never could have done what I did at the party; never could have come here; never could have contemplated—my real plan for irritating Giraud.”
“That being?”
“Going to bed with you.”
That jolted, hard. It was so matter-of-fact she was half embarrassed, only dimly offended at first blink.
“Not,” he said, “that I thought of doing anything you hadn’t flatly asked me—once and twice, and recently. Make you happy—make Giraud quite, quite unhappy. And not in a way that could hurt you… I never wanted that. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I could. So I just—took a different course when it offered itself, that’s all. I hope I don’t offend you. And I wouldn’t mention it, except I’d rather explain it with my wits about me, thank you, where I can at least string things together in my own defense. So there you are. That’s why.”
It was a deliberate move that made it psychologically harder for her to insist on a probe…quieten things down: defuse the situation. And tell enough of the truth to make everything reasonable.
Come in here without Grant, too. That, when he knew he was potentially in trouble.
Damn, possibilities multiplied ad infinitum when it involved motives and an unacknowledged Special whose stresses came from everywhere and everyone—not least the fact that she had Worked him under kat, grabbed hold of things which were profoundly important to him and tried, at least, to tie up the old threads—far as one could in a mind that had changed so much since Ari’s notes; and considering the psychological difference of their reversed ages.
Very tangled. Very, very tangled.
“You’ve messed up work of mine,” she said. “You’ve made me problems. I’ve got reason to be mad. And I supported you out there, dammit.”
“Yes,” he said. “Which I hoped you’d do.”
“It’s a damn mess.” She swallowed down any assurances she could give of Jordan’s safety. Or how she knew. Frustrating as it was to look like a fool, better that than be one. “Dammit, you’ve put me at odds with Giraud. I don’t see why I should have to handle problems you’ve made me because you could betray my interests and trust I’d forgive you. That’s a hell of a thing.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“You damn well did! You could have told me.”
He shook his head, slowly.
“You’re really pushing me, Justin. You’re damn well pushing me.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“And now I’ve got to cooperate and keep Giraud’s hands off you or he’ll blow your whole little scheme, is that it?”
“Something like. What else can I say? I hope you will. I hope you will; and I don’t hope for too much in my life.”
“Thanks.”
He nodded, once, ironically.
“So you get off c
heap,” she said. “You get everything you want and you don’t even have to go to bed with me.”
“Ari, I didn’t mean that.”
“I know. Not fair.”
There was a deep-link in his sets—to Ari. And she knew that. Knew that it was active, in this place, at this time.
That it was double-hooked. He hoped to snare her into it—to irritate Giraud. He was still maneuvering: she knew where it was going.
But there were deeper hooks than he knew.
“You want me to?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. Then: “No. Not like it was pay for something. There’s a security wall down the hall. There’s a guest accommodation on the other side. You go there. Florian will get you through. I’ll call Grant to come up. Florian and Catlin will supervise Housekeeping, shutting down your apartment, packing up what you’ll need. If they leave anything out, you can go back with them to get it.”
He looked shocked.
“You want my help,” she said, “it does cost. It costs you the apartment you have. It costs you your independence. It costs you convenience the way it costs me. But you’re not going to go into Security and you’re damn sure not going to spill what you know about me to Giraud either. Which is the other part of your threat, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what I know—”
“I’m sure you could figure it. You come and go through that security door; your cards will admit you. You’ll move into Wing One facilities, and I don’t know who I’m going to have to bump to make room for you, but you’re going inside Wing One security, and inside my security; and I don’t want any argument about it.”
“None,” he said quietly.
x
“Grant is here,” the Minder said, and Justin leapt up off the couch, was at the door almost before Grant could open it, as Grant came alone into the apartment.
“Are you all right?” Grant asked, first-off.
“Fine,” Justin said, and embraced him. “Thank God. No trouble?”
Grant shook his head, and drew a breath. “I got the call, I told Em hold the office down—I walked out into the hall and Catlin picked me up. Walked me all the way to the lift. She said she’d go to the apartment and bring essentials and anything we call down for.”
No questions, nothing. Habit of half a lifetime. “We can talk,” Justin said, realizing that fact—that there was nothing, now, that could be secret if Ari wanted it, nothing that anyone but Ari was going to reach, here, in this place. It was a moment of vertigo, old cautions tumbling away into dark on either side. The thought shook him, left him lonely for reasons he could not understand. “God, it’s not home, is it?”
Grant held on to him. He felt himself shivering, suddenly, he had no notion why, or what he feared, specifically, only that nothing seemed certain any longer…not even their habits of self-defense.
Not home. Not the place he had always lived, not the obscurity they had tried to maintain. They were closer and closer to the center of Reseune.
“No probe,” he said. “Ari asked why—reasonable question. I told her. This is her notion of increased security. I’ve got to show you around this place. You won’t believe it.”
He got control of his nerves, turned Grant around and gave him the full perspective of the living room and dining room.
It was a huge apartment by any standards: a front hall mostly stone, roofed in plasticized woolwood; a sitting-room with a gray sectional, black glass tables; and beyond that a dining hall with white tile, white walls, black and white furnishings—My God, Justin’s first thought had been, an emotional impact of stark coldness, an irrational: one red pillow, anything, to save your sanity in this damn place—
“It’s—quite large,” Grant said,—diplomatically, he thought: “isn’t it?”
“Come on,” he said, and took Grant the tour.
It was better in the halls, pastel blues and greens leading off to a frost-green kitchen and a white hall to a suite of rooms in grays and blues—a lot of gray stone, occasional brown. A sybaritic bath in black and silver, mirrored. Another one, white and frost-green glass.
“My God,” Grant said, when he opened another door on the master bedroom, black and black glass and white, huge bed. “Five people could sleep in that.”
“They probably have,” Justin said. And suffered a moment of flashback, a bad one. “They promise us sheets and supplies. There’s some sort of scanning system they run things through, even our clothes. It puts some kind of marker on it. If we pass the door with anything that hasn’t gone through scan—”
“Alarm sounds. Catlin explained that. Right down to the socks and underwear.” Grant shook his head and looked at him. “Was she angry?”
He did not mean Catlin. Justin nodded. “Somewhat. God knows she’s got a right to be, considering. But she’s willing to listen. At least—that.”
Grant said nothing. But the silence itself was eloquent as the little muscle twitch in the eyes toward the overhead. Do we worry about monitoring?
Because Grant knew—Grant knew everything that he had confessed to Ari and then some, as far as their intention to divert Giraud. But there were things between himself and Ari he could not say where monitoring might exist, things she might go after under probe, but he could not bring them out, coldly, and have her know that Grant knew: the feeling he had had in that room in Ari’s apartment, the shifting between then and now—
The gut-deep feeling—passing at every other blink between then and now; to look into Ari’s eyes gone by turns young and old—knowing, for the first time since he was younger than she was now—that the sexual feelings that haunted every touch of other human beings, every dealing he had with humanity—had a focus, had always had a specific, drug-set focus—
He might have gone to bed with her. He could have gone to bed with her—in one part of his imagining. More, he had wanted to, for about two heartbeats—until he had flashed, badly, waiting on her answer, and known that he would panic; and was caught somewhere between a fevered hope of her and a sweating terror. As if she was the key.
Or the destruct.
God, what has she done to me?
What keys has she got?
“Justin?” Grant said, and caught his arm. “Justin,—”
He held to Grant’s shoulder and shuddered. “O God, Grant…”
“What’s wrong?” Grant’s fingers gripped the back of his neck, pressed hard. “Justin?”
His heart raced. He lost vision for a moment, broken out in sweat, feeling himself nowhere at all, if Grant were not holding to him.
That’s what Ari wanted—all those years ago. Wanted me—fixed on her—
I’ve lost everything, dragged Grant and Jordan with me—
This is all there’ll ever be, sweet—
Worm. Psychmaster. She was the best there ever was—
Pleasure and pain. Deep-set links—
His heart made a few deep, painful beats. But he could adjust to that, the way he adjusted to everything, always. Life was, that was all. One lived.
Even knowing that the worst thing that had been done to him all those years ago was not sexual. Sex was only the leverage.
Endocrine-learning and flux, applied full-force, the kind of wrench that could take a vulnerable, frightened kid and twist him sideways into another research, another path for his entire existence.
She saw to my birth.
One could live. Even with the ground dropping out from under one’s feet. Even with black space all around.
“What did she do?” Grant asked him, a sane, worried voice out of that mental dark, a hard pressure around him, at the back of his neck. “Justin?”
“She gave me the keys a long time ago,” he murmured. “I knew, dammit, I knew—I should have seen…”
Things began to focus then. Vision came back, the edge of Grant’s shoulder, the stark black and white room that was not home, the knowledge that, foreseeably, they would not go back to the friendly, familiar apartm
ent with the brown stone and the little breakfast nook that had always seemed safe, no matter what they knew about Security monitoring…
“She knew she was dying, Grant. She was the best damned analyst going—She could read a subject like no one I ever saw. D’you think she never knew Giraud?”
“Ari senior?” Grant asked.
“Ari. She knew Giraud was no genius. She knew who would follow her. Do you think she didn’t know them better than we do? Ari said—I was the only one who could teach her. The only one. That she needs my work. And she’s working off Ari’s notes, doing what Ari told her to do…all down the line.”
Grant pushed him back. He stared up into Grant’s worried face, seeing it as a stranger would, in an objective way he had never looked at Grant, the unlikely perfection—Ari’s handiwork too, from his genesets to his psychset.
Everything was, everything. No good, any longer, in fighting the design.
Even Grant was part of it. He was snared, he had always been.
She wanted Jordan. Jordan failed her. She saw to my creation. Designed Grant.
Fixed me on her—in one damnable stroke—
Everything’s connected to everything—
Field too large, field too large—
“Justin?”
God, is the kid that good, does she know what she’s doing to me?
Whose hand was on the switch in there? Which Ari?
Does it even matter—that one could set a path that sure—that the other could operate, just take it up and go—
Grant seized his face between his hands, popped a light slap against his cheek. “Justin!”
“I’m all right,” he said.
I’m scaring hell out of him. But I’m not scared. Just—