Cyteen

  Cold as hell now. Calm.

  Helps, when you know the truth, doesn’t it?

  “—I’m all right. Just—went a little sideways for a moment.” He patted Grant’s shoulder, distanced himself a few steps and looked down the hall, the strange, not-home hallway. “Like—I’d waked up. Like—for a moment—I could just shake it all off. Think right past it.” He felt Grant’s hand on his shoulder, and he acknowledged it with a pressure of his own—scared again, because he was alone where he was standing, and Grant wanted to be with him, but he was not sure Grant could be—that anyone could be. And Ari was out so far ahead of him, in territory that was hers and her predecessor’s, in places that he could not reach.

  Places Jordan had never been.

  Ultimate isolation.

  “Our poor kid,” he murmured, “is Ari. Damn, she is. No one ever caught up to her. She’s going out into that place no one else can get to and no one can really speak to. That’s what’s going to happen to her. Happening to me…sometimes.” He blinked and tried to come back. To see the lights again. The damned stark decor. Black and white dining room down the hall. “God, Housekeeping’s got to have a red vase or something, doesn’t it? Pillows. Pictures. Something.”

  “What are you talking about?” Grant asked.

  The Super’s training tried to assert itself. Get yourself together. You’re scaring him. “Flux. Not a damn thing human in this apartment. Until we get a few things up from ours. Things with color. Things that are us. God, this place is like a bath in ice water.”

  “Is that what’s the matter?”

  “Something like.” He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his eyes of the fog and focus short-range. “Maybe just—thinking this was where we would have ended up, if Ari had lived a little longer. This would have been ours.”

  “Justin, what in hell are you talking about?”

  “Common sense. Ari didn’t want to ruin Jordan. She needed his abilities. She was dying. She knew the Nyes for pragmatic sons of bitches. Conservative as hell. She wasn’t. And they were going to have her successor. Don’t you think she worried about that? And if she’d had two more years, even six more months, I think—I damn well know—I wouldn’t have been what she took in. I might have been able to fight Giraud. Might have had some input into Ari’s upbringing. Might be in Administration, might be high in the Bureau, by now, maybe sitting in Peterson’s chair, who knows?”

  Now—I’m not that person.

  But Ari’s following her predecessor’s program. Following her notes.

  Its a dangerous course for her. If Ari hasn’t the perspective to figure that out, to figure me out—it’s very dangerous.

  Not because I wish her harm.

  Because I can’t help it. I have ties—I can’t shed.

  “I don’t want to hurt her, Grant.”

  “Is there a question of it?”

  It was too much to say. Ari had sworn there was no monitoring, but that was only the truth she wished were so: her capabilities were another story. Ari would lie by telling what she wished instead of what she would do: Ari had confessed that to him—manipulative in that admission as in anything else she did. Never take me for simple…in any sense.

  “No,” he answered Grant. “Not by anything I want.”

  Are you listening, Ari?

  Do you hear what I’m saying?

  xi

  “Message,” the Minder said, waking Ari out of sleep, and waking Florian.

  “Coded private, Base Three.”

  Giraud.

  Giraud was in Novgorod. Or had been when she went to sleep.

  “Damn,” she said; and rolled out of bed and searched for her slippers and her robe.

  “Shall I get up, sera?”

  “Go back to sleep,” she said. “It’s just Giraud going through the overhead. What else did I expect? Probably one from Denys too…”

  She found one slipper and the other as she put her arms into the sleeves, found the sashes and lapped them. “A little light,” she said, “dammit, Minder. Eight seconds. On in the hall.”

  The room light came up a little, enough to see her way to the door, while—a backward glance—Florian pulled the covers over his head and burrowed into the dark. Eight seconds. She opened the door to the outside, blinking in brighter light, rubbing her eyes, as the light faded behind her.

  She shut the door, and saw Catlin in the hall, in her nightrobe, her hair loose. “Back to bed,” she told Catlin. “Just Giraud.”

  Catlin vanished.

  She wanted a cup of something warm. But she was not about to rouse either of them: they had worked themselves to exhaustion getting Justin packed and upstairs before the rest of House Security could get at Justin’s belongings or Justin’s notes, and getting enough essentials through the Residency scanners to give them a choice of clothing and the basics for breakfast and to put their working notes into their hands again—after which, she reckoned, Justin might be a good deal happier.

  Giraud certainly would not be.

  She went into her office, tucked up in the chair and said, “Minder, message. I’m alone.”

  “Message, Base Three to Base One. Ari, this is Giraud.”

  All right, all right. Who else?

  “Abban’s flying down with this tape and flying back again tonight. He’ll probably be on his way back to the airport by the time the system’s alerted you. I can’t afford this time. He can’t. But I expect you know what’s got me upset.”

  Three guesses, uncle Giraud? Is this about the dance?

  Or have you heard your niece’s latest?

  “I’m terribly worried, Ari. I’ve made multiple tries at recording this message. The first one wasn’t polite. But I think I can understand at least the reasons behind your reasons.

  “I’m not going to yell at you. Isn’t that what you always used to say: if you’re going to yell at me, uncle Giraud, I’m not going to listen.

  “We’re both too old for that, and this is much too important for temper to get into it. So please, listen to this all the way through. It’s ephemeral in the system unless you capture and copy—which you may do. If you do, I leave it to your discretion whether to send it to Archive, but I advise otherwise for reasons which may occur to you. This message is cued only to Base One. Unless I am dangerously mistaken, that will assure you are the only recipient.

  “There’s been another bombing. You may have heard.”

  Damn. No.

  “Major restaurant. Five dead, nineteen injured. New Year’s Day crowds. That’s what we’re dealing with. Lunatics, Ari. People who don’t care about their targets.

  “Let me go through this point by point, as logically as I can, why what you’ve done regarding young Warrick isn’t advisable.

  “I advised you in the first place against coming to Novgorod. I foresaw a press furor that could well lead to more bombings, and the public is damn tense—putting up with it, surviving, but ready to find a focus for their problems, and I don’t want that blood on you, understand. Certainly we don’t need to make you a center of controversy.

  “Your suggestion to lend enforcement and surveillance help under Reseune’s aegis is a damned fine one. I’m ashamed not to have thought of the means: Novgorod city government’s touchy and suspicious of anything that massive with Reseune’s stamp on it, but they’re desperate, and that gives them an alternative to the several other routes they don’t want to go—they don’t want the precedent of calling on the regular military; they don’t have the funds to Contract more personnel. Reseune Security in the subways is bound to be a target, but no sitting target, either—and we can muster enough to handle it: borrow the transport and the weapons from the military, at a level where Novgorod doesn’t have to be acutely aware of that connection; shore up Jacques, too: the armed forces are chafing at what they call a do-nothing policy across the board. Success at something, success at anything, would make the whole administration of Union look a damned sight better.

  “W
hich brings up another point, Ari. One I’m no happier talking about than you can imagine—but you and I both know that I’m on the downward slide.”

  Pity, uncle Giraud?

  Shame on you.

  “Just de-charge the situation and listen to me. I want you to start thinking clearly about what in hell you’re going to do when I die, because I can assure you your enemies are planning for it.

  “Khalid is beyond the two year rule. He could challenge Jacques again now. He could, but he hasn’t filed. The Centrists are nominally backing Jacques. They’re scared of Khalid: he’s not someone they can control and Corain in particular sees Khalid as a clear danger to himself, someone who’d like to take the helm from him—and Corain’s no young man any longer. Khalid calls Corain a tired old grandfather…behind closed doors, but that kind of thing gets passed along, in private circles.

  “Me, he calls a dead man. Not particularly pleasant, but I’m getting used to the idea. He doesn’t know yet how right he is.”

  My God, uncle Giraud. What a view of things!

  “Look at Council, Ari. Catherine Lao’s almost my age. That’s your most valuable ally besides Harad and myself. I’m going. Jacques is a very weak figure and Gorodin’s grooming a replacement in the senior end of the admiralty board, in a man named Spurlin, able, but very middle-of-the-spectrum, very strictly the interests of his own Bureau, blow anyone else. Are you following this?”

  Too well. I’m ahead of you.

  “I made a terrible mistake, Ari, when I moved against Warrick without consulting you. We crossed one another, and to your damage. I made a further mistake when I didn’t level with you then. Now I have reason to suspect you’ve passed at least my Base…”

  Oh. Dear.

  “…and possibly Denys’ as well—either that or you have an uncanny timing.

  “I confess that threw me. I didn’t know then what to do. I’m old and I’m sick and I’m scared, Ari. But I’m not going to get maudlin. Just in that very bright mind of yours, you should realize that your uncles have human weaknesses. I should have taken immediate measures I failed to take. When I was younger I might have done better, but I’m not sure I would have. Doubts like that, you understand, are the bane of any reasoning mind. Do I not act because I see too much and the choices are too wide—or because I just can’t make a choice?

  “I’m making one now. A desperate one. I’m laying out the truth for you. Jordan Warrick is in direct contact with a man named McCabe, in air systems maintenance, who has direct links to Mikhail Corain’s office. I’m appending the entire report into Base One…”

  You’re supposed to have put all the security reports into House systems, uncle Giraud. And this is totally new. How much else have you held out?

  “…along with all our current files on Planys security. It’s quite a mass of information. Suffice it to say, quite honestly, Warrick is repeating an old pattern. You’ll find in there a transcript from a meeting of Warrick with Secretary of Defense Lu, back in Gorodin’s administration, a very secret transcript, that never came out at the hearings. Warrick was dealing, right before your predecessor’s death, for his transfer out to Fargone, and all that goes with it. Warrick was discovered in his scheme. It collapsed. Everything went up in smoke. Ari caught him dealing with Corain and I imagine Ari told him the truth of what was going on with his son.

  “Jordan Warrick saw that tape. I can attest to that. Exactly what his professional skills are capable of making out of it, with his own knowledge of his son, I don’t know—but I know, you know, young Warrick knows, and I’m damned sure Jordan Warrick knows—that it was more than sexual gymnastics and more than a blackmail trip. He knew at that point that, A, Denys and I wouldn’t let him get his son back in his hands to work with; and B, Ari had been working on him for a number of sessions he couldn’t estimate. In Jordan Warrick’s place, what would you conclude?”

  My God, Giraud.

  “Jordan Warrick is very well aware of his son’s association with you. We’ve monitored very closely—to know what he does know. And what he can see is his son increasingly involved with you, with more and more to lose in any accident to you. That part of what you’ve done is instinctively correct, Ari. I tried to prevent it in the first place, afraid you were being an adolescent about the matter, but somewhere in the flux, your instincts are still quite true. And now I remember, as old men will, that Ari was very much the same. So I rely on that; and I warn you: Jordan has never trusted his son. Justin has never understood his father. Justin—is an idealist and an honest man, and as such, he is very useful as an instrument. But he is vulnerable to his father; and his father is your implacable enemy, your enemy on principle, your enemy in his opposition to Reseune and all it stands for. I worry less about your having sex with this man than about your public defense of him—your stripping away the political isolation we’ve placed him in. We’ve kept him powerless to harm you. That you might sleep with him is, at this point, an inconsequence. If it would cure the sexual infatuation I would be delighted.

  “But bringing this man into prominence in Reseune—is deadly.

  “Let me go afield a moment. I know you’re able to compass this interconnection of facts.

  “Gorodin’s medical reports look worse than mine. I don’t know about Lao’s. I figure that I have, granted nothing goes catastrophically wrong, maybe this year in tolerable health. After that, Lynch is going to have to take more and more of the operations and leave me the decision-making. Which I plan to make you privy to, along with Denys.

  “What will happen when I die…if I can prevail on my brother to leave Reseune, I’ll appoint him proxy and he can stand for election. If. Denys is not taking my death well.

  “I haven’t thanked you properly for your—vote of confidence in me. Frankly, I’m not sure what the proper response is to finding out I’ll be replicated—a little flattered, I suppose, not exactly personally involved, except as it consoles Denys. I’m sure I won’t know personally. I’m not even sure that it’s true, or that I’m that important, although Denys is, and in the context of my value to him—I can well see there might be a point to it. But if it is true, for God’s sake don’t make it public. The public can accept the entity you call the cute kid. But I was always a sullen brat, your predecessor would have told you that; and I’m sure you can think what kind of furor it could stir up if my enemies could look forward to another round with Giraud Nye. I suppose Justin does know what you intend. He’s altogether too close to your affairs; and I hope to hell he hasn’t gotten that word to Jordan; because if he has, it’s in Corain’s office by now, and I can about swear that will be exactly the route.

  “I don’t want Denys to take guardianship of my replicate. Give that job to Yanni. He’s at least as hardheaded as our father was; and I really want Denys in Novgorod, in office, and on the job, if any force can move him. You’re not able to take Reseune Administration: you’ll be at most twenty, and it needs a much more experienced hand. The logical candidate to administer Reseune is Yanni Schwartz. But you must above all else start taking a more public role and establishing a more professional image. You have to stand for that seat in your own right, at the right time.

  “But don’t count on your enemies standing still for that day. Khalid, I’m sure, has never forgotten what you and I did to him. I’m virtually certain, but I can’t prove, that there is some very vague linkage among the Paxers, the Rocher party, the Abolitionists, and some allegedly respectable elements in the Centrist party, some of which links go perhaps very high indeed. I don’t say that Khalid is bombing subways. I do think that he’s prepared to use the whole issue of your existence and the Paxer movement against you—the fear of Reseune’s power—all of that—

  “The moment I’m dead, I figure there’ll not only be the election in Science, but Khalid will challenge Jacques. We’re caught in a situation in this. We’re not enthusiastic about Gorodin’s man Spurlin. Gorodin’s health won’t let him run again. Lu is disaffected, a bi
tter man. We’re pressing Jacques to resign now and appoint Spurlin as proxy. He sees this as an Expansionist plot—correctly. But he doesn’t admit that he can’t beat Khalid again; and he won’t look at his own polls that show him slipping badly. A case either of a man being pressured by Corain to hold on in hopes of a change in the polls; or a man being a fool. Corain tells me privately that he’s urged Jacques to step down. He says Jacques refuses, that Jacques privately resents the label as a seat-warmer and a mouthpiece for Gorodin, Jacques is determined to hold the office in his own right, after Gorodin dies—a case of one man’s vanity impinging on Union’s future.

  “What I’m afraid is going to happen is the following: two elections going, and no knowing how Gorodin’s health will be. And in the wake of media interest in my death, and Denys’ succession to the seat—that’s precisely when I’m afraid Jordan Warrick is going to break his silence and come up with charges of his own, one of which is very likely going to be a claim of his own innocence and the claim that I blackmailed him into accepting blame for Ari’s death. I think you can see the mess you’re about to create in rehabilitating his son. I hope you can see it. Your predecessor wouldn’t fail me in this.”

  God. Dear God.

  Is he innocent?

  “There’s no way in hell Jordan Warrick can testify or be questioned, without a major change in the law. He can make charges with the same immunity that he has in keeping silent. He can say anything. And this is a man who’s waited two decades for this chance…who will have his chance, now, because we gave up our chance to have linked him to the Paxers. We still can, if you’re willing to use your head. I’m afraid it wouldn’t win you young Warrick’s gratitude. But then again, you’re much cleverer than I am, young sera. And maybe you can navigate those rocks.

  “You have your predecessor’s notes in Justin Warrick’s case. You have run an intervention on him, I very much suspect, of what sort I will not speculate: I only know that the gesture he made at the party last night would once have been impossible for him. Having had him under probe a number of times, I know him and I know the nature of his problems, only some of which stem from that session with your predecessor—”