“Without the stress?” Grant asked. “Can flux-states be achieved intellectually—when they have endocrine bases? Can tape-fed stress—short of the actual chance of breaking one’s neck—be less real, leave less pain—than the real experience? What if that tape Ari made—were only tape? What if it had never happened—but you thought it had? Would there be a difference? What if Ari’s maman had never died, but she thought she had? Would she be sane? Could she trust reality? I don’t know. I truly don’t know. I would hate to discover that everything until now—was tape; and I was straight from the Town, having dreamed all this.”
“God, Grant!”
Grant turned his left wrist to the light, where there was always, since the episode with Winfield and the Abolitionists, a crosswise scar. “This is real. Unless, of course, it’s only something my makers installed with the tape.”
“That’s not good for you.”
Grant smiled. “That’s the first time in years you’ve called me down. Got you, have I?”
“Don’t joke like that.”
“I have no trouble with reality. I know tape when I feel it. And remember I’m built right side up, with my logic sets where they belong, thank you, my makers. But flux is too much like dreams. Tape-fed flux—would have no logical structure. Tape-fed flux is too much like what Giraud did in the War, which I don’t even like to contemplate—building minds and unbuilding them; mindwiping and reconstruction…always, always, mind you, with things the subject can’t go back to check; and a lot left to the imagination. I honestly don’t know, Justin. If there’s a key to taping those experiences—Giraud could have had some insight into it, isn’t that irony?”
It made some vague, bizarre sense, enough to send another twitch down his back, and a feeling of cold into his bones.
“Talking theory with Giraud—” But Giraud was dead. And yet-to-be. “It wasn’t something we ever got around to.”
“The question is, essentially, whether you can substitute tape for reality. I’m very capable, Justin; but I sweated blood on that flight to Planys, I was so damned helpless during the whole trip. That’s what you give up: survivability in the real world.”
Justin snorted. “You think I don’t worry.”
“But you could learn much more rapidly. Back to the old difference: you flux-learn; I logic my way through. And no aggregate of CITs is logical. Got you again.”
Justin thought about it; and smiled finally, in the damnable gray apartment, in the elegant prison Ari appointed them. For a moment it felt like home. For a moment he remembered that it was safer than anywhere they had been since that fondly-remembered first apartment.
Then the apprehension came back again, the great stillness over Reseune, deserted halls, everything in flux.
There was sudden break-up on the vid, the news commentary thrown off in mid-word.
The Infinite Man appeared on screen. Music played. One never worried about such things. Someone kicked a cable, and Reseune’s whole vid-system glitched.
Except it was also something Reseune Security did, for selected apartments, selected viewers.
My God, he thought, a sudden rush of worry, lifelong habit. Were they monitoring? Have they gotten through her security? What could they have heard?
vi
“Uncle Denys,” Ari had relayed on the way, via Base One and Catlin’s com unit, “I need to talk to you right away.”
“Lab office,” Seely had relayed back.
Shocked looks followed them through the labs from the time they had entered, techs who knew that things were already Odd with Denys, azi who were reading the techs if not the situation, and worried as hell; and now an unexplained break-in of conspicuous Family coming straight from the funeral, in mourning, and headed for lab offices at high speed—small wonder the whole lab stopped and stared, Ari thought; and at least she could freely admit to knowing as much as she knew, excepting what Planys was doing.
Past the tanks, the techs, the very place where she had been born, where likely by now half a dozen Girauds were in progress—up the little stairs with the metal rail, to the small administrative office Denys had commandeered: Seely was evidently keeping a look-out through the one-way glass of the lab offices, because Seely opened the door to let them in before she had made the final turn of the steps.
Denys was behind the desk, on the phone—with Security, by what it sounded. Ari collected herself with a breath. “That’s fine,” she said, when Catlin whisked a chair to her back; she took off her gloves and her jacket, gave them to Catlin and sat down as Denys hung up the phone.
“Well, sera,” Denys said, “we have the result of your baulking Security at Planys.”
“Where is Jordan?”
“Under arrest at Planys. He and his companion. Damn him!”
“Mmmn, Justin is accounted for.”
“Are you certain?”
“Quite. Justin is the one I want to talk to you about.”
“Ser,” Florian said when they had let him in, Florian in House uniform and without his coat, so Florian and therefore probably Ari had had time, Justin reckoned, to come in next door first.
But it made him anxious that it was not a call over the Minder, or a summons to Ari’s apartment or her offices, just a Minder-call at the door, Florian asking entry.
And the vid still showed nothing on the news channel except that single logo.
“There’s been an incident,” Florian said, preface, and in the half-second of Florian’s next breath: O God, Justin thought, something’s happened to Ari; and was bewildered in the same half-second, that the fear included her, her welfare, which was linked with their own. “Your father,” Florian said, and fears jolted altogether into another track, “—has gotten a message to the Centrists, claiming innocence.”
“Of what?” Justin asked, still tracking on incident, not making sense of it.
“Of killing Dr. Emory, ser.”
He stood there, he did not know how long, in a state of shock, wanting to think so, wanting to think—
—but, my God, during Giraud’s funeral—what’s he doing? What’s going on?
“We don’t know all the details yet,” Florian said. “Sera doesn’t want to admit to ser Denys just how far her surveillance extends, please understand that, ser, but she does know that your father is safe at the moment. She’s asking you, please, ser, understand that there’s extreme danger—to you, to her, to your father, no matter whether this is true or false: the announcement has political consequences that may be very dangerous, I don’t know if I need explain them…”
“God.” Ari’s safety. Everything—He raked a hand through his hair, felt Grant’s hand on his shoulder. Florian—seemed older, somehow, his face utterly without the humor that was so characteristic of him, like a mask dropped, finally, time sent reeling…Could it be true?
“She wants you to pack a small bag, ser. Sera’s interim staff is on the way up to this floor, and sera asks Grant to stay here and put himself under their orders…”
“Pack for where?”
Separate us? God, no.
“Sera wants you to go with her to Novgorod—to defuse this matter. To speak to the press. She wants to take the politics out of the question—for your father’s sake, as much as her own. Do you understand, ser? There’ll be a small question-and-answer at Reseune airport; that’s safest. She’s asking a meeting with Councillor Corain and Secretary Lynch. She earnestly hopes you won’t fail her in this—”
“My God. God, Grant—” What do I do?
But Grant had no answers. CITs are all crazy, Grant would say.
Ari’s out of her mind. Take me to Novgorod? They don’t dare.
They need me. That’s the game. My father under arrest. They want me to call him a liar.
Reseune Security doesn’t need to kill him. They can use drugs. It takes time. Time I can buy them to operate on him—
Would Ari—do this to us?
Would Florian be here without her orders?
In front of those cameras—if I get that far—How can they stop me from any charges I can make?
Grant.
Grant—being here, in Ari’s keeping. That’s what they’re offering me—Grant’s sanity—or my father’s.
He looked up into Grant’s face—far calmer, he thought, than his own, Grant’s un-fluxed logic probably understanding there was no choice in his own situation.
I have faith in my makers.
“Grant comes with me,” he said to Florian.
“No, ser,” Florian said. “I have definite instructions. Please, pack just the essentials. Everything will be inspected. Grant will be safe here, with sera Amy. There will be Security: Quentin AQ is very competent, and sera Amy will have her friends for help here. No way will any general Security come onto this floor or interfere with the systems. No way will sera Amy do anything to harm Grant.”
A gifted eighteen-year-old, with a thin, earnest face and a tendency to go at problems head-on: an eighteen-year-old who, he had always thought, liked him and Grant. Honest. And sensible as an eighteen-year-old had any likelihood of being.
God, they all were. “It’s a damn Children’s Crusade,” he said, and caught Grant’s arm. “Do what they say. It’ll be all right.”
“No,” he said in front of the cameras, in the lounge at Reseune airport. “No, I haven’t been in contact with my father. I hope to get a call through—when we get to Novgorod. It’s the middle of their night. They—” He tried, desperately, not to look nervous: Don’t look guilty, Ari had said, before they left the bus. Don’t look like you’re hiding anything. You can be very frank with them, but for God’s sake think about the political ramifications when you do it. Be very careful about making charges of your own, they can only muddy things up, and we have to rely on uncle Denys—we can’t offend him, hear me?
“My father—is in Detention at the moment,” he said, finding the pace of things too much, the dark areas too extensive. The truth seemed easier to sort out than lies were, if one kept it to a minimum. “All I can tell you—” No. Can meant dangerous things. “All I know how to tell you—is that there’s an inquiry. My father told me—at the time it happened—exactly what he told the Council. But there were things going on at the time—that might have been a reason. That’s why I’m going to Novgorod. I don’t know—Ari herself doesn’t know—who’s telling the truth now. I want to find out. Reseune Administration wants to find out.”
“I can assure you,” Ari said, beside him, “I have a very strong motive for wanting to know the truth in this case.”
“Question for Dr. Warrick. Are you presently under any coercion?”
“No,” Justin said firmly.
“You are a PR. Are you—in any way—more than that?”
He shook his head. “Standard PR. Nothing extraordinary.”
“Have you ever been subject to intervention?”
He had not expected that question. He froze on it, then said: “Psychprobe is an intervention. I was part of the investigation. There were a lot of them.” They would question his sanity for that reason; and his reliability. He knew that. It would cast doubt on his license for clinical practice and cast a shadow on his research. He knew that too. The whole thing took on a nightmarish quality, the lights, the half-ring of reporters. He became quite placid, quite cold. “There was an illicit intervention when I was a minor. I’ve been treated for that. I’m not presently under drugs; I’m not operating under anyone’s intervention. I’m concerned about my father and I’m anxious to get to Novgorod and answer whatever questions Council may have: I’m most concerned about my father’s welfare—”
“Is he threatened in any way?”
“Ser, I don’t know as much as you do. I’m anxious to talk with him. For one thing, I want to be sure what he did say—”
“You’re casting doubt on his statement through Councillor Corain, as valid, or as coming from him.”
“I want to be sure that he did send that message. I want to hear it from him. There are a lot of unanswered questions. I can’t tell you what you want to know. I don’t know.”
“Sera Emory. Do you know?”
“I have ideas,” Ari said, “but I’m being very careful of them. They involve people’s reputations—”
“Living people?”
“Living and dead. Please understand: we’re in the middle of a funeral. We’ve had charges launched and questions asked that depend on records deep in Archive, about things that are personal to me and personal to Justin—” She reached and laid her hand on his, clenched it. “We had come to our own peace with what happened. Justin’s my friend and my teacher, and now we wonder what did happen all those years ago, and why Justin’s father wouldn’t have told him the truth, if there was more to it. We don’t understand, either one of us. That’s why we’re going outside Reseune. We’re going to handle this at the Bureau level—at Council level, since they’re the ones who did the first investigation, if we have to go that far. But it’s not appropriate for us to investigate this on a strictly internal level. Dr. Warrick has made charges; they need to be heard in the Bureau. That’s where we’re going—and I think we ought to get underway, seri, thank you. Please. We’ll have more statements later.”
“Dr. Warrick,” a journalist shouted. “Do you have any statement?”
Justin looked at the man, blank for a fraction of a second until he realized that Dr. Warrick was the way the world knew him. “Not at the moment. I’ve told you everything I know.”
Florian touched him as he got up, showed him a route through to the boarding area, for the plane that waited for them. RESEUNE ONE.
A solid phalanx of regular Security made a passage for them, an abundance of Security that clearly said: This is official; Administration is involved.
It answered to Ari. Giraud was a wisp of ash and a group of cells trying to achieve humanity; and meanwhile Ariane Emory was in charge, with all the panoply of Reseune’s authority around her.
He went quickly through the doors, and down the corridor into the safeway and into the plane, where he stopped in confusion, until Florian took him by the arm and guided him to one of a group of leather seats, and settled him in.
“Would you like a drink, ser?”
“Soft drink,” he said, while Ari was settling in opposite him, while the plane was starting engines and more Security was boarding.
“Vodka-and-orange,” Ari said. “Thank you, Florian.” And looking straight at him: “Thank you,” she said. “You handled that very well.”
He gazed back at her in a virtual state of shock, thoughts darting in panic to the Security around him, the fear that one of them could simply pull a gun and spray the cabin; fear for Grant back in the apartment, that, no matter what Florian said about general Security not having admittance to that level, an eighteen-year-old girl was in charge, along with a Security guard no older than she was, and anything could happen; fear that something might be happening with Jordan; or that Paxer lunatics might somehow have rigged a missile that could take the plane out of the sky—
There was not a damned thing he could do, except say what he was supposed to say, trust… God, that was the hard part. Let go all the defenses, do whatever Ari told him, and hope that another eighteen-year-old knew better than he did how to handle the situation.
“I was seventeen,” he said to Ari, quietly, while the engines were warming up, “when I thought I knew what I was doing well enough to send Grant to Krugers. You know what that came to.”
Ari snapped her seat buckle across, and reached up to take the drink Catlin handed her. “Warning taken. I know. But sometimes there aren’t any choices, are there?”
vii
RESEUNE ONE made cruising altitude, and Ari took a sip of her drink and checked the small unit she had clipped to her chair arm, remote for the more complex electronics in the briefcase in its safety rack beside her seat, the first time she had ever carried it. She pushed the check button. It flashed a reassuring posi
tive and beeped at her.
System up, link functioning.
Across from her, in his seat beside Justin, Florian nodded to her smile and nod at him. Florian had done the updating into the code system—of course it worked; and worked, so long as she made no queries, as a very thorough observer in Reseune’s state-of-the-art net, simply picking up on all her flagged items and routing them to her as they came up in the flow.
Not even Defense had cracked that code-upon-code jargonesque flow Reseune Security used: one hoped.
Ari picked up her drink again and leaned back. “Everything’s all right,” she said to Justin. “No troubles we don’t know about, and we’re picking up our Bureau escort in about five minutes.”
Justin looked from the window at his right toward her, truly looked at her, eye to eye across the low table that divided the seats. He had darted glances toward every movement in the plane, tense as Florian or Catlin when they were On; he was tracking even on the working of the plane’s hydraulics, and the light from the window touched taut muscle in his jaw, mature lines of worry set into his brow and around his mouth: the years had touched him, no matter the rejuv. He worries so much, she thought. He’s too smart to trust anyone. Certainly not Reseune. Now, not even his father. He’ll doubt Grant himself if he’s gone too long.
That’s what he’s trying to figure out—trying to estimate where I am in this, and whether Grant is safe, and how much I’m a young fool and how much I’ve got him fluxed and how much he can believe now of anything I say or do.
I’m not the kid he knew. He’s begun to figure that; and he’s started to wonder when it happened, and how far it’s gone, and who was working on him while he was under kat. He’s scared—and embarrassed about being scared of me; but he knows he has every right to be afraid now.
The brain has to rule the flux, Art-elder; I think I’ve finally understood what you mean. Whether he slept with me or not, I’d have come round to this, I do think I would: you didn’t bring up a fool, Ari-elder. Neither did maman and my uncles.