The blue bedroom was far off across the suite, down a hall and past the tape studio; the white was next to the master suite, connected by a side door, if it was unlocked: white had lately been her room, when she had been in Novgorod with uncle Giraud. I’d rather my old room, was her thought; but that was too emotional a thing to say, Abban was not terribly social, even after all those years, and it was the pressure of the day and her exhaustion that made her wish she was a child again, with Giraud next door to handle all the problems. “He can take white,” she said, and looked at Justin, who was altogether exhausted. “Go with Kelly, Justin, he’ll see you settled—is there anything to eat, Abban? Justin’s starved.”
“We thought meals might be short. Staff has a cold supper ready on call for any room; white wine, cheese and ham; or if sera prefers—”
“You’re a dear, Abban.” She patted his arm and walked wearily through the main doors of the VIP suite, Abban walking at her right, Florian at her left, and Catlin a little behind as they passed the guards into the long main hall of Volga sandstone. “I really appreciate your doing this. You didn’t have to.”
“Giraud asked me to close down his office and collect his personal papers. And ser Denys has asked me to oversee House Security, in somewhat Giraud’s capacity, I hope on a tolerably permanent basis. It’s only part of my job.”
“I’m glad someone’s looking after you. Are you all right, Abban?”
Abban was well above a hundred himself, having had one Supervisor for most of his life. He was very lost now, she thought, with Denys focused now on Giraud-to-come. Somebody had to take him—or give him Final tape and a CIT-number, which Abban was ill suited for. All Abban had gotten since Giraud had died seemed to be snubs from the Family and responsibility for all the details, precious little grace for what he was suffering, and it made her mad.
“Perfectly well, thank you, sera. Ser Denys has offered me a place in his household.”
“Good.” She was surprised and relieved. “Good for Denys. I worry about you.”
“You’re very kind, young sera.”
“I do. I know everything’s in order; the staffs got it going. Go get some rest yourself.”
“I’m perfectly fine, young sera, thank you: I prefer to stay busy.” They stopped at the door of the master bedroom, a small suite within the suite, and Abban opened the door on manual. “I’ll handle the staff and order your suppers—Florian and Catlin are staying right in your bedroom, aren’t they? I’d advise that.”
“Yes. Don’t worry. It’s all right.” Abban would, she thought, have preferred Justin in the blue room, at the other end of the floor; and likely Giraud and therefore Abban had never believed there was no bed-sharing going on. “I assure you, just Florian and Catlin. Everything’s fine. Get us our suppers and we’ll all be in for the night.”
“Remember even the main Minder is a limited system: you’re on manual for the door. Please don’t forget to lock it.”
“Yes,” she said. That would nettle Florian and Catlin—Abban’s damned punctilious superiority, as if they were still youngers. She smiled, glad at least Abban had that intact. “Go,” she said. “It’s all right.” And Abban nodded, gave her a courteous “sera” and left her to Florian and Catlin.
“He’s doing fine,” Florian said, with precisely that degree of annoyance she had figured. “Abban for head of Security…”
Abban’s nit-picking outraged Florian; Catlin found his reminders merely a waste of her time and treated them with cool disdain. That was the difference in them. Ari smiled, shook her head and walked on into the living area of the master suite, gratefully turned the briefcase over to Catlin and fell into a formfit chair with a groan, while Florian went straight to the Minder to read out the entries since Abban would have set it sometime today.
“God,” she sighed, leaned back in the soft chair and let it mold around her, feet up. “How are we, clean enough?”
“Nothing’s clean enough in this place,” Catlin said. She set the briefcase on the entry table, opened it, pushed a button and checked the interior electronics. “Everything’s real nervous,” Catlin said. “I’ll be glad to get out of here.”
Florian nodded. “Minder was set up at 1747, only staff admitted since then.”
“It was supposed to be set by 1500,” Catlin said, cool disapproval.
“Abban did the set.” Snipe. “Probably re-set it when he came in.” Double snipe. “I’ll ask him.—Sera, just sit here awhile. Let us go over everything.”
“God,” Ari moaned, and reached down and pulled off her shoes. “If there’s a bomb I don’t care. I want my shower, I want my supper, I want my bed, I don’t care who’s in it.”
Florian laughed. “Quick as we can,” he said, and left the Minder and went and looked at Catlin’s readouts, then unpacked his own kit, laying out his equipment.
Carelessness was the one direct order they would never obey. No one checked out her residences except them and that was the Rule. Catlin had made it, years ago, and they all still respected it. No matter the inconvenience.
So she tucked her knees up sideways in the chair and shut her eyes, still seeing the cylinder going into the ground, the cenotaph slamming down; Abban’s pale face; Justin’s, across from her on the plane, so pale and so upset—
Damned long day. Damnable day. Corain was willing to deal but Corain was being careful, Corain was playing as hard and as nasty as he could. Corain had gotten to Wells, on the Bureau committee, and after the recess the questions had gotten brutal and detailed.
What is your present position in Reseune? Who approved it?
When was the last time you spoke to your father? What was his state of mind?
Have you ever had treatment for psychological problems? Who administered it?
You have an azi companion, Grant ALX-972. Did he come with you? Why not?
Have you ever been subject to a psych procedure you haven’t previously mentioned to this committee?
Justin had held his ground—occasionally outright lying to the committee, or lying by indirection, a flat challenge to the opposition inside the Bureau to see if they had the votes to mandate another psychprobe: they don’t have, she had assured him in the recess; but let’s don’t put that to the test, for God’s sake.
He had held up, absolutely no fractures, till his voice began to give out: the temper built, the nerves steadied—he always did that, nervous as hell because politics gave him flashes, because that mind of his saw so many possibilities in everything, and sorted and collated over so wide a range he had trouble thinking of where he was and what was going on around him, but he had stalled off, found his equilibrium—she had recognized that little intake of breath, that set of the shoulders the instant she saw it on camera in the adjoining room, known that all of a sudden the committee was dealing with a Justin Warrick who was in that room, and starting onto the offensive.
Good, she had thought then, good. They think they can push him. He hasn’t even been here till now. Now he is. He’s too smart to go over to Corain. He’ll never follow anyone’s lead who’s making mistakes: he’s got far too much impatience with foul-ups and he said it while he was under kat: No one helped my father then. Not one of his damn friends. He has a lot of hostility about that.
They’ll find out they’re dealing with a Special, after he’s made off with their keys and their cred-slips—damn, he’s good when he cuts loose; everything they say his father has, including the temper—once you get it going, once you get him to stop analyzing and move. He’s still learning these people and he hates real-time work with a passion. Field-too-large. He’s never learned to average and extemp the way I have: Justin wants exactitudes, and you don’t get that in real-time and you don’t get it in politics. The same precision that makes him so valuable in design, that’s why his designs are so clean—that’s why he’s so damn slow, and why he keeps putting embellishments on them—patches, for intersects he can see and the other designers, even Yanni, damned wel
l can’t—
Someday, when we get back, out of this, we’ve got to talk about that…
There’s got to be a search-pattern he’s using that isn’t in program, even if he’s got total recall on those sets—
If he could explain it—
I can almost see it. There’s something in the signature of the designers themselves—a way of proceeding—he’s comprehending on a conceptual level. But he’s carrying it into CIT work—
“They’re sending a tray up,” a strange voice said, and Justin, lying on the bed and almost gone, felt a jolt of panic: it should be Grant’s voice; and it was not.
Kelly, the man’s name was. Security. He passed a hand over his eyes, raked fingers through his hair and murmured an answer.
He was all right, he kept telling himself; he was safe. Kelly was on his side, there only to protect him.
He levered himself up off the bed, dizzy from fatigue, the down-side of the adrenaline high he had been on hour after hour. “I don’t think I can eat.”
“I have orders you should, ser,” Kelly said, in a tone that said he would, bite by bite.
“Damn.” A thought got to him. “I have a hospital appointment tomorrow. Rejuv. God.” He thought of making the request through Kelly, but by his experience, nothing got done through lower levels. “Is Florian or Catlin still in the net?”
“Yes, ser.”
“Tell them give me a call. Tell them I’m without my medication.” He went into the bath and splashed water into his face and onto the back of his neck, worried now about Grant. He had no liking for taking medication from any random stock in Novgorod; he thought about Ari’s elaborate security precautions around Grant and worried about the breach it could create, or whether there was any motive for anyone at Reseune to substitute drugs.
“Ser Justin?” Florian hailed him, from the wall-speaker. “This is Florian. Do you mean your prescription? We have that.”
“Thanks. Have they made arrangements for Grant? He’s on the same schedule.”
“We thought of that. It’s taken care of, ser. Do you need it tonight?”
“Thank you,” he said, relieved. Trust Florian. No detail dropped. “No, I’m going to rest tonight, it sends me hyper—God knows I don’t need it before bed.” It also hurt like hell; and he was not looking forward to it. Could not go through tomorrow’s hearings on pain-killer.
“Yes, ser. It’s all right then. Have a good sleep.”
“Endit,” he said to the Minder. And heard the suite door open. His heart jumped.
Kelly, he told himself. Dinner was a little early. He toweled his face dry, hung the towel on the hook and walked out into the bedroom.
No Kelly.
Not like Security. “Minder,” he said. “Minder, get Florian AF. Next door.”
No sound.
“Minder, give me an answer.”
Dead.
O my God.
“It’s Abban, sera,” the Minder said; and Ari levered herself out of the chair to manual the door herself, Florian and Catlin still being occupied about their checks in the bedroom.
“Sera!” Florian said sharply from behind her, and she stopped as he hurried to get the door himself. The Rule again. “I’ll set supper out,” he said quietly then, and with a little smile: “The shower’s safe.”
“I’m so glad.” She started on her way, looked back as the door opened and Abban showed up with the catering staff.
As suddenly there was a pounding on the adjoining door from Justin’s side. “Florian!” she heard him shout.
Then the whole wall blew outward, a sheet of bright fire, a percussion like a fist slamming against her; and she fell over a chair arm, complete tumble onto her knees and into the narrow wedge against the wall as flames shot up, as of a sudden a volley of gunshots exploded from her right, shells exploded to her left, and she stared in a split-second’s horror, flinging up her arms as a flying body came at her, bore her over and cracked her head against the floor.
Second explosion, jolting the bones. “Sera!” Florian gasped into her ear, and she tried to move, cooperating by instinct as he tried to haul her along the floor behind the chair, with fire lighting the smoke and heat already painful. One more shot went off and exploded, and Florian fell on top of her, covering her with his body, protecting her head with his arms.
In a moment more there was a dreadful quiet, except the crackle of the fire that lit the lowering pall of smoke—then a sudden scrape of the chair pulled away and flung tumbling. Florian moved. She saw Catlin’s stark, grim face upside down above her in the orange light, felt Florian’s knee bruise her leg and his hand press her shoulder as he tried to get up and they tried to get themselves sorted out: he hauled himself up and got an arm around her with Catlin on the other side, Florian stumbling and catching himself on the wall.
A solid wall of fire enveloped the open door, a tumult of voices outside—Theirs or ours? Ari wondered desperately—The fire enveloped bodies on the floor, half-exploded, unrecognizable except the black Security uniforms—where Abban had been standing—and the heat burned her hands and her face—
Who’s the Enemy? What’s waiting out there? What’s first? Can you run through fire that thick? Is it burning in the hall?
She felt the hesitation in Florian and Catlin, only a second; then Florian breathed, to someone not present: “Florian to Security Two—somebody’s turned off the fire-systems. Re-engage, system two. That’s an incendiary. Acknowledge.”
“They’re answering,” Catlin said.
“Who’s they?” Ari said, and choked on the smoke. The fire blinded, burned them with the heat, worse by the moment. “Dammit to hell, where’s the hand extinguishers?”
As suddenly the fire-systems cut on with a wail of sirens.
There was fire: Justin was aware of that first, of blistering heat that drove him to move before he was fully conscious, of smoke that stung his nose and his throat and his lungs—deadly as the fire and harder to evade. He clawed his way up over debris of shattered structural panels and hot metal, felt one cut his leg as he went over, lost his balance and wormed through underneath the massive bureau that had come down onto the end of the bed—away from the fire, that was all he could think of at the moment, until his vision cleared and he could see the hallward door through the smoke, beyond the ruin of ceiling and wall-panels piled on the furniture.
There was a blank then. He came to on his knees, clinging to the door handle, trying to get to his feet again, finding fire on his left, the lights only clusters of suns in a universe gone to murk, to fire and shouts coming from somewhere. He pulled the manual latch, got the door unlocked, and pulled it open against the obstruction of debris around him.
Another blank. He was in the hall, dark figures rushed at him and one hit him, flinging him against the irregular stone of the wall. But that one stopped then, and hauled him up and yelled at him: “Get to the exit! That way—”
He felt the stiff material of a firesuit; felt a mask pressed to his face; felt himself dragged along while he inhaled cleaner air. Then he saw the emergency exit for himself, and tried to go under his own power—through the doors into clean air. The man yelled something at him, shoved him through—
Blank. Someone caught hold of him. There were people around him, in the stairwell.
“How far up is it?” someone shouted at him. “Where did you come from?”
He could not answer. He coughed and almost fell; but they helped him, and he walked.
x
“Kelly EK is dead,” Catlin reported calmly, between listening to the net.
The rescue copters were still coming in at the pad outside Mary Stamford Hospital, and Ari angrily fended away the medtech who was trying to see if the lump on her head needed scan: “For God’s sake, let me alone! Catlin, where, in the room?”
“In the hallway,” Catlin said. “Alone. They identified him by his tags.—They’re searching out on the far side of the building now, where the exit stairs let
out: a lot of the guests went that way.”
“God.” Ari wiped a hand over her face—reflex: there was Neoskin on her hand and sweat stung.
The fire teams had it under control, the report ran. Explosions had gone off at several points on the floor, in the blue room and the white. The explosives were rigged in White, Florian had said, vastly chagrined. A periphery scan wouldn’t pick them up, but we’d have found them if we’d run the check from the top. But Abban psyched us. He had the trigger: I saw the flash from the briefcase on the table; and that rig was state-of-the-art.
It had gone so fast, Justin’s urgent shout through the connecting door, the split-second warning that had triggered Florian’s something’s-wrong reflexes and brought Catlin, armed, out that bedroom doorway the instant after the initial explosion, in a chain of thought that went something like: explosions-can’t-happen-with-adequate-checks; there’s-Abban-who-ran-the-checks; fire!—about a nanosecond before Abban’s fire came back at her a hair off. A good shot with a regular pistol and a better one with explosive rounds, that was what it had come down to, while Abban had hesitated one fatal synapse-jump between target A and target B.
Giraud’s orders, Ari thought. Giraud ordered me killed…
Rescue teams had gotten into Justin’s charred room. They were searching through the wreckage; but from the time they had said that the heavy display cabinet had crashed down beside the connecting door and shielded that area from the force of the blast, and that they had found the hall door open, then she had believed Justin had to have gotten out. There were two dead of smoke inhalation that they had found; Kelly burned, evidently, beyond recognition, not with Justin, where he should have been; several severely burned trying to get to her—God help them; but Security from the floor below had gotten up there with emergency equipment and a unit captain with good sense had gotten Florian’s advisement the fire systems were not operating and gotten to the control system to turn them on again—Abban had seen to that little detail too—while another had ordered all personnel who could not reach fire control equipment to get out, immediately…a damned good thing, because the majority were azi, who might well have tried to help her without fire-gear and died trying.