Текст книги "Regenesis"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 45 страниц)

1528H

Maybe, she still thought, she should have been a little less aggressive, and a little more cautious. Justin wouldn’t turn down her invitation, if his father was going. She was relatively sure of that: he’d be there partly out of unbearable curiosity, partly to be there to fling himself between his father and a bullet, so to speak–or literally. Jordan would be there out of pure curiosity, and because he wanted to hear what calumnies his son would say about him–she’d bet on that, even more than she’d bet on Justin.

So she sent an invitation to Jordan that said dinner at 1800h. And one to Justin that said 1830. Justin would turn up five minutes early because he worried about being late. Jordan was guaranteed to be at least a quarter of an hour late, just to prove he could be. She bet on that, too.

Her staff was not happy with the arrangement. Wes and Marco were taking the security station, Florian and Catlin were dining early, to be actually on duty in the dining room. Gianni, their pro tem cook, was in a state, and dented one of their pots. The unprecedented clang set off house alarms and scrambled her security to alert.

But she dressed in silvery satin, her current favorite gown, and her hairdresser did her hair in a modern way, nothing at all like the first Ari in the portraits. It was her coming‑out, like in the old stories, though not for a ballroom full of people–just two. She wore her hair upswept, wore a single diamond, a modest one, and her rings, several, and had the servers light the candles the very instant Jordan turned up in the hall–no way could he look at a quarter of an hour’s candle‑melt and feel smug in being late.

Marco showed her first guests into the hall and took their coats…precisely at 1816h. Ari met him just outside the dining room.

“Jordan Warrick,” she said in her nicest, warmest tone, and offered her hand. “I’m so glad you’ve come. Paul.” That for the quiet, handsome man who shadowed him.

“Ariane.” Jordan took her hand, a chilly and unenthusiastic grip, and what he was seeing, or remembering in that moment, there was no telling: certain things weren’t in the first Ari’s records, lost, lost except for this man’s memory. “Is my son here?”

“Soon, I’m sure. Would you like a drink?” Service staff was hovering just inside. And Catlin moved in, very deftly, to cut Paul off with conversation and steer him aside.

“You always made a good Vodka Collins.”

“ Idon’t.” She flashed her brightest grin, and signaled staff. “I haven’t the least idea how. A Collins, Callie. Paul?” She glanced over her shoulder. “What will you have?”

“Wine, sera, white.”

“Wine for me, too. I had my juvie fling with hard liquor. It does my head no favors. I’m so glad you came, Jordan.”

What are you up to? was likely the question he burned to ask her. He didn’t. “Invitations are rare. I’m a little out of the social circuit these days.”

“Well, there hasn’t been much social circuit lately, not since Denys died. It’s all been too grim here. Guards everywhere. Locked doors. Minders on high alert. But that’s changing. I’ll imagine a lot of things have changed.”

“Some have. Some haven’t.”

“Oh, Catlin, do entertain Paul. I’m aching to talk to Jordan a moment. Jordan, do come into the dining room. Please.” She snagged his arm, moved him, solo, the two further steps through that doorway. “I’m so curious about you,” she said brightly. He was warm, and smelled like Justin. “There aren’t many people in my acquaintance who really remember from way back, way back when everything was starting up in Reseune.”

An eyebrow lifted as she let go his arm. He looked at her, just like Justin. “I’m not that old.”

“But you did actually meet my sort‑of grandmother.”

“I did.”

“Was she really the bitch everybody says she was?”

That got a little flare of the pupils, and an immediately suspicious shutdown, no laughter at all. “I never knew her personally. But she was reputed to be that. Andpassed the trait on.”

She took that with a silent laugh. And just then Callie showed up with the drinks, damn her timing, but she took hers and let Jordan take his own. “I know about your feud with the first Ari. Two very bright people trying to work together. Two people who each hadto run things.”

That didn’t sit totally well. “You could say so.”

“She valued you, though, as the most brilliant designer in Reseune, right along with her. She couldn’t get along with you, you weren’t in the same field, exactly, but she did respect you.”

“The hell.”

“I have her notes. She also warned me you were pigheaded.” Sip of wine. Jordan hadn’t touched his Collins. “Is it all right?”

“What?”

“The drink. Did Callie do it right?”

Jordan just looked at her.

“You surely,” she said, “can’t think I’d pull something as silly as that.”

“You did on my son.”

Wide eyes. “ Whatdid I do?”

“You know what your predecessor did.”

Lowered lashes, a nod to the correction. “I know what she did. I’m sorry for that.”

“Of course you are.”

“I don’t like what she did, understand. I don’t like what happened to you, either. Let me tell you the truth. Uncle Denys thought he was going to make me into his own model. But he didn’t. I came out something else, and not liking him much at all, especially for what he did to Justin. And the way you couldn’t work with the first Ari, I canwork with Justin. I don’t ever want it otherwise. I just wish you could be part of that arrangement.”

A sardonic smile. “Is that so?”

She drew in a breath. “You’re going to see it doesn’t work, aren’t you?”

“That’s your conclusion? You have us bugged, you have my office bugged, you have our apartment bugged, including the bedroom. And that’s the best guess you can manage? I’d have thought you understood us inside out.”

“Who’s Dr. Patil to you?”

Ah. He didn’t control that look, not well at all. She’d got him mad, and she got a reaction.

“Friend of a friend. Someone I’d like my son to know, outside the cloistered halls of Reseune. Is that a crime?”

Florian walked into the dining room. That was the arranged cue: Justin was arriving.

She smiled. “Denys would have thought it was a crime. Hewas your enemy. Heset you up. Heblamed you and made your son’s years here–and mine–more difficult than you know. I doubt Justin’s told you the half of it. You should ask him.”

The front door opened, a hall away.

“When,” Jordan asked, “am I going to get that chance?”

“Not over tonight’s dinner, I hope.” She put on her warm smile again. “Let’s make peace, just for the hour. I can’t offer you explanations on everything, but I’d like to see things work themselves out. I’d like to know the things you know about my grandmother. I can’t call the first Ari my mother, really not the way Justin can call you his father. It wasn’t, obviously, that kind of relationship.”

“Being posthumous, you mean? Have it straight: she had it coming. I didn’t kill her, but I’d like to have.”

Oh, good shot. Just as Justin and Grant showed up at the dining room door. She smiled at Jordan and laid a hand on his arm.

“You areeverything I expected. Hello there, Justin, Grant. Delighted you could make it. Would you like a drink?”

“Vodka on ice,” Justin said with a worried glance at Jordan. “H’lo, Dad.”

“You’re late,” Jordan said.

“Am I?” It was a question whether Justin would come out with his version of the time he’d been told to arrive; but he was a survivor of the secretive Nye years, and he simply said, “I guess so.”

“Grant?”

“The same, thank you, sera,” Grant said. “Ser. Paul.” Paul had come into the room with Catlin. “Good evening.”

“Good evening,” Jordan said darkly.

“Why don’t we sit down?” Ari suggested with a wave at the table. There were flowers, and the lit candles. Staff had done their best on very short notice. She took the host’s seat at the end, and let her guests sort things out–Grant and Paul would settle farthest away. There was no endmost seat, just the service cart for the drinks, and that left Justin and Jordan one on a side–Florian and Catlin stayed standing, and Callie, who was being bartender, offered the requested cocktails, and prepared a bottle of wine and another of water, while staff hurried around in the hall beyond–a little unpracticed in formal service, but doing their best.

“How do you like your office?” Jordan asked Justin.

“More convenient to the apartment,” Justin answered, stepping neatly around that one.

“And how are you liking being back in your office?” Ari asked, as if she were completely oblivious to the undercurrent. “It won’t have changed much, will it?”

“A little barren,” Jordan said. “But I’m sure the walls are well‑populated.”

“Jordan,” Justin said under his breath.

“I really don’t blame your father for missing you,” Ari said. “But it’s regulations, Jordan. Justin’s on restricted projects. No one’s objecting to his being; there, or you, but it’s the stuff he works with. I don’t know if he felt clear to explain that, but that’s a fact. You couldapply for a security clearance.”

“There’s a waste of time,” Jordan muttered. He was at the bottom of his Collins, nursing the last out of the ice. “Let’s go back to honesty. There’s not going to be a clearance granted. There’s already an investigation going on. –You gave her that card, didn’t you?”

The last sailed across the table, at Justin, as Callie set the requested vodka down by his hand.

“It was a little obvious, Dad. I don’t know what else you expected.”

Ari smiled tightly. “Of course it was. And I’m sure it’s an inconvenience to Dr. Patil, whoever she is. I’m sure you know that.”

“And I’msure,” Jordan said, “you know damned well who she is.”

“I’m learning,” Ari said. “She must have really annoyed you.”

Jordan rotated his empty glass, frowning at Justin.

“And why do you assume,” Ari asked, “that you’re not going to get your clearance back? Don’t you want it back? Or is your whole aim to assure you don’t? There could certainly be several reasons for that.”

“And we aren’t even to the first course yet,” Justin said. “Can we save this for dessert?”

“It’s not my choice,” Jordan said.

“Many things are,” Ari said, and smiled, and signaled the servers. “But Justin’s right. Let’s enjoy dinner.”

“We may not need dessert,” Justin said, as the salad course went down. “Nice.”

“Let’s love each other for at least three courses,” Ari said, smiling at Jordan. “How is your work going, Jordan? I think you and I are about at the same stage–deepstudy until our eyes cross. I’m trying to get started and you’re trying to span the gap.”

“It’s not that big a gap,” Jordan said defensively, and had a bite of salad, while service poured the first wine.

“Of course there’s a lot I have to learn. Justin’s going to cross‑check me on my theta sets. Would youlike to, just to get back in the game?”

Jordan frowned, probably looking for a stinger somewhere in that offer. “Might be interesting.”

Curiosity, curiosity. He couldn’t turn down actual information, and seeing how she worked, compared to her predecessor, was a question. “Delighted,” she said. “I’ll be interested in any criticism.”

“I’ll imagine you’re quite precocious.”

“I’ve been told so from the start. I’m really trying to make peace, here. And I really am interested in your input.”

“I’ll bet you are.”

“Dad…”

“Oh, I know she is. She still can learn some things. I’m sure she’s no more omniscient than the first model. She hasn’t gotten as argumentative yet, by half. But that will come, I’m sure.”

“It might come earlier if she has to deal with too many disagreeable dinner guests.”

“Oh,” Jordan said, “are we taking sides now?”

“Neighbors,” Ari said with a smile. “Thank you, Justin. But don’t worry. Good minds make interesting conversation. And I think Jordan is very interesting.”

They made it through the salad, even into the main course, which was pasta and imported sausage, with marinara and real cheese.

“Must say the food’s better here than Planys,” Jordan said.

“I’ll relay the compliment,” Ari said. “Thank you. –Were you able to get out of the labs there, Jordan? Did you see anything of the countryside at all?”

“Damn barren,” Jordan said in his conversation‑stopping way. “No, we weren’t offered tours. There weren’t even views. One window in the main office, for the secretaries. None for the rest of your favored guests.”

“There’s no reason for that,” Ari said. “There ought to be views. I don’t know why there weren’t.”

“Maybe they thought giving us a view of the landscape would guide us when we made a break for it.”

Across desert where there weren’t even precip stations. Where the waste of the labs and residences had to be carefully processed, every iota of foreign life eradicated, so it wouldn’t destroy the native micro‑fauna, and contaminate the other continent. When planes flew between the main continent and Planys, they decontaminated the landing gear and the hulls and sprayed down the inside…because they had a world where, unlike old Earth, unlike Pell, there were two distinct ecologies, two landmasses that hadn’t drifted close enough to mix for eons, where there were two circulating currents either side of a high oceanic ridge, and where the only thing that flew was vegetative, most of which wouldn’t survive in the opposing environment–what floated or swam could get there, but that was all. Massive ankyloderms cruised the subsurface, occasionally making a nuisance of themselves; over here it was the other kind of subsurface creature, the platythere, and both of them turned their feeding‑grounds to desert.

“So you never did see an anklyoderm,” she said, ignoring the barb.

“Never did,” he said.

“I’d like to,” she said.

“They don’t surface as often as the platytheres,” Jordan said. “So I understand. In great detail. The ankyloderm guy there is a complete spacecase. You should have to listen to him on the topic. And we did, interminably. They had a guest lecture program. We were all supposed to get to understand each other. All damn useless.”

“Who didyou associate with?” Ari asked.

The habitual frown went a shade deeper. “You want other targets for your people to investigate?”

“Dr. Thieu?”

“Thieu’s a murderer.”

“That’s how you got Patil’s card, isn’t it? Is that the friend you referenced?”

Jordan went as hard as deep ice.

“They corresponded,” Paul said, out of the quiet.

“You with Patil?”

“Thieu with Patil,” Jordan snapped. “And I’m sure security knows it. Why is everyone in such a flap?”

“Security just hates it when their compartments leak,” Ari said. “Especially where it threatens the biosphere. Especially when it’d be so easy for some lunatic to contaminate, say, the Planys reserve. Nanisms could run riot–if they were tailored for it. The Centrists would get their way completely…no reason, then, to stop their pet project.”

“Not my field,” Jordan said with a shrug. “Ask Thieu. Nanisms have nothing to do with me.”

“Except the card.”

“I thought we were waiting for dessert.”

“I think we’re ready for dessert,” Ari said, laying her fork down. “Are you?”

“I think I’ve had enough.”

“Dad.”

“Damn it,” Jordan said, banging his fork down and looking straight at Justin. “Pick your side and stay with it.”

“Politics doesn’t mean a thing to you,” Justin said. “You used to say it was all nonsense. Pick your side, you said, and use it for all the use it can be to you.”

“Thank you,” Jordan said, “for that reminder of basic principles.”

“Dessert,” Ari said cheerfully, and waved a signal at service. Florian and Catlin hadn’t moved from where they stood, facing her, a perfect, black‑clad and elegant set, Florian the dark one, Catlin the bright, and neither face ever showing an expression. Dessert came through the door between them, a confection of light pastry and egg cream.

“Looks good,” Grant said, as cheerfully–and doubtless wishing he could get himself away from the argument. Things hadn’t been said, outright. Yet.

“Coffee, ser?” Callie was back, bearing a silver pot, making the rounds. It was a good, rich coffee, not synthetic, which complimented the egg cream–real egg cream, too. They got the best from the AG unit. Chickens, the one bird allowed onworld, were a definite plus, bred for centuries to be plump, nonseasonal, and flightless.

“Nice,” Justin said, after a bite.

“So did that card come from outside,” Ari asked, “or was it printed from transmission?”

“Transmission, far as I know,” Jordan said. “But I could be wrong. Thieu gave it to me and said contact the woman, give her his regards, old colleagues and all–I told you he’s a dodderer. His rejuv is going. He’s sometimes on, sometimes not.”

Transmission suggested no physical card had gotten to Planys…or broken quarantine. Hence nothing more sinister had gotten to Planys, either, or had gotten from Planys to the larger continent. It indicated that Jordan had done what he’d done solely as a means of agitating security andhis son. She was sure Justin could add that equation. The remaining question was whether the reassuring story was the truth at all.

“I knew damned well I’d make trouble for Patil if I called her,” Jordan said, after a bite. “Or if I mentioned her name while I was sure we were bugged. So I just handed the card on to my thoughtful son, who created a hell of a lot of trouble.”

“Bugged and watched, Dad. We always are. For our protection, our legalprotection as well as physical.”

“It wasn’t that way in my time here. But you’ve gotten used to it. Adapted, clearly. Nice dessert.”

“Thank you,” Ari said, taking another, delicate spoonful. So they at least had a story to explain the card, true or half‑true or no relation to the truth at all–and truthers were running. They had the card, physically, which had either come, illegally, from Planys, or which had gone, illegally, from Novgorod toPlanys before coming to them. Contaminants of the sort Patil worked on could use a small, small vector. Protecting the eco‑sphere was, very unfortunately for the ecosphere, still a political debate. Centrists might not like the idea of wholesale adaptation of the human psyche to other worlds, but they still wanted to obliterate all native life on this one, and being human, wouldn’t ultimately stop with one world, no matter what they argued, if they turned out to need something just out of current reach. It wasn’t just a debating difference. It was a profoundly different future in that debate.

And Jordan had said to Justin, once in the long ago, choose the side that’s useful…while the first Ari had said, in her tapes–watch out for Jordan.

“So you don’t take any side but your own,” Ari said to Jordan. “When everybody else has a theory about what humanity should be, you’re completely without opinion.”

“I’m not God,” Jordan shot back. “And I don’t theorize from that vantage. Let events and biology decide.”

“That’s sort of a Centrist opinion.”

A bite. “This week, it is,” Jordan said. “Stand by. It’ll change.”

“You’re interesting,” Ari said.

“I’m so flattered.”

Justin just gave an exasperated sigh and stabbed the pastry.

“I think we should do this from time to time,” Ari said. “You’re sort of family, you know.”

“In what possible sense?” Jordan shot back. “Family, in the sense you’ve gone to bed with my son?”

“No,” Justin said shortly. A muscle jumped in his jaw.

“Denys was my family after he exiled Maman,” she said. “Yanni sort of is, now. But I don’t know what to do without a disagreeable uncle. So I pick you. You can succeed Denys.”

“I’m not honored,” Jordan said, and ate the last bite of his dessert.

“You don’t have to be likeDenys, you know.”

That got a dark, naked stare, all the way to the bottom. “You little devil,” Jordan said. “You little devil.”

Got to him. Found a button.

“I’m not,” she said. “I’m just Ari. The new model. You were almost partners, you and the first Ari. Justin and I already are, at least as much as you two ever were. You’re my disagreeable uncle, whether or not you’re Denys.”

“Denys killed her.”

“I’m pretty sure he did,” she said. “And he as good as killed you. The question is whether you can recover from that. Maybe you can. We’ll see.”

“The devil,” he said, and drank the last of his coffee. “I think we’ve had the discussion. I trust I can leave this place.”

“Of course you can.” she said. “Paul. I’m glad you came.” She pushed back from the table. Justin and Grant did. She wondered if they would leave the apartment with Jordan and Paul and walk them to the doors of Wing One, or make a maneuver so as notto leave in that company.

“Thank you, sera,” Paul said, pro forma. Trust azi manners to try to force a calm over the situation.

“Thank you for the evening,” Jordan said with a small, tight smile. “It was very informative.”

“It was, very,” she said, and offered her hand. “I’m so glad you could come.”

“Nothing much better to do.” He took her hand briefly, as chill a grip as before, nothing like Justin’s. “Good night.” And to Justin, a look shot past her to the other door: “I suppose you’re staying.”

“No,” Justin said, “but good night, Jordan.”

Letting Jordan walk out with Paul and the door shut, Justin put on his coat very slowly, while Grant waited.

“I needed to know,” she said in that artificial pause. Toward Justin and Grant, she felt an impulse of remorse. “I’m terribly sorry. I hoped, not too rationally, that it might go better than this.”

“You gave us different arrival times,” Justin said. “You set the tone.”

“I tried to set it better than it turned out,” she said.

“I don’t think anything was ever out of control,” Justin said darkly, implying, she read it, that things had gone just the way she wanted. She shook her head to that.

“Remember he’s somebody the first Ari couldn’t Work,” she said. “She couldn’t handle him, or everything would have gone better than it did. She really did want him to work with her. But he wouldn’t share, and she couldn’t change him.”

That got a thoughtful look, a long and thoughtful look. “I wasn’t so hard a target.”

“For her? No. You were young. You were as young as I am now.”

“I don’t think you’ve had the chance to be,” he said, “not that young. Not that stupid. I was, once. At an absolutely emotional pitch, caught between her and him. I don’t like that territory. I don’t intend to go there again.”

“I don’t want you to,” she said, and kept her hand off his arm, much as the urge was there to touch, to plead, even, for a kinder look. “Justin, I asked you here because I didn’t want to meet him and have any question in your mind what we said.”

“And because he’d have exploded if I wasn’t here. A whole complex of reasons. I get them.”

“I hope you get all of them,” she said, “because they add up to my doing this because I’d like to stop this upset, and I don’t want you ever having to do things like give Florian that card.”

He looked at her a long moment. “I’d be as glad not to have to. I’d be as glad to live under a regime where that’s not an issue.”

“I’m trying. I’m honestly trying. Those sets you’re going over–a lot of those aremy security. Or they’re going to be.”

“I had an idea they were, from the skill‑sets involved.”

“Don’t give me anybody I can’t rely on. Help me set this up right this time.”

“As if you can’t read them yourself.”

“I do. I have. But I wanta partner. I want backup. A double‑check. I do.” This time she did touch him, gently, briefly. “Justin, I need you. Maybe the first Ari didn’t need your father as much: she didn’t need people. But I do. I want people. I like people. I don’t even mind people who argue with me. Jordan’s all right, Justin. He really is, or he would be, if he could just stop short of trying to take over.”

Justin’s expression grew very somber. “You said it. The first Ari couldn’t work with him. Are you better than she was?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I know I’m not, yet.”

“Good night,” he said firmly, cutting off any hope of longer conversation. “Good night, Ari.”

He was upset with her and with Jordan. She was sorry for that. But she’d had the truthers running, the while, and she had a load of data for Florian and Catlin to sift, before they gave any instructions to the new people.

Questions remained. Doubts didn’t. Justin had firmly stepped to her side. He just had to reconnoiter a bit, and settle his stomach about it. He was upset. But he stayed hers.

Jordan–Jordan was still Jordan. That hadn’t changed. But she knew him better because of this evening. And that was also very useful.

BOOK ONE Section 3 Chapter v

MAY 3, 2424

1003H

It was more home than it had been, the new office, with the quasi‑window showing a rainy day and blue flowers brightening up the corner. The color‑sorted cabinet still grated on the nerves, but the annoyance was fading.

Mostly the phone stayed quiet this morning. And for that, Justin found himself very grateful, considering the scene last night.

But it worried him. Jordan had more than one way to work on his nerves.

“Coffee?” Grant asked. Grant rose from his own desk to pour a cup. Justin held his out mutely, swivelled his chair around, and received it back when Grant had poured it.

“No phone call,” he said.

“Enjoy it,” Grant said.

“She’s trying to make peace with him. It’s not going to work.”

“It won’t, likely. But that’s his choice, isn’t it?”

“They’ve been fair with him,” Justin said. “Sometimes I just want to shake sense into him.”

“I’m only content he doesn’t try his version of that with you,” Grant said, and sat down with his own cup. He leaned back, crossed long legs in front of him. “Young sera, however, trusts you. And this, frankly, is a better thing. This is, mind you, a logical judgement. Or I believe it is.”

“Believe it is.”

“Convincing Jordan of her isn’t likely,” Grant said. “Young sera remains somewhat flexible.”

“No matter if she deviates from what she was born, she can’t deviate from what she was born to. She’s going to bewhat Jordan flatly won’t accept, that’s the bitter truth. Anydirector of Reseune is in his way, I’m afraid that’s the sum of it, and that’s what she’s going to be. So it’s a chimera we’re chasing, peace with Jordan. Doesn’t exist.” He thought of the monitoring and looked at the ceiling. Grant’s eyes traveled the same direction, and met his, and he shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I said it last night. I said it all last night.”

“We live in a glass box,” Grant said with a shrug of his own. “But it’s quieter for it.”

“If I have any guilt in the world,” Justin said soberly, “it’s on your account. All the things you could do, and you spend far too much time worrying about my family, my future, my problems.”

Grants brow, generally azi‑like, innocent of frowns, acquired one. “If I were burdened with choices, I’d still choose to be where I am. I’m relatively sure of it, given the requisite information.”

“What? If someone told you you’d be linked up with the clone of an egotistical problem case in a lifelong feud with a dead woman, you’d jump at the chance?”

“I’d at least find it an interesting proposal,” Grant said. “A source of unique experiences.”

“God.”

“Not all pleasant experiences, true, but I’ve found no need to run tape at all, not in this whole year. Which indicates I’m perfectly adjusted.” Grant gave a violent twitch of his shoulder. “Mostly.”

He had to laugh, in spite of it all. “I wish there were tape that could cure me of worrying about the damned son of a bitch.”

“Oh, I know there is for me, but there you are, the disadvantages of being a born‑man. Just shut down, go peacefully null–”

“You can’t do it so well yourself nowadays, you know.”

“Curiosity is a plague. Contagious. I can’t help it. I want to know.”

“You’re right it’s contagious. Jordan’s a carrier. God, I wish he’d use good sense. Just–calm down and let it all flow past him. But no. He’s got to be in the dead center of the flow, going upstream while he’s at it. In some ways I can admire him–” Momentarily he’d all but forgotten about the bugs, twice in five minutes, and consciously, wearily amended it: “–and in others I know he’s a lunatic.”

“There’s nothing wrong with his sanity,” Grant said.

“No. There isn’t. Everything’s perfectly reasonable if you realize he wants to manage Reseune and he thinks second prize doesn’t matter. Whyhe wants to–” He tried to make it make sense and simply shrugged. “He doesn’t like to be inconvenienced. And anybodyelse’s orders are an inconvenience.”

Grant laughed softly. “That’s one way to look at it.”

“God, I want to love him. But he doesn’t give a damn. That’s the bottom line. I stopped being his project, and he washed his hands of me. Second prize again–isn’t good enough for him. Things are perfect or they’re garbage. Thank God for you, Grant, or I’d be–God knows what I’d be. Not as good as I am, for damn certain.”

“Nor would I,” Grant said with a nod of his head, “be anything worthwhile, in that household. I escaped, along with you, and I have just enough born‑man ego to be glad of that fact.”

“Nothing wrong with your ego,” Justin shot back. “Perfectly well‑exercised.”

“Oh, now–”

A knock at the door–which opened.

Florian.

Face of an angel and inevitably the bearer of bad news. Grant sat still. Justin nodded a welcome.

“I don’t suppose you dropped by for coffee.”

“No, ser, thank you,” Florian said. “I came to ask your help.”

“My help.”

Florian let the door shut, reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a small card, and handed it to him. It had a number hand‑written. “This is Dr. Patil’s number.”

“I gave it to you. I don’t want it back.”

“We understand that. But, purely in an investigative way, we’d like you to call it and simply find out what the reaction is. Are you willing to do that?”

His heart began a thoroughly familiar acceleration of beats. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, Grant set his cup down, as if he was considering entering into the conversation.

“And say what?” he asked, forestalling that, and straightway protested, though he marginally thought he was believed on this point: “I’ve told you I don’t know this woman.”

Florian reached in his pocket, drew out a folded piece of paper, and gave it to him.

The printout said: Your father gave you the number, and you assumed he wanted you to convey his good wishes and Dr. Thieu’s. Possibly you became curious.

You wish to warn Dr. Patil that there is some concern here because of her relationship with your father. You feel that you can be of use in that matter because of your connections with me.