Текст книги "Regenesis"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 24 (всего у книги 45 страниц)

“So let these mythical asymmetrical Centrists all go play at Gehenna. There’s a nice lab. It bites back. They can’t make it worse than it is.”

“You gave me Patil’s card, Dad. Whatin hell was I supposed to do with it?”

“Take it to the little dear. What else would an upstanding lad like yourself do, who wants to keep his precious career spotless? Mine’s done. What do I care?”

“Your career isn’t done. It doesn’t need to be done.”

“My own son won’t work with me! What’s left?”

“For God’s sake don’t try pity, Jordan. I’ve got my own problems. You want my help, take it, or quit whining!”

Silence on the other side. Jordan spread his arms along the back of the other couch, feet extended and crossed. “Dear boy. Whining, is it?”

Somehow that posture conveyed threat. Justin became just a shade cautious. “I’d help you, Dad, I would. But everything I try to do for you is a risk. Not from her. From you. Every time I try to make a gesture, you slap it down. Every time I try to do anything for you, you do something to make me sorry I even tried.”

“Now who’s whining?”

“You dodged the question.”

“Ask it.”

“ Whatwas I supposed to do with Patil’s card? What were you doing with it? Why involve yourself with her? And why is she dead?”

Jordan sat unmoving for a moment, then leaned forward and took a sip of the vodka. “Shoved her out a window, you say? That would account for it.”

“Don’t take that tone with me.”

“The little dear can’t question me under drugs, so you volunteered.”

“I’m worried about you, dammit. Cooperate! You’re not guilty of anything.”

“Thank you,” Jordan said, with a salute of the glass. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

“Well, then don’t act the part. Tell me what in hell you meant with the card.”

“Thieu talked a lot about her. A lot. Brilliant woman. Going to save the Centrist cause. Ad nauseam. Nothing’sgoing to save the Centrist cause. Never was a chance of it from the moment they passed the law that put Cyteen off‑limits for terraforming–of course, that was afterwe had ReseuneLabs and Novgorod andPlanysLabs already down here, not to mention Big Blue–here we were in the middle of a war, and with the no‑terraforming law that hampered us protecting ourselves, it got downright dicey trying to keep civilization going down here. But on‑world settlements suddenly seemed a good backup in case somebody got a strike in at the station. Military ne‑cess‑i‑ty. So we enacted the Habitation Zones Act–incidentally what I assume the little dear is relying on for this spurt of building I hear she’s indulging in upriver. Turns out she’s the best ally the Centrists have got. One little slip, one breach of quarantine, and they’ll have to designate another big slice of land into the Zones…wouldn’t thatbe ironic?”

“Do you know some specific threat? Somebody planning–”

“Hell if I know. Construction here. Construction upriver. Accidents happen. So Patil’s dead. Thieu’s dead. And Thieu wanted me to call Patil, as if I was a total fool. No, he didn’t give me the card. I didn’t even get it there. Turned up in my coat pocket the day I gave it to you.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. How should I know?”

“How do you think it got there?”

A shrug. “Library, restaurant–breakfast and lunch–I’d been in public places all day. I found it. I figured it for a set‑up like the last set‑up. I routinely leave my coat on my chair, all right? Paul’s usually there. At one point we both went to the salad bar. Possibly I’d left it at a table in Library and we were both off at another station. I do it every day. I don’t even know it happened that particular day. I don’t keep things in my coat pockets. I don’t put my hands there, as a rule. I felt something when I straightened the pocket flap. There was that damned card, like a visit from Thieu. But not. And I didn’t the hell like it. So I just returned it to ReseuneSec. I knew it would get there.”

“You didn’t run it through your computer, did you?”

“No. Am I a fool? I just gave it to you. Maybe your little dear would run it through her computers, if it got to her, precocious little egotist that she is. Maybe it’d just fuck the whole Reseune computer system and I wouldn’t be to blame.”

“My God, Dad, you’re talking like a teenager with a grudge. You don’t want to bring down the house computers.”

“I’m sure I don’t really care.” Jordan lifted his glass, second salute. “But she might port the business home to the agency responsible, whoever that is. Can I offer my son a drink?”

“Had some already. I need to be sober, dealing with you.”

“Excuses. –Grant?”

“No, ser, thank you.”

“At least youdon’t find an excuse.”

“No, ser,” Grant said, “I don’t. And won’t. You meant for Justin to be arrested. That would have made Justin mad at Admin, and it could have caused trouble for Thieu and Patil, maybe, but more likely you found a way to get rid of the card right under security’s nose, and you did it because they can’t ask you how you got it, and you can play games with them. How does that train of logic apply to the facts of the case?”

“Remarkable. You’ve gotten very deviously CIT, Grant.”

“I hope not.”

“Certainly you’ve acquired a great imagination. Very nice. I suppose I have to credit Ari’s work in you.”

“Dammit, Dad, leave him out of this!”

A little smile, cold as ice. “ Youdon’t leave him out of this.”

“I chose to be here, ser,” Grant said calmly. “Forgive me.”

“Oh, I forgive you. I forgive my son. I just don’t forgive her.”

“Is it true?” Justin asked sharply. “Is Grant right? Was it what you were after, getting Thieu investigated? Or nailing whoever gave you that card?”

“Some of both,” Jordan said. “I’d no desire to have Thieu foul up my life. It turns up in my pocket, and I can only assume one of two things–either it’s some devotee of Thieu’s and I’m supposed to use it, or I’m supposed to be caught with it and arrested; so I passed it on in the same generous spirit in which it was given. You–what do you care? You’ve got the little darling to protect you. You’re not going to get in trouble. I had no inclination to call Patil, based on it, and carry on Thieu’s social agenda for some third party–if that’s all it was. I didn’t figure it came from her. Thieu has political contacts, or did, when he was functioning. He always assumed I was what I was sentenced for–assumed I was a poor fellow Centrist, badly done by because I’d murdered Ari. I never disabused him of that notion. It kept him happy, babbling his theories, giving me printouts, all his grand designs for his project that the legislature had axed with the Habitation Zones Act, on and on and on…for twenty damned years. After a while, he didn’t even take the trouble to be clandestine about it. He just rattled on. And so I was supposed to call Patil. I didn’t. So somebody came looking for me to give me a shove. Not my fault.”

“Dad, just talk to Yanni. Tell him all this. Talk to him.”

“Damn Yanni. You deal with him. I don’t have to. The law says I’m off limits to their inquiries. Fine. I was off limits when they sentenced me to that hellhole with that damned fool and the rest of the spacecases. They can come begging, after this. They can damned well give me lab access, access to my work, my license back–They can do thatif they want anything out of me! Those are my conditions.”

Suddenly a handful of things clicked into place, logic, motive. Jordan wasn’t a fool. He was a man who’d been in a hard, hard spot when the first Ari died–and if he’d quarreled bitterly with Ariane Emory, he’d been at outright war with the Nyes, particularly Giraud. “I’ll present that case,” Justin said. “Honestly I will.”

“You don’t have to,” Jordan said, and drank off the melt in his glass. “Her faithful shadow’s out there, isn’t he, and we’re bugged as all hell. They know what I said. They can weigh it for what it’s worth or call me a liar.”

Justin shrugged. Drew in a breath and took a chance. “I might take that drink, Dad.”

“Fix it yourself.” Jordan waved his glass toward the bar, toward him. “Fix me another while you’re at it.”

“I’ll do it,” Grant said, and got up and took the glass with him.

“Could ask Florian in,” Jordan muttered. “Damn spook. He’s getting to look like the first Florian. Getting to act like him, too.”

“He wouldn’t come in,” Justin said. He didn’t want the excuse of the intrusion. “And he won’t drink on duty. But don’t be surprised to see Security in your hallway hereafter. They’re upset, two murders on opposite sides of the world, no explanations, and both of us are at risk.”

“Just one of those little puzzles Security loves, isn’t it? And we’re two of their favorite subjects.”

Grant brought Jordan and him their drinks, and went back to the bar with Paul’s empty glass.

“Personally, I’m still glad Security’s out there,” Justin said, after a first sip. “I don’t want to be getting a midnight call about you.”

“Oh, just look at us. We’re caring about each other. Heartwarming.”

Too easy to come back in sarcastic kind. Jordan invited it, tried to turn everything to vinegar. Justin took another sip from his glass. “Mirror into mirror. We’re too apt to fight. But let’s face it, I have a certain position, one that I fought for in Giraud Nye’s time. He didn’t like me much. Didn’t like you, ergo didn’t like me, and I paid for it.”

“Sorry.” The tone wasn’t.

“Not your fault, particularly. The Nyes knew damned well you were innocent. Maybe that’s why Giraud distrusted me, expecting the wrath of the wronged, maybe–or just misliking the fact I got close to Ari–her doing, not mine. Ari, outside of being the incarnation you deplore, is a pretty good little kid in her spare time. Always has been. She stood between me and Giraud. I returned the favor, as best I could, with the other Nye, when he decided she had to go–because, believe me, you and I weren’t well off during Denys’ tenure, and we’d have been worse off, still, if it weren’t for that young girl. There’s a lot of history, a lot of history you weren’t here for, but she kept me alive, and ever since she did in her uncle, she keeps me able to work, keeps Grant safe, and that’s a fair debt I owe her. She rescued you, if you don’t know it–pulled you out of Planys during the height of the set‑to with Denys and got you behind Reseune’s internal security. Whatever you think about it, you’re alive. So I’m not interested in your feud with her. Sorry. You can’t convert me.” He took a deep pull at the liquid, felt the previous sips finally hitting his nerves with a deceptive calm. “But I do sympathize with you. It may not have involved getting slammed against the wall by security–not my favorite moments, those–but I do understand the sense of restriction. They sent all the problem cases over to Planys during the War. I don’t think it must have been particularly sparkling society, or a particularly happy one.”

“They put us under pressure and bugged the place,” Jordan said, “and we all knew it. Iwas innocent of what sent me there–in deed, if not in thought. And that put me pretty well on the outs, finally, because everybody but Thieu eventually knew I wasn’t guilty–but they courted me for their various causes and tried to put on sympathy for my plight. God, it was a bloody comedy. ReseuneSec should have put me on payroll. I’d go to venues that supposedly weren’t bugged. I was damned sure they were. And I talked, and they recorded, and sometimes certain particularly obnoxious people just went away.” A small, bitter laugh. “I tell you, I was a valuable resource. ReseuneSec wouldn’t have wanted to give me up. But when Giraud Nye died–after that happened, I really watched what I ate and drank. I figured there might be orders floating in the system, maybe posthumous ones from him–maybe current ones from Denys, who knows? I didn’t trust it when the little dear declared bygones were bygones and shoved Paul and me onto a plane…”

BOOK THREE Section 2 Chapter iv

JUNE 12, 2424

0321H

“Interesting comment,” Florian said somberly, when he and Catlin reviewed the record, with Marco and Wes in the room. “If it’s true about the card, possibly someone in ReseuneSec was trying to draw a wrong action out of Warrick. Or maybe it had, as he said, completely different motives, and came from some source that ought not to be inside these walls.”

“Pursue it,” Catlin said. She looked tired. None of them had gotten a great deal of sleep this night.

But they had gotten Justin and Grant home uncontaminated, at least in the sense of poison and deepteach drugs. Justin and Grant were, by now, sleeping it off, sera herself had managed to get some late sleep, after a two in the morning call to Yanni, and by now Rafael and their outward apparatus, within ReseuneSec, were instructed to haul in information and sort it: security assignments, who was in what hall, in the restaurants in question, everything, not to mention who had access to Thieu, and who had come and gone in Patil’s condominium complex.

It was, to all appearances, death by catastrophic heart failure, in Thieu’s case–autopsy had yet to determine more specifics. It was even possible it was naturaldeath, a body which had ceased to renew itself, arteries and veins and cardiac tissue losing their prolonged youthful character, in the sort of fairly rapid decline that attended rejuv failure. It didn’t take much to tip a fragile body off the edge. Somebody might have applied that pressure.

The force, however, that had torn a sealed window out of its mount and sent Sandur Patil ten stories to the roof of an adjacent cooling tower–that was a plainly hostile action, on the shockwave of a grenade hand‑launcher. Sniffers, applied within the hour in the corridor and lifts, had turned up molecular evidence that had yet to match up with anyone in files, which meant the perpetrator had either confounded the scene with a puffer, available, some sophisticated ones quite expensively so, in Novgorod’s CIT underworld. That, or whoever had so spectacularly done in Patil was a novice with a hitherto clean record, and thus not on file. They could run the sniffer data and get an ID of everybody who’d been near that apartment…but on the grounds of the heavy firepower involved, beyond most novices, Florian personally bet on a puffer in use, specifically designed to foil a sniffer and confuse the scene. That was going to take the chemists time to sort out. The launcher, however–that wasn’t a short‑range weapon. It wasn’t the sort of thing a professional took to a quiet assassination. Whoever had done this was making a statement.

In the meanwhile–their whole staff lost sleep.

“No shortage of Paxer talent to produce a bogus card,” Wes said. “Somebody could have done it off any letter she sent with her letterhead.”

“ReseuneSec calls it clean,” Catlin said. “Electronically speaking clean, nanistically clean. No microprint in the typeface, so it was a private printer, but definitely with Planys microtags. That indicates only that the paper was produced to be used in Planys. Not that it was. The printer site could be anywhere.”

“And the card was planted eight weeks before two of the principals die,” Marco said. “The card was planted on the day the Council voted on a black budget for Eversnow. It could be coincidence: it could be connected, but somebody had all the pieces ready–the file, the card stock, the access to Jordan Warrick.”

“News reports,” Florian said, “still say publicly only that there’s new construction for Fargone. Patil’s name wasn’t publicly connected with either the real facts or the published cover. But she wasn’t at all reticent about the fact that she was taking an appointment with Reseune at Fargone. They didn’t forbid her to talk about it, and she talked to colleagues. The University was making adjustments in her teaching schedule for September. It’s possible she wasn’t totally discreet. All it takes is one slip.”

“Defense was still managing her,” Wes said, “even if she was publicly switching to Reseune payroll. She remained under Defense rules.”

“Seems so,” Florian said. “If they’d wanted her silenced, they could have done that with a phone call. So they didn’t object at all to the farewell parties, or she didn’t listen. Maybe it leaked to the Paxers–maybe through office staff, someone she confided in.”

“Defense is in elections,” Wes said. “Jacques is in office, Spurlin and Khalid are running. There are two strong factions in Defense. Only Jacques has the say, Spurlin is generally with Jacques; Khalid–Khalid is a problem. What his feelings are on the Eversnow project, we have no idea.”

“Somebody certainly silenced Patil for good,” Catlin said. “That’s one. And also assured she won’t take that appointment, which Yanni offered her, which at least half of Defense wanted, which Citizens, Information, and Trade all wanted, and which Reseune was funding. She was evidently the most universally acceptable candidate. Her death doesn’t need a card from Planys to threaten Yanni’s interests. One who might, on the surface, have motive, is sera herself. It slows a program she doesn’t favor. But that’s nowhere in question, and we know she didn’t.”

“Suppose someone inside Reseune opposes Yanni, or Eversnow, or the agreement Yanni made,” Florian said. “They could pose a danger. Someone violently opposes Yanni’s program.”

“A problem,” Marco said, “an outsider, can come into Reseune Township on a barge out of Novgorod, with a load of fertilizer. Can live there, if he’s good at blending in. There’s a lot of people in town that don’t need a keycard to survive.”

Wes said, “I don’t think sera is in imminent danger. Taking out Yanni or Hicks would be a safer move, to stop Eversnow…unless they have extraordinary penetration. Sera’s become too hard a target.”

“And the elder Warrick said he knew about Eversnow,” Catlin said. “If that’s true, where did he get his information?”

“I remain worried about sera’s safety,” Marco said. “Certain people might like to have her gone, and Warrick to blame. Again. Even if supporting Jordan Warrick against Reseune Admin is part of the Paxer cause. It’s good cover–to support the innocence of the man they’ve framed.”

“Or maybe,” Wes said, “they want confusion. Patil’s double‑crossed them, in their view. They kill her. And they set up something to stir up trouble and make Warrick an issue again–by getting him arrested for his connection to her assassination. But that requires that card be found in his possession, and it wasn’t…because he wouldn’t have it; he’d given it to Justin. He’s smart; he saw the chance of something aimed at him. He didn’t want to be tagged with it. He got rid of it as fast as he could, in a way that has ReseuneSec and sera’s staff quarreling over it.”

“That part makes sense,” Florian said. The rest of the world didn’t know that sera herself had begun to move on Yanni, and that everything was bound to change soon; and if that leaked and became public, it was going to cause agitation in many quarters. It wasn’t even to be mentioned to Wes and Marco, yet. “We’ve got a safe copy of the code on the card. It didn’t contain anything but Patil’s academic vita…on the surface, no slink or ferret. Hicks’ office has sent the card over to the experts. They’re having their own go at it, just to see if there’s a code in the apparent content. ReseuneSec has their report coming. I want our own done, with a copy of the analysis, directly to us.”

“I’ll let youport it to that wing,” Catlin said to Florian. “ Youtalk to them.”

Florian smiled absently. The dedicated experts, azi, were odd beyond all reason, monofocused alphas who’d rather deal with code than eat or sleep or do most anything. A couple of sensible betas sat as directors over the lot, the human Supervisor, himself a specialist, being almost as eetee as the azi he supervised. “Should have done before now, anyway.” He punched the recording on again.

“I was surprised it was a large plane,”Jordan Warrick said. “I was surprised we weren’t being sent to some even more remote hellhole. I was surprised when we crossed the ocean. I was moderately surprised we ended up landing at Reseune. And I was surprised to learn Yanni was somewhat in charge despite the little darling. Life was just a chain of surprises that week. I still remain surprised we’re alive. That could always change. We’re here. One of Thieu’s connections tried to get me involved with his pet pupil. I declined. She’s dead. He’s dead. I’m here, and I’ll be here for the rest of time. I’m not involved, but nobody’s going to believe it. What more can I do?”

And Justin Warrick, “Just don’t antagonize Admin, for God’s sake, Dad, just settle in, forget the damn card, just answer any questions they ask–”

“The hell!”

“Answer them, dammit! Leave it for Security. Live your life. Ask Yanni for a few cases, and get busy, high‑level, low‑level, it doesn’t matter. I’ll go to him…”

“But you haven’t done it, have you? I seem to remember you were going to do that.”

“I’ve been a little busy. Never mind how. Just–I will.”

“You really don’t get the picture, do you? They won’t let me write sets. They’re paranoid. And, no, I’m not going to get any work.”

“Jordan, don’t explode.She’d check them over. If she passed them, ultimately, they’ll be passed.”

“That’s not even worth a comment.”

“Because you’re too fucking proud.”

“Because I’m not going to deal with her. I’m not going to her begging.”

“Then I will,”Justin said. “She’ll get you through this. Nobody’s going to pin anything on you. No more frame‑ups.”

“Forget it.”Rattle of ice in a glass, and a thump, a glass set down. Hard. “They’ll do what they want to anyway.”

“I’ll find a way,”Justin said.

“Stubbornness,”Jordan said, “runs in the family.”

“So Justin offered sera’s help,” Catlin said.

It was curious, considering where Justin’s loyalties lay. It was worth bringing to sera, who understood born‑men infinitely better.

“Sera should definitely hear this,” Florian said.

Reaching to her own keyboard, Catlin said, “I’ll send the transcript to her queue. She may not like that part.”

BOOK THREE Section 2 Chapter v

JUNE 12, 2424

0602H

Sleep hadn’t come early, but Ari was up and dressed before Joyesse had a chance to show up…she’d fallen asleep before she’d heard how things had gone, and trusted Catlin to wake her if they’d gone spectacularly badly.

There wasa note in System from Catlin. And files for her. Interesting, Catlin’s note said. There was a flag on a section of note, but she started skimming the file from the top, choosing rapid‑audio over script–she wanted the nuances.

And it was interesting, right from the start. Jordan tended to be that.

“…So my own appeal couldn’t get you through my door, but you don’t mind bringing the little dears guards to burgle my apartment.”

A little odd to hear oneself snarled at in absentia. She had a pet name. How sweet.

“I was concerned for your safety.”That was Justin, a little further from the pickup, talking about Patil, and she slowed the audio down. “She was talking about somebody inside, Dad. Who would that be?”

Then, “How was Patil involved? Why were you carrying her card around? And why in hell did you dump it on me?”

There was a nice list of questions. She didn’t expect answers from Jordan, but it was a good fight, very much the same as at her dining table.

“…the fact I got close to Ari,”Justin fired back at one point. “Who, outside of being the incarnation you deplore, is a pretty good little kid in her spare time.”

The audio went on. And on. Her heart had begun picking up its beats. Gotten harder and harder. And she got Mad. As Mad as she’d ever been. And that was all she could hear. A pretty good little kid. A pretty good little kid.That wasn’t Justin putting on an act. That was Justin defending her. A pretty good little kid.

Damnhim! Damn him!

She shook, she was suddenly so mad. And her breath came short, and her eyes stung, suddenly swimming with tears.

Well, thatwas interesting. She’d just had a heavy hit of adrenaline, and a rush of hormones, and she kept hearing those same five words, over and over, and she wanted to cry. She wanted to cry so badly she burst into sobs and buried her face in her hands. Which was just damned stupid. She wiped her eyes, and kept wiping, smearing tears all over her face, and hiccuping, which just finished it–she hadn’t had a tantrum like that since she was three.

God!

The audio had just gone on, far past, and the worst part was, she had to run it back to find her place and hear it again.

Little kid.

Dammit all. She wondered what else she’d hear that would send her over the edge. Or break her heart. She really, really didn’t want to go on listening.

But it was what one got for eavesdropping on somebody else’s conversation, and he probably hadn’t even thought twice about saying it. That was the problem. He was, face it, older. A lot older. And that was exactly how he saw her. And that was where he was, her Justin, forever out of reach.

She had to hear it to the end. She had to know, about Justin, of all people, what he was thinking and saying. It was her job to know, if she was going to take over Reseune, if she was going to go on trusting him as a major asset.

And it was an interesting reaction. Her heart was still beating hard. She wasn’t thinking straight. Jordan was saying important things about where the card could actually have come from and how he’d reacted, and she couldn’t analyze anything. They used to shoot her full of hormones so she’d react in certain ways. This was like that. She was still shaken, and still feeling sorry for herself, and actually jealousof the first Ari, for having had, just once, a physical chance at Justin. And simultaneously, she was ashamed of that thought; and knew, still, that the first Ari hadn’t won Justin’s heart. Or she had, but not in the way anybody would want to–she’d taken him, shaken him, and then died, leaving him to suffer the consequences of being under Denys Nye’s regime and tangled somewhere in the first Ari’s involvement with Jordan. So it had kept him safe, but it had made him a target. Not mentioning what Ari had done to him, deliberately, as an act of policy.

That hadto be part of Justin’s reaction to her…as long as she was a pretty good little kid, he had her in a safe place in his mind. Sex, in Justin, wasn’t going to go her way and she had to face it, was all. No other woman ever seemed to interest him; and she seemed to be thefemale he reacted to, but it wasn’t the reaction she wanted–or that at least part of her wanted. When she thought about it logically–or as logically as she could manage–she knew it was one thing to imagine having sex with Justin; but it was a damned scary prospect to contemplate really doing it. It scared him; it scared her. And–the real stinger–it inevitably had a morning after, which just wouldn’t be good for either of them.

So maybe she was the little kidfor now. As they aged, the difference in their ages would get less. He’d be more like Jordan was now, she’d be more like Ari was then–

And it just wouldn’t get any better, would it? Forget the thought.

She just had to prevent it all going nova, was all. She couldn’t lose him, the way Ari had lost Jordan. That was the important thing.

She wondered what sort of answer she’d get from Jordan, if she asked him if he and the first Ari had ever had sex. She hadn’t found it in the records, and she wondered about it. He’d be shocked at the question, she thought, probably disturbed, given that the relationship had gone the way it did–and then he’d twist it around and ask her if she aimed at Justin. Only he’d probably put it more bluntly–to shock her.

If she took the old war with Jordan into the realm of sexual innuendo, it could divert it away from the real issues–sex being, even with people who weren’t kids, a short‑circuit in the logic process.

So she didn’t want to ask him, or get into that dialogue, because he wouldn’t answer. He didn’t have to answer anything, ever, and he used that fact like a weapon, challenging them, outright challengingthem to break their own law and go after him, because then they’d be what he’d always said they were.

Maybe that was what went on in his head–just a spaghetti code of a thought process that hoped someday he could break them before they broke him…

And, dammit, she’d let the recording get away from her again. She remembered the place, sent it back to the precise number, and ran it the third time–this time hearing that little kidremark with a lot more logic functioning. It was sad, it was hurtful, but her pulse rate had settled and she had her brain working again.

The recording ran on. There wasn’t anything else…down to the bit Catlin had flagged.

“Answer them, dammit! Leave it for security. Live your life. Ask Yanni for a few cases, and get busy, high‑level, low‑level, it doesn’t matter. I’ll go to him…”

“But you haven’t done it, have you? I seem to remember you were going to do that.”

“I’ve been a little busy. Never mind how. Just–I will.”

“You really don’t get the picture, do you? They won’t let me write sets. They’re paranoid. And, no, I’m not going to get any work.”

“Jordan, don’t explode. She’d check them over. If she passed them, ultimately, they’ll be passed.”

“That’s not even worth a comment.”

“Because you’re too fucking proud.”

“Because I’m not going to deal with her. I’m not going to her begging.”

“Then I will. She’ll get you through this. Nobody’s going to pin anything on you. No more frame‑ups.”

Wouldhe ask her? She wasn’t sure how she was going to answer that if Justin did. It would be interesting to critique one of Jordan’s current designs. But if she said one word to him, Jordan would blow, and that wouldn’t help anything. If he really did, it might poison the atmosphere between her and Justin, and Jordan was perfectly capable of writing something she’d have to criticize, just to get that result.

So maybe that wasn’t a good idea. Endlessly, Jordan played the martyr and Justin tried to do something to help him. Catlin didn’t like it, from the viewpoint of her own profession, and she’d flagged that particular exchange as worrisome, but that was how those two were, just being Jordan and Justin, to the hilt. That she’d be upset about something else in the file–Catlin, dear, loyal Catlin, hadn’t picked that up, didn’t feel the least upset herself by Justin’s statement, or remotely think shewould be upset, or Catlin would have warned her. It was downright funny–Catlin just hadn’t seen it.