Текст книги "Regenesis"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 31 (всего у книги 45 страниц)

“You think he’s lying about starting work again?”

“He may try. He may be trying. Or he may be trying something else. You’re the great unanswered question to him. More than she is. He thinks he knows what sheis; and he’s likely wrong; and the fact he might actually see that is going to frustrate him more, because he can’t prove what he thinks is true, is actually true. You completely frustrate him. You’re supposed to behim, never mind he took the one step, reining in your very nicely adrenalized temper, that assured you neverwould be him. It’s always amazed me how intelligent born‑men, designers, can flux that far, that they can do something they know absolutely flies in the face of the result they want to get, and never expect it not to work out the way they want. If I designed an azi set like that, what would you tell me?”

“That it’s a conflict.”

“Beyond a simple conflict, born‑man. It’s a roaring great deep set/ psychset mismatch.”

He heaved a breath, found himself mentally shying away from the concept of going after Jordan with the same energy Jordan used on him–because, dammit, he knew that would be a blowup to end all blowups. “It’s beyond a simple conflict. It’s that two Jordans can’t occupy the same space. Neither could two Aris. Psychogenesis works if one of the participants is dead.”

“Please don’t go that far.”

“You’re saying it’s irresolvable.”

“That the temper is there. That you either defuse it so it doesn’t bother you at all, or you and he will continue to go at each other over the most minor of differences.”

“That’s grim.”

“I, however, have faith in you,” Grant said. “You’re betterthan he is and you have no need to prove it to him. Just don’t let him suspect it, is all. He’s competitive, if you’ve missed that.”

“But how can I livewith him?”

“That,” Grant said, “is going to be a lasting problem.”

He didn’t sleep well. He lay staring at the water‑rippled ceiling, trying to find some null point in the fractal patterns, but his mind was awake and racing.

He laid out mental patterns for a living. He cured azi problems, when something had gone wrong. He’d never cured his own, which was that gut‑deep knot that happened when he got into an argument. He’d always assumed, assumed, because that was the watershed point of his life, that the first Ari had set that into him, a flinch away from anger.

But Grant had handed him a key, a memory that hadn’t been that significant, until he recalled–past the towering dark of that night in Ari’s apartment–that Jordan hadtold him that, the day he gave him Grant for his own responsibility.

Responsibility.

Hostage. With the very proper advice that he couldn’t let his temper go again, not with Grant.

Possibly Jordan had given him that responsibility completely cold‑bloodedly, seeing it as a way to win the argument with a matching temper, which had been, admittedly, out of control. Jordan reined it in for Paul. He had to for Grant. It was symmetrical, wasn’t it?

God, he thought. There was a saying in Reseune, that a designer with himself for a patient was a damned fool. There was a reason there was a psych overseeing psych operators. There was another saying among designers, to the effect that CITs were a guaranteed bitch‑up. He’d had Jordan’s temper. He’d traded it for a gut‑deep knot; and Jordan didn’t get mad at Paul–Jordan just made Paul suffer the effects of Jordan’s getting mad at everybody else–of Jordan’s getting mad at himself, very possibly, but mostly just battering himself against anything that opposed him. No compromise with the universe. Jordan was a Special, a certified genius at what he did, but Jordan had reached a point with a seven‑year‑old where he’d couldn’t win the fight. So he’d just shut it down.

And Ari, with her own very active temper, had gotten hold of that situation and jerked it sideways…with much more cold calculation, and more accuracy, maybe, than Jordan had been capable of using. He’d had a brain. His ideas had been fairly well out‑there. Jordan had a habit of getting impatient with his what‑ifs and shutting them down, hard. Damned nonsense, was what Jordan called his ideas. Ari had called them interesting.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to control the immediate visuals. Trying to shut Ari down and get Jordan in some kind of perspective, as not a bad man–just a hard‑headed one who’d tried to steer him into a Jordan‑esque path.

And God knew what Jordan’s own upbringing had been–a father brusque, emotionally shut down, very much on facts as he interpreted them to be, he had gotten that impression, at least, of the man who was, in a sense, his real father, since he was Jordan’s, mother–there had been, obviously, since Jordan himself wasn’t a clone, but nobody that had stayed; maybe nobody who’d even been there, people who died in the early days–sometimes left legacies in lab. Ended up being the gene donors for the foundational azi lines Jordan’s mother could have been cells in a dish, for all the record he’d ever laid hands on.

Didn’t make him unhappy, in the sense that he’d always been just as content to be like Grant, who was fairly perfect, in his eyes, both motherless and fatherless. He’d always been content to be Jordan’s Parental Replicate. But it was a question, whether if there’d been another influence in Jordan’s growing up, if Jordan would have grown up with a little doubt that one truth covered everything in the universe.

Jordan got the flaw from his father; Jordan tried to replicate himself, that was the damned key. Jordan hadn’t started with the concept of a kid who’d have his own notions–Jordan had tried to trim off any bits that didn’t match him…had fixed him on Grant, the way he’d fixed on Paul, only in that household there’d been room for only one personality, and nobody could argue with it.

CIT. Designer. And thorough bitch‑up. No question. Ari could stand him off temper for temper. But she hadn’t been able to work with him.

She’d conned him, was what. She’d conned Jordan into the whole concept of a psychological replicate, then snatched the result and did a job on it.

He lay there, totally null for a moment, asking if it really hurt as much as it once had. Thinking that–if not for Ari–he’d have made Grant into Paul.

Which couldn’t happen, because Grant wasn’t Paul. And she’d gotten Jordan to accept Grant, because it was so damned hard to getan alpha companion, and the labs had had only one–that she’d created, knowing right then and there what should have been so, so clear to Jordan–that Grant wasn’t Paul. Grant wasn’t compliant. Grant was a fine, fine piece of work, who had taken his own path and already begun to drag a young born‑man sideways. Jordan might have laid down Grant’s early programs, but not his absolute earliest, preverbal ones; and beyond that–Grant had just–self‑directed. Psychologically, endocrine level and all, stable as they came, and an intellect that might well get beyond him.

Ari’s best. Ari’s near‑last project, right along with the design that would replicate herself. Thank God for Grant. Thank Ari.

He just had to think what to do about Jordan.

And maybe he had to be a damned fool, and do a bit of work on himself, try to unwire that clenched‑up anger, and figure out where to send the adrenaline rush Jordan provoked in him. Just thinking about it set him off. And set him to work.

Calm down, first. Take the energy out of it. Find a place to put it. Don’t shut it down. That makes the knot. Find a place to use it.

Create. Think. There’s energy in flux. There’s creative potential in things that don’t match.

Grant turned over. “Are you still awake?”

“Thinking,” he said.

“Thinking good things or bad things?”

“I’m working on that,” he said. “I’m not going to let Jordan bring himself down. How long has it been since Paul took tape, I wonder?”

“Probably not in a long while.” Grant set a hand on his shoulder. “Justin. Mess with Paul and you’re taking a very large chance. He’s not stable. And you’re not his Supervisor.”

He shook his head. “I’m not. And he won’t trust me. But Paul’s storing tension the way a battery stores power. Paul’s not right. So Jordan’s not right. Jordan’s Worked Paul. But the conditions Jordan imagines to exist, don’t, so the world he’s made Paul live in–doesn’t exist. And Paul sees it. I think Paul sees it, and doesn’t know how to fix it.”

Grant considered that a moment. “That could be.”

“You have a sense of him.”

“I have an azi’s sense of him, which I think is accurate. Storing tension, very much so. But the wrong Intervention could do damage. Might lead to shutdown.”

Grant had been there. Grant had been through that. It was Grant’s own watershed experience, more so even than the sojourn with the Abolitionists.

“It’s a plan, at least. Jordan’s wound tight, protecting Paul. But he’s only adding to the tension. There’s a hell of a lot wrong in that relationship. They’re wound up together. I don’t know where to take hold of it. I don’t know I should, until the chance happens, until I know what Paul’s mental state is.”

“I can’t read him well enough,” Grant said. “The other night, the first night they were in the black and white apartment, Paul was dipping in and out of shutdown, just skimming it. Creating his own calm‑down.”

He remembered it. He’d taken it for overload–max stress, even on an alpha. Listening. But Grant intimated Paul hadn’t been listening, hadn’t been processing, hadn’t been recording, at certain intervals.

“That’s information,” he said. “Watch him. Watch him. See what you can figure.”

“I will,” Grant said. “Just–be careful with him.”

“I will,” he said.

He didn’t know if he could do anything, that was the thing. Real‑time work froze him up. It was a problem that Jordan might have given him, right along with the genes. The stress of it might even be Jordan’s problem, which Paul had absorbed. It was a damn interlock.

But he had to try. And, God, if Jordan caught him at it–

Hell didn’t half describe it. He wasn’tas important to Jordan as Paul was. He’d accepted that fairly unemotionally, since, in point of fact, Jordan wasn’t as vital to him as Grant was, and he knew which he’d choose.

Maybe he ought to–choose, that was. Go to Ari, tell her it wasn’t working, couldn’t work. Put Jordan back in Planys, give him something to do there, let him and Paul live their lives.

But he couldn’t do it. That was the hell of it. He was like Jordan, stubborn on an issue, and he had to try.

BOOK THREE Section 4 Chapter iv

JULY 20, 2424

1722H

The item alert was blinking on the screen, and Ari clicked it.

Mail alert,it said…some sender she’d specifically tagged to trigger the alert flasher, and that was a very, very short list.

She clicked again.

And her breath quickened. Cyteen Station in the sender line, Fargone Station as home address, via the merchanter Candide, docking in the last two minutes–a ship’s black box had just dumped its contents to Cyteen Station in orbit over their heads, and a longed‑for letter, at least one letter, had flown down the datastream to Reseune. Via protocols established in Alpha Wing, a reply to herletter opened the gateway, straight to Base One.

Click. Threeletters. One from Oliver AOX Strassen. Ollie was still alive.

One from Valery Schwartz. Her heart danced.

One from Gloria Strassen. That wasn’t so welcome. But she’d had to write to Gloria and to Julia just to be fair.

Discipline. Ollie outranked everybody. She read his letter first.

Dearest Ari,it said. Nobody called her dearest, but Ollie could. I received your invitation and very sympathetically understand the frame of mind in which you sent it, I do think. I remember you as Jane’s daughter, and with the utmost affection. But I must decline your kindness on several accounts.

First and most of all, Fargone is home, now. It was Jane’s home and mine, my best memories are here, and I have responsibilities that fill my time very usefully–ultimately useful to you, I hope.

Second, if things are going well for you, your direction is no longer Jane Strassen’s, but Director Finery’s, and you will be more comfortable in that role if I am not close by to prompt you to be that little girl again. I know you will be as intelligent as the great Dr. Emory, I hope you will be at least as wise, and I hope you will be good, but the meeting cannot satisfy me, or you. If I were still azi, that statement of logic would cause me no pain; but since I have become CIT, it has to pain us both. Let us remember those days as happy as they were, and keep that happiness in our mutual past, unchanged.

I must add one other matter: I know you have invited the Schwartzes and the Strassens to Reseune. I hesitate to be so blunt, but use caution. Jane’s relatives have been outspokenly bitter about their forced residency on Fargone: Valery Schwartz has grown up in close association with the Strassens. His mother is deceased, eleven years ago: a drug overdose which is inexplicable as an accident. Young Schwartz may or may not elect to accept your invitation: he is known here in the art community and has a reputation in deeptape experientials–an art which I have only lightly sampled, given my own character and origins. I am advised there are psychological considerations to prolonged exposure to these arts. Please use caution. I enclose files, in hopes you are surrounded by competent security–you surely must be, and I hope I know by whom.

Ollie had never met Florian and Catlin. He couldn’t have. Except the originals.

I do hope you are well, dear Ari. I hope the very best for you. I knew about love before I ever had the final tape, and I have been a very lucky man, to have loved Jane and to have loved you, as still I do.

It hurt. It stung her eyes, that last. She did understand why he said no. She expected a refusal from him, for many of the reasons he’d just given. But not–not quite that she was, in one sense, just an episode of his life, and that he’d valued a life where she just hadn’t been.

And she wasn’t too surprised about Gloria, who had been a brat, and who was still probably a petulant brat. And Julia–Julia was the one who’d had real reason to hate her, for displacing her and her baby and getting them both exiled to Fargone. That Julia had hated her and talked against her was no surprise, and not even unfair, in the balance of things. Ollie was just worried about her, was all, because he still loved her. It wasn’t as if Julia Strassen was going to launch some interstellar conspiracy against Reseune.

But the business about Valery’s mother, and Valery growing up with Gloria, of all people–that was just upsetting. She’d never heard that Valery’s mother had died. And he’d become an artist, of all things. She’d never guessed that, either. She’d never searched him up on the web, not wanting to go down that path and go longing after someone she couldn’t get back, and she’d never imagined he was halfway famous. It was the first she’d ever heard of who he’d become…and you needed clearance and funds to do a Universal Search, which Florian and Catlin hadn’t had when she’d sent those letters. She hadn’t asked Yanni, who could have done it–Valery was Yanni’s nephew, sort of, but so far as she knew, Yanni hadn’t ever bothered searching his niece up. Yanni had never said, for that matter, how he felt about having his relatives sent off to Fargone, all to bring Ariane Emory up in a bubble free of Valery Schwartz.

Had Yanni resented it?

Had he–God!–even suggestedtheir exile, the way he probably had suggested sending Jordan to PlanysLabs?

That was a disturbing thought. She had no window into the time when Denys and Giraud had run Reseune along with Yanni Schwartz, and critical decisions had been made–first to put her with Jane Strassen, and then to take her Maman away; and to let her play with Valery; and then to send Valery away…

Had Yanni consented? Been participant? Instigator?

Yanni’d never said. Never, ever said. And he’d known she’d written to Valery.

Hadn’t he? She thought he’d known. She hadn’t taken any measures for secrecy from him.

It could have been a mistake, her visiting the past and sending for people who’d had separate lives for decades.

It could really have been a bad, bad mistake–that cold, clammy thought crept through her.

She’d intended to open Gloria’s letter next, saving the good news, from Valery, for last. Ollie’s return hadn’t worked out. But she stuck to the plan. She clicked Gloria’s letter.

Dear Ariane,it began, on a first name basis, when to her memory, Gloria had been a screaming, red‑faced hellion, three years younger than she was. That made Gloria around–fifteen, now. Which was too young for Valery. So there. Maman says if I want to visit I can. So I will. Maman has decided she’s coming with me to keep me out of trouble. I don’t remember Reseune, so this should be interesting, and Maman says…

Hellif Julia was Maman. That was Jane Strassens name. Herword. But that was the way Gloria put it.

…Maman says if we come it’s only because it’s round trip and we can get home again. So we hope you don’t mind if we just stay a few months.

Gloria was uncommonly direct. Ari‑like in her bluntness, not too diplomatic, but then she’d never been convinced either Julia or Gloria had anything like Jane Strassens intellect. Tact or graciousness just were not in her expectations of Gloria.

There was a thought…the first time it had ever dawned on her, though she’d had the notion that Julia just wasn’t that smart. And Jane had been. And Gloria had been a little squalling lump.

Maman hadn’t started out wanting her. Maman had had Julia, counted that enough. But they’d handed Jane Strassen a kid who wason her level, plus some, namely her…and Jane Strassen had accepted her for one reason, and been hooked into the most important study project in her long career. She’d taken her in, taken to her, shoved her own biological offspring and her own grandchild off–partly because she’d had to, because Julia kept being a fool and pushing the issue, and insisting on pushing it…which was how Julia had gotten a not‑roundtrip ticket for herself and Gloria to Fargone.

So it was true. Maman had loved her. Not Julia.

Then Maman–Jane Strassen–had gone out to Fargone to live, to spend her last days with Ollie, and Julia and Gloria. Maman had been very old, and knew she didn’t have that long: Julia was the child of her last good decades, tank‑born; and Maman had gone out there to live, and spent those few final years–how?

Had Maman ever warmed at all to Julia and Gloria?

How had Ollie fit in, and had Ollie protected Maman, the way he’d always protected Maman, from untoward incidents? Ollie would have done that; Ollie would have stood them off at the door.

And Ollie had ended up Director of ReseuneSpace, with all the power to handle anything Julia Strassen could ever think up, that was what. That was justice.

Oh, there were questions she should have asked.

Oh, there were questions she definitely should have.

So I suppose we owe you thank you for the tickets and we’ll see you as soon as we tie up a few things here. I’ve never been on a ship before. Maman said it’s nothing much, but I’m excited.

Best thing she’d ever heard about Gloria.

Deep breath. She punched the button on Valery’s letter.

It exploded on the screen; became white light, a black blot that ran everywhere and left an impression on the eyes, a red, lingering glow. It hurt.

The glow had the shape of a face when she shut her eyes. She thought it looked male, but she wasn’t sure. It was a furious, murderous face.

God, how had Base One let thatthrough?

On her damned e‑trail, that was how, her blanket permission for any letter answering her letter. Therewas a warning, a cold, chilling warning. Her sig had power to crack the electronic gates of Base One, on which the security of all Reseune, hell, all Unionrested. And she had to be more careful, hereafter.

A letter had turned up in the wake of the image, an ordinary letter. Dear Ari, it said. With that hellish face still blinking faintly red in her vision.

Dear Ari, hell! If that damned thing had brought anything pernicious in with it…

Base security search,she told Base One. Focus: Candide packet in Base One, all activity, all files.

Base One set about its business. The letter remained.

I wondered if you remembered. Clearly you do. Thanks for the offer. It presents me a mild dilemma. I have a reputation here in the art world, and your offer would both bring new opportunities and take me out of an area where I have considerable commercial value. I do have to consider, however, that your patronage is no small matter, and if I could be assured of creative freedom and your patronage during my establishment at Reseune, or in Novgorod, your support of my work would be invaluable.

Not a shred of soft sentiment. Creative freedom. Patronageduring his establishment…

She let a slow breath go. Temper had gotten up, since the fright. Adrenaline helped nothing.

So I will be arriving for an exploratory visit and hope to renew old acquaintances.

Oh, to be sure. Sit in the damned sandbox and I’ll lend you my shovel, Valery. Damn your presumption. My patronage!Bloody hellif I’ll be used!

At first blush, she was just mad, damned mad, as Justin would put it. And then just generally upset.

Was that thing, that grinning devil gone to black in her vision–was thatthe experiential artform? Was thatwhat Valery was now?

And connected to Gloria?

It wasn’twho she’d thought she was inviting back to Reseune, to do justice for, and about.

They’d had lives out there, at a place that wasn’t quite real to her. All these years of her life and theirs had gone by, and Ollie might be the same, and maybe Julia was, but they weren’t, not Gloria and not Valery, and in directions she hadn’t anticipated. She’d made a mistake.

But ships took months in passage–her letters to them had taken months in passage; their replies had taken months coming back, and by the time the reply got to her–her three invitees were already on a ship on the way here.

Damn!

BOOK THREE Section 4 Chapter v

JULY 22, 2424

0834H

It was a luxurious office. It had the view from the cliffs on a windowlike screen–Justin liked it; Grant liked it. They were glad it was a feature. There was a little guppy tank in the corner–they’d had to laugh about that. It made this move, the last move, they hoped, a little more thoughtful. And their wall had a seascape, a strange thing to contemplate, sunlight through a breaking wave, vastly different colors than the yellow froth and desolate sands of Novgorod’s shoreline–which nobody wanted to visit.

“It’s from Earth,” Grant had surmised.

It could even have been Novgorod’s shore, when they first landed. Getting back to that would take the native microlife eating all the terrestrial microlife–and native life had a chance of doing that, now. In their own lifetime, one really good thing Denys had done was join Moreyville and Novgorod in cleaning up the Novaya Volga, building the coffer‑dam and the treatment plant–probably it had taken the form of a deal, but Reseune stayed cleaner, and the river did, each in their own way. Some things did get better. He liked to think of the picture that way. Grant said he liked it.

So he could say yes, they loved it, when Ari asked the question. “Very nice.”

She wanted her lessons, as she called it, which consisted now of their working over sets. And she brought him things, her designs, her questions–good questions, that, if there were no Jordan anywhere on the horizon, would have kept him happily working for days.

As it was–

“Ari,” he said, when she arrived for her lesson today, and settled in with them, supplied with coffee and a morning cookie, and the tranquility of the room notwithstanding, his heart was beating overtime, doubt about what he wanted to do, doubt about how she’d take it–doubt about what sort of mess he was opening up to her.

But he couldn’t get what he wanted on his own. And he knew everything it could provoke, if it got back to Jordan, and everything it could provoke if Ari got too interested in it.

“Ari, I want a particular manual. Say it’s an actual current personal manual. It was once confiscated in security, in a computer. Can you get it?”

She held the coffee mug like a little kid with a cocoa, in both hands, and brought it down when he asked that question.

“We’re not talking about my getting Grant’s.”

“No,” he said. In point of fact, he was sure she had that.

“Paul’s?” she asked, straight to the mark, in a very limited range of likely manuals he’d be interested in, and he nodded.

“I can crack his storage,” she said. “No question. I haven’t, lately. I havethe manual.”

Chilling confession. Honest, absolutely honest with him. He hadn’texpected the last, and realized he should have expected it. Probably ReseuneSec had its own supposedly current copy. Yanni had. Hell, there must be half a dozen copies floating about various offices.

“It’s mostly done in hand‑notes,” he said carefully. “I’d be surprised if not.”

“Not surprisingly,” she said, “I’ve skimmed it. A lot of cryptic notes, a personal code.”

“Not surprisingly,” he agreed.

She didn’t ask the obvious question. She was being very good. HisAri…was being very good. And had several questions, likely, questions that would set her on her own quiet search.

“We’re worried about Paul,” he said. “Grant is worried about Paul.”

She looked from him to Grant. Grant said, “I’ll let Justin do the talking.”

“I want a copy of the manual,” Justin said, “and I want Jordan and Paul not to know it.”

“You’ll have it ten minutes after I get home. Now, if you really want it.”

“It’s possible I can read his notes,” he said, feeling ashamed of himself the whole way, going behind Jordan’s back, offering to open up a system that might reveal other things. “I used to be able to.” If he gave her the translation of the notes, and she might demand them–it would be a Rosetta stone for the rest, for anything he’d encoded. Total key, to anything ReseuneSec currently couldn’t read. And he didn’twant to know the rest, and he didn’t want to betray Jordan, and he wantedto ask the best mind of this age and the last one what he could do to fix what was the matter with Paul–but doing that would open up everything to her. Not just the manual. All the notes. All Jordan’s work.

And Jordan was hellishly protective of his ideas, his work–and her getting her hands on Paul–it was Jordan’s nightmare.

“I’m going to ask you for it,” he said to her, “and let me see if I can read it. And I’m going to ask you–not to ask me for the shorthand he uses.”

A little silence ensued. Ari thought about it, and had another sip of coffee, one‑handed, this time, the other hand idle, elbow on chair arm…an attitude so, so like the first Ari that it chilled.

Eyes flicked up to his, and broke contact, self‑protective, keeping thoughts private, as she nodded. “All right.”

“Ari, it’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s what I owe him.”

“I won’t ask you another question,” she said. “And you know that’s hard for me.”

“If I can’t make sense of it,” he said, “I may come back to you.”

“You’re good.” she said, and oh, those eyes flickered like the activity‑LEDs on a processor. She was. Processing. “If you do need me, ask. But it’s all yours.”

“You’re a–”

“Justin, if you say ‘good kid,’ all bets are off.”

“A good human being,” he amended that, unspoken. “You are.”

“I like that.” She smiled somberly. “I take that one. Grant, am I a good human being?”

“You’re a fine sample of the born‑man sort,” Grant said, not too somberly. “Or you seem so to me. It’s beyond me to critique, beyond that.”

She smiled. The moment passed. She finished off the cooling coffee, and rotated her chair and poured herself another cup. “It’s a two‑cup morning. I’ve been so damn busy with the move I haven’t got a thing done on the last set. I read the last of it this morning. But I’ve got one I want you to look at.”

“It wouldn’t be Jordan’s, would it?” Justin asked.

She had her sip. “Actually, it is. He told you about it?”

“He mentioned it. I was going to ask, actually.”

“So we’re doing a Jordan morning,” she said, and pulled out a convenient keyboard and touched the voice button, called the file, which was beta, and correspondingly large. “That’s it. Shall I store to Projects?”

“Do it,” Justin said. “Do you have some particular questions?”

“I don’t,” she said. “It’s a management tape, the type’s capable of an accurate memory and a strong work ethic. It’s just typical Jordan: I’ve looked at his work, at least skimmed through several, and it’s not old stuff–it’s using the modern interlinks, using them very appropriately. It’s a nice nested set of calls that play off secondary sets, don’t conflict with deep sets… I’m not finding a–”

Com went off. A worried look crossed her face.

“Not supposed to–” she began, which meant it was her Urgent list, the handful of people who could call her at any hour, and about that time there was a knock at the office door.

Grant started to get up. But Florian came on through.

“Sera,” Florian said, and the buzz from Ari’s com continued. “Sera.”

“Report,” she said, and Florian said,

“Spurlin is dead.”

Ari froze just a heartbeat, then located the phone, thumbed it on and said, “Ari.”

“Sera.” It was Catlin’s voice.

“Florian told me. Details?”

“Found by the maid this morning”Catlin’s voice came through. “Cause of death uncertain. Last contact yesterday night by the night staff at his residence. That’s all that’s known currently. Possible natural causes.”

“Possibly not,” Ari said. Her face was just a little pale. “I’m coming home,” she said.

Spurlin. Candidate in Defense. Khalid’s opposition. The one the polls said was in the lead by a wide margin. It wasn’t good news.

“Justin, I’m sorry,” Ari said, and set down a mostly full cup of coffee and snatched up her jacket.

She left with Florian, leaving Jordan’s file up on the computer. Justin shut it down, and looked at Grant.

“This is bad,” he said, and tried to think what the constitution said about a candidate dying after the vote was taken. “If he wins–does it go to his Proxy‑designate? Or what?”