Текст книги "Regenesis"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 41 (всего у книги 45 страниц)

“Too risky,” Jordan had said then. “I want this man to live to talk.”

“So do the rest of us,” Ari had said, as gently, as reasonably as she could, even when she wanted to jerk Jordan sideways. “Honestly, Jordan.”

And she said it before Justin, drawing a deep breath to argue, could say anything.

“Well, let’s look at it,” Jordan had said, then, in the same reasonable way, and with a dark glance at Justin, who kept his mouth shut. “How fast can Library cough up a tape, if we can ID it?”

They’d kept from each other’s throats today. They got Hicks calm, and instructed, “We’re going at this in a way that will protect him from stress,” she’d said to Hicks at the outset, “and we’re not going to lose him. We have an idea what the problem is. But to make our fix work, we have to have youdo it.”

That had gotten Hicks’ attention. He’d been angry, he’d been scared, he’d figured out she was dead serious, and he’d listened to the program.

“You can do it,” she told him now, in the room with Kyle, and she laid an encouraging hand on his back. “Just go sit down by him, take his hand, tell him you’re here. Ivanov will give you specific signals, and have the script on the monitor. We’re here, we’re all here if we have to improvise. We don’t want to. But if we do, those lines will be in red, so you’ll know. You’re high beta. We trust you to know how to do what you need to. For his sake. That’s all we’re asking of you.”

They drew far off from Hicks and Kyle, who lay on a white‑sheeted table, under restraint for his protection and theirs. There was lighting in Kyle’s area, none in the observation post–just the soft light from the vid screen and the readouts. Ivanov was right at hand with Kyle, with the same readouts, and Hicks–Hicks sat on a tall stool and set his hand on Kyle’s shoulder, talking to him, just giving him legitimate reassurances, while the machines, flashing with lights, scrubbed the trank out of Kyle’s bloodstream and fed in a mild dose of kat.

Kyle came awake slightly. “Weak,” he complained.

“You’re fine,” Hicks said. “Kyle, are you hearing me all right?”

“Yes,” Kyle said. “Where are we?”

“Stronger dose,” Jordan said to Ivanov sharply, through his earpiece.

Ari thought she would have waited for Hicks to calm him down, but that was all right. Hicks had deviated just a hair off the permissions they’d given him, they were taking Kyle right under again, and it wasn’t going to hurt him, it was just going to prevent him taking closer notice of his surroundings. He’d hear. He’d see. For the first half hour they’d just run his base sets, primer tape, from way, way back in his childhood. They had a list of what his intermediate base had been, and of what the military had had access to, therefore what they might have illicitly used. Their best guess was a conversion of beta tape from the best of the marine units, something to instill aggression into the alpha that had to be patching them up and advising them, doing the work a Reseune‑trained born‑man should have been doing.

They didn’t dare take their guesswork for granted, not until they had their theory confirmed–or not, in which case they had to abort and hope they could patch their way out.

“We found a mistake in your sets,” Hicks said gently at one point, right down the script. “Kyle, you haven’t felt altogether right for some time, and we’ve found the cause. Somebody gave you wrong tape. It’s beta. It was when you were in service, on the lines. Do you remember getting tape then? I’m your Supervisor. I can ask this. Did you get tape when you were on the lines?”

Kyle’s brow contracted. “Sometimes.”

“They gave it more than once?”

“More than once.”

“You know who I am. I’m Adam. I’m your Supervisor. Someone once gave you a beta tape. What was the number? Where does it start? Can you find it for me?”

“Viking. October 13 shiptime, 2320, US Amity.”

“Keep going. Find it.”

A long pause. Then: “Tape sequence B14‑2818‑6.”

Jordan nodded sharply in Ari’s direction.

She spun around to the console keyboard, called Base One, and made a fast key entry–deep in tape archive, no question. The number enabled retrieval; retrieval enabled an exact excision of what had gone in; and Base One pulled it out past gateways that would have hidden it from any ordinary search.

Let him sleep,Jordan sent to Ivanov, then. They hadn’t been at it thirty minutes, and they dropped the subject back into kat‑induced limbo.

But this time they had substance to go on. They had a foundational tape in a sequence that Kyle himself had cobbled into an alpha level routine. They had one piece of a jigsaw of accommodation; but it was a piece with the design on it.

“Hicks, come in on this one.” she said, and that didn’t please Jordan, but Hicks was qualified on beta, he’d made a good go at handling an alpha, and he had the glimmering of a hope of understanding the issue as well as the specific azi they were trying to fix.

He sat with them in an adjacent conference room, and Jordan flipped through what he’d pulled up. They went over it independently. It was short, simple. It gave a line soldier permission to kill without conscience where ordered by the Bureau.

“Conflict,” she said. “The minute he takes it out, he’s got conflict with other programming.”

Jordan nodded. “Insert an exception: he may remember killing or arranging killing in the past. This is gone now. It was a temporary condition. He’s not guilty.”

Hicks looked sharply at Jordan, and Jordan didn’t even look his way. Jordan was as clinical, as detached as an Alpha Supervisor had to be…even when he was talking about the specific crime he’d been sentenced for. Not guilty. No karma.

“He’ll attach to Hicks for any future permissions,” Paul said, and Jordan nodded again and inserted a line.

Ari found her arms tightly folded, as if there’d been a chill. Florian was close by. Catlin was. They’d know what Jordan was doing. Their own alpha tape enabled killing. Readily. They were hair‑trigger, both knowing what personal issues Jordan was dealing with, what a dangerous thing Paul was saying, with that “Attach to Hicks.”

But Hicks was ReseuneSec. He was, at least by his provisional certificate, entitled to have that responsibility.

“You’re the Supervisor,” Jordan said then, looking straight at Hicks, and said it in his best clinical voice.

“Agreed,” Hicks said. Hicks had arrested Jordan, in the long ago. Helped send him to Planys. He’d arrested Justin, multiple times.

Jordan gazed at him a moment, then nodded, quietly still, deathly quiet in the room.

“Say;” Ari said, “He also has to respect the authority of Reseune Directors. That won’t conflict.”

“Good idea,” Prang said, and that went in.

“Then we’re go with it,” Jordan said. “We go with heavy kat and unwind it.”

Jordan got up. They all did. They went back to the room, where, for Kyle AK, time had stood still.

Now time started up again with the specific beta tape, and they played it under instructions, relayed via Hicks, to erase it, step by step, from memory.

Reaction. Slow, at first, but Kyle was alpha; cross‑referencing told him in the first instant he was going to be in trouble.

“Deeper,” Jordan said, and Ivanov frowned, and deepened the kat.

Kyle was calmer, then. “Come on, Kyle,” Hicks said. “It’s Adam. I’m here. Listen to me.”

Lines on the monitors had spiked all over the place. They sank abruptly. Ticked way up. And down again. That much kat was a risk.

It took two hours and forty‑five minutes to get him stable. And while Ivanov was working, word came from the airport that Councillor Chavez had just come in, with two aides. With her mind strongly elsewhere, but with the assurance nothing was going to happen soon up at the hospital, Ari made the trip down to welcome the Councillor officially, to see him up to Wing One, and for him to meet with deFranco in a conference room and deliver the news from Novgorod as of three days ago. It wasn’t much news, but it wasn’t good, military police were patrolling the streets of Novgorod, to the exclusion of Novgorod police.

With nodeclaration of martial law. That was definite, too…because Reseune sheltered the requisite Councillors.

It was suppertime in the outside world; but her stomach was on a different schedule. She entrusted the two Councillors to a good catered supper ordered up from Jamaica and took herself and Catlin and Florian back to the hospital as fast as she decently could. She had a sandwich from the hospital cafeteria–Catlin got it for her–and then settled in to catch up and hear the report from Ivanov, who’d finally gotten the subject calmed down and stable. Ivanov had had to give Hicksmedical help; rapid heartbeat.

“I can’t give Hicks much more help without putting him to bed,” Ivanov said. “He’s not young, any more than the subject is.”

“We either leave Kyle in limbo for the night and see he doesn’t dream.” Justin said, “or we go after the block tonight. Stress continues on both of them–even–”

“Go for it,” Jordan said, “if young sera’s through taking her own sweet–”

Paul’s hand landed on Jordan’s shoulder, pressed hard, though Paul didn’t say a thing.

“We need her concentration here” Jordan said, “dammit. This isn’t a picnic.”

“You’ve got it,” she said. “I don’t blame you. You’ve got it. No complaints, no objections.”

“Let’s just go, then,” Justin said, and Grant got up, and Justin did.

Hicks, asleep on a cot, took a little rousing. “At this point.” Jordan said, “you don’t have to do anything. Just talk to him occasionally. Tell him what we tell you. Verbatim.”

Hicks nodded. They took their positions. They’d unraveled the kill‑capability. Now they went after the block. Hicks’ job was to let him progress gently, find the block, figure what symbolized it, and encourage Kyle to set it in a neutral position.

And Kyle seized.

Machines ticked on, took over, cleaned out the adrenaline surge, supplied a gentler cocktail, and got Kyle breathing on his own again.

It was past midnight, into the next day.

Justin leaned over the mike, “Tell him reset. It’s all right.”

Jordan said, “Tell him–tell him to open the door.”

Hicks did. Kyle’s face contracted, then relaxed. His breath went out, and came in again.

“Tell him. Reset,” Jordan said then.

“Reset,” Hicks said, and Jordan let go a long breath and said, softly, gently into the mike, “It’s usually a door, in some sense or other. You’ll want to put that into his manual. It isn’t broken. He’s keyed on you now, we’re not going to have to break it. Tell him he can clean up, put things to rights. It’s all right. He can trust what comes in if you say he can. Get him to agree.”

Hicks did that, quietly rephrasing.

Kyle lay there, breathing deeply. His face was quiet, seeming to have acquired lines. He had fluids going in and coming out. He had machines doing a lot of the work for him, while he just lay there and breathed on his own, and blinked from time to time. But the storm on the monitors had decidedly quietened.

“Get him to say your name.” Jordan said.

“It’s me,” Hicks said then. “You know me. You know my name.”

“Adam,” Kyle mumbled. “Adam Hicks.”

“Run the code,” Jordan said then, sharply. “Straight into the Contract.”

“You’ll–” Hicks started to protest angrily, and shut himself down, lips bitten to a thin line.

Jordan said, “Go.” And Ari thought so, too. She looked at Justin. Justin said, “Code.”

Fast as they could, before stress piled up. “Code in,” Paul said, and sent it through with the push of a button. Kyle sucked in a breath as if he’d fallen into icewater. The monitors spiked up, a jagged mountain range of crisis. Then Kyle let the breath go.

Contract tape followed immediately. “You have an assignment,”it routinely began. “You have a place. You are wanted…”

Kyle went on breathing. The lines of stress evened out to a steady tick. Strengthened.

Giraud couldn’t have done this one, Ari thought to herself. No way in hell. That beta tape was ancient history. It had taken Base One to haul it out of storage. It was tape that didn’t belong to any azi living…now that they’d pried it out of Kyle AK.

They got up from their small table, then, moving quietly, while Ivanov checked and took notes. Jordan moved closer to their patient. Ari did, out of curiosity to see, besides the monitors, how he was doing.

Then Jordan leaned over Kyle, very close, and said, fast, before anyone could stop him, “Who was your Supervisor before Adam Hicks?”

Contraction of the brows. Ari tensed. Kyle’s eyes flew open. He was still deeply under.

“Arbero,” Kyle said. “Captain Vincente Arbero.”

“Did you ever put Abban under kat?”

Kyle opened his mouth to answer, but no sound came out. Hicks grabbed Jordan’s shoulder and shoved him back, and Florian had moved in. Florian restrained Jordan gently, just put himself in the way, while Catlin faced Hicks.

“Yes.” Ari heard Kyle say in the interim, and she touched his pallid face gently and said, “You’re forgiven. It’s all right now. You can rest a bit and wake up later. Adam Hicks won’t leave you. Remember Vincente Arbero. But never listen to him again.”

She looked toward Hicks, who was still furious, then toward Jordan. “That’s on the record,” she said. “It’s on the record, Jordan, and all of us know it. It was recorded.”

Jordan wasn’t fighting against Florian, who wasn’t touching him now: he looked on the edge of a collapse, himself. Justin had moved in close, and laid a hand on Jordan’s shoulder.

“Let’s go,” Justin said. “Let’s go back next door, let him sleep it off. We did it, Dad. It’s done. Everybody heard.”

“ Idid it,” Jordan snapped, jerked his shoulder aside, and looked at Ari. “So what do you propose to do about it?”

“What I promised I’d do,” she said. “Let’s go next door. Come on. We need to talk. Now. Come on. Everybody.”

They went to the conference room, then–a window on the outer hall, one on the operating room itself. Petros Ivanov had gotten Hicks back to one of the consoles, to a stable chair with a back on it, was talking to him, probably medical advice. A nurse had come in.

Jordan didn’t say a word, meanwhile, didn’t sit down. He just stood there, against the wall of the conference room, staring at the windowed view, arms folded, not talking.

“Arbero,” Catlin said, quietly, having consulted her handheld. “Not on the Defense rolls. No CIT number.”

“That’s two,” Ari said. She was disappointed, deeply disappointed, but a thought began sliding sideways in her mind, just out of one compartment and into another. “Anton Clavery. Vincente Arbero. Every CIT has a CIT number. But arethere people in Defense that don’t? We’ve been assuming the radical underground. Paxers. Rocher Party, everything but somebody in uniform. Kyle’s given us a name that doesn’t exist. And, under deep kat, he saysthis person was in Defense with a high rank.”

Jordan had unfolded his arms. Justin and Grant sat looking at her. So did Mark and Gerry, Florian and Catlin, who weren’t going to talk, not in front of the rest.

“Florian,” she said. “Catlin. What are you thinking?”

“That CITs in other places are supposed to have numbers,” Florian said. “But we can’t get into Defense to find out if the rules are different there.”

“If they made hollow men,” Catlin said, “they’d have all sorts of resources to do that. People died in the War. Some die in training. And they’d be hard to track. Hollow men with all sorts of identities available.”

“We assumed a whole Bureau is going to observe the law,” she said. “We assumeif they were breaking the law somebody would talk about it.”

“Well, somebody didn’t,” Jordan said, “until he went under deep kat.” A muscle jumped in Jordan’s jaw. “Khalid runs Intelligence. Covert operations. I said I’d met him. Bastard. Thorough arrogant bastard. Asked mequestions I declined to answer. The man collects bits and pieces of everybody. Gets real pissed when you don’t react when he gives you that look. I didn’t know who he was at the time. I found out, the second meeting. People tried to hint to me you didn’t cross him. I probably went down in his book as a potential problem. Maybe it had something to do with their decision, the way they handled my case…they didn’t have a handle on me; they wanted more information and I wouldn’t give it to them, if you want the bloody truth. You all assumedI told them any damned thing they wanted to hear, and I didn’t. I told them what Ari was doing– therewas a dark little history, nasty little secrets left over from the War, the azi designs that didn’t work, that she put down and wouldn’t give me fucking access to try to fix them…you want to know where you can get any human material you want? Ask about herdeals with Defense, ask what kind of spies shecould create that never would have a CIT number…” He drew breath, waved a hand. Said, in a quiet voice, “It doesn’t matter. If they exist, we can’t get at them.”

“An honest Defense Councillor could,” she said.

“Naive,” Jordan said.

“You say Khalid did it, ultimately. We’ll never attach things to him. If we take it to the media and can’t prove it, ultimately that’s a problem, because he’ll deny it, and we’ve damaged our credibility with everybody. I’m not that naive, ser, to try to prove anything yet. I’m thinking what we can do now to get him stopped.”

“Well, first you find an honest Defense representative and then you get his electorate to put your honest Councillor in. Spurlinwasn’t likely it–just somebody who wouldn’t kiss ass with Khalid, which is why he’s dead and you’re probably right. You’re a target, I am, everybody who’s heard this is, and we’re fooling ourselves if we think having a Council meeting on the quadrangle out there is going to make Defense run for cover. You’re thinking he’ll observe civilized limits. He’s already out of civilized limits.”

“It’s a problem,” Ari said.

“It’s a problem,” Jordan echoed her nastily. “Damned right it’s a problem. So I’m innocent. The world’s going to hell anyway and a Council vote isn’t going to fix it.”

“I may need you again,” she said. It was scary, being told by a very bright Special that he was out of answers, and that there was no fix for the problem. It was particularly scary, because at the moment she didn’t see a fix, either, and whatever was wrong inside Defense had been going on for sixty years. Their problem had had a lot of time to build an infrastructure in that Bureau. “Go get some rest. Thank you, especially, Jordan. Thank you for doing this.”

“The hell,” he muttered. “You go prove I’m innocent. Get me my license back.”

“We should get on back to the Wing,” Justin said. “We’re all exhausted.”

Jordan didn’t move.

“You’ll get your not‑guilty,” Ari said.

“Promises, promises.”

She stood up, leaned on a chair back with both hands. “We’ll figure things out,” she said. “Yanni will get back, we’ll hold a vote, and we’ll see what the Council actually can do.”

“Hold a vote. Hell.” Jordan shoved away from the wall and walked out.

Paul lingered a moment, looking distressed.

“It’s all right,” she said to Paul. “He could be right, you know. But I hope not. Good night, Paul. Tell him good night. –Justin, Grant, Sera Prang… Justin, you can–”

The overhead lights flashed.

Then the storm siren sounded.

“There’s no weather,” Ari said, and then thought of the pile of papers and manuals in the surgery, at that back table. “The records. Kyle.”

“Our territory,” Prang said. “We have enough help. I’ll help Petros with the patient. Go!Get herdownstairs!”

“Damn,” Ari said, and by then Florian had her one arm and Catlin had the other, and Prang was headed for the surgery.

“I’ll get the manuals,” Justin said, and he and Grant headed out of the room, headed the same direction, Mark and Gerry close behind them, while the siren howled.

“Sera, come on,” Florian said, and she surrendered. She had to. Florian and Catlin pulled her out into the hall and down the nearest stairs.

They were on the next flight down when something screamed overhead, the walls rattled and the ground heaved up, like a blanket toss.

BOOK THREE Section 6 Chapter i

AUGUST 27, 2424

1927H

Giraud blinked, flinched, moved wildly, first at an unprecedented jolt, then at the abrupt cessation of everything in his world.

Then the rocking and the sounds started up again, regular as the heartbeat that ruled it, and he, and Abban, and Seely, all slowly settled and relaxed. They all had something approaching a memory for the first real event they had ever experienced, knit together for the first time in one experience, at one specific age. They couldn’t define it. But they had all been in the same situation.

They were too old, however, to be seriously inconvenienced by a glitch, They each weighed about a kilo–still none of them carrying the weight they needed for that unruly world that had just intruded. They were adding neurons as fast as they could grow them. Their brains were organizing so one day they would be able to remember things. They were packing on body fat, storing it up, not anticipating any other such disturbance, though hormones had surged and they remained unsettled for some un‑thought reason.

They didn’t plan. They didn’t anticipate. They just did things their DNA told them to do, and right now, with all the nutrients they could get, they just filled out their skins and grew eyelashes, because their DNA said it was time to do that.

BOOK THREE Section 6 Chapter ii

AUGUST 27, 2424

2011H

The drills in underpopulated Alpha Wing hadn’t remotely conveyed the urgency of a populated area or the fear in a gathered crowd who’d felt that shock. They’d possibly had a tower fall. That was the image Justin framed in his mind; one of the big precip towers on the cliff must have come down, and of all disasters in his life, of all things that had ever happened to him and Grant–that imagination was the worst: atmospheric breach. Death, if you got caught outside.

Traffic in the tunnels had slowed to a general milling movement…slowed, and slowed, until they reached a concourse where people, now in one of the most reinforced areas of the system, generally stood about waiting for information, speculating grimly on what had blown up, talking about the inadequacy of the recent drills, wondering about the whereabouts of relatives and cursing the overloaded communications system, which had flatly shut down all non‑official accounts.

Mark and Gerry had kept up with them. They all four had briefcases full of classified papers and the manual they’d rescued–they’d managed that coherent task, amid everything else. But they didn’t know what had happened up on the surface, nobody else did, so they made their way generally toward Alpha Wing, with hundreds of other people caught out at restaurants, in residences, working night shift. And, Justin thought, he might get through on Base One, on his handheld, but he didn’t want to make himself a target of questions from everybody else who was missing a relative. They didn’t have a place where they could do it in any privacy.

“Can you gather anything?” he asked Gerry, pausing to let those two overtake them. “Is your com working?”

“Just ops and tracking, ser,” Gerry said. “They aren’t saying, except there’s an emergency channel, and our group’s not authorized on it while we’re detached, ser. Sera’s security, sera’s security is saying just stay–”

Then a familiar young voice said, over the general address: “This is Ariane Emory, in ReseuneSec Admin, Defenses have brought down a device on the grounds. There’s no significant damage to Reseune facilities, just a hole in the ground where it hit. Please stay in the tunnels until an all‑clear, but it looks as if we’re all right for the moment. Section doors will now open, but they may close again if there should be another alarm, so be alert. Upper doors will remain shut for a while yet, so you can’t get back home yet anyway. Don’t cross a section line once the lights start blinking, observe the drills and remember, everybody stop moving if the lights flash red. We’ll provide further information as we get it. No one is to go outside except authorized agents at the moment. Thank you.”

Everybody broke out in conversation at once, voices with an undertone of alarm, frustration, and some relief.

“Let’s get home,” Justin said, and they weren’t the only ones. A waft of cooler air came through, that was the opening of the section doors that would let them leave the concourse. There began to be a general drift in the crowd, mostly toward the right hand tunnel.

Their own way lay left, and it was thinner traffic over there, a little faster progress. They lost no time clearing the concourse, and entering the cross‑corridor that would take them over to the Wing One tunnels.

Much less traffic once they were going that direction, which was to be expected, so much of Wing One being under construction, but once they got to the Wing One concourse, there were faces Justin didn’t immediately recognize, and that was entirely surreal; people standing around in the generally dim light the tunnels afforded–two Justin recognized from news reports as guests in the wing, both standing near the stairs, talking with, of all people, his father and Paul.

He could hardly ignore it. “Jordan,” Justin said, as they joined the group in passing. “Councillors.” A nod to Councillor deFranco, Councillor Chavez.

“My son Justin Warrick,” Jordan introduced him. “And Grant ALX.”

“Sera. Ser.” Justin set down the briefcase and offered a hand in courtesy. Grant did the same. “An honor.”

“I’d say it’s a pleasure,” deFranco said, “except for the circumstances.”

“Khalid, damn him.” Chavez said. “Taking this little business up a notch. Probably aiming at the airport. Maybe at the media people. Or us. This is getting damned serious.”

“A crazy universe,” Jordan said, and put a hand on Justin’s shoulder, just a little unfriendly pressure of the fingers that said he was, at the moment, as welcome as the plague. “Here we are expecting the rest of the Council, and Vladislaw Khalid casts an early vote. I don’t think it’s going to win him friends.”

“I’ve got to get back to Alpha Wing,” Justin said.

“You aren’t going anywhere until they open the upstairs doors,” Jordan said.

“I’ve got a responsibility next door. And twenty kilos of records to stow. I’ll at least get through to the tunnel.”

“My talented son,” Jordan said, and let him go.

He went. He picked up his briefcase, gathered up Grant and Mark and Gerry without a word and went on into the nook that separated Alpha Wing. “Try the key,” he asked Grant, not even looking back, and to his vast relief it did work, and let them through, out of Jordan’s vicinity.

It let them through at least as far as the guard station and two others of Mark’s and Gerry’s unit.

“Can I possibly get upstairs?” he asked.

“Keycard will actually override, ser,” one said, “but it’s advised you stay below. We don’t know that that’s the last that will come in. Best to go into the safety tunnel, ser. Anyone you’re looking for is probably there.”

Nothing sensible to do, then, but go aside, down the ramp to the deeper fortification, where, in fact, everyone else had gone. There was a bank of chairs, a galley an auxiliary command post, quite a few of Ari’s staff out and about. Maddy Strassen, Tommy and Mika–they were there. Wes and Marco were busy at the command post…

“We’re all right,” Justin said to Mark and Gerry, and walked into the command post alcove to set down the heavy briefcase. “Wes, Marco: these belong to Ari.”

“Thank you, ser,” Wes said.

“What have we got out there?”

Monitors were active. There was a large one above the console. Wes moved a hand, and that one went live.

It didn’t make sense for a moment…a floodlit area in the dark, beside a white strip that appeared to be part of a road. A lot of twisted metal, lit against the night.

“That’s the airport road,” Grant murmured.

Then the scale made sense, the twisted metal–a small plane, maybe; but large enough to make a hell of a hole. It was surreal, the crater and that wreckage beside the main road, right near the streetlight–it was tilted; outraged bots were scurrying along the perimeter, never coming closer. A handful of hazard‑suited figures were out there, in the shadows.

That it hadn’t hit any building when it had come down had been, Justin thought, their supreme good luck.

That crater was–dammit–right near the hospital.

“What is it?” he asked. “What was it?”

“Missile,” Wes said, and Marco, “Seems to be out of Svetlansk. There’s a Defense base up there.”

“God,” he said. “They’re crazy.”

And then he thought that Mark and Gerry might have had training that enabled them to accept explosions as part of the environment, but that Grant certainly hadn’t. Justin took hold of Grant’s arm. “Are you all right with this?” he asked.

“I’m not sure I ever quite expected things falling on the grounds,” Grant said in his best attempt at levity. “I think I’m doing all right. It’s like being shot at, isn’t it?”

“I think it’s a little worse than that,” he said. It wasworse, for everybody. “Come on. Leave the briefcases here. Mark, Gerry, you’re on your own.”

He walked with Grant just outside the alcove, and ran into Maddy. “Any news?” Maddy asked.

“Not much, except it may be a missile,” he said quietly “Is there coffee?”

“In the galley. Staff will get it. Sandwiches if you want them.”

“Thanks,” he said. His stomach didn’t want food. But a drink of something hot was more attractive. He and Grant walked on toward the galley–didn’t even get close, before one of Ari’s staff–Del, it was–presented them a choice of juices and sweet rolls.

Juice, he decided. Grant took one, too, and they went and had a seat at the galley tables, which had been let down from the wall. There was a news monitor nearby, people talking into the camera, a low, steady sound.

“I think they wanted to take a tower down,” he said, “just like upriver. They wanted to scare us.”

“Well, they’ve certainly done that,” Grant said over a sip of juice. “What are the chances of another one, I wonder?”

“I don’t know,” he said, which was the truth.

“Reseune defenses will get it,” a young voice said, and Tommy Carnath arrived with his sister, settling near them, likewise with juice. “If they come near the towers and they’re not aircraft, they’ll knock them down.”