Текст книги "Cyteen "
Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh
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"Why won't they let me go with him?"
"Because you're a minor. Because of the security arrangements. Because, truthfully, I couldn't get Giraud to agree to it. Security, they keep saying."
"That's a damn lie!"
"Listen, now. I'm going to get some arrangement where you canget visiting privileges. Not right away. Maybe not even this year. But time and quiet can do a lot for this situation. They're scared as hell there's a conspiracy—the Winfield-Kruger mess, you know."
O God. My fault. My fault."They can'tthink Jordan was in on that. Iwas. Giraud ran the psychprobe. Run it again! I can swear he didn't know a damn thing—"
"Unfortunately, son, that's exactly the kind of thing Jordie wants to prevent—getting you involved in the investigation. There is fire under that smoke. I'm afraid Jordie was meeting with a man called Merild, who had connections that are running into some very dark corners. He was also meeting in secret with a number of very high-up Centrists who are linked to lanni Merino—the Abolitionists. And Rocher has come out with a very inflammatory statement about Ari's death that Merino hasn't quite repudiated. A lot of people in the government are running scared, scared of investigations, scared of guilt by association. Internal Affairs demanded to get hold of Grant. Giraud had to do a probe to satisfy them—"
"Oh, my God—"
"He hadto. I know. I know,son. But they could have learned too much from you. Justin, the shock waves Ari's death has generated—are enormous. You can't imagine how enormous. The government is in crisis. Careers are in jeopardy. Lives are. There's an almost universal conviction that this hadto be political; that the reasons for what's changed their lives has some meaning beyond a dissatisfied scientist breaking Ari's skull. It's human to think like that. And Jordie's testimony—the fact that he can't testify under probe—the fact that Florian and Catlin were put down—some posthumous order of Ari's, they think. . . . Yes. They're gone too. —People sense something else going on. They wantto think something else is going on. Crime of passion, from an education tape-designer, you know, gives people cold chills. We're supposed to be too rational. Jordie's going to have to do the best damn psych-out in front of the Council committee he's ever done in his life. And for Jordie's own sake, the quieter things stay for the next few years, the better. Just be patient. Jordie's not without friends. He's not old. Forty-six isn't old. He can outlast the furor, if you don't do something that blows the lid off everything we've arranged."
He found enough air to breathe finally. He tried to think that through. He tried to think—what was the safest thing for his father and what his father would want. Tried notto think—O God!—that it was his own mistakes that had caused it.
"Can you get yourself together?" Denys pressed him.
"I'm together. I'm all right. What about Grant?" Oh, God, they could mindwipe him. Florian dead! And Catlin—
"Giraud is assigning Grant back to you."
Good things no longer happened to him. He did not believe them. He did not trust them.
"He has,"Denys said, "because I just signed the papers. Get through this business with Jordan and you can get him out of hospital. —Do you want that sedative, son?"
Justin shook his head. Because Jordan would know if there was any drug involved. He had read him all along. Jordan must have. He hoped—
He hoped he could keep from tape-flashes if Jordan hugged him. That was how bad it was. That was what Ari had done to him. He was losing his father. He was not going to see him again. And he could not even tell Jordan goodbye without feeling Ari's hands on him.
"I'm all right," he said. If he could not lie to Denys and make it credible, he had no hope of lying to Jordan. Getting himself together had to start now. Or he was not going to make it.
x
Mikhail Corain looked anxiously at the aide who had laid the fiche-card on his desk. "Dell's?" he asked.
The aide nodded.
Corain waved a hand, dismissing the aide, slid the card into the desktop viewer and tilted the screen.
Dell Hewitt was a member of Internal Affairs. She happened to be a Centrist who was a friend of Ginny Green, who had been the Centrist candidate in Internal Affairs in the last election. And in this nervous time of investigations and committees rummaging into every dark corner in Novgorod, she had laid more than her own career on the line with what she had leaked to Yvonne Hahner, who she knew would leak it to Dellarosa in his staff. As good as wrap it up and mail it.
Regarding the azi Catlin and Florian: no conclusion. Perhaps the termination was ordered outside the system. Perhaps inside, by persons unknown. Perhaps Ariane Emory did order the termination, not wanting them interviewed. Perhaps she felt it was humane. Perhaps it was some kind of death pact the azi themselves had asked for: Reseune says they would have been very profoundly affected by the thought of losing her. Also, Reseune says, they were Security, but with a fix on Emory. They were therefore capable of harm to Reseune, and retraining would be difficult if not impossible without mindwipe, which their age precluded. Giraud Nye refuses to open the books on their psychsets. The order did come under Emory's personal code. Giraud Nye cites security considerations in refusing to allow Internal Affairs technicians to examine the computers.
Corain sipped the coffee warmed by the desk-plate. Two hundred fifty cred the half-kilo. They were damned small sips. But, a man was due a little luxury, who had been a scratch-and-patch outback farmer most of his life.
No newnews. That was disappointing. He traced down the long list of things Reseune had refused to allow Internal Affairs to do, and read the legal justifications. Reseune's legal staff was winning every round. And Internal Affairs, at the uppermost administrative level, was not hitting back.
Then:
Internal Affairs is investigating the rumor at Reseune that certain genesets were checked out and not logged. This means someone could have duplicated genesets that ought not to exist. . . .
Azi-running? God, you can get a geneset from a blood sample. From anything. Why would anyone steal one from Reseune?
. . . such as Experimental and Special material which cannot otherwise be obtained.
Smuggling actual genesets prepared for use by Reseune requires cryogenics which would be detected in shipment unless simply omitted from manifests. However—the digitalized readout of a geneset is another story. Reseune in the person of administrator Nye denies that there is any such activity, or that documentation could have been released without record.
Also there is some rumor on staff that there have been unwarranted terminations. Reseune is blocking this inquiry.
Corain gnawed his lip. And thought: I don't want to know this. Not right now. Things are too delicate. My God, if this hits the streets—all the arrangements can come unglued.
A side note from Dellarosa: What about the chance Emory was running the genesets herself? Or ordered it? What's a Special worth, to someone who has access to a birth-lab?
Votes. A Council seat. Support from the very, very rich. Corain took a swallow of coffee. And sweated.
Physical evidence suffered from inexpert handling from the Moreyville police. Certain surfaces in the outer lab and the cold-lab have Jordan Warrick's fingerprints, Emory's fingerprints, the prints of the azi attendants, of certain of the other regular users of the lab, and a number of students who have come forward to be printed. The door bears a similar number of prints. No presence-tracers were available to the Moreyville police who did the preliminary investigation. Subsequent readings would have been meaningless due to the traffic in and out of the lab by police and residents. The security door records were released and corroborate the comings and goings given in verbal testimony. Again, Reseune will not allow Internal Affairs technicians access to the computers.
The autopsy results say that Emory froze to death, that the skull fracture was contributory, in that she was probably unconscious at the time of the pipe rupture. She was suffering from extremely minor rejuv failure and had arthritis of the right knee and mild asthma, all of which were known to her doctors. The only unexpected finding was a small cancer in the left lung, localized, and unknown to her physician at the time: it is a rare type, but less rare among early pioneers on Cyteen. The treatment would have been immediate surgery, with drug therapy. This type of cancer does respond to treatment but frequently recurs, and the prognosis combined with other immune-system problems due to the rejuv difficulty would have been less than favorable.
God.
She was dying anyway.
xi
Justin composed himself with several deep breaths as he walked down the hall beside Denys Nye. He had showered, shaved, was dressed in his ordinary work-clothes, blue sweater, brown pants. He was not shaking. He had asked for three aspirin and made sure that that was all he had gotten before he swallowed them. As a tranquilizer it was at least enough, with his exhaustion, to dull the nerves.
Jordan lookedall right. He would. Jordan was like that.
God, he couldn't have killed her. He couldn't. They'remaking him say these things. Someone is lying.
"Hello, son."
It was not one of the cold little interview rooms. It was an administrative office. Denys was not going to leave. He had explained that. Neither were the azi guards going to leave. And a recorder was running, because no one trusted anything, and they wanted to be able to prove to investigators that nothing had gone on in the meeting.
"Hello," he said back. And thought he ought to go and put his arms around his father at a time like this, in front of all the people who would see the tape, but, dammit, Jordan was not inviting it, Jordan was being reserved and quiet and had things to say to him Jordan needed to get in order. All he had to say was goodbye. All he couldsay was goodbye. Anything else– anythingelse—and he could make a mistake that would go on that tape and ruin everyone's life worse than he had already done.
Things like: I'm sorry I tried to deal with Ari. I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I'm sorry you had to find it out yourself. It's all my doing. All of it.
Don't bring up Grant, Denys had warned him. Don't bring it up at all. The committees could want to talk to him if you do. Let them forget about him.
"Are you all right?" Jordan asked him.
"I'm fine. Are you?"
"Son, I—"
Jordan's mouth trembled. O God, he's going to lose it. In front of all of them.
"They told me everything. You don't have to tell me. Please." Jordan drew a deep breath and eased it out again. "Justin, I want you to know whyI did it. Because Ari was an influence this world didn't need. I did it the same way I'd try to fix a bad tape. I don't have any remorse for it. I won't ever have. It was a perfectly logical decision. Now someone else is running Reseune and I'm transferred, which is exactly what I wanted, where I won't have Ari changing my designs and using her name on my work she's done over. I'm free. I'm just sorry—sorry it blew up like this. I'm a better scientist than I am a plumber. That's what the investigators said. I backed up the pressure and they caught it in the monitor records."
The anger had been there at the start, real anger, profound, shattering anger. It cooled at the last. It became a recitation, a learned part, an act meant to look like an act. He was grateful for that last coolness, when Jordan threw the ball to him.
I know why you did it,he almost said, then thought that that could come out wrong. Instead he said: "I love you."
And nearly lost control. He bit his lip till it bled. Saw Jordan with his own jaw clenched.
"I don't know if they'll let me write to you," Jordan said.
"I'll write."
"I don't know if they'll give me the letters." Jordan managed a small laugh. "They imagine we can pass messages in hello, how's the weather?"
"I'll write anyway."
"They think—they think there's some damn conspiracy. There isn't. I promise you that, son. There isn't anyone who knew and there wasn't supposed to be anyone who knew. But they're afraid out there. People think of Ari as political. That's how she was important to them. They don't think of her first as a scientist. They don't understand what it means when someone takes your work and turns it inside out. They don't understand the ethics that were violated."
Ethics that were violated. God. He's playing for the cameras. The first was a speech to the committee but the last was a code tome. If he goes on any longer they're going to catch him at it.
"I love you," Jordan said then. "More than anything."
And held out his arms. It was over. The play was over. The actors had to embrace. It was all right to cry now.
He would not see Jordan after this. Not hear from him.
Maybe forever.
He crossed the little space like an automaton. He hugged Jordan and Jordan hugged him hard, a long time. A long time. He bit his lip through, because the pain was all that helped keep him focused. Jordan was crying. He felt the sobs, quiet as they were. But maybe that would help Jordan's case. Maybe they had done all right, in front of the cameras. He wished he could cry. But for some reason he was numb, except the pain, and the taste of blood.
Jordan had played it too hard, had sounded too cold-blooded, too dangerous. He should not have done that. They might play that tape on the news. People would be afraid of him. They might think he was crazy. Like the Alphas that went over the edge. Like Bok's clone. They might stop him from his work.
He almost shouted: He's lying. My father is lying.But Jordan was holding on to him. Jordan had done exactly what Jordan wanted to do. Jordan had not been locked in a room for a week. He knew what was going on in the world, he had been talking to the investigators. Jordan was playing a part, running psych on all of them, that was what he was doing: Jordan was going to go to that Senate committee and get himself the best deal he could; and maybe that bit would keep the tape off the news, because Jordan's work was very important to Defense and the military could silence anything it wanted.
"Come on," Denys said.
Jordan let him go and let him leave. Denys walked him out the door.
Then Justin cried. Leaned against the wall outside after the door had shut and cried until his gut ached.
xii
He had thought there could be no more shocks.
But Petros Ivanov met him at the door of the hospital, took him away from his Security escort and walked with him to Grant's room.
"How is he?" he asked before they got there.
"Not doing well," Ivanov said. "I wanted to warn you." Ivanov said other things, how they had had to put Grant under probe again; and how he had gone into shock; how they took him out to the garden in a chair every day, how they massaged him and bathed him and waited on treatment because Denys had kept telling them Justin was going to come, this day, and the next day and the next—they were afraidto probe Grant again, because he was right on the edge, and they thought there might be illegal codewords, words not in the psych record.
"No," he said before he pushed Grant's door open. And wanted to kill Ivanov. Wanted to beat him to a bloody pulp and go for the staff next and Giraud Nye into the bargain. "No. There aren't any codewords. Dammit, I toldhim I'd come back. And he was waiting."
Grant was still waiting. Right now he had his hair combed, looked comfortable enough unless you knew he did not move on his own. Unless you knew he had lost weight and the skin was too transparent and you saw the glassiness in the eyes and took his hand and felt the lack of muscle tone. "Grant," he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Grant, it's me. It's all right."
Grant did not even blink.
"Get out of here," he said to Ivanov, with a glance over his shoulder; and did not try to be polite. Ivanov left.
He shifted over and gently unfastened the restraints they kept on him. He was calmer than he had thought he could be. He picked up Grant's arm and laid it across him so he had room to sit, and raised the head of the bed a little. He reached then and with two fingers along Grant's jaw, turned his face toward him. It was like moving a mannequin. But Grant blinked. "Grant? It's Justin." Another blink.
O God, he had thought Grant would be gone. He had thought he was coming in here to find a half-corpse that they could not do anything with except put down. He was prepared for that... in five minutes from the front door to Grant's room he had gone from the hope of recovering Grant to the expectation of losing him. Now it was full circle.
Now he was scared. He was safeif Grant was dead. O God!Damn me for thinking like that! Where did I learn to think like that? Where did I learn to be that cold? Is it tape-flash too? What did shedo to me?
He felt like he was coming apart—felt hysteria welling up like a tide; and Grant did not need that. His hand was shaking when he took Grant's hand in his. And even then he thought of Ari's apartment, how the room had looked. He began talking to distract himself, not knowing what he was saying, not wanting to think again the thought that had flashed through his mind, like it was somebody else's. He knew that he could not touch people anymore without it being sexual. He could not hold on to a friend. Or embrace his father. He kept remembering, day and night; and he knew that it was dangerous to love anyone because of the ugliness in his mind, because he was always thinking thoughts that would horrify them if they knew.
And because Ari was right, if you loved anyone They could get to you, the way They had gotten to Jordan. Grant was the way to him. Of course. That was why They had let him have Grant back.
He was not on his own now. Someday Grant was going to lay him wide open to his enemies. Maybe get him killed. Or worse—do to him what he had done to Jordan.
But until then he was not alone, either. Until then, for a few years, he could have something precious to him. Until Grant found out what kind of ugliness he had in him. Or even after Grant found out. Grant, being azi, would forgive anything.
"Grant, I'm here. I told you I'd come. I'm here."
Perhaps for Grant it was still that night. Perhaps he could go back to that, and pick it up again at the morning after.
Another blink, and another.
"Come on, Grant. No more nonsense. You fooled them. Come on. Squeeze my hand. You can do that."
Fingers tightened. Just slightly. The breathing rate increased. He shook at Grant slightly, reached up and flicked a finger against his cheek.
"Hey. Feel that? Come on. I'm not taking any of this. It's me. Dammit, I want to talk to you. Pay attention."
The lips acquired muscle tone. Relaxed again. The breaths were hard now. Several rapid blinks.
"Are you listening?"
Grant nodded.
"Good." He was shaking. He tried to stop it. "We've got a problem. But I've got permission to get you out of here. If you can wake up."
"Is it morning?"
He drew a quick breath, thought at first to say yes, then thought that disorientation was dangerous. That Grant was wary. That Grant might pull back at a lie. "A little later than that. There was a glitch-up. A bad one. I'll explain later. Can you move your arm?"
Grant moved it, a little twitch. A lift of the hand, then. "I'm weak. I'm awfully weak."
"That's all right. They're going to take you over in the bus. You can sleep in your own bed tonight if you can prove you can sit up."
Grant's chest rose and fell rapidly. The arm moved, dragged over, fell at his side like something dead. He gulped air and made a convulsive move of his whole body, lifting his shoulders barely enough to let the pillow slip before he fell back.
"Close enough," Justin said.
Food tasted very strange to him. Too strong. Even soggy cereal was work, and made his jaws ache. He ate about half the bowl that Justin spooned into his mouth and made a weak movement of his hand. " 'Nough."
Justin looked worried when he set the bowl aside.
"It's a lot for me," Grant said. Talking was an effort too, but Justin looked so scared. Grant reached put and put his hand on Justin's because that was easier than talking. Justin still looked at him with all hell in his eyes. And he wished like hell he could take that pain away.
Justin had told him everything last night, poured it on him while he was still groggy and exhausted, because, Justin had said, t hat's the way they hit me with it, and I guess it hurts less while you're numb.
Grant had cried then. And Justin had cried. And Justin had been so tired and so unwilling to leave him that he had stretched himself out on Grant's bed beside him, still dressed and on top of the covers, and fallen to sleep.
Grant had struggled to throw the bedspread over him, had not had the strength in his arm; so he had rolled over, left the spread with Justin and rolled back again.
And lay there with just the sheet, too cold until Justin woke up midway through the night and got a blanket for him. And hugged him and cried on his shoulder, a long, long time.
"I need you so much," Justin had said.
Perhaps because he was azi, perhaps because he was human, he did not know—that was the most important thing anyone had ever said to him. He had wept too. He did not know why, except Justin was his life. Justin was everything to him. "I need you too," he had said. "I love you."
In the dark hours. In the hours before morning. When people could say things that were too real to say by daylight.
Justin had fallen to sleep by his side a second time. Grant had waked first, and lain there a long time, content to know Justin was there. Until Justin had waked and gotten up, apologizing for having slept there.
As if he had not wanted Justin there, all night. As if Justin was not the most important thing in the world to him, who made him feel safe. Who was the one he would do anything for.
Whom he loved, in a way that no woman and nothing he had ever longed for could matter to him.
xiii
"Ari's set is positive,"the voice from the lab informed Giraud Nye, and he drew a long breath of relief.
"That's wonderful," he said. "That's really wonderful. How are the other two?"
"Both positive. We've got a take on all three in all the tanks."
"Wonderful."
Schwartz signed off. Giraud Nye leaned back with a sigh.
There were nine womb-tanks active on the Rubin project. Triple redundancy on each of the subjects, over Strassen's loud complaints. It was rare that Reseune ran any backups at all on a CIT replication; if a set failed to implant or had some problem, the restart just put it a few weeks late, that was all, and the recipient could wait, unless the recipient wanted to pay double the already astronomical cost to have a backup. In the case of a contracted run of azi sets, or somebody's project, the normal rule was one spare for every pair, the spares to be voided after six weeks.
This one was going to tie up nine tanks for three weeks, and six for six weeks, before they made a final selection and voided the last backups.
Reseune was taking no chances.
Verbal Text from:
PATTERNS OF GROWTH
A Tapestudy in Genetics: #1
Reseune Educational Publications: 8970-8768-1 approved for 80+
Everyone who has ever taken a tape with prescriptive drugs is familiar with the sensor patch. The simplest home-use machines use a one-way cardiac sensor, a simple patch which monitors pulse rate. Any tape, whether entertainment or informational, when taken with a prescription cataphoric, has the potential to produce severe emotional stress where the content triggers memory or empathy. In experiencing the classic playOthello, for instance, a certain individual, viewing a certain performance, and bringing to it his own life experience, may empathize with one or the other characters to an extent no mass-production tape can anticipate.
This viewer is undergoing stress natural to the drama. The heart rate increases. The sensor picks it up and carries it to the machine's monitor-circuits. If it rises above the level set by the tape-technician the tape will automatically switch to a different program, a small tape-hop that provides only relaxing music and sound.
This young boy has come to a learning clinic to acquire a skill—improvement in penmanship. As he tenses muscles in his hand and lower arm his clinical technician's skilled fingers locate the muscles and place the numbered patches precisely on the skin. More are added to the muscles about the eye. Others go beneath the arm, over the heart, and over the carotid artery.
These small gray strips have two contacts: this much more advanced machine has a biofeedback loop. The numbers on the patches correspond to the numbers the tape-manual gives to the technician, who need not, for this kind of manual skill tape, be a licensed psychotherapist. Attaching these to the skin above the muscles indicated in the manual makes it possible for the machine to sense the activity of an individual muscle or muscle group and immediately send or cease sending impulses.
This woman, skilled in penmanship, wears identical sensors as she writes the exercise. Her muscle actions are being recorded. This is the actual recording of the tape.
The young student is somewhat anxious as he waits for the cataphoric to take effect. This is his first experience with prescriptive tape. The technician reassures him that this is very little different from the entertainment tapes. The patches are uncomfortable, but only for the moment. The drug takes effect and the technician tests to be sure the boy is ready. The tape begins, and the boy experiences stress as he sees the exercise. The technician quietly reassures him. In a moment, through the output-input function of the patches, the boy feels the muscle action of the skilled penman as she takes up the pen and begins to write. He experiences the success, sees the shape of the letters, feels the small precise movements of the hand and fingers and feels the relaxation of the calligrapher at her work.
It may take several sessions, but the improvement is already evident as the boy writes the exercise immediately after waking. He holds the pen easily and comfortably, no longer cramps his fingers with a hard grip, and his entire posture has improved as he has found the proper pivot point on which to rest his hand. He is amazed and delighted at the result. He will practice the exercise several times during the day, to reinforce the pattern. He will do it again just after breakfast, and several times the following day. His enthusiastic practice will set the habit. He may repeat the tape until he and his parents are satisfied with the result.
This Beta-class azi is assigned to the special forces. He stands patiently tensing muscles in his back at the technician's request. He shuts his eyes, quite evi-aentty bored by the procedure which caused the young student such anxiety. He looks forward to the tape, but the skill he is learning requires the entire body. He has been through this twice a month for much of his life, and the biofeedback patches are more important in his estimation than the cataphoric. He has acquired a skill at tape-learning: his concentration is much more skilled than the student's. He knows the names of the muscles, knows how to attach the patches himself, and does a great deal of optional study in his own quarters, under a cataphoric dose hardly more than you might use in your own home for an entertainment tape, because he has learned now to induce a learning-state without the use of the drug.
At the end of the month, he receives another kind of tape, which citizens do not receive: it is a very private experience, which he cannot describe in words, because much of it is non-verbal. He calls it good tape. The term frequently heard at Reseune is reward tape.
The woman who administers the tape is not a technician. She is a Beta-qualified supervisor, and she uses a much more complex machine. This one has a blood-chemistry loop: it analyzes the blood it receives and injects natural mood-elevators—a procedure used in the general population only when psych-adjustment is called for.
For the azi, who has taken this sort of tape all his life, it is a pleasant experience, which he values more than the other rewards the service provides. This one is internal, and profound.
Unlike an intervention in a citizen patient, which depends heavily on the psychologist's investigative skills to tailor a tape, this tape is precisely targeted, prepared by the same designers who prepared the azi's psychset. It has an accuracy virtually impossible with a non-azi patient whose life has been shaped by unrecorded experiences in a random world. This azi, cloistered from birth and given his psychset by tape, is a much more known quantity, even after he has served in the armed forces and lived with naturally born citizens.
Everyone who has ever held authority over him has had special training in dealing with azi. No azi Supervisor is permitted to raise his voice with his charges. Reward or the withholding of reward is the rule of discipline; and the trust between this man and any psychologist-supervisor is more profound than that between parent and child. That this is a different Supervisor than last month does not trouble him. He has absolute confidence in her once he is sure that she is licensed.
People who have had their first experience working with unsocialized azi generally comment first that they feel they have to whisper; and then that they find themselves overwhelmed by the emotional attachment the azi are instantly ready to give them.
They trust me too much, is the almost universal complaint.
But this man is a soldier and works regularly with unlicensed citizens. He has developed emotional defenses and interacts freely with his citizen comrades. His commanding officer has had a training course and passed a test that qualifies him to deal with azi, but he holds no license and does not treat this man any differently than the others in his command. The commanding officer is only aware that a request from this man to undergo counseling has to be honored immediately, and if the azi requests the intervention of a Beta-supervisor, he must be sedated and sent to hospital without delay, because while problems in azi are very rare and a socialized azi's emotional defenses are generally as strong as any citizen's, an azi's psychset is not built by experience, but by instruction, and the defenses are not a network of social reliances as they are in a normal human mind. An azi who feels that shield weakened is vulnerable to everyone around him. He has entered something very like a cataphoric-induced learning-state, in which he is less and less capable of rejecting stimuli that impinge on him. The result is very like taking a cataphoric in a crowded room, intensely uncomfortable for the azi and potentially damaging.
