Текст книги "Cyteen "
Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh
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Текущая страница: 27 (всего у книги 61 страниц)
It couldn't be the other way. They haven't told me they'd hurt maman.
Could that be?
But they're Olders, like Florian says, and they always know more and they don't tell you everything you need.
"That's one way to Work people, " she said. "There's others. Like finding out what they want and almost doing it and then not, if they don't make you happy. But maman wouldn't leave me just for something she wanted. "
Would she?
Is there anything she would want more than me?
Ollie?
"There's ways to Get someone that way, " she said, "instead of just Working them. You get them to get in trouble. It's not real hard. Except you have to know—"
What can get Giraud in trouble?
What could I get instead if I could Work him like that?
"—you have to know the same things: who are they, how many are there, what have they got? It's the same thing. But you can find out by Working them a littleand then watching what they do. "
Their eyes never left her. They were learning, that was what, they were paying attention the way azi could, and they would never ask questions until she was done.
"Me, " she said, thinking carefully about how much she was giving away, "I don't give anybody anything I don't have to. They take Nelly in and they ask her stuff and she'll tell them right off. I can't Work that. I wish I could. But if they try to take you, I'll Work them good. It's easier. Uncle Denys said you're mine. So if Security tells you to go to hospital, you go right to me first. That's an order. All right?"
"Yes, sera. " One movement, one nod at the same time.
"But, " Florian said, "we're not like Nelly. Nobody but you can give us orders. They'd have to go to you first and you have to tell us. That's the Rule, because otherwise we're supposed to Get them. "
She had not known that. She had never even suspected that. It made her feel a lot better in one way, and feel threatened in another. Like everything had always been a lot more serious than she had thought. And they had always known. "If you come to me, I'll tell them no. But they're stronger than you are. "
"That's so, " Catlin said. "But that's the Rule. And they know it. Nobody else's orders. "
She drew a long breath. "Even if uncle Denys is a Super. "
"Not for us, " Catlin said. "You told us mind him. And Nelly. We'll do that. But if it's any big thing we come to you. "
"You come to me first after this, if it's anything more than a 'pick that up. ' You don't go anywhere they tell you and you don't go with anybody they tell you, until after you tell me. "
"Good. If you tell us that, that's the Rule. "
"You be sneaky about it. Don't fight. Just get away. "
"That's smart. That's real good, sera. "
"And you don't ever, ever tell on me, no matter who asks. You lie if you have to. You be real smooth and then you come and tell me what they asked. "
"Yes, sera. " Both of them nodded, definitely.
"Then I'll tell you a big secret. I never tell anybody everything. Like on my exam this morning. I could have put down more. But I won't. You don't let anybody but me know what you really know. "
"Is that a Rule?"
"That's a big Rule. There's a boy named Sam: I used to play with him. He's the one that gave me the bug. He's not real smart, but everybody likes Sam—and I figured out it's easier to beSam most of the time. That way I can get a lot of people to be nicer: that way even stupid people can understand everything I need them to if I'm going to Work them. But they can't know you're not like that, you can't let them find out from anybody. So you do it all the time. I learned that from Sam and uncle Denys. He does it. He's smart, he always uses little words, and he's real good at getting points on people. That's one thing you do. You don't want them to know you're doing it unless that's part of the Working. And we don't. So here's what we do. We start being real nice to Giraud. But not right off. The first thing we do is shake him up. Then we let him yell, then we act like he yelled too much, then we get him to do something nice to make up for it. Then he won't be surprised when we start being nice, because he thinks he's Working us.That's how you Work an Older. "
"That's sneaky, " Catlin said, and actually grinned.
"I'll tell you another secret. I've been counting What's Unusuals. It's Unusual that people Disappear. It's Unusual that maman didn't tell me she was going or even say goodbye. It's Unusual Nelly goes to the hospital all the time. It's Unusual a CIT kid has two azi to Super. It's Unusual I have to get my blood tested every few days. It's Unusual I go to adult parties and other kids don't. It's Unusual I'm so smart. It's Unusual you're on a job when you're still kids. I'm still counting the Unusuals. I think there's a lot of them. A whole lot. I want you to think and tell me all the ones you know. And tell what you can do to find out stuff without getting caught. "
vi
The plane touched and braked and rolled toward the terminal, and Grant gave a sigh of profoundest relief, watching it from the windows.
There was still a lot to wait through: there was a Decon procedure for anything coming in from the other hemisphere, not just the passengers having to go through Decontamination, but the luggage had to be treated and searched, and the plane itself had to be hosed down and fumigated.
That was starting when Grant left the windows and walked over to the Decon section and stationed himself outside the white doors, hands locked between his knees, flexing and clenching—nervous tic, that. You have a lot of tension, a Supervisor would tell him, who saw it.
A Supervisor could say that about any CIT anytime, Grant reckoned. Flux-thinking bred it. Azi-mindset said: there's not enough data to solve the problem, and the sane and sensible azi filed it and blanked out to rest or worked on another problem. A CIT threw himself at a data-insufficient problem over and over, exploring the flux in his perceptions and shades of value in his opinions, and touching off his endocrine system, which in turn brought up his flux-capable learning—which hyped the integrative processes in the flux. He was doing too much of it lately for his liking. He hated the stress level CITs lived at.
And here he was sitting here worrying about four and five problems at once, simply because he had become an adrenaline addict.
The white doors opened. Part of the crew came out. They ignored him and walked on down the hall.
Then the doors opened again, and Justin came through. Grant got up, caught the relief and the delight in Justin's expression and went and hugged him because Justin offered him open arms.
"Are you all right?" Grant asked.
"I'm fine. Jordan's fine. " Justin pulled him out of the way of more people coming out the doors, and walked with him behind them. "Got to pick up my briefcase and my bag, " he said, and they walked to Baggage, where it was waiting, fogged, irradiated, and, Grant reckoned, searched and scanned, case and light travel bag alike.
"I'll carry them, " Grant said.
"I've got them. " Justin gathered everything up and they walked to the doors, to the waiting bus that would take them up to the House.
"Was it a good trip?" Grant said, when they were where no eavesdropper could likely pick it up, going out the doors into the dark.
"It was, " Justin said, and gave the bags to the azi baggage handler.
Security was in the bus, ordinary passengers like themselves, from this point. They sat down, last aboard. The driver shut the doors and Justin slumped in the seat as the bus pulled out of the lighted portico of the terminal and headed up toward the house.
"I got to talk to Jordan. We stayed up all night. Just talking. We both wished you were there. "
"So do I. "
"It's a lot better there than I thought it was. A lot worse in some ways and a lot better. There's a good staff. Really fine people. He's getting along a lot better than I thought he would. And Paul is fine. Both of them. " Justin was a little hoarse. Exhausted. He leaned his head on the seat-back and said: "He's going to look at my projects. He says at least there's something there that the computers aren't handling. That he's interested and he's not just saying that to get me there. There's a good chance I can go back before the year's out. Maybe you too. Or you instead. He'd really like to see you. "
"I'm glad, " Grant said.
There was not much they could say, in detail. He wasglad. Glad when they pulled up in the portico of the House, checked in through the front door, and Justin doggedly, stubbornly, insisted to carry his own baggage, tired as he was.
"You don't carry my bags, " Justin snapped at him, hoarsely.
Because Justin hated him playing servant in public, even when he was trying to do him an ordinary favor.
But Justin let him take them and put them over against the wall when they were inside, in their own apartment, and Justin took his coat off and fell onto the couch with a sigh. "It was good, " he said. "All the way. It's hard to believe I was there. Or that I'm back. It's so damned different. "
"Whiskey?"
"A little one. I slept on the plane. I'm out, already. "
Grant smiled at him, Justin half-nodding with time-lag. He went and fixed the whiskey, never mind now that he was playing servant. He made two of them.
"How's it been here?" Justin asked, and there was a small upset at Grant's stomach.
"Fine, " he said. "Just fine. " The upset was more when he brought the drink and gave it into Justin's hand.
Justin took it. His hand shook when he drank a sip of it, and Justin looked up at him with the most terrible, weary look. And smiled with the same expression as he lifted the glass in a wry toast. There was no way for either of them to know, of course, whether the other had been tampered with.
But that was all right: there was nothing either of them could do about it, if Security had done anything. There was nothing, Grant thought, worth the fight for either of them if that was the case.
Grant lifted his glass the same way, and drank.
Then he went to the bedroom and pulled a note out from under Justin's pillow. He brought it back to him.
If I'm showing this to you,it said, I'm in my right mind. If I didn't, and you just found it, I'm not. Be warned.
Justin looked at him in frightened surmise. And then in earnest question.
Grant smiled at him, wadded up the note, and sat down to drink his whiskey.
vii
It wasn't hard at all to get out the kitchen way. They didn't go together. Catlin and Florian went first because they were Security and the kitchen staff wouldn't know they shouldn't: Security went everywhere.
Then Ari went in. She Worked her way through, made herself a pest to the azi who was mixing up batter, and got a taste, then went over to the azi chopping up onions and said it made her cry. So she went out onto the kitchen steps and dived right off and down, and ran fast to get down the hill, where the hump was Florian and Catlin told her about.
She slid down on her back and rolled over and grinned as they looked at her, lying on their stomachs too.
"Come on, " Catlin said then. She was being Team Leader. She was the best at sneaking.
So they followed her, slithered down to the back of the pump building where she stripped off her blouse and her pants and put on the ones Florian gave her, azi-black. Getting shoes that fit was harder, so she had bought some black boots on uncle Denys' card that worked all right if nobody looked close. And she was wearing those. Florian got her card off her blouse and taped a black band across the bottom and a mark like the azi triangle in the CIT blank.
"Do I look right?" she said when she had clipped the card on.
"Face, " Catlin said. So she made an azi face, very stiff and formal.
"That's good, " Catlin said.
And Catlin slithered over, looked around the corner of the pump building, then got up and walked out. They followed Catlin as far as the road, and then they just walked together like they belonged there.
It was going to take them a while to miss her up at the House, Ari thought, and then Security was going to get real upset.
Meanwhile she had never seen the Town except from the House, and she wished they could walk faster, because she wanted to see as much as she could before they got caught.
Or before she decided to go back, somewhere around dark. It was going to be fun at the same time as it was not going to be: it was going to be a lot of trouble, but she really hoped they could sneak back up and get her clothes, and just sneak back in by the kitchen, when everyone was really in a panic. But that might look too smart, and that might make them watch her too close.
It was better to be Sam, and get caught.
That way she would say she made her azi do it, and that would work, because they had to take her orders, and everybody knew that. So they wouldn't get in any trouble. She would. And that was what she wanted.
She just wanted to have a little fun before they caught her.
viii
The problem was running, the computer working timeshare on a Beta-class design and going slow this morning, because Yanni Schwartz had the integrative set running: everyone else got a lower priority. So Justin leaned back, got up, poured himself a cup of coffee, and filled Grant's empty cup, Grant working away at his terminal in that kind of fixed concentration that was not going to lose that chain of thought if the ceiling fell around him.
Grant reached over without even looking away from the screen, picked up the coffee cup and took a sip.
Someone arrived in the door, brusque, abrupt, and more than one. Justin's ears had already registered that as he looked around, saw Security black, and had a man in his office, two others behind him.
Muscles tightened, gut tightened in panic.
"You're wanted in Security, " the man said.
"What for?"
"No questions. Just come with us. "
He thought of the hot coffee in his hands, and Grant hadnoticed, Grant was getting up from his chair, as another Security guard moved in behind the first.
"Let's go straighten this out, " Justin said calmly, and put the cup down.
"Let me shut down, " Grant said.
"Now!" the officer said.
"My program—"
"Grant, " Justin said, articulate, he did not know how. It was happening, the thing he had been expecting for a long, long time; and he thought of doing them all the damage he could. But it could be something he could talk his way out of. Whatever it was. And there was, whatever else, enough force at Reseune Administration's disposal to take care of two essentially sedentary tape-designers, however well-exercised.
The only thing he could hope for was to keep the situation calm, the way he had mapped it out in his mind years ago. He kept his hands in sight, he got himself and Grant peacefully out the door, he walked with the Security guards without complaint, to take the lift down to the basement storm-tunnel.
The lift door opened, they walked out as the guards directed. "Hands on the wall, " the officer said.
"Grant, " he said, catching Grant by the arm, feeling the tension. "It's all right. We'll sort it out. "
He turned to the wall himself, waited while two of them searched Grant for weapons and put on the handcuffs, then took his own turn. "I don't suppose, " he said calmly as he could with his face against the wall and his arms pulled behind him, "you people know what this is about. "
"Come along, " the officer said, and faced him about again.
No information. After that at least the guards were less worried.
Keep to the script. Cooperate. Stay calm and give absolutely no trouble.
Through a locked door into a Security zone, lonelier and lonelier in the concrete corridors. He had never seen this part of Reseune's storm-tunnels in all his life, and he hoped to hell they weregoing to Security.
Another locked door, and a lift, with the designation SECURITY 10N on the opposing wall: he was overwhelmingly glad to see that sign.
Up, then, with extraordinary abruptness. The doors opened on a hall he did know, the back section of Security, a hall that figured in his nightmares.
"This is familiar, " he said lightly, to Grant; and suddenly the guards were pulling Grant off toward one of the side rooms and himself off down the hall, toward an interview room he remembered.
"Don't we get checked in?" he asked, fighting down the panic, walking with them on legs suddenly gone shaky. "I hate to complain, but you're violating procedures all the way through this. "
Neither of them spoke to him. They took him into the room, made him sit down in a hard chair facing the interview desk, and stayed there, grim and silent, behind him.
Someone else came in behind him. He turned his head and twisted to see who it was. Giraud.
"Thank God, " Justin said, half meaning it. "I'm glad to see somebody who knows the answers around here. Whatin hell's going on, do you mind?"
Giraud walked on to the desk and sat down on the corner of it. Positional intimidation. Moderate friendliness. "You tell me. "
"Look, Giraud, I'm not in any position to know a thing. I'm working in my office, these fellows come in and haul me over here, and I haven't even seen the check-in desk. What's going on here?"
"Where did you go for lunch?"
"I skipped lunch. We both did. We worked right through. Come on, Giraud, what does lunch have to do with anything?"
"Ari's missing. "
"What do you mean missing?" His heart started doubling its beats, hammering in his chest. "Like—late from lunch? Or missing?"
"Maybe you know. Maybe you know all about it. Maybe you lured her outside. Maybe she just went with a friend. "
"God. No. "
"Something Jordan and you set up?"
"No. Absolutely not. My God, Giraud, ask the guards at Planys,there wasn't a time we weren't watched. Not a moment. "
"That they remember, no. "
It hadreached to Jordan. He stared at Giraud, having trouble breathing.
"We're going over your apartment, " Giraud said calmly. "Never mind your rights, son, we're not being recorded. I'll tell you what we've found. Ari went out the kitchen door, all right. We found her clothes at the back of the pump station. "
"My God. " Justin shook his head. "No. I don't know anything. "
"That's a wide shore down there, " Giraud said. "Easy for someone to land and get in. Is that what happened? You get the girl out to a meeting, where you don't show up, but someone else does?"
"No. No. No such thing. She's probably playing a damn prank,Giraud, it's a damn kid escapade—didn't you ever dodge out of the House when you were a kid?"
"We're searching the shore. We've got patrols up. You understand, we're covering all the routes. "
"I wouldn't hurt that kid! I wouldn't do it, Giraud. "
Giraud stared at him, face flushed, with a terrible, terrible restraint. "You'll understand we're not going to take your word. "
"I understand that. Dammit, I want the kid found as much as you do. "
"I doubt that. "
"I'll consent. Giraud, I'll give you a consent, just for God's sake let Grant be with me. "
Giraud got up.
"Giraud, does it cost you anything? Let him be here. Is that so much? Giraud, for God's sake, let him be here!"
Giraud left in silence. "Bring the other one, " Giraud told someone in the hall.
Justin leaned against the chair arm, broken out in cold sweat, not seeing the floor, seeing Ari's apartment, seeing it in flashes that wiped out here and now. Hearing the opening of doors, the shouts in distance, the echoes of footsteps coming his way. Grant, he hoped. He hoped to God it was Grant first, and not the tech with the hypo.
ix
Olders passed them on the sidewalk and Ari kept on being azi, did just what Florian and Catlin did, made the little bow, and kept going.
They were not the only kids. There were youngers who bowed to them, solemn and earnest. And one group hardly more than babies following an Older leader in red, the youngers all in blue, all solemnly holding each other's hands.
"This is Blue, " Florian said as they walked along past the string of youngers. "Mostly youngers here. I was in that building right over there when I was a Five. "
They took the walk between the buildings, going farther and farther from the road that ran through the Town.
They had already seen Green Barracks, outside, because it would be hard to get out without questions, Catlin said; and they had seen the training field; and the Industry section, and they walked up and looked in the door of the thread mill; and the cloth mill; and the metal shop; and the flour mill.
The next sign on the walk was green, and then white in green. It was real easy to find a place in the town: she knew how to do it now. She knew the color sequence, and how the Town was laid out in sections, and how you could say, like they were now, red-to-white-to-brown-to-green, and you just remembered the string. That meant you went tored from where you were, and then you looked for red with a white square, and so on.
The next was a huge building, bigger than the mills, and they had come to the very end of the Town: fields were next, with fences that went all the way to the North Cliffs and the precip towers.
So they stood right at the edge, and looked out through the fences, where azi worked and weeded with the sniffer-pigs.
"Are there platytheres out there?" Ari asked. "Have you ever seen one?"
"I haven't, " Florian said. "But they're out there. " He pointed to where the cliffs touched the river. "That's where they come from. They've put concrete there. Deep. That stops them so far. "
She looked all along the fence to the river, and looked along the other way, toward the big barn. There were big animals there, in a pen, far away. "What are those?"
"Cows. They feed them there. Come on. I know something better. "
"Florian, " Catlin said. "That's risky. "
"What's risky?" Ari said.
Florian knew a side door to the barn. It was dark inside with light coming from open doors at the middle and down at the far end. The air was strange, almost good and not quite bad, like nothing she had ever smelled. The floor was dirt, and feed-bins, Florian called them, lined either wall. Then there were stalls. There was a goat in one.
Ari went to the rail and looked at it up close. She had seen goats and pigs up by the House, but never up close, because she was not supposed to go out on the grounds. It was white and brown. Its odd eyes looked at her, and she stared back with the strangest feeling it was thinking about her, it was alive and thinking, the way not even an AI could.
"Come on, " Catlin whispered. "Come on, they'll see us. "
She hurried with Catlin and Florian, ducked under a railing when Florian did, and followed him through a door and through a dark place and out another door into the daylight, blinking with the change.
There was a pen in front of them, and a big animal that jangled tape-memory, tapes of Earth, story-tapes of a long time ago.
"He's Horse, " Florian said, and stepped up and stood on the bottom rail.
So did she. She leaned her elbows on the top rail as Catlin stepped up beside her, and just stared with her heart thumping.
He snorted and threw his head, making his mane toss. That was what you called it. A mane. He had hooves, but not like the pigs and the goats. He had a white diamond on his forehead.
"Wait, " Florian said, and dived off the rail and went back in. He came back out with a bucket, and Horse's ears came up, Horse came right over and put his head over to the rail to eat out of the bucket.
Ari climbed a rail higher and put out her hand and stroked his fur. He smelled strong, and he felt dusty and very solid. Solid like Ollie. Solid and warm, like nothing in her life since Ollie.
"Has he got a saddle and a bridle?" she asked.
"What's that?" Florian asked.
"So you can ride him. "
Florian looked puzzled, while Horse battered away with his head in the bucket Florian was holding. "Ride him, sera?"
"Work him close to the corner. "
Florian did, so that Horse was very close to the rail. She climbed up to the last, and she put her leg out and just pushed off and landed on Horse's back.
Horse moved, real sudden, and she grabbed the mane to steer with. He felt—wonderful. Really strong, and warm.
And all of a sudden he gave a kind of a bounce and ducked his head and bounced again, really hard, so she flew off, up into the air and down again like she didn't weigh anything, the sky and the fence whirling until it was just ground.
Bang.
She was on her face, mostly. It hurt and it didn't hurt, like part of her was numb and all her bones were shaken up.
Then Catlin's voice: "Don't touch her! Careful!"
"I'm all right, " she said, tasting blood and dust, but it was hard to talk, her breath was mostly gone and her stomach hurt. She moved her leg and tried to get up on her arm, and then it really hurt.
"Look out, look out, sera, don't!" Florian's knee was right in her face, and that was good, because the pain took her breath and she fell right onto his leg instead of facedown in the dirt. "Catlin, get help! Get Andy! Fast!"
"I think I needed a saddle, " she said, thinking about it, trying not to snivel or to throw up, because she hurt all through her bones, worse than she had ever hurt, and her shoulder and her stomach were worst. There was still dust in her mouth. She thought her lip was cut. "Help me up, " she told Florian, because lying that way hurt her back.
"No, sera, please, don't move, your arm's broken. "
She tried to move on her own, to get a look at what a broken arm looked like. But she was hurting worse and worse, and she thought she would throw up if she tried.
"What did Horse do?" she asked Florian. She could not figure that.
"He just flipped his hind legs up and you flew off. I don't think he meant to, I really don't, he isn't mean. "
There were people running. She heard them, she tried to move and see them, but Florian was in the way until they were all around, azi voices, quiet and concerned, telling her the meds were coming, warning her not to move.
She wished she could get up. It was embarrassing to be lying in the dirt with everyone hovering over her and her not able to see them.
She figured Giraud was going to yell, all right; that part would work real well.
She just wished the meds would hurry.
x
Grant sat with his back braced against the padded wall, with a cramp in his folded legs gone all the way to pain under Justin's weight, but he was not about to move, not about to move even his hands, one on Justin's shoulder, one on Justin's forehead, that kept him stable and secure. No movement in the cell, no sound, while the drug slowly ebbed away.
Security would not leave them unattended. There were two guards in the soundproofed, glass-walled end of this recovery cell. Rules, they said, did not permit anyone but a physician with a detainee in recovery. But Giraud had not regarded any of the rules this far. He did whatever he wanted; and permission was easy for him, an afterthought.
Justin was awake, but he was still in that de-toxing limbo where the least sensation, the least sound magnified itself and echoed. Grant kept physical contact with him, talked to him now and again to reassure him. "Justin. It's Grant. I'm here. How are you doing?"
"All right. " Justin's eyes half-opened. "Are you clearer now?"
A little larger breath. "I'm doing all right. I'm still pretty open. "
"I've got you. Nothing's going on. I've been here all the time. "
"Good, " Justin murmured, and his eyes drifted shut again. Beyond that Grant did not attempt to go. Giraud had limited the questioning to the visit with Jordan and the possibility of Justin's involvement in Ari's disappearance. To reassure Justin there would be no more questions would be dangerous. There might be. To encourage him to talk, when they were likely being taped—was very dangerous, tranked as he was. Giraud had asked: "How do you feel about young Ari?" And Justin had said, with all his thresholds flat: "Sorry for her. " There was motion in the glass-walled booth. Grant looked up, saw Denys Nye in the room with the guards, saw them exchange words, saw the guards come and open the door into the recovery cell to let Denys in.
Grant gave Denys a hard look, locked his arms across Justin, and bent close to his ear: "Justin. Ser Denys is here, easy, I have you, I won't leave. "
Justin was aware. His eyes opened.
Denys walked very quietly for so large a man. He came close and stopped, leaning near, speaking very softly. "They've found Ari. She's all right. "
Justin's chest moved in a gasp after air. "Is that true?" he asked. "Grant, is he telling the truth?"
Grant glared at Denys, at a round, worried face, and gave up a little of his anger. "I think he may be. " He tightened his arms again so Justin could feel his presence.
"It's true, " Denys said and leaned closer, keeping his voice very, very quiet. "Justin, I'm terribly sorry. Truly I am. We'll make this up to you. " Justin's heart was hammering under his hand. "Easy, " Grant said, his own heart racing while he sorted Denys' words for content. And then because he had never felt so much unadulterated anger in his entire life. "How are you going to do that, ser?" he said to Denys softly, so softly. "The child is safe. What about the rest of Reseune's resources? You're fools,ser. You've risked a mind whose limits you don't even know, you've persecuted him all his life, and you treat him as if he were the perpetrator of every harm in Reseune—when he's never, never, inhis entire life—done harm to any human being, when Yanni Schwartz could tell you they took him offreal-time because he couldn't stand people suffering. Where's Reseune's vast expertise in psychology, when it can't tell that he isn't capable of harming anyone,not even the people who make his life hell?"
"Grant, " Justin murmured, "Grant, —"
Denys' brow furrowed. "No, " he said in a hushed voice, "I know, I know, I'm sorry is too little, and far too late. Grant is quite right. You're going home now, you're going home. Please. Believe me. We did find Ari. She's in hospital, she had a fall, but everything's all right. She ran away on her own, disguised herself—it was a childish prank, absolutely nothing you had anything to do with, we know that. I won't stay here, I know I have no business here, but I felt I had to tell you Ari's all right. I believed you'd want to know that because you don'twant any harm to her, and God knows you deserve some courtesy after this. I mean it. I'll make this up somehow, I promise that. I let too much go on for security'ssake, and it's not going to go on happening. I promise that, too. " He put a hand on Grant's shoulder. "Grant, there's a group of meds coming here. They'll take him the tunnel route, over to your Residency, they'll take him home, if that's what he wants. Or he can rest here till he recovers. Whatever he wants. "
