Текст книги "Cyteen "
Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh
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Come in here without Grant, too. That,when he knew he was potentially in trouble.
Damn, possibilities multiplied ad infinitum when it involved motives and an unacknowledged Special whose stresses came from everywhere and everyone—not least the fact that she had Worked him under kat, grabbed hold of things which were profoundly important to him and tried, at least, to tie up the old threads—far as one could in a mind that had changed so much since Ari's notes; and considering the psychological difference of their reversed ages.
Very tangled. Very, very tangled.
"You've messed up work of mine," she said. "You've made me problems. I've got reason to be mad. And I supported you out there, dammit."
"Yes," he said. "Which I hoped you'd do."
"It's a damn mess." She swallowed down any assurances she could give of Jordan's safety. Or how she knew. Frustrating as it was to look like a fool, better that than be one. "Dammit, you've put me at odds with Giraud. I don't see why I should have to handle problems you've made me because you could betray my interests and trust I'd forgive you. That's a hell of a thing."
"I didn't have a choice."
"You damn well did! You could have told me."
He shook his head, slowly.
"You're really pushing me, Justin. You're damn well pushing me."
"I didn't have a choice."
"And now I've got to cooperate and keep Giraud's hands off you or he'll blow your whole little scheme, is that it?"
"Something like. What else can I say? I hope you will. I hopeyou will; and I don't hope for too much in my life."
"Thanks."
He nodded, once, ironically.
"So you get off cheap," she said. "You get everything you want and you don't even have to go to bed with me."
"Ari, I didn't mean that."
"I know. Not fair."
There was a deep-link in his sets—to Ari. And she knew that. Knew that it was active, in this place, at this time.
That it was double-hooked. He hoped to snare her into it—to irritate Giraud. He was still maneuvering: she knew where it was going.
But there were deeper hooks than he knew.
"You want me to?" he asked.
"I don't know," she said. Then: "No. Not like it was pay for something. There's a security wall down the hall. There's a guest accommodation on the other side. You go there. Florian will get you through. I'll call Grant to come up. Florian and Catlin will supervise Housekeeping, shutting down your apartment, packing up what you'll need. If they leave anything out, you can go back with them to get it."
He looked shocked.
"You want my help," she said, "it does cost. It costs you the apartment you have. It costs you your independence. It costs you convenience the way it costs me. But you're not going to go into Security and you're damn sure not going to spill what you know about me to Giraud either. Which is the other part of your threat, isn't it?"
"I don't know what I know—"
"I'm sure you could figure it. You come and go through that security door; your cards will admit you. You'll move into Wing One facilities, and I don't know who I'm going to have to bump to make room for you, but you're going inside Wing One security, and inside my security; and I don't want any argument about it."
"None," he said quietly.
x
"Grant is here,"the Minder said, and Justin leapt up off the couch, was at the door almost before Grant could open it, as Grant came alone into the apartment.
"Are you all right?" Grant asked, first-off.
"Fine," Justin said, and embraced him. "Thank God. No trouble?"
Grant shook his head, and drew a breath. "I got the call, I told Em hold the office down—I walked out into the hall and Catlin picked me up. Walked me all the way to the lift. She said she'd go to the apartment and bring essentials and anything we call down for."
No questions, nothing. Habit of half a lifetime. "We can talk," Justin said, realizing that fact—that there was nothing, now, that could be secret if Ari wanted it, nothing that anyone butAri was going to reach, here, in this place. It was a moment of vertigo, old cautions tumbling away into dark on either side. The thought shook him, left him lonely for reasons he could not understand. "God, it's not home, is it?"
Grant held on to him. He felt himself shivering, suddenly, he had no notion why, or what he feared, specifically, only that nothing seemed certain any longer . . . not even their habits of self-defense.
Not home. Not the place he had always lived, not the obscurity they had tried to maintain. They were closer and closer to the center of Reseune.
"No probe," he said. "Ari asked why—reasonable question. I told her. This is her notion of increased security. I've got to show you around this place. You won't believe it."
He got control of his nerves, turned Grant around and gave him the full perspective of the living room and dining room.
It was a huge apartment by any standards: a front hall mostly stone, roofed in plasticized woolwood; a sitting-room with a gray sectional, black glass tables; and beyond that a dining hall with white tile, white walls, black and white furnishings– My God,Justin's first thought had been, an emotional impact of stark coldness, an irrational: one red pillow, anything, to save your sanity in this damn place—
"It's—quite large," Grant said, —diplomatically, he thought: "isn't it?"
"Come on," he said, and took Grant the tour.
It was better in the halls, pastel blues and greens leading off to a frost-green kitchen and a white hall to a suite of rooms in grays and blues—a lot of gray stone, occasional brown. A sybaritic bath in black and silver, mirrored. Another one, white and frost-green glass.
"My God," Grant said, when he opened another door on the master bedroom, black and black glass and white, huge bed. "Five people could sleep in that."
"They probably have," Justin said. And suffered a moment of flashback, a bad one. "They promise us sheets and supplies. There's some sort of scanning system they run things through, even our clothes. It puts some kind of marker on it. If we pass the door with anything that hasn't gone through scan—"
"Alarm sounds. Catlin explained that. Right down to the socks and underwear." Grant shook his head and looked at him. "Was she angry?"
He did not mean Catlin. Justin nodded. "Somewhat. God knows she's got a right to be, considering. But she's willing to listen. At least—that."
Grant said nothing. But the silence itself was eloquent as the little muscle twitch in the eyes toward the overhead. Do we worry about monitoring?
Because Grant knew—Grant knew everything that he had confessed to Ari and then some, as far as their intention to divert Giraud. But there were things between himself and Ari he could not say where monitoring might exist, things she might go after under probe, but he could not bring them out, coldly, and have her know that Grant knew: the feeling he had had in that room in Ari's apartment, the shifting between then and now—
The gut-deep feeling—passing at every other blink between then and now; to look into Ari's eyes gone by turns young and old—knowing, for the first time since he was younger than she was now—that the sexual feelings that haunted every touch of other human beings, every dealing he had with humanity—had a focus, had always had a specific, drug-set focus—
He might have gone to bed with her. He could have gone to bed with her—in one part of his imagining. More, he had wantedto, for about two heartbeats—until he had flashed, badly, waiting on her answer, and known that he would panic; and was caught somewhere between a fevered hope of her and a sweating terror. As if she was the key.
Or the destruct.
God, what has she done to me?
What keys has she got?
"Justin?" Grant said, and caught his arm. "Justin, —"
He held to Grant's shoulder and shuddered. "O God, Grant. . . ."
"What's wrong?" Grant's fingers gripped the back of his neck, pressed hard. "Justin?"
His heart raced. He lost vision for a moment, broken out in sweat, feeling himself nowhere at all, if Grant were not holding to him.
That's what Ari wanted—all those years ago. Wanted me—fixed on her—
I've lost everything, dragged Grant and Jordan with me—
This is all there'll ever be, sweet—
Worm. Psychmaster. She was the best there ever was—
Pleasure and pain. Deep-set links—
His heart made a few deep, painful beats. But he could adjust to that, the way he adjusted to everything, always. Life was,that was all. One lived.
Even knowing that the worst thing that had been done to him all those years ago was not sexual. Sex was only the leverage.
Endocrine-learning and flux, applied full-force, the kind of wrench that could take a vulnerable, frightened kid and twist him sideways into another research, another path for his entire existence.
She saw to my birth.
One could live. Even with the ground dropping out from under one's feet. Even with black space all around.
"What did she do?" Grant asked him, a sane, worried voice out of that mental dark, a hard pressure around him, at the back of his neck. "Justin?"
"She gave me the keys a long time ago," he murmured. "I knew, dammit, I knew—I should have seen. . . ."
Things began to focus then. Vision came back, the edge of Grant's shoulder, the stark black and white room that was not home, the knowledge that, foreseeably, they would not go back to the friendly, familiar apartment with the brown stone and the little breakfast nook that had always seemed safe, no matter what they knew about Security monitoring. . . .
"She knew she was dying, Grant. She was the best damned analyst going– She could read a subject like no one I ever saw. D'you think she never knew Giraud?"
"Ari senior?" Grant asked.
"Ari. She knew Giraud was no genius. She knew who would follow her. Do you think she didn't know them better than we do? Ari said—I was the only one who could teach her. The only one.That she needs my work. And she's working off Ari's notes, doing what Ari told her to do ... all down the line."
Grant pushed him back. He stared up into Grant's worried face, seeing it as a stranger would, in an objective way he had never looked at Grant, the unlikely perfection—Ari's handiwork too, from his genesets to his psychset.
Everything was, everything. No good, any longer, in fighting the design.
Even Grant was part of it. He was snared, he had always been.
She wanted Jordan. Jordan failed her. She saw to my creation. Designed Grant.
Fixed me on her—in one damnable stroke—
Everything's connected to everything—
Field too large, field too large—
"Justin?"
God, is the kid that good, does she know what she's doing to me?
Whose hand was on the switch in there? Which Ari? Does it even matter—that one could set a path that sure—that the other could operate, just take it up and go—
Grant seized his face between his hands, popped a light slap against his cheek. "Justin!"
"I'm all right," he said.
I'm scaring hell out of him. But I'm not scared. Just—
Cold as hell now. Calm.
Helps, when you know the truth, doesn't it?
"—I'm all right. Just—went a little sideways for a moment." He patted Grant's shoulder, distanced himself a few steps and looked down the hall, the strange, not-home hallway. "Like—I'd waked up. Like—for a moment—I could just shake it all off. Think right past it." He felt Grant's hand on his shoulder, and he acknowledged it with a pressure of his own—scared again, because he was alone where he was standing, and Grant wanted to be with him, but he was not sure Grant could be—that anyone could be. And Ari was out so far ahead of him, in territory that was hers and her predecessor's, in places that he could not reach.
Places Jordan had never been.
Ultimate isolation.
"Our poor kid," he murmured, "isAri. Damn, she is. No one ever caught up to her. She's going out into that place no one else can get to and no one can really speak to. That's what's going to happen to her. Happening to me . . . sometimes." He blinked and tried to come back. To see the lights again. The damned stark decor. Black and white dining room down the hall. "God, Housekeeping's got to have a red vase or something, doesn't it? Pillows. Pictures. Something."
"What are you talking about?" Grant asked.
The Super's training tried to assert itself. Get yourself together. You're scaring him."Flux. Not a damn thing human in this apartment. Until we get a few things up from ours. Things with color. Things that are us.God, this place is like a bath in ice water."
"Is that what's the matter?"
"Something like." He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his eyes of the fog and focus short-range. "Maybe just—thinking this was where we would have ended up, if Ari had lived a little longer. This would have been ours."
"Justin, what in hell are you talking about?"
"Common sense. Ari didn't want to ruin Jordan. She needed his abilities. She was dying. She knew the Nyes for pragmatic sons of bitches. Conservative as hell. She wasn't. And theywere going to have her successor. Don't you think she worried about that? And if she'd had two more years, even six more months, I think—I damn well know—I wouldn't have been what she took in. I might have been able to fight Giraud. Might have had some input into Ari's upbringing. Might be in Administration, might be high in the Bureau, by now, maybe sitting in Peterson's chair, who knows?"
Now—I'm not that person.
But Ari's following her predecessor's program. Following her notes.
Its a dangerous course for her. If Ari hasn't the perspective to figure that out, to figureme out—it's very dangerous.
Not because I wish her harm.
Because I can't help it. I have ties—I can't shed.
"I don't want to hurt her, Grant."
"Is there a question of it?"
It was too much to say. Ari had sworn there was no monitoring, but that was only the truth she wished were so: her capabilities were another story. Ari would lie by telling what she wished instead of what she would do: Ari had confessed that to him—manipulative in that admission as in anything else she did. Never take me for simple . . . in any sense.
"No," he answered Grant. "Not by anything Iwant."
Are you listening, Ari?
Do you hear what I'm saying?
xi
"Message,"the Minder said, waking Ari out of sleep, and waking Florian.
"Coded private, Base Three."
Giraud.
Giraud was in Novgorod. Or had been when she went to sleep.
"Damn," she said; and rolled out of bed and searched for her slippers and her robe.
"Shall I get up, sera?"
"Go back to sleep," she said. "It's just Giraud going through the overhead. What else did I expect? Probably one from Denys too. . . ."
She found one slipper and the other as she put her arms into the sleeves, found the sashes and lapped them. "A little light," she said, "dammit, Minder. Eight seconds. On in the hall."
The room light came up a little, enough to see her way to the door, while—a backward glance—Florian pulled the covers over his head and burrowed into the dark. Eight seconds. She opened the door to the outside, blinking in brighter light, rubbing her eyes, as the light faded behind her.
She shut the door, and saw Catlin in the hall, in her nightrobe, her hair loose. "Back to bed," she told Catlin. "Just Giraud."
Catlin vanished.
She wanted a cup of something warm. But she was not about to rouse either of them: they had worked themselves to exhaustion getting Justin packed and upstairs before the rest of House Security could get at Justin's belongings or Justin's notes, and getting enough essentials through the Residency scanners to give them a choice of clothing and the basics for breakfast and to put their working notes into their hands again—after which, she reckoned, Justin might be a good deal happier.
Giraud certainly would not be.
She went into her office, tucked up in the chair and said, "Minder, message. I'm alone."
"Message, Base Three to Base One. Ari, this is Giraud."
All right, all right. Who else?
"Abban's flying down with this tape and flying back again tonight. He'll probably be on his way back to the airport by the time the system's alerted you. I can't afford this time. He can't. But I expect you know what's got me upset."
Three guesses, uncle Giraud? Is this about the dance?
Or have you heard your niece's latest?
"I'm terribly worried, Ari. I've made multiple tries at recording this message. The first one wasn't polite. But I think I can understand at least the reasons behind your reasons.
"I'm not going to yell at you. Isn't that what you always used to say: if you're going to yell at me, uncle Giraud, I'm not going to listen.
"We're both too old for that, and this is much too important for temper to get into it. So please, listen to this all the way through. It's ephemeral in the system unless you capture and copy—which you may do. If you do, I leave it to your discretion whether to send it to Archive, but I advise otherwise for reasons which may occur to you. This message is cued only to Base One. Unless I am dangerously mistaken, that will assure you are the only recipient.
"There's been another bombing. You may have heard."
Damn. No.
"Major restaurant. Five dead, nineteen injured. New Year's Day crowds. That's what we're dealing with. Lunatics, Ari. People who don't care about their targets.
"Let me go through this point by point, as logically as I can, why what you've done regarding young Warrick isn't advisable.
"I advised you in the first place against coming to Novgorod. I foresaw a press furor that could well lead to more bombings, and the public is damn tense—putting up with it, surviving, but ready to find a focus for their problems, and I don't want that blood on you, understand. Certainly we don't need to make you a center of controversy.
"Your suggestion to lend enforcement and surveillance help under Reseune's aegis is a damned fine one. I'm ashamed not to have thought of the means: Novgorod city government's touchy and suspicious of anything that massive with Reseune's stamp on it, but they're desperate, and that gives them an alternative to the several other routes they don't want to go—they don't want the precedent of calling on the regular military; they don't have the funds to Contract more personnel. Reseune Security in the subways is bound to be a target, but no sitting target, either—and we can muster enough to handle it: borrow the transport and the weapons from the military, at a level where Novgorod doesn't have to be acutely aware of that connection; shore up Jacques, too: the armed forces are chafing at what they call a do-nothing policy across the board. Success at something, success at anything, would make the whole administration of Union look a damned sight better.
"Which brings up another point, Ari. One I'm no happier talking about than you can imagine—but you and I both know that I'm on the downward slide."Pity, uncle Giraud? Shame on you.
"Just de-charge the situation and listen to me. I want you to start thinking clearly about what in hell you're going to do when I die, because I can assure you your enemies are planning for it.
"Khalid is beyond the two year rule. He could challenge Jacques again now. He could, but he hasn't filed. The Centrists are nominally backing Jacques. They're scared of Khalid: he's not someone they can control and Corain in particular sees Khalid as a clear danger to himself, someone who'd like to take the helm from him—and Corain's no young man any longer. Khalid calls Corain a tired old grandfather . . . behind closed doors, but that kind of thing gets passed along, in private circles.
"Me, he calls a dead man. Not particularly pleasant, but I'm getting used to the idea. He doesn't know yet how right he is."
My God, uncle Giraud. What a view of things! "Look at Council, Ari. Catherine Lao's almost my age. That's your most valuable ally besides Harad and myself. I'm going. Jacques is a very weak figure and Gorodin's grooming a replacement in the senior end of the admiralty board, in a man named Spurlin, able, but very middle-of-the-spectrum, very strictly the interests of his own Bureau, blow anyone else. Are you following this?"Too well. I'm ahead of you.
"I made a terrible mistake, Ari, when I moved against Warrick without consulting you. We crossed one another, and to your damage. I made a further mistake when I didn't level with you then. Now I have reason to suspect you've passed at least my Base..." Oh. Dear.
"... and possibly Denys' as well—either that or you have an uncanny timing. "I confess that threw me. I didn't know then what to do. I'm old and I'm sick and I'm scared, Ari. But I'm not going to get maudlin. Just in that very bright mind of yours, you should realize that your uncles have human weaknesses. I should have taken immediate measures I failed to take. When I was younger I might have done better, but I'm not sure I would have. Doubts like that, you understand, are the bane of any reasoning mind. Do I not act because I see too much and the choices are too wide—or because I just can't make a choice?
"I'm making one now. A desperate one. I'm laying out the truth for you. Jordan Warrick is in direct contact with a man named McCabe, in air systems maintenance, who has direct links to Mikhail Corain's office. I'm appending the entire report into Base One..."
You're supposed to have put all the security reports into House systems, uncle Giraud. And this is totally new. How much else have you held out?
". . . along with all our current files on Planys security. It's quite a mass of information. Suffice it to say, quite honestly, Warrick is repeating an old pattern. You'll find in there a transcript from a meeting of Warrick with Secretary of Defense Lu, back in Gorodin's administration, a very secret transcript, that never came out at the hearings. Warrick was dealing, right before your predecessor's death, for his transfer out to Fargone, and all that goes with it. Warrick was discovered in his scheme. It collapsed. Everything went up in smoke. Ari caught him dealing with Corain and I imagine Ari told him the truth of what was going on with his son.
"Jordan Warrick saw that tape. I can attest to that. Exactly what his professional skills are capable of making out of it, with his own knowledge of his son, I don't know—but I know, you know, young Warrick knows, and I'm damned sure Jordan Warrick knows—that it was more than sexual gymnastics and more than a blackmail trip. He knew at that point that, A, Denys and I wouldn't let him get his son back in his hands to work with; and B, Ari had been working on him for a number of sessions he couldn't estimate. In Jordan Warrick's place, what would you conclude?"
My God, Giraud.
"Jordan Warrick is very well aware of his son's association with you. We've monitored very closely—to know what hedoes know. And what he can see is his son increasingly involved with you, with more and more to lose in any accident to you. That part of what you've done is instinctively correct, Ari. I tried to prevent it in the first place, afraid youwere being an adolescent about the matter, but somewhere in the flux, your instincts are still quite true. And now I remember, as old men will, that Ari was very much the same. So I rely on that; and I warn you: Jordan has never trusted his son. Justin has never understood his father. Justin—is an idealist and an honest man, and as such, he is very useful as an instrument. But he is vulnerable to his father; and his father is your implacable enemy, your enemy on principle, your enemy in his opposition to Reseune and all it stands for. I worry less about your having sex with this man than about your public defense of him—your stripping away the political isolation we've placed him in. We've kept him powerless to harm you. That you might sleep with him is, at this point, an inconsequence. If it would cure the sexual infatuation I would be delighted.
"But bringing this man into prominence in Reseune—is deadly.
"Let me go afield a moment. I know you're able to compass this interconnection of facts.
"Gorodin's medical reports look worse than mine. I don't know about Lao's. I figure that I have, granted nothing goes catastrophically wrong, maybe this year in tolerable health. After that, Lynch is going to have to take more and more of the operations and leave me the decision-making. Which I plan to make you privy to, along with Denys.
"What will happen when I die . . . if I can prevail on my brother to leave Reseune, I'll appoint him proxy and he can stand for election.If. Denys is not taking my death well.
"I haven't thanked you properly for your—vote of confidence in me. Frankly, I'm not sure what the proper response is to finding out I'll be replicated—a little flattered, I suppose, not exactly personally involved, except as it consoles Denys. I'm sure I won't know personally. I'm not even sure that it's true, or that I'm that important, although Denys is, and in the context of my value to him—I can well see there might be a point to it. But if itis true, for God's sake don't make it public. The public can accept the entity you call the cute kid. But I was always a sullen brat, your predecessor would have told you that; and I'm sure you can think what kind of furor it could stir up if my enemies could look forward to another round with Giraud Nye. I suppose Justin does know what you intend. He's altogether too close to your affairs; and I hope to hell he hasn't gotten that word to Jordan; because if he has, it's in Corain's office by now, and I can about swear that will be exactly the route. "I don't want Denys to take guardianship of my replicate. Give that job to Yanni. He's at least as hardheaded as our father was; and I really want Denys in Novgorod, in office, and on the job, if any force can move him. You're not able to take Reseune Administration: you'll be at most twenty, and it needs a much more experienced hand. The logical candidate to administer Reseune is Yanni Schwartz. But you must above all else start taking a more public role and establishing a more professional image. You have to stand for that seat in your own right, at the right time.
"But don't count on your enemies standing still for that day. Khalid, I'm sure, has never forgotten what you and I did to him. I'm virtually certain, but I can't prove, that there is some very vague linkage among the Paxers, the Rocher party, the Abolitionists, and some allegedly respectable elements in the Centrist party, some of which links go perhaps very high indeed. I don't say that Khalid is bombing subways. I do think that he's prepared to use the whole issue of your existence and the Paxer movement against you—the fear of Reseune's power—all of that—
"The moment I'm dead, I figure there'll not only be the election in Science, but Khalid will challenge Jacques. We're caught in a situation in this. We're not enthusiastic about Gorodin's man Spurlin. Gorodin's health won't let him run again. Lu is disaffected, a bitter man. We're pressing Jacques to resign now and appoint Spurlin as proxy. He sees this as an Expansionist plot—correctly. But he doesn't admit that he can't beat Khalid again; and he won't look at his own polls that show him slipping badly. A case either of a man being pressured by Corain to hold on in hopes of a change in the polls; or a man being a fool. Corain tells me privately that he's urged Jacques to step down. He says Jacques refuses, that Jacques privately resents the label as a seat-warmer and a mouthpiece for Gorodin, Jacques is determined to hold the office in his own right, after Gorodin dies—a case of one man's vanity impinging on Union's future.
"What I'm afraid is going to happen is the following: two elections going, and no knowing how Gorodin's health will be. And in the wake of media interest in my death, and Denys' succession to the seat—that's precisely when I'm afraid Jordan Warrick is going to break his silence and come up with charges of his own, one of which is very likely going to be a claim of his own innocence and the claim that I blackmailed him into accepting blame for Ari's death. I think you can see the mess you're about to create in rehabilitating his son. I hope you can see it. Your predecessor wouldn't fail me in this."
God. Dear God.
Ishe innocent?
"There's no way in hell Jordan Warrick can testify or be questioned, without a major change in the law. He can make charges with the same immunity that he has in keeping silent. He can say anything. And this is a man who's waited two decades for this chance . . . who will have his chance, now, because we gave up our chance to have linked him to the Paxers. We still can, if you're willing to use your head. I'm afraid it wouldn't win you young Warrick's gratitude. But then again, you're much cleverer than I am, young sera. And maybe you can navigate those rocks.
"You have your predecessor's notes in Justin Warrick's case. You have run an intervention on him, I very much suspect, of what sort I will not speculate: I only know that the gesture he made at the party last night would once have been impossible for him. Having had him under probe a number of times, I know him and I know the nature of his problems, only some of which stem from that session with your predecessor—"
Damn you. Damnyou, Giraud!
"Not to stand in the way of young love, Ari, sweet, but Justin's father put a damned heavy load on him. If you've got Ari's notes you know that. You count yourself expert enough to take on a case Petros and Gustav won't touch, I'll trust you can add up the stresses on Justin Warrick and figure out what's going on with him. And you can add up the stresses that will result if he hears his father claim he was framed and unjustly treated.
"I'm at the point where I have to surrender a good many things to young hands. I thought that, frankly, I could rid you of a very unpleasant decision. You've appropriated it to yourself by your maneuvers to forestall me and to prevent me from discrediting Jordan Warrick. I neither beg nor plead with you at this point. I'm accustomed to being the villain in the Family. I have no objection to bowing out in that role. If you would care to turn your back in the affair of Jordan Warrick, I could foresee that you could turn proof of his activities to your considerable personal advantage in dealing with Justin Warrick. I'm sure you understand me. If you decide on that course you have only to call on me.
