“My God, what’s your fucking security worth? Who else knows?”
“Very likely the azi that was kidnapped. He’s Justin’s.”
“My God.”
“It’s not likely that Rocher’s boys cracked him. He’s Alpha and he’s a tape designer—the azi is, understand. Not an easy subject. But there is the possibility that he wasn’t aware of having classified information. That’s why we went to Lu’s office when we needed help breaking him out of there. We needed to get hold of him alive and debrief him, in the case we missed someone. Fortuitously and fortunately, the action took care of the kidnappers. All of them. We think. But we weren’t overusing our authority when we told Lu that azi was a security risk. I suppose the rush of events has been too rapid for all of us. Ari was going to send me to the city with the report for Lu. Unfortunately—”
“You don’t think there was any possible motivation on Warrick’s part, involving the azi and Rocher—”
“When he killed Ari? A crime of anger that didn’t start out that way: he hit her, that was all. But when she turned out to be seriously injured he realized he’d just killed his chance of appointment at Fargone. So he killed her and tried to make it look like an accident. It wasn’t quite in cold blood; it wasn’t quite otherwise either. He hated her. I’m afraid Ari had serious weaknesses when it came to adolescent boys. A great mind. Correspondingly eccentric vices. Frankly, we’re anxious to avoid having that aspect of Ari put out in public view. Conspiracies—no. There weren’t. You can interview Warrick yourself if you like. Or his son. We have his deposition under psychprobe. Not Jordan Warrick’s, of course, but the son’s indicates fairly well what was going on. There are also some vids that are—very explicit. We don’t intend to erase them. But they don’t have to go out to the news-services. It’s a very old story, I’m afraid. Blackmail. Outraged parent. A cover-up that turned into murder.”
“Damn.” Get my son out of there, Warrick had said. Had meant it, evidently. “Damn.”
“We want to honor our commitments. The arrangement we have in mind puts Jordan Warrick in a facility of his own, under guard. And he can go on doing work for you. We’ll do the testing. You won’t have to worry about its integrity. It’s altogether a humane solution, one that conserves a talent we can’t afford to lose.”
“You’ve talked to Corain.”
“He says he’s got to study the idea. I tried to point out, there are no disadvantages to him in supporting a settlement. What does anyone gain from a prosecution of this case? What does anyone gain, except Rocher and his cronies?—And we’ve lost terribly by this. Not only the mind. You understand…we’re still committed to the projects.”
“The Fargone facility.”
“We assume that will go forward. Perhaps—the military can make use of more of it than we planned.”
“Meaning the Rubin project is going under.”
“No. We’re still committed to that.”
“Without Dr. Emory?” Gorodin drew a large breath. “You think you can succeed.”
Nye was silent for a moment. “Refill,” he said to the azi who served them, and that man, gray and silent, came and poured in both cups.
Nye sipped thoughtfully. Then: “Do you want the technical details?”
“I leave that to the scientists. My interest is practical. And strategic. Can you go on from Emory’s notes?”
“Which had you rather have duplicated? A chemist who is, admittedly, extraordinary in potential. Or Emory herself?”
Gorodin swallowed down a mouthful. “You’re serious.”
“Let me go into some of the surface technicalities, at least. The project demands a subject with an extraordinary amount of documentation—on the biochemical level. There aren’t many subjects of the quality we want, who have that land of documentation. Both Ari and Rubin have it: Rubin because of his medical problems, Ari because she was born to Emory and Carnath when they were both above a century in age. Born in Reseune labs, of course. By a process we ran, on which our records are immaculate. Her father was dead when she was born; her mother died when she was seven. Her uncle Geoffrey brought her up beyond that. She succeeded Geoffrey Carnath as director of Reseune when she was sixty-two. And she was Olga Carnath’s own prize project, the subject of intensive study and recording first by her mother and then by Geoffrey Carnath. Suffice it to say, her documentation is equal to Rubin’s, if not more extensive. More than that—Ari always intended that she eventually be one of the Specials affected by this project. She left abundant notes—for her successor.”
“My God.”
“Why not? She has the value. Now that she’s gone, granted her theories are valid—we have a choice between recovering a chemist who, frankly, means nothing to us, or Ari—whose mind, I don’t hesitate to say—is on a level with Bok or Strehler, whose research has had profound effect on national security. And we can do it.”
“You’re serious.”
“Absolutely. We see no reason to abandon the project. There are essentials: Warrick is one. You understand—as many of the elements of Ari’s life we can study, the better our chances of success.”
“What—about Rubin?”
“It would still be possible to go ahead with that. It would be useful as a control. And a cover under the cover, so to speak. I don’t want the Rubin project in Reseune. I don’t want it impacting what we plan to do. You understand—the name of the game is re-tracing. Intensive monitoring—Ari was used to that, but her successor ought not to have direct contact with someone else undergoing the same thing. We’d have to run both halves of the Rubin project at Fargone.”
“You imply you intend to do this—whether or not you have official support.”
“I’m seeking that support. I want to save Warrick. I want to cooperate fully with the military. We need the kind of security and cover you can provide us—at least until the new Ari can surface. Then it appears as a Reseune project—a thoroughly civilian project. That’s useful, isn’t it?”
“God.” Gorodin drank down the other half of his coffee. And held out his cup to the azi.
“Abban,” Nye said. The azi came and filled the cup—while Gorodin used the delay to do some fast adding.
“What,” he said then, carefully, “does this have to do with Warrick?”
“We need him. We need him to go on with his work.”
“Him? To reconstruct her? Working on her tapes?”
“No. That wouldn’t be wise. I’m talking about Reseune. Remember—we have to think in twenty-, fifty-year terms. He’s still young. He’s only now showing what he can do. His own research interlocks with Ari’s. Let me be honest with you: Ari’s notes are extremely fragmentary. She was a genius. There are gaps of logic in her notes—sort of an of course that Ari could bridge and didn’t need to write down. We can’t guarantee success: no program of this sort can. We only know that we have a better chance with Ari, that we knew intimately, than with a stranger that we don’t. She coded a great deal. Her leaps from point to point, the connections…in a field she damned near built…make her notes a real maze. If we lose the principals of Ari’s life—if we can’t recover something like the life Ari lived—if certain people aren’t available to consult, then I think our chances of seeing this project work go down and down. Ultimately Ari’s notes could become meaningless. The matrix becomes lost, you see, the social referent irrecoverable. But we have it now. I think we can do it. I know we can do it.”
“But what damn use is all of this, then—beyond recovering Emory herself? How many people are we going to have that land of record on? What can it apply to? It can’t get us Bok.”
“Emory herself is not negligible. Emory able to take up her work where she left off—but at about age twenty. Maybe younger. We don’t know. We’ll find out. Understand: what we learn doing this will tell us how much data we have to have with other projects. Like Bok. We just have to be damned careful this round. Because if the worst-case holds, every precaution is necessary: eve
ry influence is irreplaceable. Getting Ari back is step one. If there’s going to be an amplification of her work on personality formation—Ari is the key to it. We have a chance with her. We know her. We can fill in the gaps in the information and make corrections if it looks necessary. We don’t know Rubin to that extent. We don’t have the headstart even with him we do with her, do you see? Rubin has become a luxury. Retrieving Ari Emory is a necessity. We can try it on our own, but it would be a hell of a lot easier—with Defense Bureau support.”
“Meaning money.”
Nye shook his head. “Cover. The ability to hold on to Warrick. The ability to shield what we’re doing. The authority to protect our research—and our subject—from Internal Affairs.”
“Ah.” Gorodin drew a deep breath. “But money—it always comes to money.”
“We can bear our end of it if you fund the Rubin project. But the necessity to protect our subjects is absolute. Success or failure hinges on that.”
Gorodin leaned back in his chair and chewed his lip. And thought again about recorders. “Have you talked to Lu?”
“Not yet.”
“You haven’t mentioned this to anyone outside Reseune.”
“No. I don’t intend to. We had one security breach—with the azi. We’ve covered it. There won’t be another.”
Gorodin thought about it—civilians running their own affairs under military cover. One breach and God knew what else. Too many amateurs.
Reseune wanted to start a close cooperation, on a project Gorodin, dammit, saw shifting the balance of power irrevocably toward Union—
Ariane Emory experimenting with a kid on Fargone had seemed a hell of a lot safer. Reseune trying to raise the dead seemed—
—hell, go for the big gain. Go for everything.
It was a pittance, to the Defense budget.
“I don’t think there’s much problem,” Gorodin said. “We just appropriate the Fargone facility. We invoke the Military Secrets Act. We can cover any damn thing you need.”
“No problem,” Nye said. “No problem in that. As long as it stays classified.”
“No problem with that,” Gorodin said.
“So we stamp everything Rubin project,” Nye said. “We build the Fargone facility; we work the Rubin project under deep secrecy out there; we get deeper cover for our work on Cyteen.”
“Two for the price of one?” It struck Gorodin after he had said it that the expression was a little coarse, on the day of Emory’s funeral. But, hell, it was her resurrection they were talking about. Not identity, Warrick had said. Ability. That was close enough.
He was damned sure Giraud Nye had the inclination to keep Reseune’s control over the project. The Project, meaning an embryo in a womb-tank and a kid growing up in Reseune. Twenty years.
He suddenly added that to his own age. He was a hundred twenty-six, ground time. A hundred forty-six by then. And Nye—was not young.
It was the first time it had ever really hit him—what Warrick had meant about the time factor in Reseune. He was used to time-dilation—in a spacer’s sense: that hundred forty-six ground-time would lie far lighter on him, who lost months of ground-time in days of jump. But Reseune’s kind of time meant lifetimes.
“We’d like that second project full-scale,” Nye said. “Having a comparative study could save us in a crisis, and we’re beyond any tentative test of theories. Comparison is going to give us our answers. It’s not a luxury.”
Part of the Rubin project at Fargone meant part of the data within easy reach. And meant a fail-safe. Gorodin always believed in fail-safes—in equipment; or in planning. Spacer’s economy. Two was never too many of anything.
“Do it,” he said. “Makes cover a hell of a lot easier.” There was the matter of clearing it with Lu, and the chiefs of staff. But Lu and the chiefs of staff would go with anything that promised this kind of return and put Emory’s work at the disposal of Defense.
Defense took a lot of projects under its wing. Some were conspicuous failures. Those that worked—paid for all the rest.
ix
Steps passed the door continually. More than usual. There were voices. Some of them Justin thought he knew; someone had stopped outside the door, a group of people talking.
Please, he thought. Please. Somebody stop here. He hoped for a moment; and feared. He listened, sitting on the sleeping mat that was all the furniture in the room. He clenched his hands together in the hollow of his crossed legs.
“Call Ari,” he kept saying to anyone who dealt with him. “Tell her I want to talk with her.”
But they were azi. They had no authority to go above their Supervisor. And as many times as he asked, the Supervisor never came.
It was a suicide cell he was in, padded walls and door, just a sink and the toilet and the sleeping mat. The light was always on. Food came in water-soluble wrappers little more substantial than toilet paper, without utensils. They had taken his clothes and given him only hospital pajamas, made of white paper. They had not questioned him any more. They had not spoken to him again. He did not know how much time had passed, and his sleeping was erratic with depression and lack of cues from lights or activity outside. And the tape-flashes, seductive and destructive. He refused to let the flashes take hold in the isolation. He refused it even when it would have been consolation.
Not me, he kept thinking, keeping himself awake, away from the dreams. Not my choice. I’m not hers. I won’t think her thoughts.
Ari was holding him hostage, he thought. She was holding him and maybe Grant against some threat of Jordan’s to go to the Bureau with charges. Maybe she had arrested Jordan too. Maybe Jordan could not help him. But in any case—the police would come. And they had not psychprobed him again; they could not psychprobe Jordan.
It was Grant who was vulnerable. She would use Grant against Jordan—and use him too. He had no doubt of it.
He hoped for the police to come. Internal Affairs. Science Bureau. Anyone.
He hoped that was the small commotion outside.
But he had hoped that—time after time.
Grant would have been waiting for him to come back; but instead it was security that would have come in on him, hauled him off for more questions—
He heard the electronic lock tick. The door opened.
“Ser Nye wants to talk to you,” one of two azi said; both Security. “Please come.”
He got up. His knees went to jelly. He walked out into the light, knowing it was another psychprobe session; but at least he would get a chance to say something to Giraud, at least he would have a chance for a half-dozen words before they put the drug into him.
That they just let him walk loose was the last thing he was prepared for. He felt himself dizzy, his knees aching and shaking so it was hard to navigate.
Tape-flash again. And Florian—
Down the hall to the barren little interview room he had seen before. He reached the open door and stopped, dazed and disoriented by the realization it was not Giraud Nye at the table. It was a stout round-faced man that for a bewildered second his mind insisted to make into Giraud’s lean form.
Not Giraud.
Denys Nye, rising from his chair with a distressed look.
“Where’s Grant?” Justin demanded. “Where’s my father? What’s going on?” His voice gave way on him. His legs shook as he reached the narrow table and leaned on it in Denys’ face. “I’ve got the right to talk to my family, dammit! I’m a minor! Remember?”
“Sit down,” Denys said, fluttering a hand. “Sit. Please.—Get him something to drink.”
“I don’t want anything! I want to know—”
“Please,” Denys said in his quiet, distressed way, and made a second appeal with his hand. “Please sit down.—Get him something.—Please, sit down.”
Justin fell into the chair, feeling a crying jag coming on. He clamped his jaw and drew breaths until he had it under control; and Denys sank into his seat, folded his hands on the table in front of
him and let him calm down while one of the azi brought back a soft drink and set it down on the table.
“What’s in it?”
“Nothing. Nothing. Poor boy. Damn this all anyway. Have they told you about Ari?”
It was a strange thing to say. It made no sense. It fluttered like a cold chill through his nerves. “What about Ari? Where’s my father?”
“Ari’s dead, Justin.”
It was like the world jolted sideways. For a moment everything went out of focus. Then where he was came crashing in on him. Where he was and what they were doing and the silence all around him.
Dead. Like not-natural-dead. Like—
—the plane crashed?
—some crazy person—in Novgorod?
“Jordan found out what she was doing to you,” Denys said in the gentlest voice Justin had ever heard him use, “and he killed her. Locked her into the cold-lab and killed her.”
He just sat there a moment. It was not true. It was not true. Jordan had no idea what Ari had done. He had covered everything. And Ari was not dead. Ari could not be—dead.
“Jordan admits it,” Denys said in that quiet tone. “You know they can’t do anything. Legally. The law can’t touch him for—questioning, or anything like that. Not psychprobe. Certainly not mindwipe. Jordie’s all right. He’s safe. I promise you.”
He was shaking. He picked up the cup and slopped it carrying the drink to his mouth. He slopped it again setting it down. The icy liquid soaked his knee. There was no sense to things. He could not get his mind to function. “What about Grant? I told him I was going to come back. I didn’t come back—”
“Grant’s still in hospital. He’s safe. Jordan’s been to see him. Jordan’s flying to Novgorod this afternoon. They’re working out an arrangement for him to leave Reseune.”
“That’s a damned lie!” They were starting to work psych games with him. He saw it coming. He flung himself up and came face to face with the two azi that moved to stop him. He froze. They froze.