“No, ser,” he said, because it was all he could get out.
Denys left him then.
When he got back to the office Grant met him in the doorway—Grant, scared and silent, asking questions just by being there.
“It’s all right,” he said. “They asked if we meant to do it. I said no. I said some other things. Denys said they were going to get Security off our tails.”
Grant gave him a look that wondered who was listening and who he was playing for.
“No, it’s what he said,” he answered Grant. And shut the door for what privacy they had. He remembered the other thing, the important thing, then, the back and forth of promises and threats like so many hammer-blows, and he leaned on the back of the work-station chair, finding himself short of breath. “He said they were going to let us talk to Jordan.”
“Is that true?” Grant wondered.
That was the thing that threw him off his balance, that they suddenly promised him favors when they had least reason. When they could haul him off to hospital by force and they had just demonstrated that.
Something was going on.
x
“Music,” he told the Minder that night, when they walked in the door. It started the tape at the cutoff point. It reported on calls. There were none. “We’re not popular,” he said to Grant. There was usually at least one, something from the lab, somebody asking about business, who had failed to catch them at the office.
“Ah, human inconstancy.” Grant laid his briefcase on the accustomed table, shed his coat into the closet, and walked over to the sideboard and the liquor cabinet while Justin hung his up. He mixed two drinks and brought them back. “Double for you. Shoes off, feet up, sit. You can use it.”
He sat down, kicked the shoes off, leaned back in the cushions and drank. Whiskey and water, a taste that promised present relief for frayed nerves. He saw Grant with the little plastic slate they used—writing things they dared not say aloud; and Grant wrote:
Do we believe them about dropping the bugging?
Justin shook his head. Set the glass down on the stone rim of the cushioned pit-group and reached for the tablet. We feed them a little disinformation and see if we can catch them.
Back to Grant; a nod. Idea?
To him. Not yet. Thinking.
Grant: I suppose I have to wait till fishfeed to find out what happened.
Himself: Complicated. Dangerous. Petros is going to do interviews with me.
Grant: a disturbed look. Unspoken question.
Himself: They suspect about the flashes.
Grant: underline of word interviews. Question mark.
Himself: Denys said. No probe. Then he added: They’ve realized I have a problem with tape. I’m scared. I’m afraid they were doing a voice-stress. If so, I flunked. Will flunk Petros’ test worse. Long time—I tried to think the flashes were trauma. Now I think maybe a botched-up block: deliberate. Maybe they want me like this.
Grant read it with a frown growing on his face. He wrote with some deliberation. Cleared the slate and tried again. And again. Finally a brief: I think not deliberate block. I think too many probes.
Himself: Then why in hell are we writing notes in our own living room? Triple underlined.
Grant reacted with a little lift of the brows. And wrote: Because anything is possible. But I don’t think deliberate block. Damage. Giraud came in asking questions on top of an intervention Ari was running and hadn’t finished. If that isn’t enough, what is? Whatever Ari did would have been extensive and subtle. She could run an intervention with a single sentence. We know that. Giraud came breaking in and messed something up.
Justin read that and felt the cold go a little deeper. He chewed the stylus a moment and wrote: Giraud had seen the tapes. Giraud knew what she did. Giraud may work more with military psychsets, and that doesn’t reassure me either. They got him that damn Special rating. Politics. Not talent. God knows what he did to me. Or what Petros did.
Grant read and a frown came onto his face. He wrote: I can’t believe it of Petros. Giraud, yes. But Petros is independent.
Himself: I don’t trust him. And I’ve got to face those interviews. They can take me off job. Call me unstable, suspend Alpha license. Transfer you. Whole damn thing over again.
Grant grabbed the slate and wrote, frowning: You’re Jordan’s replicate. If you show talent matching his without psychogenics program at same time they’re running Rubin Project you could call their results into question. Also me. Remember Ari created me from a Special. You and I: possible controls on Project. Is that why Ari wanted us? Is that why Giraud doesn’t?
The thought upset his stomach. I don’t know, he wrote.
Grant: Giraud and Denys run the Project without controls except Rubin himself, and there’s no knowing how honest those results will be. We are inconvenient. Ari wouldn’t ever have worked the way they’re working. Ari used controls, far as you can with human psych. I think she wanted us both.
Himself: Denys swears the Project is valid. But it’s compromised every step of the way.
Grant: It’s valid if it works. Like you’ve always said: They don’t plan to release data if it does work. Reseune never releases data. Reseune makes money off its discoveries. If Reseune gets Ari back, an Ari to direct further research, will they release notes to general publication? No. Reseune will get big Defense contracts. Lot of power, power of secrecy, lot of money, but Reseune will run whole deal and get more and more power. Reseune will never release the findings. Reseune will work on contract for Defense, and get anything Reseune wants as long as Defense gets promises of recovering individuals—which even Reseune won’t be able to do without the kind of documentation under that mountain out there. That takes years. Takes lifetimes. In the meantime, Reseune does some things for Defense, lot of things for itself. Do I read born-men right?
He read and nodded, with a worse and worse feeling in his gut.
Grant: You’re very strange, you CITs. Perhaps it goes with devising your own psychsets—and having your logic on top. We know our bottom strata are sound. Who am I to judge my makers?
xi
Jane sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled her hair out of the way as Ollie sat down by her and brushed his lips across her nape.
The Child, thank God, was asleep, and Nelly had won the battle of wills for the night.
Ari was hyper—had been hyper, all day, wanting to go back to Valery’s place and play.
Time for that to change. Valery had become a problem, as she had predicted. Time for Ari to have another playmate. There had never been only one.
Damn. Hell of a thing to do to the kid.
Ollie’s arms came around her, hugged her against him. “Is something the matter?” Ollie asked.
“Do something distracting, Ollie dear. I don’t want to think tonight.”
Damn. I’m even beginning to talk like Olga.
Ollie slid a hand lower and kissed her shoulder.
“Come on, Ollie, dammit, let’s get rough. I’m in a mood to kill something.”
Ollie understood then. Ollie pushed her down on the bed and made himself a major distraction, holding her hands because Ollie had no particular desire to end up with scratch marks.
Ollie was damned good. Like most azi who took the training, he was very, very good, and trying to keep him at bay was a game he won only slowly and with deliberation, a game precisely timed to what would work with her.
Work, it did. Jane sighed, and gave herself up after a while to Ollie’s gentler tactics. Nice thing about an azi lover—he was always in the mood. Always more worried about her than about himself. She had had a dozen CIT lovers. But funny thing…she cared more about Ollie. And he would never expect that.
“I love you,” she said into his ear, when he was almost asleep, his head on her shoulder. She ran her fingers through his sweat-damp hair and he looked at her with a puzzled, pleased expression. “I really do, Ollie.”
“Sera,” he said. And s
tayed very still, as if she had lost her mind after all these years. He was exhausted. She was still insomniac. But he was going to stay awake if his eyes crossed, if she wanted to talk, she knew that. She had his attention.
“That’s all,” she said. “I just decided to tell you that.”
“Thank you,” he said, not moving. Looking as if he still thought there was more to this.
“Nothing else.” She rubbed his shoulder. “You ever wanted to be a CIT? Take the final tape? Go out of here?”
“No,” he said. Sleep seemed to leave him. His breathing quickened. “I really don’t. I don’t want to. I couldn’t leave you.”
“You could. The tape would fix that.”
“I don’t want it. I truly don’t want it. It couldn’t make me not want to be here. Nothing could do that. Don’t tell me to take it.”
“I won’t. No one will. I only wondered, Ollie. So you don’t want to leave here. But what if I have to?”
“I’ll go with you!”
“Will you?”
“Where will we go?”
“Fargone. Not for a while yet. But I really want to be sure you’re all right. Because I do love you. I love you more than I do anyone. Enough to leave you here if that’s what you want, or to take you with me, or to do anything you want me to. You deserve that, after all these years. I want you to be happy.”
He started to answer, hitching up on one elbow. Facile and quick, an azi’s ready and sincere protest of loyalty. She stopped him with a hand on his lips.
“No. Listen to me. I’m getting older, Ollie. I’m not immortal. And they’re so damn scared I won’t turn Ari loose when I have to—That’s coming, Ollie. Two more years. God, how fast it’s gone! Sometimes I could kill her; and sometimes—sometimes I feel so damn sorry for her. Which is what they don’t want. They’re afraid I’ll break the rules, that’s at the center of it. They—Giraud and Denys, damn their hearts, have decided she’s too attached to you. They want that to stop. No more contact with her. Cold and critical. That’s the prescription. Sometimes I think they earnestly hope I’ll drop dead on cue, just like the damn script. I had a talk with Giraud today—” She drew a deep breath and something hurt behind her eyes and around her heart. “They offered me the directorship at RESEUNESPACE. Fargone. The Rubin Project, with bows and ribbons on it.”
“Did you take it?” he asked, finally, when breath was too choked in her to go on.
She nodded, bit her lip and got it under control. “I did. Sweet Giraud. Oh, you just withdraw to Wing One when she’s seven, that was what they told me when I took this on. Now they’ve got the nervies about it and they want me the hell out of reach. It’s not enough, Giraud says. Olga died when Ari was seven. Being over in Wing One, just walking out of her life, that’s too much rejection, too attainable an object. Dammit. So they offer me the directorship. Morley’s out, I’m in, dammit.”
“You always said you wanted to go back to space.”
Another several breaths. “Ollie, I wanted to. I’ve wanted to for years and years. Until—somewhere I just got old. And they offered me this, and I realized I don’t want to go anymore. That’s a terrible thing to realize, for an old spacer brat. I’ve gotten old on the ground, and all the things I know are here, everything that’s familiar, and I want it around me, that’s all—” Another breath. “Not the way I’m going to have it, though. They can promote me. Or they can retire me. Damned if I’ll take retirement. That’s the trouble of doing your job and never bothering to power-grab. That upstart Giraud can fire me. That’s what it comes down to. Damn his guts. So I go to Fargone. And start the whole thing over with another damn brat, this one with medical problems. Shit, Ollie. Do somebody a favor and look at what they do to you.”
Ollie brushed at her hair. Stroked her shoulder. Ached his heart out for her, that was what Ollie would do, because she was his Supervisor, and god was in trouble.
“Well, hell if I want to drag you into the same mess. Think what it’ll be, if you go out there. I’ll die on you in not so many years—add it up, Ollie; and there you are, twenty lightyears from civilization. What kind of thing is that to do to somebody who’s got less choice than I do? Huh? I don’t want to put you in that kind of position. If you like it here at Reseune, I can get you that CIT tape and you can stay here where it’s civilized, no take-hold drills and no Keis and fishcakes and no corridors where people walk off the ceiling…”
“Jane, if I tell you I want to go, what will you tell me? That I’m a stupid azi who doesn’t know what he wants? I know. Am I going to let you go off with some damn azi out of the Town?”
“I’m a hundred and—”
“—I don’t care. I don’t care. Don’t make us both miserable. Don’t playact with me. You want me to tell you I want to be with you, I’m telling you. But it’s not fair to hold this over me. I can hear it. Dammit, Ollie, I’ll leave you behind, I will—I don’t want to listen to that for two years. I don’t even want to think about it.”
Ollie was not one to get upset. He was. She saw that finally and reached up and brushed his cheek with her fingertips. “I won’t do that. I won’t do it. Damn, this is too much seriousness. Damn Giraud. Damn the project. Ollie, they don’t want you to touch Ari after this.”
His brow furrowed in distress. “They blame me.”
“It’s not a question of blame. They see she likes you. It’s the damn program. They wanted to take you out of here right away and I told them go to hell. I told them I’d blow it, right then. Tell the kid everything. And they’ll walk a narrow line, damn right they will. So they had a counteroffer ready. One they thought I’d jump at. And a threat. Retirement. So what could I do? I took the directorship. I get myself and you—you—out of here. I should be glad of that.”
“I’m sorry if I did this.”
“Dammit, no, you didn’t. I didn’t. No one did it. Olga never beat the kid. Thank God. But I can’t stand it, Ollie. I can’t stand it anymore.”
“Don’t cry. I can’t stand that.”
“I’m not about to. Shut up. Roll over. It’s my turn. Do you mind?”
xii
“Of course not,” he said to Petros, across the desk from him, while the Scriber ran, and he knew well enough they had a voice-stress running, that was probably reading-out to Petros on that little screen. Petros glanced from it often and sometimes smiled at him in his best bedside manner.
“You’re involved in an intimate relationship with your companion,” Petros said. “Don’t you have any misgivings about that? You know an azi really can’t defend himself against that kind of thing.”
“I’ve really thought about that. I’ve talked with Grant about it. But it’s the pattern we were brought up with, isn’t it? And for various reasons, you know what I’m talking about, we both have problems that cut us off from the rest of the House, and we were both—let’s call it—in need of support.”
“Describe these problems.”
“Oh, come on, Petros, you know and I know we’re not on top of the social set. Political contagion. I don’t have to describe it for you.”
“You feel isolated.”
He laughed. “My God, were you at the party? I thought you were.”
“Well, yes.” A glance at the monitor. “I was. She’s a nice little kid. What do you think?”
He looked at Petros, raised an eyebrow at Petros’ dour drollery, and gave a bitter laugh. “I think she’s a bit of a brat, and what kid isn’t?” He made it a quiet smile, catching Petros’ eye. “Thank God I couldn’t get pregnant. You might have a kid of mine to play with. Put that in your tapes and file it. How am I doing on voice-stress?”
“Well, that was tolerably stressed.”
“I thought it was. You’re trying to get me to react, but do we have to be grotesque?”
“You consider the child grotesque.”
“I consider the kid charming. I think her situation is grotesque. But evidently your ethics can compass it. They’re holding my father
at gunpoint as far as I’m concerned, so I’m damn well not going to make a move. Those are my ethics. Am I lying?”
Petros was not smiling. He was watching the monitor. “Nice. Nice reaction.”
“I’m sure.”
“Annoyed as hell, are you? What do you think of Giraud?”
“I love him like my own father. How’s that for comparisons? True or false?”
“Don’t play games with this. You can do yourself harm.”
“Register a threat to the patient.”
“I’m sure that’s not what I intended. I am going to insist you undergo some therapy. Mmmmn, got a little heartbeat there.”
“Of course you did. I’ll do your therapy, in your facility. As long as my azi sits through it with me.”
“Irregular.”
“Look, Petros, I’ve been through hell in this place. Are you trying to drive me crazy or are you going to give me a reasonable safeguard? Even a non-professional has a right to audit a psych procedure if the patient requests it. And I’m requesting a second opinion. That’s all. Do it right and you won’t even need Security to bring me in. Do it wrong and I’ll consider other options. I’m not a panicked kid anymore. I know where I can file a protest, unless you plan to lock me up and have me disappear—damned bad for your tape record, isn’t it?”
“I’ll do better than that.” Petros flipped switches and the monitor swung aside, dead. “I’ll give you the tape and you can take it home. I just want your word you’re going to use it.”
“Now you’ve got real surprise. Pity you cut the monitor.”
“You’re scared out of good sense,” Petros said. “I don’t blame you. Good voice control, but your pulse rate is way up. Psyched yourself for this, have you? I could order a blood test. Verbal intervention? Grant try to prep you?”