Who didn't belong here. Who wasn't supposed to be here. Who could get him in a lot of difficulty.
And the damned alarm was still going off. Sam was asking, brilliant question, "Is there a problem?"
"Wait," he told Ardath, and slipped past her on the stairs to get down to the kitchen, where the physical cutoff was, apart from Sam's systems. "Sam," he said, at Sam's third or fourth inquiry, "shut up."
Then he tapped in to tell government security he was alive and well. "Same mistake," he said, acutely aware he wasn't supposed to be seeing friends and family and knowing the whole apartment was surely monitored. But he couldn't come out with the truth. Daren't. For Ardath's sake. "Sorry."
"I'll have to report it, sir. Confirm your code."
They knew who he was. Tap didn't lie. This time they wanted a code to tell them he didn't have a gun to his head. He gave it, so as not to bring an armed team in on the situation, just to cap it all. Arrest on his doorstep wouldn't add glory to Ardath's resume or his own reputation.
The last light quit blinking on the alarm console. He reached out distractedly for the physical light switch and moved it to half, a twilight in which his sister descended the last step of the stairs to join him, wrapped in stars, skin flickering with pale blue.
"I'm not sure I like the color," he said, irritated into a truth he'd never told her, and immediately wished he hadn't said that.
Blue flicker turned to gold and magenta pink. He liked it less. Pink wasn't Ardath at all. He doubly wished he hadn't said anything.
Meanwhile he found a cup and stuck it under the caff spigot, ordering a full cup. "Want one?"
"No."
"I do." Dammit, he was wide awake. Adrenaline was pumping. He couldn't drink another three vodkas to put himself back to bed or he'd have hell's own hangover when he had to be sharp. He didn't want to resort to pills because it was 0405h in the bleeding morning. He needed his sleep so he could get dressed in four hours and face the damned ambassador with his wits about him at 0900h.
His nerves were completely jangled. He took his cup to the small, two-seat table and sat down. "Go back to the blue and gold. It's pretty. I was being a toad. What are you doing here?"
6
"As if I'm not welcome," Ardath said.
"You set off the damned house alarm at four in the morning, for God's sake. I can think of nicer visits. I'm going to hear from the office about this. Believe me, believe me-tonight's really not a good time to do this."
"Why?"
"I can't tell you why." Procyon sipped at too-hot caff, found his sister towering over him. Her face and hands flickered blue and gold in the twilight, her body wrapped in constellations. "Sit down. If you want to talk, at least sit down. I'm getting a knot in my neck."
"You have one in your head." She didn't sit down. "What's this meeting with the governor? Are you suddenly looking for a job in Reaux's office?"
So the rumor had made the street. He wasn't all that surprised. "I can't talk about it."
"You can't talk about it, but everybody else is talking."
"That's not good." He really didn't like that idea. But he didn't know what to do about it.
"You're my brother! It's common knowledge you're in the Project."
How was that common knowledge? My God, he thought. "I don't know how it got to be common knowledge, since it's not true."
"Oh, come, brother. I know. Everyone knows, but I've always acknowledged you anyway and never, ever asked a question if you're not able to tell me, which I assume you're not, about where you work, and now you go and do something like this. which just makes us wonder if you're really a computer tech or into something else I really won't like. What do you actually do for the Project?"
So he worked for the Project. Whether it was in the civil or science wing was a fifty-fifty choice. Three-quarters of the people in government offices worked for the Project, at some remove.
"I just push keys, is all. I have no choice where I'm sent. I was just running an errand today, a favor for a supervisor."
"A keypusher runs errands to the governor? Who do you work for? For Brazis?"
"Believe me when I say you aren't supposed to be here. My apartment's being watched. You're into security systems you can't deal with."
"Then they already know I'm visiting my brother, don't they? Who's watching you? Is it Reaux, or is it Brazis? And you keep ducking the question. What do you do for the Project?"
She knew he was meeting with the governor. He couldn't exactly say he was "in computers" anymore. He couldn't say it was for any ordinary supervisor he'd undertaken that errand. "Ardath, please, if you mess with this, it's not going to be good." He weighed another question half a breath. And asked it. "What have you heard, and who told you this stuff?"
"I can't tell you who told me, if you're being spied on. That wouldn't be smart of me, would it?"
"It might well be smart of you to tell me. All right, all right, yes, I work for Brazis. I work pretty high up, for Brazis. My office wants to know where you got this information. Don't play games with them."
"You know what they say on the street? That you could even be a Project tap. That's what they say."
His blood ran cold. He didn't know how much he needed to tell her to distract her. As much, he decided, as was going to be common knowledge tomorrow, and hope the PO didn't think it became common knowledge only because he'd told his sister. "I'm meeting the Earth ambassador tomorrow morning. Did your sources say that to you?"
Ardath gathered her constellations around her and sat down in his kitchen chair, eyes wide-glowing slightly as her color patterns retreated. Was that equivalent to pallor? Perhaps the same physiology?
"You're not!"
"Afraid I am. The same reason I went to the governor, I'm being sent to the ambassador. It's secret. And it isn't any damned help with my sister passing along the latest rumors as fast as people come up with them."
"Is it some stupid politics that's the matter? Is it some fuss with Earthers?"
"I can't say, and you don't want to know, either. That's why I don't really recommend you stay for a cup of caff at this point, do you understand me? Don't do me any favors. I have to do this. That's not going to change. Just stay out of it before we both get into trouble."
"Are you a tap-courier?"
Close. A reasonable guess. But a miss. "I can't say."
"You know what some people are saying on the street? That my own brother is slinking for the Council. Are you a slink?"
"No."
"Then why won't you tell me the truth?"
"Ardath. I know this may all seem a personal inconvenience to you."
"An inconvenience! An inconvenience! You won't tell me the truth, you go and do something like this when I've done all I've done to make you a good reputation in the Trend-I've invested in you!"
Sometimes his sister's focus was on her own navel. Not a clue that events meant anything outside the Trend. And that short focus was the one thing he really, truly detested in Arden as she'd become. "I really haven't any choice in the matter." He was on the verge of real annoyance with her, and he didn't want that at this hour, not counting the other troubles he had. The rumors she cited were scary. "I'll breach security this far, just enough to tell you the meeting with Reaux was because of the meeting with the ambassador, a simple briefing, which I conveyed where it had to go, and don't you dare mention that fact anywhere. This is a test of what I tell you, Ardath. I'm telling you, and if that information turns up anywhere else before I actually have the meeting with the Earther, I'm going to be way beyond mad, because I'll know who spilled it, and so will my office figure it out. It could be inconvenient for me, if you think about it for two seconds."
"How am I responsible, if your business is spilling all over the street? Are you a tap-courier?"
"I didn't spill any of my business on the street. That's why it's dangerous, idiot sister! People with bad motives are passing all this around from leaks in other offices. Just don't help them v
alidate the rumors, if you have any sense. I'd far, far rather be on my regular job than what I'm doing tomorrow, but I didn't get that choice. I'm not supposed to go on the street for the next few days, and I'm not supposed to contact you or anybody else I care about, partly for your own protection. I don't slink for anybody. But listen to me, don't tell anybody what I just told you, not even the denial. Don't hedge answers with them. Don't try to defend me. It only creates more rumors. Just get out of here and stay out. It's a lot safer. I love you. I can't tell you any more than that."
"Why won't you tell me what you do for them?"
"I can't. If I'm any of the things you suspect, you know I can't. I assure you I won't do anything disgraceful. I won't do anything I don't believe in. I swear to you I want all this business over and out of my life as fast as possible. And if you dare spread it around the street what your personal guess is about what I do, you're going to ruin my life, Ardath-you're going to ruin my life and maybe cost me my job, just for starters."
"Oh, job, job, job. This is so d‚class‚, brother. Just swear to me you're not a slink."
"Far worse than the crystal egg. I know. I know. I swear I'm not a slink." Which dangerously narrowed the field of her suspicions, but pinned nothing down. He reached out and patted her hand. He knew everything had to revolve around Ardath when it came down to emotions. Everything had to, or Ardath refused to deal with it, or understand it, and he was the appointed family expert at dealing with Ardath. Scared-damned right he was scared at the moment, because she'd decided to be a fool. "I honestly I can't help it. I'm just running messages. So that's that. So I ask you, sister mine, sweet, intelligent sister, just go somewhere and don't get further involved, and above all don't assume you know anything about my business. I know, I know all this is all luscious gossip-fuel, and I know whoever's brought you this rumor is not your friend, and is trying to score on you, and you're all hot to defend us both; but I have absolutely no choice about going into this meeting if I want to keep my job, and I damned sure don't want what I do and where I go gossiped all over the street. My job isn't one where you ever want to be famous."
"Forget the damned job! You're my brother! You don't ever have to care what those people want! Only for what people think of you, out where it matters."
"The Trend isn't life and breath to me, Ardath. If you want the brutal truth, I don't ever intend to slip into the Trend, not even with the solid gold chance you could give me, and I couldn't live in the Style. Ever. I'm not that sort. So don't plot it for me."
"You could be. I could help you. You have the looks."
"I'm telling you I don't have any interest in it, none. Absolutely none. What does interest me, what most interests me in my whole life is my job, which I assure you twice and three times isn't being a slink, so that leaves you your other guess, doesn't it? And your being here and telling me these things and me telling you isn't good. I could get in real, deep trouble, thanks to these gossips that aren't your friends. So don't repeat this. Don't repeat any of it and don't speculate even to your nearest and dearest. Be smart for me, be smarter than any of them, and keep what you know about me absolutely to yourself, no matter how the gossips annoy you. You can ignore them. This is my life, this is absolutely my life we're discussing here."
The simple case finally got through to his sister. Ardath sometimes, in little moments, became Arden, and Arden reached out her hands to him in a distress of her own. "Brother,-if you're really in this terrible deep secret, if you really are-"
"Beyond that," he said before she could work up momentum in her anguish, "more than that, I'm putting you in actual danger telling you as much as I have, and I insist, I want you to get out of here right now. Declare me anathema in the Trend if you have to. If the rumor gets too strange, I want you to create a fuss, make a protest of the scandal, make it clear you don't know anything or care to know-but keep insisting this business of me being a slink is just outrageous and stupid, and don't say courier. Say I'm sleeping with someone unsavory. I don't care. We can mend it later. The gossip all comes round again, forever. It's all just a game, isn't it?"
The patterns were back on her skin. Profuse and agitated. "Your reputation isn't a game! My life isn't a game!"
No, the Trend wasn't ever a game, to Ardath. The Trend was life and breath to her: what was visible, what was en vogue, defined all she valued, all she was. And the line was always a razor edge, that divided a designer from a grotesque, a divinity from failure and ruin. A brother gathering intel for the police as a slink or meeting with Earthers as a high-clearance tap-courier wasn't a reputation enhancement. He could do her real damage.
Well, so was the line of virtue a Project tap had to walk, a very fine line, one without compromise. without ties outside, and absolutely without publicity. Ardath was upset with what limited things she had now to guess. They were at a very difficult division of interests.
He touched her hand. "It may get much worse, I tell you. Be angry at me as long as you need to. Curse me as long as you need to. I'll still love you. And right now, do us all a favor. Just get the hell out of here."
"This is ridiculous. You can at least tell me what's really going on that everybody's so worried about, or why you, of all people!"
"If I knew, I still couldn't say, and the truth is, I don't know what's going on. Use your head, sister. My apartment's bugged. Possibly I am, in ways I don't know and can't even detect operating. Go. Do I have to throw you out? For God's sake don't discuss what we've just said."
"Don't talk like that!"
"I'm serious. Life is sometimes actually very serious. My job is. My career is. The enhancements that make you what you are aren't visible in me, but I can tell you they exist. They're as numerous, as expensive, and as irrevocable. I can't go back from what I am, I don't want to go back, and frankly I'm in a lot of trouble if I ever give my boss the notion I ought to be decommissioned. If my situation personally inconveniences you, I'm sorry, but that's all I can do."
"Dammit. That's not fair!" There was his sister. And she was sorry for what she'd said, and he was.
"I didn't mean that, Arden. I don't mean it."
She flung her arms around him, a hard hug.
He hugged her back, then disengaged. "Fine. Now go. Get as mad as you have to get at me and forget all the rest of it for all time."
"I can't forget it. What when they ask me?"
"Who's asking? Did you tell anybody you were going to ask me?" He didn't want his sister to end up the subject of an official query, but he had absolutely no compunction about setting the department slinks on certain ones on the street. "Is it Algol? If it is, I swear I'll shut him up."
"Everyone's asking, is all."
"I asked who's asking. Name names."
"Capricorn." That was another known bad actor, a prankster. "And Algol. Algol said he'd talked to you. That you were looking worried and wouldn't answer his questions."
"What did he say about me? I'm asking seriously, is he your source?"
"He was asking about you, if I'd seen you. He was upset about the curfew on Blunt."
"Stay away from Algol!"
"Why?"
"Because he's trouble, sister. Because he's affiliated in places so entirely d‚class‚ you don't even want a whisper of his real affiliations. Trust me that I know. And if he's my trouble now, I swear I'm going to settle with him."
"Because you really are a slink for Brazis?"
"I haven't slinked for anybody. Ever. Forget it. I haven't reported Algol for what he is except as we're being overheard now-as I know we're being overheard because of the damned alarm you touched off and the names you named."
She hit his arm. "Stop it!"
"I can't stop it. Be angry as you like. I don't want any association with him or with Capricorn, and just watch-he'll try to get to you next, because he won't be able to get to me. I hope you're too clever for that. He's bad. He's extremely bad, and he deserves to go down. Believe me."
Flurry of bl
ue flickers on his sister's face. Take it for a blush. Take it that his warning was late, and she was entirely defensive. It was Algol that had gotten to her. And maybe Capricorn, too.
"You don't trust him because he's a Freethinker?" Indignantly. "You used to be."
"Because he's the specific reason I got out of Michaelangelo's and got out of the group, because he's dangerous and he's gotten control of the Freethinkers, who don't half understand him. And yes, my bosses know about my time there, and they know about him. I'm not interested in Algol's politics and I'm not in his orbit, and never was, no matter what he thinks. He's anti-governor. He's anti-Brazis. He's interested in stirring up trouble at any opportunity, and he's a damned social leech who's got just enough glow about him to convince the young and desperately fashionless he's more in the current than he is. I say it, quite seriously, you're too bright a light to fall for him."