“And before that he was bedeviling Jordan to contact her. Contact her. As if Jordan could. But we have just a slight clue what he wanted Jordan to find out, don’t we? If you gave Patil his notes…don’t you think that explains just a little bit? He had no warning at all that Jordan was actually going to get out of Planys. But he knew Jordan had contacts inside Reseune, that he has a son here. And you just lifted his files and sent them where he couldn’t get them, so small wonder he was a little agitated. How long ago?”
“During Denys’ tenure. Late last year.”
“The man was a Special. It was his life’s work. His stuff was disappearing. They were never going to run his work on Cyteen. He knew that better than anybody, if he’d managed the remediation program. And there’s the military nanistics program—he worked on that during the War, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“And he worked on Eversnow, you snatched his files, and he knew the only planet we own where it’s remotely appropriate to use the terraforming data is Eversnow. And Patil was moving to Fargone, right next door.”
“He was in rejuv failure. The notes were classified. It was perfectly logical we take them, in his retirement. We don’t know how much of all that he put together. The rejuv failure was progressing fast. We’re talking about a few months, here.”
“Does Patil have them in her possession? Were they possibly in her apartment?”
Yanni shook his head. “No. They were sent on to Fargone—copies were. She didn’t have them yet.”
She let go a short breath. “Thank God for that.”
“She didn’t have them, and they’re in a military courier’s black box en route. Nobody can get at them but someone with the keyword.”
It didn’t make her feel that much better. “So Defense has them.”
“Can’t access them. Not unless they’ve messed with the black boxes themselves. Don’t even talk about getting into those. Elections. The stock market. Public records. There’s deeper security on that system than anything else we’ve got. It’ll feed into Fargone Central, totally robotic, and it has a gate-restriction on it. It won’t feed out again until someone arrives there with a password. That’s the way it works. Those notes will be sealed, until someone authorized shows up there.”
“What password? Do you know it? Or who does know it?”
“I won’t tell you here. I know it. I hadn’t even told Patil. I will tell you.”
“Do. Please. That’s too thin a thread, Yanni. There’s security, but that’s way too thin a thread. Catlin.”
“Sera.”
“Paper.”
Catlin went to a sideboard, got a single sheet of paper and a pen, and gave them to Yanni. He wrote, and Catlin carried it to her. Alphanumeric, long, and without mnemonics evident. GIIW20280082Y2.
Then 28912HW. And W/18.
She tucked that paper into her decolletage. “Ash before midnight,” she said. “Thank you, Yanni.”
A nod of his head. Catlin had resumed her place. Likely had already memorized it, in the one glance she’d gotten. Catlin was good at that.
“So do we have a copy here at Reseune?” she asked.
“It’s there,” he said. “Filed in your archive.”
She had to be amused. They hadn’t turned it up by accident. It wasn’t part of the ordinary Library archive, nor Security’s ordinary file, not out there. “What else have you stored in my files?”
“Just things your successor might need. Or you might. Someday.”
“Clever.”
Yanni gave a little nod, sipped his wine. “Thank you. You’re right: somebody might have assumed she had them—but they didn’t stay to search the apartment, so they didn’t think they were there. They might try to hack her access.”
“Or Thieu’s. Thieu’s is the place I’d expect them to go after.”
“And he was dying. It was a good idea to get those files entirely out of there. Beyond an erase. They’re gone from storage at Planys.”
“And they’re here. Under my name. And in that ship, outbound. The only copies in the universe.”
“The only copies.”
“Nothing at Beta.”
“Nothing at Beta—at least on our side of the wall. If Defense has a copy, we can’t find that.”
“So Thieu wants to know what’s going on with his files. The man may have been going downhill fast, but he wasn’t stupid. Jordan meanwhile didn’t want to get involved in his scheme—”
“Jordan was involved in another information flow,” Yanni said. “A man named McCabe—”
“Airport maintenance. Giraud told me. A middleman in a contact between Councillor Corain and Jordan.”
“A two-way conduit of information. We detained him, of course we did. But we don’t know if he’s the only one. A leak to and from Novgorod? Absolutely there was. There may have been others. It’s possible Thieu didn’t need his mental faculties about him to know Patil was going to Eversnow…if Corain’s contact man wasn’t the only font of information in Planys. The fact that the news hasn’t broken in wider Paxer circles yet indicates if there is a flow of information we haven’t already stopped, it’s tightly controlled and it’s being careful. We’re watching that possibility carefully…feeding a little disinformation to see where it turns up. It was one reason I wanted to break that news to Jordan and watch his reaction. I was running truthers. The surprise seemed real…so he didn’t get the information from Corain’s man. But what goes on in Corain’s office…who knows where they have contacts? You don’t blow a good spy for some minor piece of news. You let him sit and wait until there’s something worth his being there. And so far nobody’s breached security in Corain’s office—until—possibly—now. Somebody took out our plans for Eversnow, in one day.”
Finally. Finally she had the notion Yanni was leveling with her.
“So,” she said, “Thieu wanted to get to Patil—who’s the logical recipient of those notes you took from him, one of the only people, maybe, who’ll really understand them.”
“Understand, there was absolutely nothing illegal in what we did: it’s classified material, the man was going downhill medically, we had to protect it. The military sits right there next to Planys, with the capability to ‘protect and defend’ military interests. They could be across that gap in fifteen minutes flat.”
“Eversnow is still their project. Thieu was working for them, but physically inside PlanysLabs. And they didn’t have those notes.”
“He’d been working with them, still corresponding with them quite extensively—we don’t have the content of many of those letters. They dropped into the great black hole of Defense Communications. We assume they don’t have his last notes. If they have their own copy, we don’t know. Can’t know.”
“Didn’t his notes go to them, if he was working for them?”
“His work is proprietary to Reseune. They wanted something done, they got the result, not the research. We have his side of the exchange with them, not their answers.”
“Will Jacques talk?” she asked.
“I may make headway with Spurlin on that front—assuming the election goes his way. Meanwhile, before the election results, I want the project staffed. I have to replace Patil.”
“If Khalid should get into office…”
“Exactly. I’m going to be raiding other nanistics people out of Beta—where Defense is going to be mildly unhappy with me. I’m going to hire people away from their programs.”
“So you’re going full speed ahead. But we’re running out of nanistics Specials.”
“We’re out of Specials. I do have five candidates for the Eversnow directorship, backup in case Patil had said no, top of her list of her own choices to go to Fargone. I’m going ahead with the project, all out. Be advised of that.”
“I think we pretty well have to, don’t we?” she said, because that really was where her thoughts were tending now. “We need to find out what’s going on. Not to let our enemies win this. I wasn
’t for it. But somebody who doesn’t like us is against it.”
“I’m glad you take that position,” Yanni said, looking tired. He’d resisted the wine, beyond a sip or two. He picked it up, looked at it. Looked at her. “If I drink this and get indiscreet, are you going to be a priss about it?”
“I’m not,” she said. “Never will be. But answer me first, Uncle Yanni. I really, really love you and I so want you to tell me the absolutely honest truth in this. Maybe Jordan’s lying to everybody. Maybe he brought that card with him from Thieu for his own reasons. Do you have any inkling that’s the case?”
“I just think he knows more than he’s saying.”
That was a disappointment. She wanted more out of Yanni. She pressed her lips together. And waited.
Yanni said, “You really shouldn’t try to run Reseune yet, you know.”
Shift of direction. She saw it. She still tracked. “What makes you think about that?”
“Because you’re getting very sharp, very fast, and you’ve gathered a small army.”
“Yanni, somebody bugged my new staff, and I’m pretty sure who, and probably you are. I didn’t like that.”
“It wasn’t me,” he said.
“Hicks, then,” she said. “Independently. I may eventually forgive him for it, but he did it, and he pretty certainly knew he did it. I’m onto it, and I’ve fixed the problem. Don’t mention it to him, though. I’m trusting you to know about it and keep quiet. For your own protection. My people are dangerous to people who’d try to do things like that.”
“You remind me of your predecessor.”
“Did you like her?”
“Odd question.”
“Did you like her, Yanni?”
“I did, actually. She was what she was, and she did good in her life, on the average. And let me say right now that if you want me to step down tonight, I will, but I hope you’ll reconsider a move like that.”
“Why?”
“Because, for one thing, we can get quite a bit of yardage for Reseune’s programs if we don’t let Corain know you’re coming into power sooner than most people think—and I think you are. They’ll deal, right now, because they’re scared to death of you. Corain is shocked by what happened to Patil—but he’s still on board with the Eversnow deal. So are the others. Secondly, we haven’t seen the outcome in the Defense election, and maintaining a bit of our flexibility in the face of that outcome is a good thing. Polls have been wrong before.”
“And meanwhile there’s somebody running around Reseune leaving cards from somebody who’s supposed to be under strictest security weeks before she was murdered? And it had Planys markers, Yanni. What’s the theory on that, officially?”
“Authenticity,” Yanni said with a shrug. “Whoever did it wanted it to smell like Planys, as authentic as possible, and whoever did it went to a small bit of trouble to do that—probably to rattle the walls and see if they could provoke some action. Or maybe it’s real and Jordan lied. Maybe an old man with a failing memory and a few weeks to live really wanted some personal acknowledgment from somebody about to take over his life’s work. It’s Planys paper. It may have been printed almost anywhere but on Reseune office machinery—there’s that security feature: micro-ID in the typeface, if your security hasn’t told you. Which still leaves, as a source, the town, various neighboring towns, and passing rivercraft, not to mention the airport. The card has all kinds of issues attached, no finger-traces of any kind except the people that we well know handled it—super-clean.”
“So it was real. Or it was somebody knew about the markers and knew to be careful about the microprint. Did you search Jordan’s apartment?”
“While he was at supper with you, yes. We did. Found nothing, of course.”
“Did you tell him you searched it?”
“No. Nor left any traces he could find, if Hicks was entirely up to his job.”
“Yanni, I want you to back off Jordan. Don’t make him mad. Give him work to do. Real work.”
“There’s a small problem with that.”
A pose, a quizzical tilt of the head. “You mean you don’t trust him?”
“I trust he’ll do something. He’ll sabotage something just to make us find it. And we’re busy.”
“Send the results to me. It’s good exercise. I’ll check them.”
“You have enough to do, yourself. Just keep going with your lessons.”
“Do it, Yanni.”
“He’ll burst a blood vessel.”
“Probably, but I’ll check what he does. Who’s Clavery?”
Yanni blinked, then shrugged. “Clavery is a name not in the computers. Ergo a nonperson, a construct, a codeword, or an alias.”
“Possibly someone she knew by sight.”
“We’re running checks on everybody who was ever in contact with her. But just occasionally, in Novgorod, there are places where you aren’t being logged, and people can make contact off the record. Restrooms. Subways. Standing on a street. At the theater. If she was ever accosted by somebody named Clavery it wouldn’t be in her apartment building—not until that night.”
“A hollow man?”
Yanni drew a deep breath. And gazed at her directly. “I’m not even asking where you learned that term. Myself, I’m strongly betting on Paxer involvement in the murders, but I’m not a hundred percent certain.”
“I’m worried about people running around the halls of Reseune putting cards in people’s pockets. And no camera caught them, either?”
“We’re working on it. Just say we’re working on it. Jordan favors very crowded, dark little restaurants where the chairs are jammed up together and people are moving all over the place. We don’t have good imaging. Right now we’re investigating a lot of people.”
“Jordan’s a magnet for blame. You never thought Jordan killed the first Ari, did you?”
Yanni shook his head. Took a drink of wine. “For one thing, he was in the hall when the electronics went out, and the system was very selective with what went dead at that point. —Are we going to starve?”
“Sorry.” She silently cued Haze, and said, “Yanni, will you support me if I do take over?”
“I’d support you, yes.”
“What if I’d asked you to drop the Eversnow project? Would you do that?”
“I wouldn’t be at all happy about it.”
“But would you do it if I asked it?”
“Actually,” Yanni said, “I’d probably go full ahead until the hour you nuked my accesses, because I believe in it. And I think you’d be quite wrong. So I’d fight you on that.”
“Good. I like it when somebody tells me the truth. Why do you think I’m wrong?”
“Because Eversnow solves the employment problem on Fargone.”
“Doesn’t help Pan-Paris at all.”
“It still solves one critical unemployment problem and makes Pan-Paris less critical. No, it doesn’t help Pan-Paris and they’ll be mad about it and we’ll have to find something to give them pretty fast.”
“Not on this year’s budget.”
“We’ll let Pan-Paris stew and protest and get jealous of Fargone, and then we’ll agree to do something. That makes it evident we’re listening.”
“You’re a total cynic.”
He shrugged. “Works. We’ve got worse potential problems on the horizon. We have an important alliance on this bill: us, Citizens, Defense. We can get Information and Trade in on it, and that’s our majority. But Defense is in mid-election and Corain’s getting old. He could see himself challenged for the seat in Citizens, and believe me, a lot worse could come out of that huge electorate than Corain. It’s diverse. It may be true that if there hadn’t been a Corain to hold Citizens together, we’d have to invent one, but in any given year, we could see something nasty develop there. Another reason—another reason to pursue a major population burst at Fargone. Population in an area farthest removed from Alliance Space…most of them will end up voting in Citizens, supporting, w
e hope, moderates like Corain.”
“All right, let’s discuss it. You think that Eversnow is still an asset. I frankly see it having serious problems.”
“I think it’s a safety factor. If there’s another war, Alliance will think twice. If we toss their merchanters out of that route, we can enforce a ban, and we can protect it. It’s a very narrow corridor.”
“No great abundance of jump points in the region?”
“Scarce. Just about what we’re developing as destinations, places we’ll be able to defend. That’s the word from Defense.”
That was certainly a point in favor. “How soon is your population burst at Fargone?”
“All right. This is getting to be in your need-to-know, one more reason why it’s not good for you and me to have a contest for power this year. There’s a station onworld, already. That’s all military and classified to the hilt: it’s been black-budgeted for decades, since your predecessor’s time. We’ve kept its secrecy because we use its facilities pretty freely, but there’ve been some issues over the years, too.”
“That’s how you got the samples! It wasn’t a robot. You lied on that, too.”
“Well, it was a robot, but we have people down there, as we speak. Very cold, very lonely people, in company with a lot of cold, lonely Defense people, and not an azi in the lot. Defense has been damned worried we’d tamper—so they haven’t allowed azi down there. Just a nice little born-man society.”
“What are we, for God’s sake? At war?”
“During the War, it was a lot friendlier. Lately it’s gotten political and full of rules and restrictions. The restrictions on our information-gathering and on our flow of personnel to and from is one motive on our part. We very much need a Reseune presence down there, an expanding presence in our own facility before the whole planet becomes a military zone where they make the rules.”