Cherryh, C J - Alliance-Union 08 (35 page)

"Science wasn't what she had in mind, you know that."

"You're wrong. It's not what you want to hear, God knows. But if you want to understand why she did what she did—that's something you
should
know. I have one interest in this. Ari. Understand—she had cancer. Rejuv breakdown. The doctors argue whether the cancer kicked the rejuv or whether the rejuv was failing naturally and let the cancer develop. Whatever was going on, she
knew
she was in trouble and the timing couldn't have been worse. Surgery would have delayed the project, so she put Petros and Irina under orders and covered it up. She set the whole project up, so that when she had to go for surgery—I'm sure she didn't rule that out: she wasn't a fool; but so when she did, it wouldn't leave the subject without support, you understand, and it could run a few months with a light hand. Understand: I knew, because I was her friend, Justin. I was the one she allowed access to her notes. Giraud's damn good at the money end of this. But my concern is her concern: the Project. I think you have your sincere doubts about it. No controls, no duplicatable result— But it's founded on two centuries of duplicatable results with the azi. And of course it's not the kind of thing that we can quantify: we're dealing with a human life, an emotional dimension, a subjective dimension. We may disagree like hell, Justin, in there, in private, and I respect you for your professional honesty. But if you try to sabotage us, you'll have me for an enemy. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, ser."

"I'll tell you another thing: Ari did some very wrong things. But she was a great woman. She
was
Reseune. And she was my friend. I've protected you; and I've protected her reputation by the same stroke; and
damned
if I'll see some sordid little incident destroy that reputation. I'll keep you from that. You understand me?"

"You've got the tapes in the archives! If this poor kid halfway follows in Ari's track, researchers are going to want every last detail—and that's no small one."

"No. That won't matter. That's from the
end
of her life, beyond the scope of their legitimate interest. And even so, that's why we're working with Rubin. Rubin's the one the military can paw over. Ari is
our
project.
We
keep title on the techniques. Did Reseune ever release anything—it has a financial interest in?"

"My God, you can run that scam on the military for years. Admit it. It's Giraud's damn fund-raiser. His bottomless source of military projects."

Denys smiled and shook his head. "It's going to
work,
Justin. We didn't prompt her."

"Then tell me this: are you sure
Giraud
didn't?"

Denys' eyes reacted minutely. The face did not. It went on smiling. "Time will prove it, won't it? In your position, rather than be made a public fool, I'd keep my mouth shut, Justin Warrick. I've helped you. I've spoken for you and Jordan and Grant when no one else did. I've been your patron. But remember I was Ari's friend. And I
won't
see this project sabotaged."

The threat was there. It was real. He had no doubt of it. "Yes, ser," he said in half a voice.

Denys patted his shoulder again. "That's the only time I'm going to say that. I don't want ever to say it again. I want you to take the favor I'm doing you and remember what I told you. All right?"

"Yes ser."

"Are
you
all right?"

He drew a breath. "That depends on what Petros is going to do, doesn't it?"

"He's just going to talk to you. That's all." Denys shook at him gently. "Justin, —are you getting tape-flashes?"

"No," he said. "No." His mouth trembled. He let it. It made the point with Denys. "I've just had enough hell. The hospital panics me, all right? Do you blame me? I don't trust Petros. Or anyone on his staff. I'll answer his questions. If you want my cooperation, keep him away from me and Grant."

"Is that blackmail?"

"God, I couldn't have learned anything about that, could I? No. I'm asking you. I'll do anything you want me to. I've got no percentage in hurting the kid. I don't want that. I just want my job, I want the phone-link, I want to—"

He lost his composure, turned and leaned against the wall until he had gotten his breath.

Hand them all the keys, sweet, that's right.

Damn stupid.

"You've got all that," Denys said. "Look. You answer Petros' questions. You try to work this thing out. You were a scared kid yourself. You're still scared, and I'm terribly afraid all this did you more damage than you're willing to have known—"

"I can do my job. You said that."

"That's not in question. I assure you it's not. You don't know who to trust. You think you're all alone. You're not. Petros does care. I do. I know, that's not what you want to hear. But you can come to me if you feel you need help. I've told you my conditions. I want your help. I
don't
want any accusations against Ari, the project, or the staff."

"Then keep Petros' hands off me and Grant. Tell Security to take their damn equipment out. Let me live my life and do my work, that's all."

"I want to help you."

"Then help me! Do what I asked. You'll get my cooperation. I'm not carrying on a feud. I just want a little peace, Denys. I just want a little peace, after all these years. Have I—ever—done anyone any harm?"

"No." A pat on his shoulder, on his back. "No. You haven't. Never anything. The harm was all against you."

He turned, leaning against the wall. "Then leave me
alone,
for God's sake, let me talk to my father, let me do my work, I'll be all right, just let me alone and
get Security out of my bedroom!"

Denys looked at him a long time. "All right," he said. "We'll try that awhile. We'll try it, at least on the home front. I don't say we won't notice who comes and goes through your door. If something looks suspicious they'll be on you. Not otherwise. I'll give that order. Just don't give me any cause to regret it."

"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, rinding 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.

"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?

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."