Cherryh, C J - Alliance-Union 08 (8 page)

Ari tilted her head, regarding him sidelong. "I'll tell you one thing: even if he goes, son Justin won't."

"We've got five more years of budget to fight through! What in hell are we going to do when Jordie's out there in front of the cameras?"

"Don't worry about it."

"What do you mean, don't worry about it?"

"He's here, isn't he? Left his aides, his staff, everyone but Paul in Novgorod. I didn't confront him about the leak. I just sent Florian to advise him he was wanted. He's well aware what he's done and that I know he's done it."

"If you touch him— Listen to me. He won't have done this without advance preparation. God knows what kind of harm he can do us. Or what kind of information he's smuggled out of here. My God, I didn't see this coming."

"Jordan and his little feuds. His requests for transfer. His bickering on staff. Oh, we're still friendly. We have our little policy debates. We had one on the way home. And smiled at each other over drinks. Why not? There's always the chance I
believed
Gorodin."

"He knows damn well you didn't!"

"And he knows that I know that he knows, round and round. So we smile at each other. I'll tell you something: I'm not worried. He's sure I won't move until I know what he's got. He's manipulating the situation. Our Education Special thinks he's the best there is. He's gambling everything on things going the way he predicts. He'll make me a counteroffer soon. And I'll make mine. And that's how we'll pass the months. He's sure he can match me move for move. We'll see. I'm going to my apartments. I'm sure Florian's run his checks by now. I'm going to have a shower, put my feet up a while, and read the logs.
And
have a decent meal.
Formal
dinner tonight. It's a session-end, isn't it? Catlin can approve the menu."

"I'll tell the staff," Denys said. The thought of food turned Giraud's stomach.

"It's not a total disadvantage," she said. "Have you seen the news? The Centrist coalition is showing seams this morning. Corain's made Ianni Merino very, very upset. An old hand like Corain—this is moving much too fast for him. Corain had his people ready to walk, now he shifts stance on them—the Abolitionists will suspect a sell-out. . . won't they? Let the Abolitionists peel off and start talking about dismantling the labs again. It's bound to make the moderates a little anxious."

"That's where Jordan can do us the most damage! If he goes to the press—"

"Oh, you don't think the Abolitionists are going to credit a voice out of Reseune."

"If he's saying the right things they damn well will."

"Then we have to do something about his credibility, don't we?
Think
about it, Gerry. Corain's going to end up acquiescing—no,
voting for—
the establishment of a Reseune lab right on the Hope colony route. The Abolitionists haven't gotten saner, just quieter; and we have our own sleepers in their rank and file. Keep Corain quite busy putting out fires on his own decks. Gorodin may find the whole noise a bit more than he wants: there are always deals we can offer him: he always stands with his feet either side of the line. Lu is the problem, that double-crossing bastard. But we can persuade him. This facility is exactly the kind of thing that may do it. I want you to look into these things, I don't need to tell you how discreetly. Use your military contacts. The Science Bureau is dispatching a ship to notify Rubin of his status. They're also going to take measures to establish him a protective residency in Fargone Blue Zone: the team is on its way Sunday, when
Atlantis
pushes off for Fargone."

"Harogo's going to be aboard?" Denys asked.

"Absolutely. There's not going to be a hitch. He'll get our staff right through customs, and
Atlantis
is running light."

"Military can beat her."

"A worry. But Harogo's a much higher card, on his own station, and he's bringing home the second biggest construction project Fargone's ever lusted after.
First
being the Hope corridor, of course. There won't be a hitch. If the Centrists try anything with Rubin, Harogo can fry them, no question. We'd love that kind of ammunition. Did you see the clip? Rubin's a wide-eyed innocent. Pure science and total vulnerability. I thought that came across rather well."

"They can throw that back at us too," Giraud said.

"We can rely on Harogo, I think. At certain times, you have to let a thing go."

"Even Warrick?"

"If they want him by then."

Ari smiled gently across the table, across the salad with vinaigrette, product of their own gardens, and dusted it liberally with a spoonful of Keis, synthetic cheese, a salted yeast, actually: spacer's affectation. Her mother had used it. Ari still liked the tang of it, and imported it downworld at some little trouble.

Most of the Family abhorred it.

It was the formal dining hall: one long table for the Family, and a large U-shaped table around the outside for the azi who were closer than relatives, and somewhat more numerous, about two to one.

Herself at the head: that had been the case since the day uncle Geoffrey died. To her right, Giraud Nye, to her left his brother Denys; then Yanni Schwartz rightside, left again, his sister Beth; and across from her, Beth's son by Giraud Nye, young Suli Schwartz, long-nosed and thin-faced, and looking preoccupied as usual: sixteen and bored; left next, and right and right again, Petros Ivanov and his two sisters Irene and Katrin, then Katrin's current passion the dark-skinned Morey Carneth-Nye; old Jane Strassen looking like a dowager empress in black and an ostentatious lot of silver; daughter Julia Strassen in green, a truly amazing decolletage; dear cousin Patrick Carnath-Emory, who was
far
more Carnath than Emory, and absolutely butter-fingered—he was already mopping his lap; Patrick's daughter Fideal Carnath, olive-skinned and lovely, and her thirty-two-year-old son Jules who they had thought was Giraud's until they ran the genetics and found it was, of all people, Petros'. Then Robert Carnath-Nye and his daughter young Julia Carnath;
and
of course, endmost, Jordan and Justin Warrick, who looked exactly like father and son, unless you had known Jordan thirty years ago and knew that they were twins.

Vanity, vanity.

Jordan had had his passages. (Who had not?) But when it came to bestowing his heredity he had not trusted nature. Or women. It was the temptation to godhood, perhaps. Or the belief that he, being a Special, was bound to produce another.

A replicate citizen was not azi. There were considerable legal differences between young Justin, say, and elegant, red-haired Grant, at the second rank of tables, so, so close in all respects . . . born in the same lab, an insignificant day apart. But Justin, dark-haired, square-jawed, and, at a handsome, broad-shouldered seventeen, so very much Jordan's younger image . . . was CIT 976-88-2355
PR,
that all-important Citizen prefix and that expensive Parental Replicate suffix—replicate except for the little accidents like the break in Jordan's nose, the little scar on Justin's chin, and oh, indeed, the personality,
and
the ability. When Justin was a mote in a womb-tank, the Bok project had already failed—but (Ari was amused) Jordan had entertained notions that his tapes and his genes could overcome all odds.

The lad was bright. But he was not Jordan. Thank God.

Grant's number, on the other hand, was ALX-972, experimental: a design of her own, aesthetic in the extreme, and with an excellent antecedent—another Special geneset, but, for certain legal reasons, she had corrected a genetic fault, incidentally expressing a few aesthetic recessives, to an extent that the legitimate descendants of a certain slightly myopic, brown-haired, unathletic biologist with a heart defect . . . would find astounding.

Neither was Grant a biologist. An excellent student in tape-design, an Alpha capable of working on the structures which had made him what he was—structures wherein lay the legal difference,
not
in the substitution of certain sequences in the geneset,
not
in the wombs which gestated them.

One infant had gone to a father's arms, to lie in a crib in the House, to hear—nothing, at times; or to deal with the fact that Jordan Warrick might be busy at some given time, and a meal might be late, or a noise startle him—

The other had gone to a crib where human heartbeat gave way at intervals to a soothing voice, where activity was monitored, crying measured, reactions clocked and timed—then extensive tape and training for three years until Ari had asked Jordan to take the boy in, nothing unusual: they fostered-out the suspected Alphas, as a rule, and in those days her relations with Jordan had been stormy but professional. A member of the House with a son the same age was a natural thought, and an Alpha companion was a high-status prize for a household, even at Reseune.

I have every confidence in Justin, she had said that day to Jordan. It's such a natural pairing. I'm perfectly willing to let that happen, on a personal basis, you understand, as long as I can continue my tapes and my tests with Grant.

Meaning that the azi as he grew might pass into Justin's care, become his companion—which implied her faith that young Justin would be in that small percentage licensed to work with Alphas—that Justin's own scores would be Alpha-equivalent.

Not entirely to her astonishment it had worked out very well. The correction was a routine one, minor, not likely to affect the azi's intelligence, . . . although, within certain parameters, that had not been a primary concern in creating the set.

So, so convenient to have a link to troublesome Jordan in those years, not informational, since there was hardly anything a ten-, a thirteen-year-old azi knew in the House that
she
did not.

But one never knew—when it might be of use.

She finished the salad, chatted with Giraud while the serving staff took away the plates and brought in the next course: a fine ham. Terrestrial pigs thrived at Reseune, on the residue of the gardens, in sufficient numbers to provide seed stock for several other farms. Pigs and goats, humankind's oldest and hardiest foodstock, with sense enough not to poison themselves on a stray sprig of native shrubbery.

Horses and cattle had the damnedest self-destructive bent.

"Do you know," she said, over the dessert, a simple ice, tangy and pleasant. "We are going to have to make some far-reaching adjustments in staff."

Amazing how many ears were pricked at table, and how quiet a room could get, when she was only speaking to Denys.

"I really don't anticipate any difficulty with the Hope bill." They were all listening now, not pretending to do otherwise. She smiled at her family, put down the spoon and picked up the little cup of strong coffee. "You know how to read that. No difficulty. Forget the news reports. Everything is proceeding tolerably well on schedule, and we have a very exciting prospect in front of us . . . certainly a very exciting prospect, a military psych facility at Fargone—in addition. Which is going to make a real difference in operations here. You can congratulate Jordan for laying the groundwork—really, just everything that may put the Hope route in our laps;
and
the new labs; everything.
That's
what's going on. Jordan should have a lot of the credit for that."

Jordan's face was absolutely devoid of expression. "Let's drop the pretense. We're
home,
we're not in front of the cameras."

Ari flashed a smile. "Jordan, I don't bear you the least ill will. I'm sorry if that offends you, but you've done Reseune—and me—a great favor. I truly don't begrudge you the rewards of it."

"The hell!"

Ari laughed gently and took another sip of coffee. "Jordie, dear, I know you'd like to have upstaged me with this; but as it happens, Gorodin came to
me,
and I'm going to give you everything you asked for, on a platter. You'll
get
that long-awaited transfer, you and anyone in your wing who wants to go to Fargone, just as soon as the official request for military liaison comes down the tubes."

"What is this?" Yanni Schwartz asked.

"I don't say it'll be a bad thing," Ari said quite honestly, still smiling. "I'm not pulling surprises on you, Yanni—Jordan pulled this one on me. I think everyone should think about it, those who'll prefer to go out to the frontier, those who'd rather stay with the comforts of Reseune—God
knows,
some of us would miss ham and fresh fruit. But the opportunities out there are worth thinking about." Another sip of coffee, slow and thoughtful, watching Jordan's eyes like a fencer. "The Educational wing here will continue, of course. There are some of you we can't transfer, you understand that. We'll have to restructure here, rather well replicate the whole wing—" A little wider smile. It was a joke. Suli Schwartz woke up, a quick look around to see if people were supposed to laugh. "Jordie, you'll have to lay out some recommendations."

"Of course," Jordan said. "But I'm sure you'll use your own list."

She laughed, to keep it polite. "You know damn well I will. But I really will respect your choices wherever I can—after all, I'll assume anyone on your list
wants
to transfer, and I'll assume you want them. Yanni, you can deal with Jordie on that."

There was a growing wariness behind the attentive faces. Young Suli finally seemed to have understood what was going on, perhaps to have figured out for the first time in his life what it was to sit in this room on Family Occasions, and not with the juniors down the hall. No one moved, not the Family, not the azi at the tables round about.

A sonorous clearing of the throat from Denys. "Well," he said, "well, Ari, after all—" Another clearing of the throat. "I don't suppose we could have some of those little cookies we had last night, hmmn?" Wistfully.

"Yes, ser," a server said, close by the door, and slipped out, while Denys ladled sugar into his coffee.

"Hum. The essential thing is Reseune, isn't it? Ari, Jordie, Yanni, really, we all have the same thing at heart, which is the freedom to do our work. We all hate these administrative messes, we all do, it's such a damned waste of our time and there's so much more important on our desks than a lot of little regional authorities bickering away in Novgorod. I'm sure it's important whether station administrators can or can't hold stock in their own stations, but it's just not the kind of thing that
we
ought to have to sit through— I mean, the whole idea of the Bureaus was never meant to take valuable people completely away from work. Council's certainly no great inconvenience to Corain, or Chavez, or, God knows, Bogdanovitch, but it's not really productive to have Gorodin on a short string, and Science, my God, Science is an absolute tragedy—I mean, really, Ari, it's a dreadful waste of your time and energy—"