Cherryh, C J - Alliance-Union 08 (89 page)

Justin watched and watched, every nuance, every shift in the replay. He had missed the whole afternoon, buried in the sociology lab; and he watched it now, once and twice, because the keyword response in the vid recorder had gotten all the references to the hearings, to Ari, to all the principals.

He shook his head, hands under chin, elbows on knees.

"Remarkably accurate retention," Grant said, beside him on the couch. "For a CIT. She hit every point she wanted to make, certainly. And confused them about the rest."

The tape reached Khalid's second refutation, the cold, passionless statement that Ari had been prompted with that accusation by Giraud Nye, that Giraud used her as his voice because it was otherwise actionable.

Justin shook his head again. "He may have given it to her. But the kid's sense of timing is impeccable."

"Khalid mistook his opponent," Grant said. "He thought that it was Giraud all along."

"Vid off," Justin said, and there was silence in the room.

Grant reached across and shook at his knee. "Do you think Khalid—is capable of harming her?"

"I think that man is
capable
of anything. I don't know. He won't move on—won't move on
her.
She's too hard a target. I'm going to call Denys."

"Why?"

"CIT craziness. Politics. She's too hard a target.
Jordan
works for Defense."

Grant's face went expressionless. Then showed shock.

"I don't think we should put that through the Minder. We should
go
to him."

"How in hell do we get an interview with Denys at this hour? There's no way he'll open the door to us."

"Security," Grant said after a moment. "We ask him to meet us in Security."

"I appreciate your concern," Denys said, the other side of the desk from them, themselves in two hard chairs, Seely standing by the wall, in the interview room.

Justin remembered the place—too well. "Ser, I—don't call it an irrational fear. Order him not to answer any calls from the base."

"We don't need any moves against Defense on record," Denys said. "That in itself—could call unwelcome attention to your father. Possibly you're being alarmist ..."

"Khalid has reason to want an incident, ser. And my father is sitting there without protection. They can
tell
him damned well anything. Can't they?"

Denys frowned, thick fingers steepled, then interlocking. "Seely. Move on it. Now."

"Yes," Seely said, and left.

Grant rose from his chair, following Seely with his eyes.
Then
the thought came; and Justin stood up, suddenly facing two armed guards in the doorway.

"What is he going to do?" Justin asked, looking at Denys. "That wasn't an instruction.
What is he going to do?"

"Relax," Denys said. "Relax, son. Sit down. Both of you. There are contingency plans. You're not the first one to think of these eventualities. Seely understands my meanings perfectly well."

"What contingencies?"

"Dear God, we certainly don't intend any harm to your father. Sit down. Please. You have a very active imagination tonight."

"What is he going to do?"

"He's simply going to go to the front desk and they'll transmit a code, which you don't need to know, which simply advises Planys lab to go on extreme alert. That means Reseune Security trusts no one who is not Reseune Security. And no one comes in or goes out who's
not
Reseune Security. We simply claim a laboratory incident. Very simple. Since Jordan has the highest-level Security flag at Planys—rest assured, he's not available to any calls, except from us. Sit down."

Justin sat, and Grant did.

"There," Denys sighed. "Thank you. I appreciate your level of paranoia, Justin. It's finely honed, God knows. I never undervalue a good set of nerves. Storm-sense. Seely—never needs the weather warnings. Isn't that an odd thing—in a mind so rational? —What did you think of her?"

Off the flank and unforeseen. Justin bunked, instantly wary—and that in itself was a reaction he did not want. "Of Ari? Ari was brilliant. What else could she be?"

"I have a little pride invested in her," Denys said. "You know she brought up her psych scores six points in less than a month, when the rascal got the notion she had to. I told the committee exactly that. And they wouldn't believe she was laying back. Forgive me. I'm also extremely nervous until we get her back here safe, inside
our
perimeters."

"So am I. Honestly."

"I believe that. I truly do. I must tell you—our concern with your father has been in an entirely different context during this trip. I told you I would tell you—when Ari became aware of her predecessor's—death."

"You've told her, then."

Denys bit his lip and studied his hands. "Not all of it. Not yet." He looked up. "On the other hand—I sweated through that first interview. At one point I was sure Ari was going to say—in response to
why
the first Ari didn't make better provision for passing on the information—that Ari was murdered. And then the reporter would have keyed right onto the relationship of the murder to that information—no valid connection, of course. But I felt for a split second that was exactly where it was going—and then Ari changed course. Thank God. I really don't want her to hear the words 'the Warrick case' for the first time—in front of the cameras. Or in the hearings. She's flying home tonight. Totally unscheduled departure, Science Bureau chase planes with full radar coverage. You see we're likewise very paranoid. Giraud is, I think, going to break the news to her on the way. So I've warned you."

"Ari," Giraud said, settling into the seat Florian had vacated for him, across from her, while
RESEUNE ONE
flew through the dark and there was nothing but stars out the windows—stars and the running lights of the planes Giraud said were flying with them.

Because they had to worry about electronic interference and all sorts of things that even Florian and Catlin frowned over. Because they had challenged a very dangerous, very desperate man who had all kinds of contacts, and because the world had crazy people in it who might try something and try to blame it on Defense.

She would be very glad, she thought, when she felt them touch down at Reseune. Enemies didn't much bother her, except the kind who might aim another plane at you or take out your navigation or who might be Defense trying to blame it on extremists or extremists trying to blame it on Defense.

"We're doing fine," uncle Giraud said. "Radar's perfectly clear. Our escort is enough to keep them honest. I imagine you're anxious for your own bed tonight."

Oh, damn, we've got the Minder checkout to go through when we get back to the apartment, and Florian and Catlin are tired as I am. I just want to go to bed. And I can't sleep.

"I did worry today," Giraud said, "about one thing I was afraid they were going to throw at you. That—we really haven't wanted to go into. But I think—and Denys thinks—I've talked with him on the Bureau system—that you need to know."

God, get to it!

"You know your predecessor was murdered. And that it was somebody in Reseune."

"Who?"

"A man named Jordan Warrick."

She blinked and felt the sting of exhaustion in her eyes. There was only one Warrick at Reseune
she
had ever met. "Who's Jordan Warrick?"

"A Special. The absolute authority in educational design. Justin Warrick's father."

She rubbed her eyes and slid up a little in her seat, looking at Giraud.

"I didn't want you to find that out in front of the cameras. I certainly don't want you to find it out from Council next week. Jordan and Ari had personal and professional difficulties; and political ones. He accused Ari of tampering with his work and taking credit from him—as he saw it. They quarreled— Do you want to hear this in detail?"

She nodded.

"Most likely, and he claims this was the case, it wasn't premeditated. They fought—a physical fight—and she hit her head—at which point he panicked and tried to cover up what had happened. It happened in the cold lab down in Wing One basement. The section is very old, the cryogenics conduits are completely uncovered; he created a break, blew the line, shut the door—it
still
swings, it has to do with the way the building settled, and the door is unfixable; but we've disabled the lock. In short, Ari froze to death in a release of liquid nitrogen from a pipe rupture. It was relatively painless; she was unconscious from the blow. Jordan Warrick—being a Special—had a Council hearing. It was an absolutely unprecedented case—Specials don't commit murder. And his mind—whatever his faults—is protected by law. He did agree to accept a transfer out of Reseune. He lives at Planys. Justin does visit him now and again."

"Did he know about it?"

"Justin didn't have any idea what was going to happen. He was only seventeen. He'd attempted—using resources of his father's—to smuggle Grant out of Reseune and into Novgorod—Jordan wanted to get the directorate at RESEUNESPACE, and Grant's status as an X-number meant it might have been hard to get him to go with them. But it went wrong, the contacts Justin used—friends of his father—happened to have ties to the Abolitionists, who attempted a very misguided intervention with Grant. I've always entertained a private suspicion that Grant figured in the argument Jordan had with Ari. Grant had to be rescued; he was in hospital that night, in very precarious shape—and Justin was visiting him about the time the murder happened, so there's no question about Justin's whereabouts. He had no idea his father was going to see Ari. He certainly had no notion what his father would do."

She felt a little sick at her stomach. "He's my
friend."

"He was seventeen when all this happened. Just two years older than you are. None of it was his fault. He lives at Reseune—his father lives at Planys under a kind of perpetual arrest. You understand, I think, why we've been very anxious about your contacts with him. But he's never initiated them; he's been very careful to follow the rules that let him live at Reseune. He was able to finish his education; he's made a home at Reseune, he causes no one any trouble, and it didn't seem fair to punish him for something which absolutely was none of his doing, or to send him where he wouldn't have the facilities to pursue his work. He's very bright. He's a very troubled man, a very confused one, sometimes, but I hope he'll work out his own answers. Most of all we've worried about the chance he would do something or say something to hurt you—but he never has. Has he?"

"No."
Remember the source,
Ari senior would say,
had
said, advising her how to deal with deceptions.
Remember the source.
"Why didn't he go to Fargone? Valery did. Valery was only four years old and he never hurt anybody."

"Frankly we wanted Justin where we could see him," Giraud said, going right past the matter of Valery. Of course. "And we didn't want him in prolonged contact with any ship crew or within reach of outside communications. His father's friends—are Rocher and that crowd, the Abolitionists—who are one of the reasons we have that escort flying off our wings."

"I understand." She needed to think about it for a while. She had no desire to talk about it with uncle Giraud, not right now.

"We knew it would upset you," Giraud said, trying for a reaction out of her.

She looked at him and let the situation flow right through her, bland as could be, the night, the planes outside, the news about Justin, Giraud's evading the Valery question. So they could get blown up. So the whole world was crazy. But she had figured it was dangerous when she made up her mind she was going to mention the Gehenna things—when she had warned uncle Denys and uncle Giraud what she was going to do, and they had been nervous about it. But one thing about Giraud—once things went inertial he had a cool head and he came across with the right things at the right time: if she had to pick somebody to be with her in Novgorod she figured Giraud was one of the best. And what he was saying had to be true: it was too easy to check out.

She sighed. "It does upset me," she said, "but I'm glad I know. I need to think about it, uncle Giraud."

He looked at her a moment, then fished in his pocket, and pulled out a little packet, reached and laid it on her side of the table.

"What's that?"

Giraud shrugged. "No shopping this trip," he said. "But I did remember this little thing in a certain shop. I had Security pick it up. They hadn't sold it."

She was bewildered. She picked it up, unwrapped the paper and opened the box. There was a pin with topazes of every shade, set in gold. "Oh," she said. "Oh!"

"So much jewelry came with Ari's estate," Giraud said, and got up to go back to his own seat at the back. "I thought you should have something that was only yours."

"Thank
you, uncle Giraud." She was entirely off her balance.

And more so when she looked up at him. The way the light came down on him from the overhead in that second made his skin look papery and old; he walked by and put his hand on her arm and his hand showed deep creases. Old. Of course he was.

Something that was only yours.
That rattled around in her head and found such a central place to light that she turned the thought over as often as she did the pin, turning all the facets to the light—whether Giraud had just Worked her or whether it was just that her uncle had this thing about young girls or maybe—maybe a single soft spot that had started back when she was little had just grown along with her, until he finally really had thoughts like that. After all the rotten things he had done.

He had Got her good, that was sure.

One thing that was truly hers. So very few things were.

"What is it, sera?" Florian asked, and: "It's pretty," he said.

"Nice," Catlin said, coming to take the seat beside her, and reached out a hand to touch it.

Of course they were hers. Ari and Ari blurred together and came separate and blurred together again, with very little discomfort nowadays. Ari senior had collected real trouble in her lifetime, but that was all right, she didn't like Ari's Enemies either. They had murdered Ari and now she had Security with her everywhere and planes flying beside just to be sure she got home, to Ari's bed and Ari's comforts and Ari's Reseune, in all—