Regenesis (71 page)

“We don’t
know
things about history, Justin. We don’t know how things happened. We just know where things are now.”

“That’s pretty well the condition of everybody born, isn’t it? Except you, being what you are—”

“And you’re
Jordan’s
replicate, so you know things you wouldn’t, if you were Amy, or Sam, or Maddy. You know things. You were part of that world, the way it was.”

“I know things.”

“So you’re the best I could choose. And I’ll give you a verbal code, which will only work in your voiceprint, and only if my CIT number has gone inactive in the system. Just say my name three times. Just say
AriAriAri
. And Base One is yours. Even if Yanni’s Base Two is still active. I trust you, more than Yanni. And if anything happens to me, you take possession of this apartment, and all my staff, and every defense this place has. And you bring my friends in until it’s safe.”

“Don’t get killed.
Please
don’t get killed.”

He did care. He did. And that mattered. She was in the mode she’d been in when they’d come after Uncle Denys—close to that. But she could be amused, just a little, and moved to put a hand on his shoulder. “So you don’t have to run Reseune? There’s a major difference between you and your father. You really love the work, the puzzles in it; you tolerate me because I bring you puzzles.”

His brows knit, just a little offense, not much. “You’re a little better than a puzzle, young sera. Just a little.”

“And you’re a little better than a puzzle-solver. A lot better, in fact.” She pressed her fingers into his arm. “I’ve been in love with you since forever. So far I’ve been mostly good. And you know that, too.”

“Don’t even open that door.”

“My name is Ari. Not kid. Not young sera. I wish you’d use it.”

“And you know you
are
young sera, to most everybody.”

She tilted her head to look up at him, right in the eyes, pursed her lips slightly and shook her head, ever so slightly. “I’m
Ariane
,” she said. “That covers everything people say I am. You’re only half a replicate. Thank God. I’m pretty damned close to the original. Don’t worry about me. Just don’t let anybody get in a hit behind my back. I want you safe while I’m gone.”

“
You’re
not going with Yanni.”

“Yanni will have already left by now—or be on the verge of it. I’m going to be busy. And I’d like to give you Amy, but she’s going to Novgorod. She’s real quiet. The media let her alone. She’ll find out things. She’ll have Quentin with her, and he’ll be out of uniform. All very quiet. Just a business trip. Give me a kiss. I’m collecting them, storage for the next few days.”

He did, just a kiss on the cheek. She’d wondered what he’d do if she asked.

That he could do that, that smoothly, that collectedly, said worlds about his mental state.

She left him, then, to go talk to Amy.

“Sure.” Amy said. “When?”

“See if Yanni
can
infuse some backbone into Jacques and get Khalid shut out. I’m worried, all things considered, that that won’t be enough.”

“If Khalid’s involved in Spurlin’s murder…”

“Likely it won’t stop other things from happening. That’s what’s got me worried: if Yanni succeeds, Yanni’s in imminent danger.”

“Jacques is in trouble, in either case,” Amy said.

“He’s a dead man, either walking around for a while, or cold before nightfall. But we can only protect him if he agrees with us and puts Bigelow in the line of fire—if that’s what’s going on. This is dangerous, Amy. You should understand that. I’m not sure Patil and Thieu aren’t linked into this, and that means Yanni is a
major
target.”

“I’m in the fish breeding business. It’s about your tank. I’m staying in the Wilcox, third floor—fast to reach ground level: and Quentin’s my secretary. You want some blennies.”

“You’ve got it,” she said. “Bore anybody who asks. If you’re absolutely sure you’re overheard, you and Quentin start arguing about calcium supplements and temperature stability in the bar.”

Amy laughed. Then: “Understood,” Amy said, with a little pat on her arm, and went to talk to Quentin.

A plane took off. Ari caught the sound, above the water-sound of the room. That would probably be Yanni.

Good luck, she wished him. Good luck.

Please stay alive, Yanni.

J
ULY
26, 2424
0828
H

“Ser.” Rafael met Florian in the foyer of the little office, opened the back hall door, and showed him right through.

An item had turned up. That was what Rafael’s message had said, and when Florian went into Rafael’s office a very anxious young woman leapt up and bowed that slight degree ReseuneSec protocol taught. She was no older than the rest of them, just old enough for assignment. Her uniform tag said
CARLY BC
-18, and she was dark-skinned, broad-faced, wide-shouldered. She clutched half a ream of physical printout to her chest as if it were state secrets.

Which, given that Rafael was investigating staff backgrounds, it might be.

“This is Carly BC, ser. Records.”

“Ser,” Carly said.

Florian took the available conference chair. Carly settled on the edge of her seat and held her printout on her knees.

“So what do you have, Carly BC?”

“Ser, Giraud Nye’s contacts, systematized; the azi in question. Also Giraud Nye’s aides and seconds, their whereabouts, their contacts. I have the computer file.” She touched her breast pocket.

“Tell me what you learned,” Florian said. He expected a little nervousness. Carly BC was new, straight from the barracks. First real assignment.

And Carly had, first off, a shorter document, within the cover of the first. She pulled it out and handed it over, a set of graphs and schematics. Trips to Novgorod. Time spent in Novgorod. Meetings with Defense. Persons involved. Giraud. Abban. Gorodin, deceased Councillor.

Regime change. Giraud, Abban, Hicks. Khalid. Jacques. Spurlin. Jacques, just recently.

He looked up at Rafael. “You’ve seen this?”

“I’ve skimmed it, yes, ser.”

“Specific data on Hicks. Carly BC.”

“Ser.”

“Can you pull that out?”

Carly opened the printout on her lap and frantically turned pages. “It’s here, ser.” Large, dark eyes fixed on his. “I broke out stats on each individual involved. Nye, Abban AB, Hicks, Gorodin, Khalid, Jacques, Spurlin…”

“Give me the data file,” Florian said, and held out his hand. Carly BC opened her pocket and handed it to him immediately, a finger marking her place in the printout.

Branches. Branch led to branch, led to branch. One person connected to another. It didn’t always produce valid theory, but the investigative AI tended to err on the side of the smallest connection, once it launched.

“Well done, Carly BC.”

“Thank you, ser.”

The threads all wove back and forth. That was the pattern. Never expect that it was going to connect up too tightly. Defense was massive.

“Visits by Abban to Hicks,” he said. “Do you have that stat?”

“A lot, ser. I can find it.” She started to resort to the printout again.

“That’s good, Carly BC. No, don’t bother. If it’s searchable, it’s in here, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ser.”

“I think we’re through with Carly BC’s report,” Florian said quietly. “Thank you, Carly BC.”

“Ser.” She looked uncertain. Then started to get up.

“I’ll take the report,” Florian said. And took it, and Carly received a nod from Rafael and left.

Florian looked at Rafael, at the azi who’d been primed to report to Hicks.

“How are you now, Rafael BR?” he asked. “Are you with us on this?”

“My Contract is to sera,” Rafael said firmly.

“No lingering troubles.”

“None, ser.”

Florian looked at him a long time, and Rafael gazed back, level and long.

“Take precautions,” Florian said. “The ferret she sent may have rung bells in certain offices. It shouldn’t. But sometimes we aren’t as clean as we hope to be. Assume we’re not. That’s safest.”

“Yes, ser,” Rafael said faintly.

“Assume nothing.” Florian said. “Expect anything. At any time.”

“Yes, ser.”

Florian pocketed the datastrip, took the printout in hand, and left what ought to be the securest office in the securest wing in Reseune.

He went upstairs to sera’s apartment, to the security station in the front hall, and laid the printout on the desk by Catlin’s elbow.

“Sera Amy is safely in the hotel,” Catlin said. “Third floor, as she wanted.”

“Hicks accompanied Giraud to Defense very many times,” he said, “and was Giraud’s go-between there, as sera remembered. Sometimes Abban was with him. Yanni is, by comparison, a stranger in that tower.”

“The military have their own psychs,” Catlin said.

He nodded. “I think this has to go to sera,” he said. “I think we need her opinion on this.”

J
ULY
26, 2424
0929
H

“Yanni’s not meeting with Jacques today,”
was the gist of Amy’s report. It was Friday, Jacques ought to be available, Spurlin’s funeral was on the vid, and Jacques was notably absent.

Which wasn’t good. Ari didn’t acknowledge receipt of the message from Amy. There wasn’t anything to say. She did message Yanni, saying, “How are you doing, Uncle Yanni?”

And Yanni shot back,
“As well as can he expected. Funerals depress me.”

“We’re all fine,” she wrote. “Don’t worry about things.”

That was about five minutes before Florian came through the door and told her they were not fine.

“Sera,” he said. “We have specific data. Abban and Hicks were both Giraud’s special envoys to Defense tower, during all recent administrations, including Khalid and Gorodin, and sometimes they were there over eight hours at a stretch. Two: Hicks is a provisional Alpha Supervisor. He has an alpha assistant, Kyle AK, and he’s provisionally certified for that azi; the certificate was obtained in the last year of Giraud’s tenure. He was in Giraud’s office as deputy director for fifteen years. He had a key. He could have accessed any manual. As an Alpha Supervisor, he could have used any manual in that office…”

“Oh, this is good, Florian.”

“You know born-men, sera. But we know access. He had access.”

“He certainly did. Access to Abban. Probably to Seely. Access to Yanni’s office, right now, while he’s in Novgorod. Every
time
he’s been in Novgorod. Damn it! Florian, do
you
think Abban would have betrayed Giraud? Killed, contrary to Giraud’s wishes?”

That drew a rapid blink of Florian’s eyes. A rapid assessment. “Sera, no, I don’t.”

“Abban was upset as hell when Giraud died. Denys took him in. But Abban
stayed
upset. Denys didn’t do anything to help him. Or Denys couldn’t. That’s what I think. And maybe Abban continually supplied Denys with what somebody wanted Denys to know. Or think. Denys was only half paranoid—until Giraud died, and Abban moved in.”

“Were we mistaken to kill Denys, sera?”

“No,” she said definitively, and then amended that: “I don’t think so. I don’t think there was anything to save, once Giraud died. He’d have killed us.”

“I believe he would have, sera. I know Seely would have.”

“Seely was always Abban’s partner…out in green barracks. The way you and Catlin are partners.”

“He probably was that, yes, sera. It makes sense that he was.”

“But it’s not in his manual, nor is it in Seely’s. That’s just damned odd. A subsequent generation wouldn’t guess that relationship—based on that manual. A spy wouldn’t. It was just in their heads. And Giraud’s. And whoever really, really knew them. Bring me a cup of coffee, Florian. Call Catlin. We need to talk about this.”

“Yes, sera.”

She didn’t need the coffee, so much as the time. When they were there, Florian or Catlin, she had a range of possibilities that might be too wide, too drastic.

Call Yanni home, now, urgently? That might protect Yanni—assuming Yanni wasn’t aiding and abetting.

Hicks. With access to alpha-level personal manuals in Giraud’s office. Giraud had been a real Alpha Supervisor. On the record Denys had an alpha license. But Seely and Abban both, once they’d been solely in Denys’ care, hadn’t had expert handling. They’d both given her cold chills, but it had always been true, Giraud was the one who’d have had those manuals, Giraud was the person that could make the world make sense to Abban, and to Seely…and when he’d died, Denys couldn’t handle them.

Giraud, dammit, should have found it out if somebody had gotten to Abban. He’d known Abban that well. He’d
lived
with him that closely. How did anybody get to Abban and Giraud not know it?

But
everybody’d
been upset for weeks after the first Ari had died. Giraud more than most. Giraud hadn’t been at his best… Giraud had been emoting, leaning on Abban, not the other way around. And Abban had taken care of Giraud. An alpha could. An alpha could end up being the support for his CIT—even if it meant hiding a truth, and lying, and not getting caught at it. That was the hell of working with alphas. Given the collapse of the CIT they relied on, they so, so easily ended up doing all the navigation on a map they didn’t wholly understand, and satisfying their internal conditions by the nearest available substitute—the satisfaction of coping well, and rescuing their CIT, and keeping him going. You
couldn’t
have an emotional meltdown and stay in charge, not with an Abban type.

Abban might have killed the first Ari—but working with the security sets as she had, she knew—she knew in a way she hadn’t been able to accept—that scary as Abban was, Abban hadn’t been doing the steering. Abban hadn’t been to blame. And she’d gotten over it when she’d made up her mind that she wouldn’t abort Giraud, and more particularly wouldn’t abort the Abban and Seely Denys had made to keep him company.

Pyramids in the desert. The immortality of the ancients, the burial with worldly goods, with attendants, with all the panoply of kings. Offerings to the dead, for the rebirth. She’d had that thought, when she’d first known Denys had activated all three genesets.