Regenesis. Part 20

Florian opened the office door, and Ari slipped into the s.p.a.ce where two men, one extravagantly red-haired, one common brown, were busy earning a living.

Or at leastthey'd been trying to.

"h.e.l.lo!" she said in her brightest tone, and Grant half-turned and raised an eyebrow. Justin swiveled his chair around, leaned back against its auto-adjust, and crossed a foot over his knee.

"Well," he said. "Is it trouble?"

"Oh, never." There wasn't another chair. It wasn't her scheduled day to be here, and she hadn't been in this office ever, though Justin and Grant had moved in nearly a week ago. These two didn't do patient-consultations, and they no longer had staff, nor any room for them, so there was no available chair for a visitor. She had to stand, and simply leaned back against the wall, until Grant, seeing the situation, surrendered his with a small flourish. "You're so sweet," she said, and patted Grant on the arm. "We've got to get other chairs in here. At least one more."

"I'll arrange that," Grant said, and as Florian rotated past the door frame and out into the corridor, Grant left, too, leaving the two of them alone to talk, herself and Justin.

"I so love the idea of your being in the Wing," she said to him. "It seems safer," Justin said. "So I take it we're not on the current arrest list."

"Don't joke like that. I'm not Denys. I won't be Denys."

"I know you're not. Are we revising the schedule for lessons today, or"

"We're keeping to schedule. I'm sorry I haven't been here this week. I've been studying."

"I thought we agreed you were going to get some rest."

"Well, it's important. I'm onto something."

"What?"

"What we were talking about. The integrations. But I'll talk about that later. Monday."

"Sure. Good." Justin made a gesture toward the other counter. "Coffee?"

"I wouldn't mind that, thank you." She watched as he got up and poured a cup. Her stomach suddenly said empty. "You wouldn't have a biscuit, would you?"

"As a matter of fact, we do," Justin said, as he opened a packet and laid a tea-biscuit on a paper saucer. And another for good measure. He gave her that saucer with the coffee. "The place came stocked."

"I really hope you like the office."

"I'm getting used to it."

She regarded Justin's first office with deep nostalgia. She remembered slipping by and giving him a gift of guppies. They hadn't lived.

Those days had seemed so much safer. She'd been out and about, un-watched, or she'd had the illusion she'd been unwatchedand never likely was. And he wasn't there anymore.

She washed down a biscuit in two bites and a sip and tried to put the past out of her mind. "Mmm. I had breakfast. But I've been studying a lot and I know I'm getting skinny, and you're right, and I'm reforming. I'm taking on real work this week, just a couple of projects. I've told Labs to let me run checks and I'll actually do a theta design. I'm sure they're going to have someone go over it. But I don't think they'll find mistakes."

"I doubt they will."

A second biscuit went down. That freed a hand to reach into her jacket pocket. "Here." She handed him the data stick she'd brought "I've looked at it. I want you to."

"What?" Justin looked amused. "You can do that. I've no doubt you can do it."

"Not the theta stuff. These are staff. All sorts of staff. They'll be mine.

I want you to look them over and make sure there aren't any bombs."

His face went sober, thoughtful as he picked up the stick. He gave her a look, like he wanted to ask a question, and maybe thought it wasn't wise to ask it at all.

"I trust you," she said. It wouldn't make him easier in his mind. She read him that well. He'd been through too much with Denys. He'd just had the row with his father and he knew Admin was upset. He was in a state of disturbance and flux, unable to settle, either physically or mentally, and he probably wasn't getting a lot of work done. "I need it really soon."

He nodded somberly and laid the data stick atop the books on his desk. "I'll put it at the top of my list."

"I know about the card," she said, and saw his face suddenly go cold and wary. He wasn't looking at her. Wasn't looking at anything in particular. "I'm sorry you got into it," she said, and he still didn't look at her. "What do you think your father's up to?"

"I haven't a clue." He did look her way, and the hard face gave way to the old Justin, the very worried Justin, who had stood off Uncle Denys confronting her, now, as the prevailing threat in his life, and his hope of tranquility. "I really haven't."

"You know he's under surveillance. He knows he is. He's mad about it. I'm really sorry, Justin. I'm sorry he did that."

He was upset. And the look was a little less protected, a little more the real Justin, worried, and on his guard. "Do you know what it's about?" he asked her flat out. . . maybe a little ashamed to be asking. She read that. Ashamed of the situation with his father. Ashamed of having to ask an outsider to the relations.h.i.+p.

"My staff is trying to find out," she said quietly. "I don't really know what it's about. He's not that easy to read. But I'd say he didn't expect you to keep that card a secret."

"I'm sure of that much," he said.

She wanted to askwhat do you want me to do with Jordan? But that wouldn't be fair to ask, and the hurt would outlast the good it would do. Justin would never forgive himself, not inside, if he asked her to send Jordan away. In a technical way, neither of them had had real parents. In an emotional way, they'd both lost the single parent they'd been most attached to. They were alike, on that one emotional sore point. Something had happened, when Jordan handed Justin that card, and they had to patch it up, and try to bring back the even tenor of the lessons, the conferences, the work together. It wasn't going to happen automatically. Jordan had already had that effectJordan, and the twitch of security, proving it was still alive.

"I'm trying to protect him from himself," she said. "He's certainly not making it easy."

Score. She saw it in his expression, just the little dilation of the iris. "I appreciate that."

"This Dr. Patil," she said. "I can tell you something about that. We're going to send her to Fargone. She's the authority in her fieldshe's certainly got the credentials. But we're digging into her a.s.sociations, all the way back. Just so you know what that was about."

"I'm not sure I want to know more than that."

"Justin, I'm not in charge of Reseune. I won't be, for awhile. But you know I direct some decisions. Yanni listens to me."

"I'm sure he does."

"Don't be like that. I'm not your enemy."

"I don't want you to be," he said plainly. "I hope you won't be."

"Jordan wants me to be your enemy."

And his eyes averted, his whole body posture changing, as if he had to re-balance his thinking.

"Doesn't he?" she asked flatly. "Or what do you think his motive is?"

Justin didn't say anything for a moment. His hand found the datastick atop the books, picked it up, turned it over. And over. And set it down, not looking at her. "I don't know why you ask my opinion on this," he said, and let a long breath go. "I don't know why you need it."

"I need it," she said. "I do need it."

"No, you don't. You're good. The h.e.l.l you're working routine theta sets, you're good."

"So are you," she said. "You're too good to go along with something even he didn't plan to have work. You know what he's really up to."

"Then I wish you'd tell me what that is!"

"I just did."

"G.o.d." He did turn his face toward her, upset. "Dammit, Ari."

"I'm being honest. I want you to be all right. I really do. I don't mind you getting along with Jordan. But he certainly minds your getting along with me. That's what it's about, isn't it? Am I wrong? His battles are all old history. The Centrists lost a lot of their power when we pa.s.sed the anti-terraforming bills and saved Cyteen's native life. They lost this world to develop. So some not-very-bright people in that party thought they were going to get their way when Ari died. But Giraud didn't let them repeal those laws. Giraud was friendly with Defense and that blocked them. And now there's Yanni, telling them they've got just a little time to make deals before I come in. Eversnow is a poor second choice, but it's what the pro-terraformers have got."

"Eversnow."

"It's a planet out beyond Fargone"

"I know that."

"Well, Patil's in charge of terraforming it, and that's a secret, so don't tell it. If certain people think they can bring that s...o...b..ll to life without wrecking it, well, they might, mightn't they, but then, that's not a very Centrist position for Corain's people to be stuck in, a dozen light years from anything civilized, and no longer in the center of anything. It's not their kind of territory. They want cities. They want Earth remade in a temperate world that's central to everything, with all of Union cl.u.s.tered around it, and they want it fast. Well, fast won't happen there. It's going to take a long time, and we'll be changing the Centrists, right along with Eversnow. People that go out there will belong there. Or their children will. That's the way things work."

"You're losing me. Eversnow. Not Fargone."

"Fargone's just a cover."

"I'm not sure I want to know these things. I'm not sure Yanni would be happy with my knowing these things."

"Oh, pretty soon more people inside Reseune are going to know it. We're just not putting it on the news until it launches. That's why security's all stirred up about this card."

"You think Jordan could have had any contact with a secret some professor in Novgorod is up to? I thought you monitored his phone calls."

"Not any current contact, no, he doesn't have. But then he never cared whether it was Centrists or Expansionists he was supporting, so long as it gave his Ari grief, do you think? She was all his focus. Whatever she wanted, he was against, once that partners.h.i.+p split up. And the fight between them wasn't ever really about Cyteen, or Eversnow, or Alpha or Beta or Fargone or terraforming or any station in the whole universe, for that matter. Reseune was everything. He wanted to leave it, but he didn't, not in his head. And now he's back, but Reseune after Denys isn't the place he remembers. So it's not a happy situation, and he's not dealing well with the changes he finds here. That's what I think."

"That, I'll entirely agree with."

"I can't make him happy. You can't."

Justin heaved a long sigh. "You're right about that." And then looked at her: "You just gave me that information on Patil to track whether or not I'd let it leak."

"I know you won't. You're good on other things I've told you."

A small, sorrowful laugh. "No, I'm not likely to. Lack of opportunity, maybe. I'm not in anyone's social circles. So I take it you're wondering if I'll be crazy and take it to Jordan."

"Florian was right in what he did: you needed to be out of Jordan's reach unless you initiate the contact."

Justin muttered something under his breath, and pushed the data stick in a circle, where it lay. "I won't ask you for favors. I know your security requirements. I know they're justified. I won't become a problem to you."

"I couldn't replace you," she said. "I really couldn't."

He gave a short laugh. "Seems that's what we do here, isn't it?"

"Not in my lifetime. I'd miss you terribly. I really would. I've lost a lot of people I relied on."

"Giraud. Denys." That was a gibe. Giraud hadn't been one of his favorite people. Denys wasn't one of hers.

"My mother." she said, matching dark for dark.

Lips tightened, and he didn't look at her when he said, bitterly: "My father."

"Right now," she said soberly, "one of my worst problems is that I can't be absolutely sure that Denys didn't install some feature in the systems that just hasn't gone off yet. Right now security has me completely walled in, same as you, because they can't figure what else to do with me. Same as you. But that's going to change, starting with my getting a security presence that's mine, no one else's. I'll have a much longer reach and a way of knowing what's going on that I don't have now. I'll be able to protect myself if I can trust it. And maybe if I'm safer, it can change things for your fatherif he calms down. If you can talk him toward common sense. He took my gift and got off the plane looking for a fight, with Yanni, with me . . ."

"With everyone. No question of that." A small silence, Justin looking hallward, in Grant's general direction, then back. "I'll talk to him, best I can. When we talk. I'm not meeting with him until he calms down."

"Tranquilizer in his coffee might be a good idea."

He laughed, shortly. "Coming from someone who could actually do it."

"It wouldn't be real peace." She got up. "You've got work to do, and I'm bothering you. Let me know what you think of those sets as soon as you can. It's a priority. I'll be back for a lesson Monday afternoon."

"Will do," he said, and she walked outside, where Grant and Florian waited, not in conversation.

"I think I'm going to have a small dinner party tonight," she said to Grant, "just Justin and you, Jordan and Paul. What do you think?"

"You may have to send security to bring Jordan."

"Maybe not," she said. Jordan was rather like a bomb with a motion switch: thus far, she'd hesitated to jostle him. If you were going to Work someone you needed a good hook, and a theory had begun to gel. Jordan wanted dominance, wasn't well socialized, had to be the center of attention, but didn't like to be talked at by fools, because there wasn't an ounce of tolerance in him. He couldn't tolerate, say, a c.o.c.ktail party, or someone who bored him for a minute. But his curiosity suffered in that isolation of his, the engine of that curiosity being a very keen intellect. She'd gotten that much long-distancethat and the fact he was Justin's twin as well as his father . . . Justin had been very much his twin until the first Ari ran an intervention and set a broad streak of insecurity into Justin's pattern: insecurity, a strong s.e.x drive, and self-doubt.

The first two, Jordan certainly had. Self-doubt was the big difference, self-doubt in Justin that constantly put out feelers toward other people, constantly checked the environment and a.n.a.lyzed it, all with a high emotional charge. It hadn't made Justin more brilliant than Jordan, but it had made him much, much more social, much more reachable.

She had the entire record of that encounter. It was hard to deal with. It told her what the first Ari could do: it told her what she could turn into. It told her the Ari who'd fought with Jordan had had some of Jordan's characteristicsand tolerance of a rival hadn't been high in the first Ari's own list of qualities. The first Ari had actually tried . . . she'd tried very hard to work with Jordan. But he'd wanted to dominate their partners.h.i.+p and she absolutely had wanted to run things, as natural as breathing. What kept bringing the first Ari back, she suspected, what might even have s.e.xually fascinated her, was the fact that she hadn't been able to Work him: that would have kept her mentally engaged with him. The fact she hadn't been about to work with himthat was the thorn in the arrangement. The same terrible boredom had afflicted the first Ari: the first Ari had shared that trait of impatience with Jordan, but, unlike Jordan, the first Ari would at times tolerate foolswould a.n.a.lyze them, and use them, sometimes ruthlessly. Challenge set her off, challenge that would rouse her out of her boredomso even that thorn in the arrangement might have been just one more attraction. She met challenge: she provoked it, enjoyed it until it potentially threatened her, and then she absolutely crushed it.

There was an extreme watch-it in that mix, wasn't there?

A very extreme watch-it, for Jordan and for herself. . . because that challenge thing stirred something so visceral in her. It did, and she tried to keep the anger in it down. She could tolerate parties. She had friends Sam, and Amy and Maddy, that she didn't see nearly often enough these days. She valued people like Justin, who'd disagree with her. She valued him extremely She defined challenge as a threat to people she loved. And that was different than the first Ari, wasn't it? She didn't let a challenge to her as what she was . . . become personal. Anger was the bad part of it, and she kept that way back, bottled, stoppered, and far back on the shelf.

She walked on her way, saying nothing to Florian at first, knowing Catlin had heard the exchange with Grant, too, and both her bodyguards knew that what she wanted was ultimately what would happen, even if her staff didn't like it. Scary notion, a supper with Justin and Jordan, in her hitherto off-limits premises. Deliciously, excitingly scary. Maybe stupid. But she wasn't sure it wasn't smart.

She'd been patient, she'd been so good, but she was close to freedom, was what, and, out in the wide world, things were all of a sudden happening that she didn't like. With that gift of security personnel from ReseuneSec, if they pa.s.sed Justin's scrutiny as well as hers and Florian's, she established a presence inside Reseune Security. And once she had that, she'd know things; she'd know when it was safe to go somewhere, and she'd know when she needed to deal with a situation. She'd be much less reliant on others filtering what got to her attention . . . like secret meetings in Novgorod.

Interesting, what she felt. Aggression was part of her motives: she recognized that when it reared its head, and it was potent. The challenge impulse. Curiosity. Much more than Justin was Jordan, she was the first Ari. It felt good to go on the attack in this long waiting. It felt very good.

That was a suspect emotion, too. She was having strong reactions to this news about more freedom; she was having emotional reactions to the business with the card and someone having told Jordan about Patil, and at least part of what Patil was up to.

Endocrine thinking, she said to herself. The first Ari consistently warned her about that, told her do something to get rid of it. s.e.x could work, if it was a pa.s.sing urge. But that just touched off more flux-thinking, and sometimes complicated things worse than before. Rational thought was the long-term cure for problems.

That was what the first Ari had said, out of Base One. Steady down. Think.

Florian asked quietly, as they walked: "What are we to expect tonight, sera?"

"I don't quite know," she said, still wondering if she'd just done something very unwise. But something to break the stalemate between Justin and Jordan once and for allwas that unwise? "Something interesting, at least."