Union Alliance - Cyteen. Part 8

"Go public. Go to the Bureau. And you don't don't want that." want that."

"Well, but there's a lot else we can do, isn't there? Because his son really is is guilty of theft, of vandalism, of getting into files that don't concern him- And there's so much of that that doesn't have to happen. Jordan can make charges, I can make charges; you know if this breaks, that appointment he wants won't make it, no matter what interests are behind it. They'll desert him in a flash. But you know all that. It's what makes everything work, isn't it-unless I really wanted to take measures to recover Grant and prosecute those friends of yours. That's what you've missed, you know. That I can do just exactly what you did, break the law; and if someone brings out your part in this, and if your father has to listen to your personal reasons, our little private sessions, hmmn? -it's really going to upset him." guilty of theft, of vandalism, of getting into files that don't concern him- And there's so much of that that doesn't have to happen. Jordan can make charges, I can make charges; you know if this breaks, that appointment he wants won't make it, no matter what interests are behind it. They'll desert him in a flash. But you know all that. It's what makes everything work, isn't it-unless I really wanted to take measures to recover Grant and prosecute those friends of yours. That's what you've missed, you know. That I can do just exactly what you did, break the law; and if someone brings out your part in this, and if your father has to listen to your personal reasons, our little private sessions, hmmn? -it's really going to upset him."

"It won't do you any good if I go to court, either. You can't afford it. You've got the votes in Council right now. You want to watch things fall apart, you lay a hand on Grant-and I talk. You watch it happen."

"You d.a.m.ned little sneak," she said slowly. "You think you understand it that well."

"Well enough to know my friends won't use a card before they have to."

"What have you got on the Krugers, that they'd risk this kind of trouble for you? Or do you think the other side won't use you? Have you taken that into account?"

"I didn't have much choice, did I? But things ought to be safe as long as the deal for Jordan's transfer is going to hold up and you keep your hands off Grant. If they put me me under probe they'll hear plenty-about the project. I don't think you want outsiders questioning anyone in Reseune right now." under probe they'll hear plenty-about the project. I don't think you want outsiders questioning anyone in Reseune right now."

"d.a.m.ned dangerous, young man." Ari leaned forward and jabbed a finger in his direction. "Did "Did Jordan map this out?" Jordan map this out?"

"No."

"Advise you?"

"No."

"That amazes me. It's going to amaze other people too. If this goes to court, the Bureau isn't going to believe he didn't put you up to this. And that's that's going to weigh against him when it comes to a vote, isn't it? So we'll keep it quiet. You can tell Jordan as much as you want to tell him; and we'll call it stalemate. I won't touch Grant; I won't have the Krugers arrested. Not even a.s.sa.s.sinated. And yes, I can. I could arrange an accident for you. Or Jordan. Farm machinery-is so dangerous." going to weigh against him when it comes to a vote, isn't it? So we'll keep it quiet. You can tell Jordan as much as you want to tell him; and we'll call it stalemate. I won't touch Grant; I won't have the Krugers arrested. Not even a.s.sa.s.sinated. And yes, I can. I could arrange an accident for you. Or Jordan. Farm machinery-is so dangerous."

He was shocked. And frightened. He had never expected her to be so blunt.

"I want you to think about something," she said. "What you tell your father will either keep things under control-or blow everything. I'm perfectly willing to see Jordan get that Fargone post. And I'll tell you exactly what deal I'll strike to unwind this pretty mess you've built for us. Jordan can leave Reseune for Fargone just as soon as there's an office there for him to work in. And when he s.h.i.+ps out from Cyteen Station, you'll still be here. You'll arrange for Grant to follow him as soon as the Hope corridor is open and the Rubin project is well underway. You can take the s.h.i.+p after his. And all of that should keep your father-and you-quiet long enough to serve everything I need. The military won't let Jordan be too noisy-They hate media attention to their projects. -Or, or, we can just blow all of this wide right now and let us fight it out in court. I wonder who'd win, if we just decided to pull Rubin back to Cyteen and give up the Fargone facility entirely."

I've fallen into a trap, he thought. he thought. But how could I have avoided it? What did I do wrong? But how could I have avoided it? What did I do wrong?

"Do you agree?" she asked.

"Yes. So long as you keep your end of it. And I get my my transfer back to my father's wing." transfer back to my father's wing."

"Oh, no, that's not not part of it. You stay here. What's more, you and I are going to have an ongoing understanding. You know-your father's a very proud man. You know what it would do to him, to have to choose whether to go to the Bureau and lose everything over what you've done, or keep his mouth shut and part of it. You stay here. What's more, you and I are going to have an ongoing understanding. You know-your father's a very proud man. You know what it would do to him, to have to choose whether to go to the Bureau and lose everything over what you've done, or keep his mouth shut and know know what you're involved in to keep that a.s.signment for him. Because that's what you've done. You've handed me all the personal and legal missiles I need-if I have to use them. I've got a way to keep your father quiet, an easy way, as it happens, that doesn't involve him getting hurt. And all you've got to do is keep quiet, do your work, and wait it out. You've got exactly the position you bargained for-hostage for his release; and his good behavior. So what I want you to do, young man, is go put in an honest day's work, give me the BRX reports by the time your s.h.i.+ft's over, and let me see a good job. You do what you like: call your father, tell him Grant's gone missing, tell him as much as you like. I certainly can't stop you. And you come to my Residency, oh, about 2100, and you tell me what you've done. Or I'll a.s.sume it's gone the other way." what you're involved in to keep that a.s.signment for him. Because that's what you've done. You've handed me all the personal and legal missiles I need-if I have to use them. I've got a way to keep your father quiet, an easy way, as it happens, that doesn't involve him getting hurt. And all you've got to do is keep quiet, do your work, and wait it out. You've got exactly the position you bargained for-hostage for his release; and his good behavior. So what I want you to do, young man, is go put in an honest day's work, give me the BRX reports by the time your s.h.i.+ft's over, and let me see a good job. You do what you like: call your father, tell him Grant's gone missing, tell him as much as you like. I certainly can't stop you. And you come to my Residency, oh, about 2100, and you tell me what you've done. Or I'll a.s.sume it's gone the other way."

He was still thinking when she finished, still running through all of it, and what she meant; but he knew that. He tried to find all the traps in it. The one he was in, he had no trouble seeing. It was the invitation he had dreaded. It was where everything had been going.

"You can go," she said.

He walked out past Florian in the outer lab, out into the hall, out through the security doors and upstairs into the ordinary hallways of Wing One operations. Someone pa.s.sed him on the way to his office and said good morning to him; he realized it half the hall further on, and did not even know who it had been.

He did not know how he was going to face Jordan. By phone, he thought. He would break the news by phone and meet his father for lunch. And get through it somehow. Jordan would expect him to be distraught.

Ari was right. If Jordan got involved in it, everything that was settled became unsettled, and for all that he could figure, Jordan had no hand to play.

At best, he thought-go along with it till he could get control of himself enough to think whether telling Jordan the whole story was the thing to do.

Whatever the time cost.

vi "What we did . . ." Justin turned the stem of his wine-gla.s.s, a focus to look at, anything but Jordan's face. "What we did was what we always planned to do, if one of us got cornered. Her taking Grant-was to pressure me. I know-I know you told me I should come to you. But she sprang that on us, and there wasn't time to do anything but file a protest with the Bureau. That'd have been too late for Grant. G.o.d knows what she might have put him through before we could get any land of injunction, if we could get one at all-" He shrugged. "And we couldn't win it, in the long run, the law's on her side and it would foul everything up just after everything was settled on the Fargone deal, so I just-just took the only chance I thought would work. My best judgment. That's all I can say."

It was a private lunch, in the kitchen in Jordan's apartment. Paul did the serving, simple sandwiches, and neither of them did more than pick at the food.

"d.a.m.n," Jordan said. He had said very little up to that point, had let Justin get it out in order. "d.a.m.n, you should have told me what was going on. I told told you-" you-"

"I couldn't get to you. It'd make everything I did look like it was your doing. I didn't want to lay a trail."

"Did you? Did you lay one?"

"Pretty plain where I'm concerned, I'm afraid. But that's part of the deal. That's why I stayed here. Ari's got something on me. She's got me to use against you, the way she planned to use Grant against me. Now she doesn't need him, does she?"

"You're d.a.m.n right she doesn't need him! My G.o.d, son-"

"It's not that bad." He kept his voice ever so steady. "I called her bluff. I stayed around. She said- She said that this is the way it's going to work: you get your transfer as soon as the facility is built, earnest of her good faith. Then I get Grant to go out there to you, earnest of mine. That way-"

"That way you're left here where she can do anything she d.a.m.n well pleases!"

"That way," he reprised, calmly, carefully, "she knows that she can hold on to me and keep you quiet until her projects are too far advanced to stop. And the military won't let you go public. That's what she's after. She's got it. But there's a limit to what she can do-and this way all of us get out. Eventually."

Jordan said nothing, for a long, long while, then lifted his wine gla.s.s and took a drink and set it down.

And still said nothing, for minutes upon minutes.

"I should never, never have kept Grant," Jordan said finally, "when things blew up with Ari. I knew it would happen. d.a.m.n, I knew it would, all those years ago. Don't ever, ever ever take favors from your enemies." take favors from your enemies."

"It was too late then, wasn't it?" Justin said. The bluntness shocked his nerves, brought him close to tears, an anger without focus. "G.o.d, what could we do?"

"Are you sure he's all right?"

"I haven't dared try to find out. I think Ari would have told me if she knew anything different. I set everything up. If the number I gave him doesn't answer, Krugers will keep him safe till it does."

"Merild's number?"

Justin nodded.

"G.o.d." Jordan raked his hair back and looked at him in despair. "Son, Merild's no match for the police."

"You always said-if anything happened- And you always said he was a friend of the Krugers. And Ari's not going to call the police. Or try anything herself. She said that. I've got all the ends of this. I really think I have."

"Then you're a d.a.m.n sight more confident than you ought to be," Jordan snapped. "Grant's somewhere we're not sure, Krugers could have the police on their doorstep-Merild may or may not be available, for G.o.d's sake, he practices all over the continent."

"Well, I couldn't d.a.m.n well phone ahead, could I?"

Jordan's face was red. He took another drink of wine, and the level in the gla.s.s measurably diminished.

"Merild's a lawyer. He's got ethics to worry about."

"He's also got friends. Hasn't he? A lot of friends."

"He's not going to like this."

"It's the same as me coming to him, isn't it?" He was suddenly on the defensive, fighting on the retreat. "Grant's no different. Merild knows that, doesn't he? Where's ethics, if it turns Grant over to the police?"

"You'd have been a h.e.l.l of a lot easier to answer for. If you'd had the sense to go with with him, for G.o.d's sake-" him, for G.o.d's sake-"

"He's not ours! He belongs to the labs! My being with him couldn't make it legal."

"You're also a minor under the law and there're extenuating circ.u.mstances-you'd have been out out of here-" of here-"

"And they'd bring it to court and G.o.d knows what they could find for charges. Isn't that so?"

Jordan let go a long breath and looked up from under his brows.

He wanted, he desperately wanted Jordan to say no, that's wrong, there is something- Then everything became possible.

But: "yes," Jordan said in a low voice, das.h.i.+ng his hopes.

"So it's fixed," Justin said. "Isn't it? And you don't have to do anything unless the deal comes unfixed. I can tell you if I'm getting trouble from Ari. Can't I?"

"Like this time?" Jordan returned.

"Better than this time. I promise you. I promise. All right?"

Jordan picked at his sandwich, sidestepping the question. It was not all right. Justin knew that. But it was what there was.

"You're not going to end up staying here when I transfer," Jordan said. "I'll work something out."

"Just don't give anything away."

"I'm not giving a d.a.m.ned thing away. Ari's not through. You'd better understand that. She doesn't keep her agreements longer than she has to. Grant's proof of that. She's d.a.m.ned well capable of cutting throats, hear me, son, and you'd better take that into account the next time you want to bluff. She doesn't think any more of you or me or anyone than the subjects in her labs, than the poor nine-year-old azi down there in the yards that she decides to mindwipe and s.h.i.+p off to some d.a.m.n sweathouse because he's just not going to work out; because she needs the s.p.a.ce, for G.o.d's sake! Or the problem cases she won't solve, she won't even run them past my staff-she's not going to use that geneset again anyway and she d.a.m.ned well put three healthy azi down last month, just declared them hazards, because she didn't want to take the time with them, the experiment they were in is over, and that's all she needed. I can't prove it because I didn't get the data, but I know it happened. That's who you're playing games with. She doesn't give a d.a.m.n for any life, G.o.d help her lab subjects, and she's gotten beyond what public opinion might make of it-that's what she's gotten to, she's so smart they can't figure out her notes, she's answerable only to Union law, and she's got that in her pocket-she just doesn't give a d.a.m.n, and we're all under her microscope-" Jordan shoved his plate away and stared at it a moment before he looked up. "Son, don't don't trust there's anything she won't do. There isn't." trust there's anything she won't do. There isn't."

He listened. He listened very hard. And heard Ari saying that accidents at Reseune were easy.

vii His watch showed 2030 when he exited the shower and picked it up to put it on ... in an apartment entirely too quiet and depressingly empty.

He was halfway glad not to spend the night here, with the silence and Grant's empty room, glad the way biting one's lip did something to make a smashed finger hurt less, that was about the way of it. Losing Grant hurt worse than anything else could, and Ari's hara.s.sment, he reckoned, even became a kind of anodyne to the other, sharper misery she had put him to.

d.a.m.ned b.i.t.c.h, he thought, and his eyes stung, which was a humiliation he refused to give way to on her account. It was Grant had him unhinged, it was the whole d.a.m.ned mess Grant was in that had his hands shaking so badly he had trouble with the aerosol cap and popped it a ricocheting course around the mirrored sink alcove. It infuriated him. Everything conspired to irritate him out of all reason, and he set the bottle down with measured control and shaved the scant amount he had to.

Like preparing a corpse for the funeral, he thought. Everyone in Reseune had a say in his future, everyone had a mortgage on him, even his father, who had not asked his son whether he wanted to grow up with a PR on his name and know every line he was to get before he was forty, not, thank G.o.d, a bad sort of face, but not an original, either, -a face carrying all sorts of significances with his father's friends-and enemies; and Ari cornering him that first time in the lab storage room- He had not known what to do, then; he had wished a thousand times since he had grabbed hold of her and given her what she was evidently not expecting out of a seventeen-year-old kid with a woman more than twice old enough to be his grandmother. But being seventeen, and shocked and not having thought through what his choices were before this, he had frozen and stammered something idiotic about having to go, he had a meeting he had to make, had she got the report he had turned in on a project whose number he could not even remember- His face burned whenever he thought about it. He had gotten out that door so fast he had forgotten his clipboard and the reports and had to rewrite them rather than go back after them. He headed toward this appointment of Ari's, this d.a.m.nable, no-way-out-of-it meeting, with a carefully nurtured feeling that he might, maybe, get something of his self-respect back if he played it right now.

She was old, but she was not quite beyond her rejuv. She looked-maybe late forties; and he had seen holos of her at twelve and sixteen, a face not yet settled into the hard handsomeness it had now. As women six times his age went, she was still worth looking at, what she had was the same as Julia Carnath's in the dark, he told himself with a carefully held cynicism-and better than Julia, at least Ari was up front with what she was after. Everybody in Reseune slept with everybody else reasonable at some time or another, it was not totally out of line that Ari Emory wanted to renew her youth with a replicate of a man who would have been three times too young for her when he he was seventeen. The situation might have deserved a real laugh, if things were not so grim, and he were not the seventeen-year-old in question. was seventeen. The situation might have deserved a real laugh, if things were not so grim, and he were not the seventeen-year-old in question.

It was not sure he could do a d.a.m.ned thing, but, he told himself, she might at least be an experience: his was limited to Julia, who had ended up asking him for Grant-which had hurt so badly he had never gone back to her. Which was about the sum of his love affairs, and he had almost decided Jordan was right in his misogyny. Ari was a snake, she was everything reprehensible, but the key to the whole thing, he thought, was his own att.i.tude. If he used it, if he handled it as if it were what Jordan called one of his d.a.m.nfool stunts, then Ari had no weapon to use. That was the best way to take care of the problem, and that was what he had made up his mind to do-be a man, go along with the whole mess, learn from it (G.o.d knew knew a woman Ari's age had something to teach him ... in several senses)-let Ari do what she wanted, play her little games, and either lose interest or not. a woman Ari's age had something to teach him ... in several senses)-let Ari do what she wanted, play her little games, and either lose interest or not.

He reckoned he could take a page from Ari's notebook-that a seventeen-year-old wasn't going to be besotted with a woman her age-but a woman her age might have a real emotional need for a handsome, good-humored CIT bedmate. Let her get hooked.

Let her her have the problem, and him have the solution. have the problem, and him have the solution.

Age and vanity might be the way to deal with her, the weakness no one else could find, because no one else was the seventeen-year-old boy she wanted.

viii His watch showed 2105 when he walked up to the door and rang the bell of Ari's apartment-the five because he meant to make Ari wonder if he was going to show or if instead he and Jordan were going to come up with something; and no more than five because he was afraid if Ari thought that, then Ari might initiate some action even she might not be able to stop.

It was Catlin who opened the door, on an apartment he had never seen-mostly buff travertine and white furniture, very expensive, the sort of appointments Ari could afford and the rest of them only saw in places like the Hall of State, on newscasts: and blond, braid-crowned Catlin immaculate in her black uniform, very formal-but then, Catlin always was. "Good evening," Catlin said to him, one of the few times he had ever had a pleasant word from her.

"Good evening," he said, as Catlin let the door close. There was a drift of music, barely intruding on the ears . . . electronic flute, cold as the stone halls through which it moved. He felt a s.h.i.+ver in his bones. He had eaten nothing but that handful of salted chips at lunch and a piece of dry toast at supper-time, thinking that if there were anything in his stomach he would throw up. Now he felt weak in the knees and light-headed and regretted that mistake.

"Sera doesn't entertain in this end of the apartments," Catlin said, leading him through to another hall. "It's only for appearances. Mind your step, ser, these rugs are treacherous on the stone. I keep telling sera. -Have you heard from Grant at all?"

"No." His stomach tightened at the sudden, mildly delivered flank attack. "I don't expect to."

"I'm glad he's safe," Catlin said confidentially, as she might have said how nice the weather was, that same silky voice, so he had no idea whether Catlin was ever glad of anything or ever cared for anyone. She was cold and beautiful as the music, as the hall she led him through; and her opposite number met them at the end of the hall, in a large sunken den, paneled in glazed woolwood, all gray-blue and fabric-like under a sheen of plastic, carpeted in long white s.h.a.g furnished with gray-green chairs and a large beige couch. Florian came from the hall beyond, likewise in uniform, dark and slight to Catlin's athletic fairness. He laid a companionable hand on Justin's shoulder. "Tell sera her guest is here," he said to Catlin. "Would you like a drink, ser?"

"Yes," he said. "Vodka and pechi, pechi, if you've got it." if you've got it." Pechi Pechi was an import, extravagant enough; and he was still in shock from the richness Ari managed inside Reseune. He looked around him at Downer statuary in the far corner beyond the bar, wide-eyed ritual images; at steel-sculpture and at a few paintings about the woolwood walls, G.o.d, he had seen in tapes as cla.s.sics from the sublight s.h.i.+ps. Stuck in this place, where only Ari and her guests saw them. was an import, extravagant enough; and he was still in shock from the richness Ari managed inside Reseune. He looked around him at Downer statuary in the far corner beyond the bar, wide-eyed ritual images; at steel-sculpture and at a few paintings about the woolwood walls, G.o.d, he had seen in tapes as cla.s.sics from the sublight s.h.i.+ps. Stuck in this place, where only Ari and her guests saw them.

It was a monument to self-indulgence.

And he thought of the nine-year-old azi his father had mentioned.

Florian brought him the drink. "Do sit down," Florian said, but he walked the raised gallery about the rim of the room looking at the paintings, one after the other, sipping at a drink he had only had once in his life, and trying to calm his nerves.

He heard a step behind him, turned as Ari walked up on him, Ari in a geometric-print robe lapped at the waist, that glittered with the lights, decidedly no fit attire to meet business company. He stared at her, his heart hammering away in him in the panicked realization that Ari was very real, that he was in a situation he did not know the limits of, and there was no way out from here.

"Enjoying my collection?" She indicated the painting he had been looking at. "That's my uncle's. Quite an artist."

"He was good." He was off his stride for a moment. Least of all did he expect Ari to start off with reminiscences.

"He was good at a lot of things. You never knew him? Of course not. He died in '45."

"Before I was born."

"d.a.m.n, it's hard to keep up with things." She slipped her arm into his and guided him toward the next painting. "That one's a real prize. Fausberg. A naive artist, but a first view of Alpha Cent. Where no human goes now. I love that piece."

"That's something." He stared at it with a strange feeling of time and antiquity, realizing it was real, from the hand of someone who had been there, to a star humankind had lost.

"There was a time no one knew what that was worth," she said. "I did. There were a lot of primitive artists on the first s.h.i.+ps. Sublight s.p.a.ce gave them a lot of time to create. Fausberg worked in chart-pens and acrylics, and d.a.m.n, they had to invent whole new preservation techniques up on station-I insisted. My uncle bought the lot, I wanted them preserved, and that's why the Argo Argo paintings got saved at all. Most of them are in the museum at Novgorod. Now Sol Station wants one of the Fausberg paintings got saved at all. Most of them are in the museum at Novgorod. Now Sol Station wants one of the Fausberg 61 61 Cygni's really, really bad. And we may agree-for something of equal value. I have a certain Corot in mind." Cygni's really, really bad. And we may agree-for something of equal value. I have a certain Corot in mind."

"Who's Corot?"

"G.o.d, child. Trees. Green trees. Have you seen the Terran tapes?"

"A lot of them." He forgot his anxiety for a moment, recollecting a profusion of landscapes stranger than native Cyteen.