vi
The plane touched and braked and rolled toward the terminal, and Grant gave a sigh of profoundest relief, watching it from the windows.
There was still a lot to wait through: there was a Decon procedure for anything coming in from the other hemisphere, not just the passengers having to go through Decontamination, but the luggage had to be treated and searched, and the plane itself had to be hosed down and fumigated.
That was starting when Grant left the windows and walked over to the Decon section and stationed himself outside the white doors, hands locked between his knees, flexing and clenching—nervous tic, that. You have a lot of tension, a Supervisor would tell him, who saw it.
A Supervisor could say that about any CIT anytime, Grant reckoned. Flux-thinking bred it. Azi-mindset said: there's not enough data to solve the problem, and the sane and sensible azi filed it and blanked out to rest or worked on another problem. A CIT threw himself at a data-insufficient problem over and over, exploring the flux in his perceptions and shades of value in his opinions, and touching off his endocrine system, which in turn brought up his flux-capable learning—which hyped the integrative processes in the flux. He was doing too much of it lately for his liking. He hated the stress level CITs lived at.
And here he was sitting here worrying about four and five problems at once, simply because he had become an adrenaline addict.
The white doors opened. Part of the crew came out. They ignored him and walked on down the hall.
Then the doors opened again, and Justin came through. Grant got up, caught the relief and the delight in Justin's expression and went and hugged him because Justin offered him open arms.
"Are you all right?" Grant asked.
"I'm fine. Jordan's fine. " Justin pulled him out of the way of more people coming out the doors, and walked with him behind them. "Got to pick up my briefcase and my bag, " he said, and they walked to Baggage, where it was waiting, fogged, irradiated, and, Grant reckoned, searched and scanned, case and light travel bag alike.
"I'll carry them, " Grant said.
"I've got them. " Justin gathered everything up and they walked to the doors, to the waiting bus that would take them up to the House.
"Was it a good trip?" Grant said, when they were where no eavesdropper could likely pick it up, going out the doors into the dark.
"It was, " Justin said, and gave the bags to the azi baggage handler.
Security was in the bus, ordinary passengers like themselves, from this point. They sat down, last aboard. The driver shut the doors and Justin slumped in the seat as the bus pulled out of the lighted portico of the terminal and headed up toward the house.
"I got to talk to Jordan. We stayed up all night. Just talking. We both wished you were there. "
"So do I. "
"It's a lot better there than I thought it was. A lot worse in some ways and a lot better. There's a good staff. Really fine people. He's getting along a lot better than I thought he would. And Paul is fine. Both of them. " Justin was a little hoarse. Exhausted. He leaned his head on the seat-back and said: "He's going to look at my projects. He says at least there's something there that the computers aren't handling. That he's interested and he's not just saying that to get me there. There's a good chance I can go back before the year's out. Maybe you too. Or you instead. He'd really like to see you. "
"I'm glad, " Grant said.
There was not much they could say, in detail. He wasglad. Glad when they pulled up in the portico of the House, checked in through the front door, and Justin doggedly, stubbornly, insisted to carry his own baggage, tired as he was.
"You don't carry my bags, " Justin snapped at him, hoarsely.
Because Justin hated him playing servant in public, even when he was trying to do him an ordinary favor.
But Justin let him take them and put them over against the wall when they were inside, in their own apartment, and Justin took his coat off and fell onto the couch with a sigh. "It was good, " he said. "All the way. It's hard to believe I was there. Or that I'm back. It's so damned different. "
"Whiskey?"
"A little one. I slept on the plane. I'm out, already. "
Grant smiled at him, Justin half-nodding with time-lag. He went and fixed the whiskey, never mind now that he was playing servant. He made two of them.
"How's it been here?" Justin asked, and there was a small upset at Grant's stomach.
"Fine, " he said. "Just fine. " The upset was more when he brought the drink and gave it into Justin's hand.
Justin took it. His hand shook when he drank a sip of it, and Justin looked up at him with the most terrible, weary look. And smiled with the same expression as he lifted the glass in a wry toast. There was no way for either of them to know, of course, whether the other had been tampered with.
But that was all right: there was nothing either of them could do about it, if Security had done anything. There was nothing, Grant thought, worth the fight for either of them if that was the case.
Grant lifted his glass the same way, and drank.
Then he went to the bedroom and pulled a note out from under Justin's pillow. He brought it back to him.
If I'm showing this to you,it said, I'm in my right mind. If I didn't, and you just found it, I'm not. Be warned.
Justin looked at him in frightened surmise. And then in earnest question.
Grant smiled at him, wadded up the note, and sat down to drink his whiskey.
vii
It wasn't hard at all to get out the kitchen way. They didn't go together. Catlin and Florian went first because they were Security and the kitchen staff wouldn't know they shouldn't: Security went everywhere.
Then Ari went in. She Worked her way through, made herself a pest to the azi who was mixing up batter, and got a taste, then went over to the azi chopping up onions and said it made her cry. So she went out onto the kitchen steps and dived right off and down, and ran fast to get down the hill, where the hump was Florian and Catlin told her about.
She slid down on her back and rolled over and grinned as they looked at her, lying on their stomachs too.
"Come on, " Catlin said then. She was being Team Leader. She was the best at sneaking.
So they followed her, slithered down to the back of the pump building where she stripped off her blouse and her pants and put on the ones Florian gave her, azi-black. Getting shoes that fit was harder, so she had bought some black boots on uncle Denys' card that worked all right if nobody looked close. And she was wearing those. Florian got her card off her blouse and taped a black band across the bottom and a mark like the azi triangle in the CIT blank.
"Do I look right?" she said when she had clipped the card on.
"Face, " Catlin said. So she made an azi face, very stiff and formal.
"That's good, " Catlin said.
And Catlin slithered over, looked around the corner of the pump building, then got up and walked out. They followed Catlin as far as the road, and then they just walked together like they belonged there.
It was going to take them a while to miss her up at the House, Ari thought, and then Security was going to get real upset.
Meanwhile she had never seen the Town except from the House, and she wished they could walk faster, because she wanted to see as much as she could before they got caught.
Or before she decided to go back, somewhere around dark. It was going to be fun at the same time as it was not going to be: it was going to be a lot of trouble, but she really hoped they could sneak back up and get her clothes, and just sneak back in by the kitchen, when everyone was really in a panic. But that might look too smart, and that might make them watch her too close.
It was better to be Sam, and get caught.