"It's in Ari's notes," Ari said. "Now you know something on Denys. But I wouldn't tell him you know. He'd be upset with me for telling you. But it's why you should be careful. I've learned from uncle Denys for years. I still do. But the work I really want is macro-sets and value-sets. You're the only one who's working on the things Ari wantedme to do. I listen to her."
"Listen to her—"
"Her notes. She had a lot to tell me. A lot of advice. Sometimes I don't listen and I'm generally sorry for it. Like this afternoon."
"Am I—in the notes?"
"Some things about you are. That she talked Jordan into doing a PR. That she and Jordan did a lot of talking about the Bok clone problem and they talked about the psych of a PR with the parent at hand—and one like the Bok clone, without. It's interesting stuff. I'll let you read it if you want."
"I'd be interested."
"Stuff on Grant, too. I can give you that. They're going to hold that out of the Bureau notes, because they don't want it in there, about you. Because your father doesn't want it, uncle Denys says."
He took a mouthful of Scotch, off his balance, knowing she had put him there, every step of the way.
Nota child. Wake up, fool. Remember who you're dealing with. Eighteen years asleep. Wake up.
"You didn't walk in here unarmed," he said. "In either sense, I'll imagine."
She ignored that remark, except for a little eye contact, deep and direct. She said: "Why don't you like me, Justin? You have trouble with women?"
A second time off his balance. Badly. And then a little use out of the anger, a little steadiness, even before he felt Grant's touch on his knee. "Ari, I'm at a disadvantage in this discussion, because you aresixteen."
"Chronologically."
"Emotionally. And you shouldn't have the damn vodka." That got a little flicker. "Keeps me quiet. Keeps me from being bored with fools. Drunk, I'm about as eetee as the rest of the world."
"You're wrong about that."
"You're not my mother."
"You want to talk about that?" Offthe other topic. "I don't think you do. Shows what the stuffs doing to you."
She shook her head. "No. Hit me on that if you Like. I threw that at you. So you're being nice. Let's go back to the other thing. I want just one straight answer—since you're being nice. Is it women, is it because I'm smarter than you, or is it because you can't stand my company?"
"You want a fight, don't you? I didn't come here for this." Another shake of the head. "I'm sixteen, remember. Ari said adolescence was hell. She saidrelations with CITs always lose you a friend. Because people don't like you up that close. Ever. She said I'd never understand CITs. Myself—for my own education—once—I'd like to have somebody explain it to me—why you don't like me."
The smell of orange juice. Of a musky perfume.
This is all there is, sweet. This is as good as it gets.
Oh, God, Ari.
He caught his breath. Felt his own panic, felt the numbing grip on his wrist
"Sera," Grant said.
"No," he said quietly. "No." Knowing more about the woman eighteen years ago than he had learned in that night or all the years that followed.
And reacting, the way she had primed him to react, the way she had fixed him on her from that time on—
"Your predecessor," he said, carefully, civilized, "had a fondness for adolescent boys. Which I was, then. She blackmailed me. And my father. She threatened Grant, to start running test programs on him—on an Alpha brought up as a CIT. Mostly, I think—to get her hands on me, though I didn't understand that then. Nothing—absolutely nothing—of your fault. Iknow that. Say that I made one mistake, when I thought I could handle a situation when I was about your age. Say that Ihave a reluctance when I'm approached by a girl younger than I was, never mind you have her face, her voice, and you wear her perfume. It's nothing to do with you. It's everything to do with what she did. I'd rather not give you the details, but I don't have to. She made a tape. It may be in your apartment for all I know. Or your uncle can give it to you. When you see it, you'll have every key you need to take me apart. But that's all right. Other people have. Nothingto do with you."
Ari sat there for a long, long time, elbows on the table. "Why did she do that?" she asked finally.
"You'd know that. Much more than I would. Maybe because she was dying. She was in rejuv failure, Ari. She had cancer; and she was a hundred twenty years old. Which was no favorable prognosis."
She had not known that. For a PR it was a dangerous kind of knowledge—the time limits in the geneset.
"There were exterior factors," he said. "Cyteen was more native when she was young. She'd gotten a breath of native air at some time in her life. That was what would have killed her."
She caught her lip between her teeth. No hostility now. No defense. "Thank you," she said, "for telling me."
"Finish your drink," he said. "I'll buy you another one."
"I knew—when she died. Not about the cancer."
"Then your notes don't tell you everything. I will. Ask me again if I'm willing to take a transfer."
"Are you?"
"Ask Grant."
"Whatever Justin says," Grant said.
vii
"We've got a contact," Wagner said, on the walk over to State from the Library, "in Planys maintenance. Money, not conscience."
"I don't want to hear that," Corain said. "I don't want you to have heard it. Let's keep this clean."
"I didn't hear it and you didn't," Wagner agreed. A stocky woman with almond eyes and black ringleted hair, Assistant Chief of Legal Affairs in the Bureau of Citizens, complete with briefcase and conservative suit. A little walk over from Library, where both of them happened to meet—by arrangement. "Say our man's working the labs area. Say he talks with Warrick. Shows him pictures of the kids—you know. So Warrick opens up."
"We're saying what happened."
"We're saying what happened. I don't think you want to know the whole string of contacts. ..."
"I don't. I want to know, dammit, is Warrick approachable?"
"He's been under stringent security for over a year. He has a son still back in Reseune. This is the pressure point."
"I remember the son. What's he like?"
"Nothing on him. A non-person as far as anything we've got, just an active PR CIT-number. Defense has a lot more on him. Doppelganger for papa, that's a given. But apparently either Warrick senior or junior has pressured Reseune enough to get a travel pass for the son. He's thirty-five years old. Reseune national. Reseune had so much security around him when he'd come into Planys you'd have thought he was the Chairman. There's an azi, too. An Alpha—you remember the Abolitionist massacre over by Big Blue?"
"The Winfield case. I remember. Tied into Emory's murder. That was one of the points of contention—between Warrick and Emory."
"He's a foster son as far as Warrick is concerned. They don't let him out of Reseune. We can't get any data at all on him, except he is alive, he is living with the son, Warrick still regards him as part of the family. I can give you the whole dossier."
"Not to me! That stays at lower levels."
"Understood then."
"But you can get to Warrick."
"I think he's reached a state of maximum frustration with his situation. It's been, what, eighteen years? His projects are Defense; but Reseune keeps a very tight wall between him and them, absolutely no leak-through. The air-systems worker—we've had him for—eighteen months, something like. What you have to understand, ser, Reseune's security is very, very tight. But also, it's no ordinary detainee they're dealing with. A psych operator. A clinician. Difficult matter, I should imagine, to find any guard immune to him. The question is whether we go now or wait-see. That's what Gruen wants me to ask you."