“Shall I leave, sera?” Catlin asked.
Leaving her and Florian alone, Catlin meant, which would be good if she had any energy left, but she didn’t. She just wanted comfort. And ideas wouldn’t happen if there was sex, so it wasn’t a good idea on that account, either.
“Stay,” she said. Her gown was thin, the room was chilled down for night, on the minder’s program, and they in their gym sweats were warm, longtime company. She made a place under the covers for all of them, and they got under, Florian in the middle, and tucked down together, the way they had before they’d ever discovered sex.
She could let her mind go, then, and just think, and she did.
If Patil had recognized Anton Clavery in the person who’d showed up with a grenade launcher, then she’d met him under that name. Novice, Florian and Catlin had said. And thatwould seem to rule out anyone important or anybody military. Unless, Florian and Catlin had said, it was someone trying to leave the scene looking like a novice.
If Patil called out that name in the face of an armed man and her imminent death, she’d tried to send Justin a message regarding someone she counted as a threat, or the source of threats. “They,” she’d said. A mysterious “they” had been watching her, scaring her, making her desperate enough to call Justin to try to get through to Jordan.
And why Jordan? Why not ask him to go to Yanni?
Jordan’s name had been popularly attached to the dissidents. They’d campaigned to get him released. Thieu had been in favor of terraforming and against the forces that had stopped it, namely the first Ari. Giraud, Yanni, all that generation: Jordan said Thieu had regarded him with sympathy, and courted him, believing he’d murdered Ari.
It wasn’t a sweet old man, was it?
Thieu would have wanted herdead, likely. Thieu had wanted the planet terraformed, all the ankyloderms and platytheres dead, everything in the oceans–all done; and the first Ari hadn’t. The first Ari had been a citizen of the planet, and Olga Emory hadn’t influenced her enough–the first Ari had changed her mind and begun to protect it.
Like Gehenna, wasn’t it? This is your world…
Had that had an emotional resonance for Ari One, herself? Take care of it? Defend it? Protect it?
It did with her. Shewasn’t for losing what Cyteen had grown up to have. She’d defend it. And that would put her on the outs with Dr. Raymond Thieu, who’d been sure Jordan Warrick would take his side and admire his work and his intentions.
Maybe that was over‑romanticizing it. Maybe that was giving too much credit to Jordan because, bastard that he was, he hadn’t liked the man’s insistence. Jordan wasn’t anybody’s follower, he was nobody’s disciple. Free‑thinker, yes, argumentative son of a bitch, definitely, but not the sort that would sit in the shadows with anybody and connive and scheme…just not in his makeup. Not in Justin’s. In a certain measure, they had something in common, and damned sure when the first Ari intervened with Justin, it wasn’t to make him capable of connivance and subterfuge–she couldn’t think of anyone actually worse at it than Justin.
And Justin wanted the world as it was. He wanted to save the native fauna. Jordan wasn’t for destroying them so much as he was just for getting off the planet and going away and having all mankind living in space–living a lot like the Alliance folk, in steel worlds, in ships. Maybe with a forest at the heart of Pell, but that was not–not something that was going to be Jordan’s first project. He’d be trying to educate kids to be rational beings. That was what he used to do, before he became so angry.
He wasn’t Clavery, that was sure. But the two people they could reach who probably knew who that was…were both dead.
Clavery could be a nonperson or he could even be a hollow man sort of a nonperson, someone who’d never really existed, only who various people opted to be when they wanted to be somebody else. He could be a construct, a composite.
Even a foreigner. Somebody from Alliance. Somebody bent on mischief that could start the whole War again, and she didn’t think that was the case. If Patil had recognized him in her doorway, she’d known who she attached that name to, and she’d wanted it known to Justin and Jordan, as her last living act.
She couldn’t get through to Jordan, so she’d called Justin…
Couldn’t get through to Jordan.
But that was the one she’d wanted. Couldn’t get Thieu. So she wanted Jordan, as if he should know, or as if he should be warned.
Tell him about Anton Clavery? Thieu was dead, and that name was at issue, and Patil was terrified for her life? She’d gotten her message out. Not all of it. If she’d done a little less arguing with Justin and a little more saying what she had to say, the world would be safer.
It had been a collected, sensible gesture, in extremity. That at least was admirable. The first Ari would have done that, if she’d had time.
But, damn it, why had the woman had to feel her way with Justin and not just say it out loud?
Whoever hadn’t scrupled to kill two Specials was a person they urgently needed to find and deal with.
And which Specials were gone?
Both in nanistics. EverySpecial in nanistics. There were researchers and experts, but the brilliant people, the theorists, were gone.
A bad trade for the universe, she could think: whether she supported the project or not, they’d lost two geniuses in the same field.
It slowed Eversnow waydown. Therewas a problem for Yanni’s program, wasn’t it? Yanni had to move fast, and sign some people, replacing Patil, or his project was going to fall through. Deals Yanni had made with Corain and Jacques were now subject to review.
She ought to be happy about that, but she’d promised Yanni not to oppose Yanni’s objective.
Maybe somebody thought they’d now gotten the better of Yanni, and reduced his political power.
Somebody might have second thoughts about that move if Yanni turned out not to be in charge, and if they suddenly saw they were dealing with someone who was going to be in authority for a hundred years.
But then–maybe it was the project itself that had stirred this kind of opposition. Maybe it was nudging somebody else’s territory. And if someone thought getting rid of Patil and Thieu would stop Reseune from a project Reseune needed–
Well, Yanni needed to talk to her about what was going on, and it had to be very, very soon.
BOOK THREE Section 2 Chapter viii
JUNE 14, 2424
1802H
Another dinner with Yanni…and Yanni had protested, this time. He’d claimed he was too busy, said he had far too many things to do, and she was impinging on the little relaxation he did get.
Dear Yanni,she’d written back, urgent. Be here at 1800h.
And he was.
He did look tired. She showed him right into the dining room, and Haze personally offered him a drink. “What are we eating?” he asked, sensibly, and Haze suggested an early start on the wine, a white, which Yanni agreed would be fine. So it was a Sauvignon Blanc for both of them.