The first sip went down with a deep sigh. Followed by a second. Yanni wasn’t reckless in that regard, not like Jordan in the least. She had one sip, just one, and waited.
“We have a new cook,” she said. “I don’t know what he’s put together, but it should be good.”
“Thanks for the transcripts on the Patil case,” he said, straight to business.
“No problem,” she said, and signaled Haze, who was doing the serving tonight, with Florian entertaining Frank in the conference room, and Catlin on hold for her dinner, just quietly standing in the corner, silent as a statue. Haze brought the appetizers, bacon‑wrapped shrimp, and Yanni’s disappeared fast, without a comment. She gave a second signal, and salads arrived, delicate greens, with a light vinaigrette.
That started going down, too, as if Yanni were half‑starved, and Yanni’s wine was at a quarter of the glass left.
“Yanni,” she said. “You’re worried about something.”
“I’ve got a lot of pieces trying to come unglued,” Yanni said, and swallowed a bite. “Sorry. I’m just elsewhere this evening, I’m afraid.”
“Who’s Anton Clavery?”
“Not a pleasant dinner conversation,” Yanni said.
“But this is our window to have this conversation, unless you want to stay for drinks, and I know you’re tired. Yanni, I need to know what’s going on.”
“We don’t know. Clavery’s nobody. Literally, nobody.”
“Nonperson?”
“Something like.”
“Did he kill Patil?”
“Behind it, we’re pretty sure. Not the hand on the trigger, necessarily, but–”
“Why did he kill Patil?”
“Because…” Another bite went down, chased by the rest of the wine. “Because Patil was coming over to Science, or because certain people know about Eversnow, and shouldn’t, and that blew up before it ever got to public knowledge.”
“Jordan?”
Last bite. She pressed a silent signal, and Haze came in and removed the plates, while Yanni had to think about that question.
Haze refilled Yanni’s wine glass. Yanni let it sit.
“Jordan knew about Eversnow,” she said. “He said he did. I gave you thattranscript, too Did you lie to me, Yanni? I thought you were honest. But maybe you’re just good.”
Yanni nodded. “When I have to be. Yes, I told him about it. He didn’t approve. He hit the ceiling, in fact.”
“In your office before you left. Thatwas what the fight was really about.”
“Young sera, you know quite a lot.”
“It was pretty famous, Uncle Yanni. You weren’t very quiet. And Jordan is news. So yes, I heard there was a fight. So did everybody in Admin and Ed. Why did you tell him?”
Long silence. And Haze wasn’t going to come back in until signaled.
“We’re the same generation,” Yanni said. “Old associates. I know the way he thinks. He was in on the project at the beginning. I didn’t want him to find out later and blow up or go behind my back. I wanted to control how he learned and what he thought and know what his movements were once he knew. And I pretty well got the reaction I thought I’d get, so Jordan didn’t surprise me in that respect. He doesn’t like it. He said he’d had enough of Thieu, and I was crazy, and terraforming anything was a good way to get biologicals loose we just won’t like. Old argument, with Jordan. I said he didn’t like planets on principle, and he said they were good for studying, but he’d rather not live there if he had any choice. And he asked me about his transfer to Fargone, old topic. Which I told him was dead. Totally dead. He’s not going anywhere in the foreseeable future. He shouted. I shouted. He called me a damned fool. We weren’t on record.”
“Somebody slipped that card into his pocket, and it turned up, he says, the night you got back from Novgorod, from all this dealing. You didn’t do that, did you?”
“No.”
“Can I believe that? Did anybody working for you do it? Do I have to pare it down until something finally fits?”
“I have no idea where that came from, or, more to the point, how whoever did it knew Jordan knew– ifthey knew Jordan knew. It’s a damned maze. And it wasn’t my doing.”
“He’s connected to Thieu. Thieu didn’t know about Eversnow, or did he?”
“Thieu did know something, because we made a request for his Eversnow notes back when we set this up.”
“Thieu hadnotes on Eversnow in his files?”
“He doesn’t, now. Didn’t. We borrowed them and didn’t return them. But yes, he was doing some work on that once upon a time. Defense had used his work, in their little version of the Eversnow project. We’d studied it. It’s foundational to what we propose to do next.”
“Hell, Yanni! That’s a little oversight in informing me!”
“It’s a worrisome piece of information to leave out, I agree. Doubly so, now.”
“I don’t suppose Patil phoned Thieu to advise him when she got the appointment. I don’t suppose she said the word Eversnow.”
“He didn’t get a phone call. He did get the advisement back in April that she’d taken a job at ReseuneSpace on Fargone: she sent him a message to that effect, He was not mentally what he had been. But possibly–possibly he did put two and two together. Possibly he knew very well what she was doing, a nanistics Special on the farthest station outward, next to Eversnow. Where he would have gone, if they’d gone ahead with his program.”
“And before that he was bedeviling Jordan to contact her. Contact her. As if Jordan could. But we have just a slight clue what he wanted Jordan to find out, don’t we? If you gave Patil his notes…don’t you think that explains just a little bit? He had no warning at all that Jordan was actually going to get out of Planys. But he knew Jordan had contacts inside Reseune, that he has a son here. And you just lifted his files and sent them where he couldn’t get them, so small wonder he was a little agitated. How long ago?”
“During Denys’ tenure. Late last year.”
“The man was a Special. It was his life’s work. His stuff was disappearing. They were never going to run his work on Cyteen. He knew that better than anybody, if he’d managed the remediation program. And there’s the military nanistics program–he worked on that during the War, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“And he workedon Eversnow, you snatched his files, and he knew the only planet we own where it’s remotely appropriate to use the terraforming data isEversnow. And Patil was moving to Fargone, right next door.”
“He was in rejuv failure. The notes were classified. It was perfectly logical we take them, in his retirement. We don’t know how much of all that he put together. The rejuv failure was progressing fast. We’re talking about a few months, here.”
“Does Patil have them in her possession? Were they possibly in her apartment?”
Yanni shook his head. “No. They were sent on to Fargone–copies were. She didn’t have them yet.”
She let go a short breath. “Thank God for that.”
“She didn’t have them, and they’re in a military courier’s black box en route. Nobody can get at them butsomeone with the keyword.”
It didn’t make her feel that much better. “So Defense has them.”
“Can’t access them. Not unless they’ve messed with the black boxes themselves. Don’t even talk about getting into those. Elections. The stock market. Public records. There’s deeper security on that system than anything else we’ve got. It’ll feed into Fargone Central, totally robotic, and it has a gate‑restriction on it. It won’t feed out again until someone arrives there with a password. That’s the way it works. Those notes will be sealed, until someone authorized shows up there.”