“He claimed to dislike Thieu. Called him a dodderer.”
“And yet has lunch with him regularly. He and Paul.”
“How old is Thieu, actually?” Catlin asked.
Florian keyed back to the medicals, convenient hop on Base One. “Hundred sixty‑four.” Once rejuv began to lose its effect, it took only a matter of months for a man who looked forty to start looking his actual age, losing the attributes of youth, acquiring ailments, losing faculties–and a hundred sixty‑four was definitely in that territory. “If rejuv is failing him, he’ll go fast, at that age. I’d think he hasn’t doddered long, actually.”
“And Jordan was living there for twenty years,” Catlin said, “next door to him, unless there’s been a recent change of residence, and a very recent change in Thieu’s medical status.” Click‑click‑click, from Catlin’s console, Jordan’s medical records going back and back to 2404. “No. Jordan had that address from the week he arrived. Thieu was there, too, from 2398.”
“The information Jordan gave sera is missing some interesting pieces, for sure. Now Thieu dodders. And in his latest letter Thieu jogs Patil’s memory about who Jordan is.”
“Rejuv failure,” Catlin said. “Maybe Thieu’s short‑term memory isgoing.”
“Must be contagious. Forgetfulness seems to have infected Patil, too. She claims no connection with Jordan at all. Yet Thieu, whose memory is going, thinks she’d remember him. I wonder what we could find in herletter files.”
“Worth noting.”
Those records, except what Yanni might have, lay outside Reseune System. “Base Cue could try to crack University System, but it’s not guaranteed to leave no traces.” Florian said. “We probably shouldn’t try it. We can take what Yanni’s got. And his files on Thieu. If Thieu’s dying–whether or not Thieu has all his faculties–that might stir somebody to make a move, whatever’s going on.”
“Thieu couldn’t possibly have anticipated Jordan leaving Planys,” Catlin said. “Jordan didn’t expect security to pull him and Paul out of their office and put them on the plane.”
Florian ran further through medical records. “Thieu’s doctor records cognitive function definitely suffering. Short‑term memory markedly impaired. Long‑term recall can be intact for a time.”
“So back to his giving Jordan the card–did he have enough faculties left for that?”
“Maybe. Maybe Jordan had it without his knowing. Jordan had access in his apartment. The one thing that didn’thappen was Thieu knowing Jordan was being released and giving him the card as something to do once he got out, because he didn’t know Jordan was leaving. As you say, he couldn’t know. That intention was in sera’s mind, but not in any record.”
“The current letter,” Catlin said. “Thieu wants Patil to look up Jordan. He’s trying to get them together. Whatever the state of his mind, that’s apparently somewhere on his agenda, for some reason.”
“And what is Jordan, besides a Special in educational psych design? Very friendly with people in Citizens, in Defense, and people with ties to the Abolitionists.”
“We don’t know that he knew the nature of the Abolitionist connection,” Catlin said.
“He was certainly tapped into the network that moves people and items for the dissidents–some twenty years ago. It doesn’t say he’s trying to establish such connections again. He can’t call outside, anyway. He was barred from mail, to anybody but Justin. He still is. Justin can make a call for him. But Justin didn’t. And a restaurant wasn’t the place to pass on something Jordan didn’t want us to investigate. He was asking for attention.”
“A card is a stupid way to keep an address. It’s just good for passing it on. If Thieu gave Jordan that card and wanted him to call Patil, Jordan could just have memorized the address and phone number, then simply tossed the card into recycling. He didn’t do it in Planys; he didn’t do it here. He either slipped it through a security search, or, more likely in that regard, he actually acquired it–or produced it–here.”
“And then.” Florian said, “he handed that particular card to Justin on a night when he was absolutely certain to be watched. There’s certainly a lot here that doesn’t make sense. CITs don’t make sense. But this one is a real puzzle.”
A moment of silence. Then Catlin said, “It’s still tempting to think he got the card from Thieu. We’re assuming that, because of Thieu’s association with Patil. Thieu didn’t need to give him a card. It doesn’t make sense, except the fact Thieu has been talking about this Dr. Patil for years. Maybe there’s been a long term effort, on both sides of the Tethys Sea, to get those two together–for whatever reason.”
“It opens up a lot of possibilities.”
“It does.”
“The old connections,” Florian said. “Reestablished. He was a friend of Thieu’s. That there was a connection to Patil at Planys doesn’t mean there isn’t a connection to Thieu or Patil here in Reseune. These are born‑men. They have that social dimension. Knowingpeople who know people–those connections matter. Don’t they?” Florian swung his chair around. “The card itself can tell us, with luck. I’m betting ReseuneSec has already run the check on the card’s chip. Let’s see what they found.”
He hit keys in quick succession, macros for their clearances, and a search into ReseuneSec files.
Analysis of the problematic card itself was in. It did include its microscopic markers–a very nice precaution from Giraud’s time as head of ReseuneSec–which indicated that the office supplies used in the card indeed belonged to PlanysLabs.
“Entirely reasonable for ReseuneSec to assume it was printed in Planys,” Florian said. “Planys markers.”
“Physically reasonable to assume it. But anyone with Planys card stock could print it, here or there.”
An e‑card, never manifest as paper, was the common way for CITs to trade addresses, often arriving as an attachment to a sig line, available for print, available to be shot straight into address files if one trusted the sender.
And for office use, it was common to print a card out physically off the signature line of a letter, including even its chip‑load, if the computer in question had the chip‑write feature. Careful offices tended to prefer physical cards for introductions and follow‑up–but they wouldn’t routinely slide a card from some random visitor into their systems. Some cards had proved to carry more than ROM. Some could be quite malicious–a little matter some offices in the world had discovered the hard way.
Content, however, was disappointing. It was Patil’s academic vita on the card, nothing special. Her bibliography, nothing untoward, in surface appearance. Check of the bibliography against her actual record in file in Yanni’s office produced no variances.
“Still possible,” he said, “that Jordan could have brought card stock and paper from Planys. Card stock wouldn’t necessarily be viewed as contraband.”
Catlin clicked keys. “Jordan’s file. List of what they didfind in his luggage’.”
That went to Florian’s second screen.
“ ‘Paper goods,’ ” Florian read. “So we can officially wonder what that encompasses.”
“Or…back to the original assumption,” Catlin said, “Thieu gave it to him and Jordan just walked through customs. Sandwiched in with a stack of blank cards, it wouldn’t show on a quick and dirty scan. But again, he could have printed it here, himself–if he could find a printer that wasn’t micro‑tagged. He doesn’t have access to one.”
“If it came from Planys, Jordan took real pains to get it here and put it in our hands. Yanni said that Thieu was upset with the reactivation of the terraforming project; he’d been an activist scientist, in his day. So was Jordan. That gives Jordan a motive: political. Jordan’s old alliance with Centrists. His tendency to play both sides of the game. His anger against sera.” He swung back to the second screen. “So what else did security find on him, in the search? Personal notes?”