One thing he knew: sera’s security wouldn’t have let Jordan fly without a body scan, let alone turning out his pockets. The staff at Planys’ airport had searched him for foodstuffs and biological contraband, their usual worry in flights originating from Planys, but nothing more–because, for security reasons, they hadn’t been in on the investigation ReseuneSec was making of Jordan’s apartment and had no idea at all what they were looking for.
Thatwas a major slip; but sera’s orders had been unexpected, and speed had mattered. Not even ReseuneSec at Planys Airport had known why Jordan was being put on a plane, but people were about to die in Reseune, and had already died in Novgorod: it had been just a confused few hours.
The agents at Reseune Airport had naturally confiscated and copied his notes when he landed, but let blank paper pass without, likely, paging through a personal‑use handful of blank sheets. Florian made a mental note of his own, that airport security needed more attention to detail, once sera took Reseune.
And it still boiled down to one question: how had Jordan known about the Patil appointment in Novgorod, in security so tight Base One hadn’t penetrated it? That took the old fashioned sneaker‑net approach. Someone had hand‑carried either the card or actual information about the Patil appointment. Either would do.
So. They could certainly politely askJordan about the card and see if he’d cooperate, but they weren’t to that point yet, and clearly there was no use asking a Special any question to which they didn’t already know the answer.
So Patil’s condo had found a buyer, in Yanni’s office, with a possession date on July 20…whether or not Patil knew that was how it had sold. She was currently saying goodbye to the University in a round of parties attended mostly by academics–one such was scheduled this evening. She had sold most of her furnishings, given other items away to friends and charity; was actively arranging storage for all her non‑data possessions that she planned to keep, perhaps to ship later. She had no known sexual attachments, no children, no relatives.
She was a scholarly woman with a lot of electronic files, preparing to make a long, state‑sponsored and fairly high‑mass move to a new life, accompanied by those data files and a fair number of household goods–plus being a CIT, likely a few items of emotional attachment.
“She’s teaching two classes currently,” Catlin reported, “besides lab courses, and she is maintaining her schedule. I checked other professors. They have more classes. Patil spends a lot of time writing and some time doing correspondence with the military labs out at Beta, which we can’t penetrate. No change of pattern there. She does guest lectures, attends bioethics conferences…”
“The people she’s contacting on Cyteen,” Florian murmured, scanning that list, and the commentary ReseuneSec provided, “old acquaintances, former students, but not many.”
“The majority may be on Beta, in Beta Labs. Security block, there.”
“I’m not going to try to crack that,” Florian said. “Not worth it to go after those–yet.” He kept reading. “Mmm. Here’s a few names on her home system, people ReseuneSec notes for further investigation.” He ran a who‑is on the few, at ReseuneSec level. “Well. Well. Well. How long have we been at this?”
“Two and a half hours.”
“Well, nothing totally new in this. We have some footnotes here from ReseuneSec. But no mischief attaches directly to Patil, except her lectures attract radicals. –Coffee,” Florian said, and got up and poured a cup from the dispenser. A glance at Catlin drew a nod, and he poured another, then looked at the clock himself. Close to time for shift‑change. “I’m going to message Marco and Wes to lie in for another couple of hours. I think we should look through Science Bureau records. Base One can probably get into those.”
“Suits me.” Catlin said. “Try it. Shall I have Gianni send us sandwiches?”
“I could use one,” Florian said, and settled back at his console, pulled out the under‑counter return that kept coffee off the main desk, and set his cup there. Catlin did whatever she was doing. He worked delicately, probed this, probed that, scanned text without storing it, and didn’t get a Base One warning of any unadvertised connections on Yanni’s access, no strings attached.
The files had some background of interest. Defense had apparently had a lot to do with Patil’s career. Black budget funding had been behind the terraforming labs when they were on Cyteen, specifically at a lab just a little outside Novgorod, a lab later razed in favor of a food production facility. Behind closed Council doors, there’d been an intense battle over removal of the nanistics lab out to Beta during the War. Centrists campaigned to keep it at least as close as Cyteen Station, not relegated to the outer system inside a Defense installation. The first Ari had supported the nanistics move to Beta, however, in agreement with Defense, and Centrists had opposed her andDefense, at that time, in a rare configuration of political alliances.
Patil, at a hundred and five years of age, had gone out to Beta when Thieu moved down to Cyteen, had subsequently distinguished herself in ways deeply classified, and then Patil herself had been moved back to Central System and onto Cyteen as a safety measure during the darkest days of the War. Patil, Thieu, and a researcher named Ibsen, Pauline Ibsen, since deceased, age one hundred thirty‑six, had all been sent down to Cyteen, three people who had been working on the blackest of black projects–most likely the production of terraforming nanistics, but theoretically only: any lab work was done out at Beta, as a potential and never‑used weapon of war.
After the War, Patil hadn’tgotten promoted back out to Beta. “Articulate, sharp, and gregarious,” so the report said, she had “fallen into the social milieu of the University,” had found herself a comfortable post and a prosperous side income as a favorite speaker at Centrist and pro‑terraforming conferences and meetings.
Clearly her imminent departure into Reseune’s employment had stirred up the Centrist community. Some comments had hit the general web, the one that any CIT could access. Some Centrists were pleased at the acceptance of what they called a moderating influence into a Reseune post: others were more concerned about losing Dr. Patil’s moderate and respectable voice in Novgorod politics, once she shipped to Fargone, and wondered if it was a means of silencing her voice. None of the reports apparently knew about her relationship to the Eversnow project.
“ ‘Moderate and reasonable,’ they call her,” Florian said, having condensed the flow for Catlin. “ ‘A peacekeeper.’ Which might argue that Yanni’s move to send Patil to Fargone really isn’t the best idea, losing her local influence. The Paxers come to her lectures. She doesn’t appear to support their activities.”
“Moderation might have been what recommended her to Yanni, however,” Catlin said, and they read a while longer.
Then Catlin said, “Read the post under Gulag.”
Interesting word. They were down to CIT political gossip on the Novgorod city net. Florian looked that word up, before investigating the site Catlin had tossed him.
The Gulag writer was passionately angry, convinced Patil’s transfer was a ticket to a Reseune‑run oblivion and possible assassination. Well, there might be a grain of truth, not likely in the second.
And there seemed, according to the ReseuneSec note, another conspiracy theory circulating, quoting a Bureau of Defense argument in committee, that it was a move by Reseune to gut the Beta Station lab: one supporter of that viewpoint maintained Patil was still doing Defense work, and could not legally be transferred from a public university into a Reseune‑run lab.
“It’s not actually the law that she can’t be transferred,” Catlin commented. “they just make it sound illegal. She’s a scientist. Science posts come from Science, even if her post is classified by Defense. She just has a job offer from Science. And if she accepts it, Defense can’t claim there’s a war reason, because the War Powers Act has lapsed.”