“Do you know some specific threat? Somebody planning–”
“Hell if I know. Construction here. Construction upriver. Accidents happen. So Patil’s dead. Thieu’s dead. And Thieu wanted me to call Patil, as if I was a total fool. No, he didn’t give me the card. I didn’t even get it there. Turned up in my coat pocket the day I gave it to you.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. How should I know?”
“How do you think it got there?”
A shrug. “Library, restaurant–breakfast and lunch–I’d been in public places all day. I found it. I figured it for a set‑up like the last set‑up. I routinely leave my coat on my chair, all right? Paul’s usually there. At one point we both went to the salad bar. Possibly I’d left it at a table in Library and we were both off at another station. I do it every day. I don’t even know it happened that particular day. I don’t keep things in my coat pockets. I don’t put my hands there, as a rule. I felt something when I straightened the pocket flap. There was that damned card, like a visit from Thieu. But not. And I didn’t the hell like it. So I just returned it to ReseuneSec. I knew it would get there.”
“You didn’t run it through your computer, did you?”
“No. Am I a fool? I just gave it to you. Maybe your little dear would run it through her computers, if it got to her, precocious little egotist that she is. Maybe it’d just fuck the whole Reseune computer system and I wouldn’t be to blame.”
“My God, Dad, you’re talking like a teenager with a grudge. You don’t want to bring down the house computers.”
“I’m sure I don’t really care.” Jordan lifted his glass, second salute. “But she might port the business home to the agency responsible, whoever that is. Can I offer my son a drink?”
“Had some already. I need to be sober, dealing with you.”
“Excuses. –Grant?”
“No, ser, thank you.”
“At least youdon’t find an excuse.”
“No, ser,” Grant said, “I don’t. And won’t. You meant for Justin to be arrested. That would have made Justin mad at Admin, and it could have caused trouble for Thieu and Patil, maybe, but more likely you found a way to get rid of the card right under security’s nose, and you did it because they can’t ask you how you got it, and you can play games with them. How does that train of logic apply to the facts of the case?”
“Remarkable. You’ve gotten very deviously CIT, Grant.”
“I hope not.”
“Certainly you’ve acquired a great imagination. Very nice. I suppose I have to credit Ari’s work in you.”
“Dammit, Dad, leave him out of this!”
A little smile, cold as ice. “ Youdon’t leave him out of this.”
“I chose to be here, ser,” Grant said calmly. “Forgive me.”
“Oh, I forgive you. I forgive my son. I just don’t forgive her.”
“Is it true?” Justin asked sharply. “Is Grant right? Was it what you were after, getting Thieu investigated? Or nailing whoever gave you that card?”
“Some of both,” Jordan said. “I’d no desire to have Thieu foul up my life. It turns up in my pocket, and I can only assume one of two things–either it’s some devotee of Thieu’s and I’m supposed to use it, or I’m supposed to be caught with it and arrested; so I passed it on in the same generous spirit in which it was given. You–what do you care? You’ve got the little darling to protect you. You’re not going to get in trouble. I had no inclination to call Patil, based on it, and carry on Thieu’s social agenda for some third party–if that’s all it was. I didn’t figure it came from her. Thieu has political contacts, or did, when he was functioning. He always assumed I was what I was sentenced for–assumed I was a poor fellow Centrist, badly done by because I’d murdered Ari. I never disabused him of that notion. It kept him happy, babbling his theories, giving me printouts, all his grand designs for his project that the legislature had axed with the Habitation Zones Act, on and on and on…for twenty damned years. After a while, he didn’t even take the trouble to be clandestine about it. He just rattled on. And so I was supposed to call Patil. I didn’t. So somebody came looking for me to give me a shove. Not my fault.”
“Dad, just talk to Yanni. Tell him all this. Talk to him.”
“Damn Yanni. You deal with him. I don’t have to. The law says I’m off limits to their inquiries. Fine. I was off limits when they sentenced me to that hellhole with that damned fool and the rest of the spacecases. They can come begging, after this. They can damned well give me lab access, access to my work, my license back–They can do thatif they want anything out of me! Those are my conditions.”
Suddenly a handful of things clicked into place, logic, motive. Jordan wasn’t a fool. He was a man who’d been in a hard, hard spot when the first Ari died–and if he’d quarreled bitterly with Ariane Emory, he’d been at outright war with the Nyes, particularly Giraud. “I’ll present that case,” Justin said. “Honestly I will.”
“You don’t have to,” Jordan said, and drank off the melt in his glass. “Her faithful shadow’s out there, isn’t he, and we’re bugged as all hell. They know what I said. They can weigh it for what it’s worth or call me a liar.”
Justin shrugged. Drew in a breath and took a chance. “I might take that drink, Dad.”
“Fix it yourself.” Jordan waved his glass toward the bar, toward him. “Fix me another while you’re at it.”
“I’ll do it,” Grant said, and got up and took the glass with him.
“Could ask Florian in,” Jordan muttered. “Damn spook. He’s getting to look like the first Florian. Getting to act like him, too.”
“He wouldn’t come in,” Justin said. He didn’t want the excuse of the intrusion. “And he won’t drink on duty. But don’t be surprised to see Security in your hallway hereafter. They’re upset, two murders on opposite sides of the world, no explanations, and both of us are at risk.”
“Just one of those little puzzles Security loves, isn’t it? And we’re two of their favorite subjects.”
Grant brought Jordan and him their drinks, and went back to the bar with Paul’s empty glass.
“Personally, I’m still glad Security’s out there,” Justin said, after a first sip. “I don’t want to be getting a midnight call about you.”
“Oh, just look at us. We’re caring about each other. Heartwarming.”
Too easy to come back in sarcastic kind. Jordan invited it, tried to turn everything to vinegar. Justin took another sip from his glass. “Mirror into mirror. We’re too apt to fight. But let’s face it, I have a certain position, one that I fought for in Giraud Nye’s time. He didn’t like me much. Didn’t like you, ergo didn’t like me, and I paid for it.”
“Sorry.” The tone wasn’t.
“Not your fault, particularly. The Nyes knew damned well you were innocent. Maybe that’s why Giraud distrusted me, expecting the wrath of the wronged, maybe–or just misliking the fact I got close to Ari–her doing, not mine. Ari, outside of being the incarnation you deplore, is a pretty good little kid in her spare time. Always has been. She stood between me and Giraud. I returned the favor, as best I could, with the other Nye, when he decided she had to go–because, believe me, you and I weren’t well off during Denys’ tenure, and we’d have been worse off, still, if it weren’t for that young girl. There’s a lot of history, a lot of history you weren’t here for, but she kept me alive, and ever since she did in her uncle, she keeps me able to work, keeps Grant safe, and that’s a fair debt I owe her. She rescued you, if you don’t know it–pulled you out of Planys during the height of the set‑to with Denys and got you behind Reseune’s internal security. Whatever you think about it, you’re alive. So I’m not interested in your feud with her. Sorry. You can’t convert me.” He took a deep pull at the liquid, felt the previous sips finally hitting his nerves with a deceptive calm. “But I do sympathize with you. It may not have involved getting slammed against the wall by security–not my favorite moments, those–but I do understand the sense of restriction. They sent all the problem cases over to Planys during the War. I don’t think it must have been particularly sparkling society, or a particularly happy one.”