“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.”
“What password? Do you know it? Or who does know it?”
“I won’t tell you here. I know it. I hadn’t even told Patil. I willtell you.”
“Do. Please. That’s too thin a thread, Yanni. There’s security, but that’s way too thin a thread. Catlin.”
“Sera.”
“Paper.”
Catlin went to a sideboard, got a single sheet of paper and a pen, and gave them to Yanni. He wrote, and Catlin carried it to her. Alphanumeric, long, and without mnemonics evident. GIIW20280082Y2.
Then 28912HW. And W/18.
She tucked that paper into her decolletage. “Ash before midnight,” she said. “Thank you, Yanni.”
A nod of his head. Catlin had resumed her place. Likely had already memorized it, in the one glance she’d gotten. Catlin was good at that.
“So do we have a copy here at Reseune?” she asked.
“It’s there,” he said. “Filed in your archive.”
She had to be amused. They hadn’t turned it up by accident. It wasn’t part of the ordinary Library archive, nor Security’s ordinary file, not out there. “What else have you stored in my files?”
“Just things your successor might need. Or you might. Someday.”
“Clever.”
Yanni gave a little nod, sipped his wine. “Thank you. You’re right: somebody might have assumed she had them–but they didn’t stay to search the apartment, so they didn’t think they were there. They might try to hack her access.”
“Or Thieu’s. Thieu’sis the place I’d expect them to go after.”
“And he was dying. It was a good idea to get those files entirely out of there. Beyond an erase. They’re gone from storage at Planys.”
“And they’re here. Under my name. And in that ship, outbound. The only copies in the universe.”
“The only copies.”
“Nothing at Beta.”
“Nothing at Beta–at least on our side of the wall. If Defense has a copy, we can’t find that.”
“So Thieu wants to know what’s going on with his files. The man may have been going downhill fast, but he wasn’t stupid. Jordan meanwhile didn’t want to get involved in his scheme–”
“Jordan was involved in another information flow,” Yanni said. “A man named McCabe–”
“Airport maintenance. Giraud told me. A middleman in a contact between Councillor Corain and Jordan.”
“A two‑way conduit of information. We detained him, of course we did. But we don’t know if he’s the only one. A leak to and from Novgorod? Absolutely there was. There may have been others. It’s possible Thieu didn’t need his mental faculties about him to know Patil was going to Eversnow…if Corain’s contact man wasn’t the only font of information in Planys. The fact that the news hasn’t broken in wider Paxer circles yet indicates if there is a flow of information we haven’t already stopped, it’s tightly controlled and it’s being careful. We’re watching that possibility carefully…feeding a little disinformation to see where it turns up. It was one reason I wanted to break that news to Jordan and watch his reaction. I was running truthers. The surprise seemed real…so he didn’t get the information from Corain’s man. But what goes on in Corain’s office…who knows where they have contacts? You don’t blow a good spy for some minor piece of news. You let him sit and wait until there’s something worth his being there. And so far nobody’s breached security in Corain’s office–until–possibly–now. Somebody took out our plans for Eversnow, in one day.”
Finally. Finally she had the notion Yanni was leveling with her.
“So,” she said, “Thieu wanted to get to Patil–who’s the logical recipient of those notes you took from him, one of the only people, maybe, who’ll really understand them.”
“Understand, there was absolutely nothing illegal in what we did: it’s classified material, the man was going downhill medically, we had to protect it. The military sits right there next to Planys, with the capability to ‘protect and defend’ military interests. They could be across that gap in fifteen minutes flat.”
“Eversnow is still their project. Thieu was working for them, but physically inside PlanysLabs. And they didn’t have those notes.”
“He’d been working with them, still corresponding with them quite extensively–we don’thave the content of many of those letters. They dropped into the great black hole of Defense Communications. We assumethey don’t have his last notes. If they have their own copy, we don’t know. Can’t know.”
“Didn’t his notes go to them, if he was working for them?”
“His work is proprietary to Reseune. They wanted something done, they got the result, not the research. We have hisside of the exchange with them, not their answers.”
“Will Jacques talk?” she asked.
“I may make headway with Spurlin on that front–assuming the election goes his way. Meanwhile, before the election results, I want the project staffed. I have to replace Patil.”
“If Khalid shouldget into office…”
“Exactly. I’m going to be raiding other nanistics people out of Beta–where Defense is going to be mildly unhappy with me. I’m going to hire people away from theirprograms.”
“So you’re going full speed ahead. But we’re running out of nanistics Specials.”