C. Cherryh - Cyteen

"What is this?" Yanni Schwartz asked.

"I don't say it'll be a bad thing," Ari said quite honestly, still smiling. "I'm not pulling surprises on you, Yanni—Jordan pulled this one on me. I think everyone should think about it, those who'll prefer to go out to the frontier, those who'd rather stay with the comforts of Reseune—God knows, some of us would miss ham and fresh fruit. But the opportunities out there are worth thinking about." Another sip of coffee, slow and thoughtful, watching Jordan's eyes like a fencer. "The Educational wing here will continue, of course. There are some of you we can't transfer, you understand that. We'll have to restructure here, rather well replicate the whole wing—" A little wider smile. It was a joke. Suli Schwartz woke up, a quick look around to see if people were supposed to laugh. "Jordie, you'll have to lay out some recommendations."

"Of course," Jordan said. "But I'm sure you'll use your own list."

She laughed, to keep it polite. "You know damn well I will. But I really will respect your choices wherever I can—after all, I'll assume anyone on your list wants to transfer, and I'll assume you want them. Yanni, you can deal with Jordie on that."

There was a growing wariness behind the attentive faces. Young Suli finally seemed to have understood what was going on, perhaps to have figured out for the first time in his life what it was to sit in this room on Family Occasions, and not with the juniors down the hall. No one moved, not the Family, not the azi at the tables round about.

A sonorous clearing of the throat from Denys. "Well," he said, "well, Ari, after all—" Another clearing of the throat. "I don't suppose we could have some of those little cookies we had last night, hmmn?" Wistfully.

"Yes, ser," a server said, close by the door, and slipped out, while Denys ladled sugar into his coffee.

"Hum. The essential thing is Reseune, isn't it? Ari, Jordie, Yanni, really, we all have the same thing at heart, which is the freedom to do our work. We all hate these administrative messes, we all do, it's such a damned waste of our time and there's so much more important on our desks than a lot of little regional authorities bickering away in Novgorod. I'm sure it's important whether station administrators can or can't hold stock in their own stations, but it's just not the kind of thing that we ought to have to sit through– I mean, the whole idea of the Bureaus was never meant to take valuable people completely away from work. Council's certainly no great inconvenience to Corain, or Chavez, or, God knows, Bogdanovitch, but it's not really productive to have Gorodin on a short string, and Science, my God, Science is an absolute tragedy—I mean, really, Ari, it's a dreadful waste of your time and energy—"

"I don't know why," Jordan said from his end of the table, with a wry lift of his wine-glass, a rivalry old as their existence in Reseune, dinner witticisms, "since Ari just considers the whole damned universe her province."

Ari laughed, pro forma. Everyone was relieved. Everyone laughed, because to do other than that was an Incident, and no one wanted it, not even Jordan.

"Well, you'll have your chance, won't you?" she said. "The whole Hope route right off Fargone, and you'll be working with old friends, so it's not like you'll be out there alone. If I were younger, Jordie, damned if I wouldn't jump at it; but Denys is right. The politics is done, the whole course is laid, and I'm sure I'm anxious to get on about my work, you're anxious to get yours underway. I hate like hell to drop another administrative job in your lap, but I really want your expertise. You've got to set us up another Educational wing here, really, really an opportunity for you to hand us on a legacy, Jordie, I'm very serious—"

"I left that in cryogenics," Jordan said. Another small round of anxious laughter. "Do you want another sample?"

Ari chuckled and took a sip of her coffee. "What? Jordie, I thought you went the other way. But we do have a second source."

Justin blushed. People turned to see if he had. There was another laugh, much too thin.

"I'm sure Jordie will cooperate," Denys said, intervening before the knives came out: it was the ancient rule in this room—nothing unpleasant. One retaliated with wit here, nothing else, and not too far.

"I'm sure," Ari said. And seriously: "We do have restructuring to do. I'm going to be doing some of my Council work by proxy, figuring it's going to be a little tamer now we have the major projects mapped out. There really shouldn't be any difficulty. I suppose I can fly down if they need me, but Denys is very right: I'm a hundred twenty years old—"

"You've got a few more," Denys said.

"Oh, yes, but I see the wall—true." The room was quiet again. "The Rubin project will take a great deal of my time. I'm not getting morbid. But you know and I know that there's not an infinite amount of time for getting this thing moving. I'll leave most of the Fargone set-up to you, Yanni. I'll be asking data from this department and that. I'll be wanting to oversee the process myself—just a desire to have hands-on again. Maybe a little vanity." She chuckled softly. "I'm going to be writing on my book, doing a little side research—preparation. Retirement, I suppose."

"The hell," Jordan said.

She smiled, covered her cup with her hand when the server wanted to pour more coffee. "No, dear, I've caffeine enough to see me to my rooms. Which is where I ought to go, figuring that the floor is still going up and down—we had a bitch of a lot of turbulence over the Kaukash, didn't we? And I don't think I really slept in Novgorod. Catlin?"

A chair moved, and Catlin was there, and Florian with her. Catlin drew her chair back for her.

"Good night, all," she said; and to Florian, quietly, as chairs went back and people began leaving: "Tell Grant I'm reclaiming him."

"Sera?"

"I need him," she said. "Tell him I've filed a new assignment for him. Jordan never did have legal custody of him. He surely realizes that."

"A moment," the azi Florian said, when Justin and Grant started out the door after Jordan and Paul, in the general mill of family and azi headed their separate ways.

"Later," Justin said. His heart began to pound, the way it did anytime he came near Ari or her bodyguards on anything but coldest business, and he took Grant by the arm and tried to get him out the door as Florian blocked Grant's path.

"I'm very sorry," Florian said, looking as if he were. "Sera has said she wants Grant. He's assigned to her now."

For a moment Justin did not realize what he had heard. Grant stood very still in his grip.

"He can retrieve his belongings," Florian said.

"Tell her no." They were blocking the Schwartzes from exit. Justin moved confusedly into the hall, drawing Grant with him, but Florian stayed with them. "Tell her—tell her, dammit, if she wants my cooperation in anything, he stays with me!"

"I'm terribly sorry, ser," Florian said—always soft-spoken, soft-eyed. "She said that it was already done. Please understand. He should get his things. Catlin and I will watch out for him the best we can."

"She's not going to do this," Justin told Grant, as Florian slipped back into the dining hall, where Ari delayed. He was cold through and through. His supper sat uneasy at his stomach. "Wait here." His father was waiting with Paul a little down the hall, and Justin crossed the distance in a half-dozen strides, face composed, showing no more, he hoped, than an understandable annoyance; and please, God, not as pale as he was afraid it was. "Something's come up with a project," he told Jordan. "I have to go see about it."

Jordan nodded, had questions, perhaps, but the explanation seemed to cover it; and Justin walked back again to the doorway where Grant stood. He put a hand on Grant's shoulder in passing, and went inside where Ari lingered talking to Giraud Nye.