C. Cherryh - Cyteen

Ari shifted back in her seat, her lips pressed to a thin line.

And said not a thing. "Has your uncle Denys called you?"

"Have you called him?"

"No. I don't think he wants to hear what happened. I don't know to what extent he can come back on you—"

"Only because he's the Administrator," Ari said. "There's nothing he'll do to me."

"I wasn't sure." He saw the waiter coming back with the drinks, and waited during the serving.

Ari sipped hers and sighed. "Whose credit is this on?"

"Mine," Justin said. "Don't hesitate." As the waiter discreetly took himself off. It was a private corner, quite private: a sizeable addition to the bill assured it. "I want to assure you first of all—I'm perfectly willing to go on working with you. I want to tell you—what you're doing—is full of problems. But it's not empty exercise. You've got some ideas that are—fairly undeveloped right now. I still don't know to what extent you've modeled this on reality—or borrowed from your predecessor. If it's considerable borrowing—it would be remarkable enough that someone so young is working integrations at all. If any portion of it is original—I have to be impressed; because there is a center of this that, if I were going faster, and not taking the time to demonstrate your problems—I would simply throw into research, because I think it's a helpful model."

"You can do that, if you like." Not spitefully. Reasonably. Quietly. "Perhaps I'll do both. With your permission. Because I'm very afraid it's classified."

"Grant can do it."

"Grant could do it. With your permission. And Yanni's. We work for him."

"Because you refused to be transferred. I can still do that."

He had not expected that. He took a drink of Scotch. And was aware of Grant beside him, subject to whatever mistakes he made. "I wouldn't think," he said, "that you'd be thinking about that after the scene this afternoon."

Redirect. Shift directions.

She sipped at the vodka-and-orange. Sixteen, and fragile—in physiology. In emotions that the alcohol could flatten or exacerbate. Flux-thinking at its finest, Grant was wont to say. Puberty, hormones run wild, and ethyl alcohol.

Oh, God, kid, back off it: it did me no favors.

Power. Political power that was still running in shockwaves across Union; threats of assassination. And all the stress that went with it.

"I'm glad you want to talk about it," Ari said, on a slight sigh following the vodka. "Because I need you. I study my predecessor's notes—on kat. I know things. I've talked to Denys about putting the stuff into print.

Organizing everything. I said I wanted you to do it and he didn't want that. I said the hell with that."

"Ari, don't swear."

"Sorry. But that was what I said. I could have sat down and said I wouldn't budge. But it's real good, politically, if the Bureau gets it about now. Sort of proof that I'm real. So you'll know pretty soon what's mine and what's Ari's. I'll tell you something else you can guess: not all the notes are going out. Some aren't finished. And some are classified." She took another sip. The glass hardly diminished. "I've thought about this. I've thought real hard. And I've got a problem, because you're the one who's working on deep-sets, you're the one who could teach me the actual things I need– Giraud's very bright; but Giraud's not down the same track. Not at all. I don't want to do the things he does. Denys is bright. He's very near-term and real-time. Do you want to know the truth? Giraud isn't really a Special. Somebody had to have it, to get some of the protections Reseune needed right then. The one who is, is Denys; but Denys wouldn't have it: it would make him too public. So he arranged it to get Giraud the Status."

He stared at her, wondering if it was true, if it could be true.

"It's in Ari's notes," Ari said. "Now you know something on Denys. But I wouldn't tell him you know. He'd be upset with me for telling you. But it's why you should be careful. I've learned from uncle Denys for years. I still do. But the work I really want is macro-sets and value-sets. You're the only one who's working on the things Ari wanted me to do. I listen to her."

"Listen to her—"

"Her notes. She had a lot to tell me. A lot of advice. Sometimes I don't listen and I'm generally sorry for it. Like this afternoon."

"Am I—in the notes?"

"Some things about you are. That she talked Jordan into doing a PR. That she and Jordan did a lot of talking about the Bok clone problem and they talked about the psych of a PR with the parent at hand—and one like the Bok clone, without. It's interesting stuff. I'll let you read it if you want."

"I'd be interested."

"Stuff on Grant, too. I can give you that. They're going to hold that out of the Bureau notes, because they don't want it in there, about you. Because your father doesn't want it, uncle Denys says."

He took a mouthful of Scotch, off his balance, knowing she had put him there, every step of the way.

Not a child. Wake up, fool. Remember who you're dealing with. Eighteen years asleep. Wake up.

"You didn't walk in here unarmed," he said. "In either sense, I'll imagine."

She ignored that remark, except for a little eye contact, deep and direct. She said: "Why don't you like me, Justin? You have trouble with women?"

A second time off his balance. Badly. And then a little use out of the anger, a little steadiness, even before he felt Grant's touch on his knee. "Ari, I'm at a disadvantage in this discussion, because you are sixteen."

"Chronologically."

"Emotionally. And you shouldn't have the damn vodka." That got a little flicker. "Keeps me quiet. Keeps me from being bored with fools. Drunk, I'm about as eetee as the rest of the world."

"You're wrong about that."

"You're not my mother."

"You want to talk about that?" Off the other topic. "I don't think you do. Shows what the stuffs doing to you."

She shook her head. "No. Hit me on that if you Like. I threw that at you. So you're being nice. Let's go back to the other thing. I want just one straight answer—since you're being nice. Is it women, is it because I'm smarter than you, or is it because you can't stand my company?"

"You want a fight, don't you? I didn't come here for this." Another shake of the head. "I'm sixteen, remember. Ari said adolescence was hell. She said relations with CITs always lose you a friend. Because people don't like you up that close. Ever. She said I'd never understand CITs. Myself—for my own education—once—I'd like to have somebody explain it to me—why you don't like me."

The smell of orange juice. Of a musky perfume.

This is all there is, sweet. This is as good as it gets.

Oh, God, Ari.

He caught his breath. Felt his own panic, felt the numbing grip on his wrist

"Sera," Grant said.

"No," he said quietly. "No." Knowing more about the woman eighteen years ago than he had learned in that night or all the years that followed.

And reacting, the way she had primed him to react, the way she had fixed him on her from that time on—

"Your predecessor," he said, carefully, civilized, "had a fondness for adolescent boys. Which I was, then. She blackmailed me. And my father. She threatened Grant, to start running test programs on him—on an Alpha brought up as a CIT. Mostly, I think—to get her hands on me, though I didn't understand that then. Nothing—absolutely nothing—of your fault. I know that. Say that I made one mistake, when I thought I could handle a situation when I was about your age. Say that I have a reluctance when I'm approached by a girl younger than I was, never mind you have her face, her voice, and you wear her perfume. It's nothing to do with you. It's everything to do with what she did. I'd rather not give you the details, but I don't have to. She made a tape. It may be in your apartment for all I know. Or your uncle can give it to you. When you see it, you'll have every key you need to take me apart. But that's all right. Other people have. Nothing to do with you."