C. Cherryh - Cyteen

"Justin," she said when it was running even, "I believe you. You'd never hurt me. You'd never let me be hurt. I know all those things. I don't think they're going to make a move on Grant—not now that I've got you on record. I can tell my uncle what I have, and at the same time I'll tell him Grant's in my wing, and he'd better not move against him. That's what I'm prepared to do, because I believe you. Do you understand me?"

"Yes." A little flutter from the monitor.

"Don't be anxious about this place. This is my home. My predecessor isn't here anymore. That's all gone. That's all gone. You're safe here. I want you to remember these things. I can't get what I'd like out of hospital, without them knowing I'm doing this—but I want you to do the deep-fix for me, the way Grant could do it. Can you do that? Bear down hard, feel good, and remember this."

"Yes. . . ."

"I want you to think: I'm going to believe this forever. I promise you, if you trust me, if you come to me and if Grant comes to me when you need help, I'll do the best I can. You can rest now. You'll wake up feeling fine, and you'll be all right. Do you hear me?"

"Yes."

No flutter now, just a strong, steady beat. She got up, signaled Florian and Catlin to be very quiet, patted Justin gently on the shoulder. You stay with him, she signaled Florian.

And to Catlin, in the hall, she said: "What's the news?"

"Nothing more than we had," Catlin said.

"Stand by in case Florian needs you." She went to her own office and phoned Denys directly.

"Seely," she said, "I need Denys, right now." And when Denys came on: "Uncle Denys, how are you?"

"I'm quite well, Ari, how are you?"

"I wanted to tell you something. I've gotten very nervous about the situation, you know, with Grant being out and all, and Grant is vulnerable, so I asked Justin to talk with me about it—"

"Ari, this involves exterior Security. I strongly suggest you let this alone."

"I've done it already. I want an order, uncle Denys, for Grant to be immune to Security, I don't care if something should go on at Planys with Jordan, I have an agreement with Justin—"

"I'm sorry, Ari, this isn't at all wise. You don't tie down your Security people. You have no business making promises to Justin, especially to Justin. I've talked to you about this."

"This is the agreement, uncle Denys. Justin's agreed to take a probe with my security."

"Ari, you're interfering in a matter you have no expertise in whatsoever, that involves your safety. I won't have that."

"Uncle Denys, I've been thinking a lot. It runs like this: I'm getting a lot more grown-up. People couldn't ever make a campaign out of killing a cute kid. Paxers and all these groups haven't come out into the open all at once just by coincidence. They see me getting older, they know that I'm real, they know I'm going to be a lot of trouble to them someday, and they're going to throw everything they've got at me in the next few years. But you know what occurs to me, uncle Denys? That could be true on this staff too, inside Reseune. And I'm not going to have my staff tampered with by anybody except me."

"Ari, that's halfway prudent, but you're meddling with a kind of situation you're not equipped to deal with."

"I perfectly well am, uncle Denys. I'm not going to be reasonable on this. I want Grant back without any problems. Florian's going to meet the plane and bring him up here, and I'm going to talk to him, myself, with trank. If I find out anyone else has, I'm going to be real upset. I don't care if it's Jordan, or if it's Reseune Security, either one, I'm going to be real upset."

"Ari, —"

"I'm just telling you, uncle Denys. I know you don't like it. And I don't want to fight with you. Look at it from my point of view. You're getting up there in years, you could have a stroke or something—where would that leave me, if I don't have control of my own wing? I'd have to trust a lot of people all of a sudden, without knowing what's going on. And I don't ever want to be in that situation, uncle Denys."

"We've got to talk about this."

"We can. Only I want your promise that you're not going to let Security touch Grant even if you think Jordan did something to him: I'll tell you how Justin feels about it—if Jordan did something like that, Justin would be real mad. And that would mean Justin would be on my side about it. But if you did, then Justin would be mad at me. There's an old proverb about muddying up the water, do you know it? I'm getting old enough I don't want other people's notions of what's good for me muddying up the waters I have to swim in for the rest of my life, uncle Denys. That's exactly what it comes down to."

"I appreciate your feelings, Ari, but you'd better gather your data before you interfere with an operation, not after."

"We can talk about this as much as you like and you give me advice I know is going to be worth listening to. But then's then. Now is, I'm not going to have them messed with by anybody. They're in my wing and I've made promises I'm going to keep. If you do anything else, you cut me down with my own staff, and I'm not going to have that, uncle Denys. That's a promise."

There was a long silence on the other end. "Have you discussed with Justin the chance that Grant might have been tampered with?"

"He's afraid of it. He's the one brought it up with me. He's willing to trust me in this, uncle Denys, not Reseune Security, strange as that may seem—but then, by what he tells me Reseune Security isn't very polite. I've got his deposition that Grant went out of here clean, uncle Denys. I've got it under deep probe, and I'm quite sure of it. So we'll find out when Grant gets back, won't we? I'll be happy to lend you a transcript of the interview."

Another long silence. "That's very kind of you. Dammit, Ari, Justin's got medical cautions, he's got major problems, I don't care if he thought this would be better, you're a seventeen-year-old kid—"

"Eighteen in two months, which is going on twenty in the way Base One reckons. And damned good, uncle, damned good ... or what's all your work good for, you want to answer me that one, uncle Denys? I've been running interventions on Florian and Catlin for more than five years, so I'm not really likely to slip up, am I?"

"I'm telling you, Ari, dammit, you've seen the tape Ari made, you know you're dealing with a man with a damn tenuous hold on sanity where you're concerned, and you want to go running interventions on him? We're talking about a thirty-six-year-old man who's lived half his life with a problem, and you want to meddle with it, alone, without any protection for yourself or him if he has a heart attack or slides over the mental edge. You want to know what you're meddling with, young sera, you could be working in your office, minding your own business someday, and have that young man come through the door with a knife, that's what you're playing with. We're dealing with a grown man a long time and a whole lot of business past that incident when he was your age—he's changed, what Ari planted in him has had time to mutate unwatched, he won't go in for therapy, and like a fool, because I agreed with him, he had to become self-guiding, I let him decline therapy. Now it's turned out to be a major mistake. I had no idea my niece was going to let her glands interfere with her common sense, my dear, I certainly had no idea she was going to take this unstable young man to her bosom and make an adolescent fool of herself, no indeed, I didn't. And, my God! the kind of pressure you can put on this young man with your well-intentioned meddling– Don't you understand, child, Reseune has never intended any harm to Justin Warrick? We know his value, we've worked with him, we've done the best we could to secure his future and to prevent him from precisely the kind of blow-up you're courting with your meddling. And whose fault will it be then?"