C. Cherryh - Cyteen

"We are in some trouble," Grant said. "Aren't we?"

"Moderately," Justin said. "Did you have trouble at Planys?"

"None," Grant said. "Absolutely none."

"Good," he said, and, considering they were within earshot of the azi driver, did not try to answer the look Grant gave him.

The lift doors let them out in the large, barren expanse of Ari's outside hall, baggage and all—which Catlin and Florian had appropriated, and Florian spoke quietly to empty air, advising Ari they were on the floor.

The apartment door opened for them, down the hall.

And Justin slipped his hand to Grant's arm as they walked. "We got into a bit of trouble," Justin said in the safety of Ari's private hall. "We have Giraud on our backs. They were going to plant something on you, almost certain. We've got a deal going with Ari."

"What—deal?"

He tightened his fingers, once, twice. "Take a probe. Just a handful of questions. It's all right, I swear to you."

"Same deal for you?" Grant asked. Worried. Terribly worried. Not: do you promise this is all right? But: Are you all right?

Justin turned Grant around and flung his arms about him, a brief, hard embrace. "It's all right, Grant. She's our kid, all right? No games, no trouble, she's just taking our side, that's what's going on."

Grant looked at him then, and nodded. "I haven't any secrets," Grant said. His voice was thin, a little hoarse. "Do you get to stay there?"

"No," he said. "Ari says—says I make her nervous. But I'll be in the room outside. I'll be there all the while."

Justin flipped pages in the hardprint Florian had been thoughtful enough to provide him—the latest Science Bureau Reports, which he managed to lose himself in from time to time, but the physics was hard going and the genetics was Reseune's own Franz Kennart reporting on the design of zooplankton, and he had heard Franz on that before. While a biologist at Svetlansk had an article on the increasing die-off of native Cyteen ecosystems and the creation of dead-zones in which certain anaerobic bacteria were producing huge methane pockets in valleys near Svetlansk.

It was not, finally, enough to hold his attention. Even the pictures failed, and he merely read captions and isolated paragraphs in a complete hodgepodge of data-intake and stomach-wrenching anxiety, old, old condition in his life—reading reports while waiting for arrest, doing real-time life-and-death design-work while awaiting the latest whim of Administration on whether he could, in a given month, get word of his father's health.

He flipped pages, backward and forward, he absorbed himself a moment in the diagrams of Svetlansk geology and looked at the photos of dead platytheres. There seemed something sad in that—no matter that it made room for fields and green plants and pigs and goats and humans. The photo of a suited human providing scale, dwarfed by the decaying hulk of a giant that must have lived centuries—seemed as unfeeling as the photos from old Earth, the smiling hunters posing with piles of carcasses, of tiger skulls, and ivory.

For some reason tears rolled down his face, startling him, and his throat hurt. For a damn dead platythere. Because he was that strung, and he could not cry for Grant, Grant would look at him curiously and say: Flux does strange things, doesn't it?

He wiped his eyes, turned the page and turned the page again until he was calm; and finally, when he had found nothing powerful enough to engage his attention, thought: O God, how long can a few questions take?

The first Ari did Grant's designs. She's got access to those. She's got the whole manual. The same as Giraud.

Giraud left him a z-case.

Has he gone out on her?

They'd call me. Surely they'd call me.

He laid the magazine on the table in front of him and leaned his elbows on his knees, ground the heels of his hands into his eyes and clasped his hands on the back of his neck, pulling against a growing ache.

Suppose that Jordan did plant something deep in him—Grant could do that, could take it in, partition it—

Jordan wouldn't do that. God, surely, no.

The door opened, in the hall; he looked up, hearing Ari's voice, hearing her light footsteps.

She came out into the front room, not distressed-looking. Tired.

"He's sleeping," she said. "No trouble." She walked over to the couch where he was sitting and said: "He's absolutely clean. Nothing happened. He's asleep. He was upset—of course he had reason. He was worried about you. I won't stop you from waking him. But I've told him he's safe, that he's comfortable. I'll give the tape to Giraud; I have to. Giraud's got a real kink in his mindsets on what he calls your influence. And you know what he'd think if I didn't."

"Whether you do or not, he's still going to think it. If that tape proved us innocent beyond a doubt—he'd find one."

She shook her head. "Remember I told Denys I've got Ari's working notes? I just tell him I'm quite well in control of the situation, that when I'm through it won't make any difference what Jordan did or didn't do, that if he's worried about the Warrick influence he can stop worrying, I'm working both of you."

It was credible, he thought; and of course it sounded enough like the truth under the truth to feed into his own gnawing worries and remind him of Emory at full stretch—layers upon layers upon layers of truth hidden in subterfuge and a damnable sense of humor. He rubbed the back of his neck and tried to think, but thoughts started scattering in panic—except the one that said: No choice, the kid's the only force in the House that ultimately matters, no choice, no choice, no choice.

. . . Besides which— he heard her saying over the breakfast table – if your safety is linked to mine—it's not really likely your father would make a real move against Reseune, is it?

"Let me tell you about Giraud," she said. "Sometimes I hate him. Sometimes I almost love him. He's absolutely without feelings for people he's against. He's fascinated by little models and microcosms and scientific gadgets. He views himself as a martyr. He's resigned to doing dirty jobs and being hated. He's had very few soft spots—except his feud with your father, a lot of personal anger in that; except me—except me, because I'm the only thing he's ever worked for that can put arms around him and give him something back. That's Giraud. We're on opposite sides of him. I don't say that to make you feel sorry for him. I just want you to know what he's like."

"I know what he's like, thanks."

"When people do bad things to you—it makes this little ego-net problem, doesn't it, isn't that what I learned in psych? There's this little ego-net crisis that says maybe it's your fault, or maybe everybody thinks you're in the wrong, —isn't that what goes on? And ego's got to restructure and flux the doubt down and go mono-value on the enemy so there's no doubt left he's wrong and you're right. Isn't that the way it works? You know all that. If you think about that mono-value it restarts all the flux and it hurts like hell. But what if you need to know the whole picture about Giraud, to know what you ought to do?"

"Maybe nobody ever gets that objective," he said, "when it's his ass in the fire."

"Giraud fluxed you. Fluxed you real good. Are you going to let him get away with it or are you going to listen to me?"

"You do this under kat, sera?"

"No. You'd feel the echo if I had, —wouldn't you? You're so fluxed on me you can't think straight. You're fluxed on me, on Giraud, on Jordan. On yourself. On everybody but Grant. That's who you'll protect. That's the deal, and I'm the only one who can offer it in the long run. Giraud's dying."