Union Alliance - Cyteen. Part 84

Ari said about Justin, on his school paper: As long as you confuse your father with G.o.d you won't pursue this, which would be a shame. I'm requesting you into my wing. It'll do you good, give you a different perspective on things.

I don't know how much of what happened was planned but a lot of it was calculated. She encouraged him in the essay paper. When he did it she approved it, even as much as it duplicated things already tried. She encouraged him; she snagged him into her wing, into her reach, and she ran an intervention on him.

I've seen the tape (ref. tape 85899) and I know that it was an intervention. She knew she was dying. She had maybe a couple of years. Justin Warrick was the test that would tell her whether or not I would exist-as I do.

She always made such precise procedural steps for people to look at; but when she operated, she always seemed to violate her own rules. That's because she tended to cl.u.s.ter steps and combine operations, because she could pick up on flux-states better than anyone I've ever seen.

The tape of her with Justin bothers me in a lot of senses. But I keep coming back to it because there are a handful of tapes of her doing clinical interventions, scattered through her life, under controlled conditions. But knowing as much as I do about Justin, and about psychogenesis-that tape, terrible as it is, is Ari going without tape, without a clinical situation, without any safeguards; and, here's the eerie part, knowing exactly what the situation was, knowing her reactions from the inside, I can see exactly what she sees, how fast she picks up on flux and how fast she can change an entire program- Because I've got her notes on what she was going to do, and I can read her body language like no one else.

Justin worked . . . not the way he would have if she'd been able to go on working with him. I know that. I also think I know why my uncles opposed him.

Leaving her work in the hands of a young researcher like Justin Warrick is so in character for Ari, exactly in character with that intervention in the tape. She took chances when she was working that would scare h.e.l.l out of an ethics board. That-scare me less than they should, maybe, because I can see at least some of what she saw. And I know the reasons she wanted someone to follow her-someone with a special kind of sensitivity and a special kind of vision. It was her macro-system interventions that scared her-that scare me, that make me more and more afraid, and drive me beyond what I can stand, sometimes.

I need him. And I can no more explain to my uncles than Ari could. If I told them in plain language about the macro-system interventions: Listen to me, Denys: Ari put a Worm in the system, it's real, it's working, and I need computer time and I need Justin Warrick's work-I can hear him say: even Ari had her out-there notions, dear, and there's no way you can focus an integration over that range. It just won't happen. And Giraud would say: Whatever it does, we make our money off short-term.

-that's exactly what I'd get.

And Giraud would say to Denys after I was out of the room: We've got to do something about Justin Warrick.

CHAPTER 13.

i The landing gear extended as they made their approach at Planys and Grant looked out the window while the blue-grays and browns of native Cyteen pa.s.sed under the right wing. His heart beat very fast. His hands were sweating and he clenched them as the wheels touched and the the plane braked. plane braked.

He was traveling with Reseune Security: Reseune Security flew with everyone who came and went from Planys, they had told him that. But he was still afraid-afraid of nameless things, because his memory of plane flights involved suspicion, Winfield and Kruger, the crazy people who had tried to re-program him, and an utter nightmare when Reseune Security had pulled him out, drugged and semiconscious, and flown him away to hospital and interrogations.

Twelve hours in the air, and chop and finally monotony over endless ocean in the dark-had calmed him somewhat. He had not wanted to tell Justin-and had not-what an irrational, badly fluxed anxiety he had worked himself into over this trip.

Transference, he told himself clinically, absolutely cla.s.sic CIT-psych transference. He had gathered up all his anxieties about Justin's safety at home, about his own vulnerability traveling alone into Planys and about knowing no matter what Justin and Jordan insisted, he was not the one of them Jordan wanted most to see-and the plane flight was a convenient focus.

The plane would go down in the ocean. There would be sabotage. There were lunatics who would attempt to shoot it down- The engines would simply fail and they would crash on takeoff.

He had spent a great deal of the flight with his hands clenched on the armrests as if that levitation could hold the plane in the air.

He had been nervous in flight when he had been seventeen, but he had not had cold sweats-which showed that, over the years, he had become more and more CIT.

Now, with the wheels on the ground, he had no more excuses. The anxieties had to attach where they belonged, on meeting Jordan, and the fact that, azi that he was, he did not know what to say to the man he had once called his father; and who had been, whatever else, his Supervisor all during his childhood.

The thought of disappointing Jordan, of being being that disappointment-was almost enough to make him wish the plane had gone down. that disappointment-was almost enough to make him wish the plane had gone down.

Except there was Justin, who loved him enough to give him the chance to go, who had fought for it and held out for it through all the contrived delays, the breaks in communication-everything, so that when permission came to travel again-he could go first. They hoped there would be another chance directly after. But there was no guarantee, there was never a guarantee. could go first. They hoped there would be another chance directly after. But there was no guarantee, there was never a guarantee.

Please, he had said to Jordan, in that last phone call before the flight. I really feel awkward about this. Justin should come first.

Shut up, Justin had said over his shoulder. This time is yours. There'll be others.

I want want you to come, Jordan had said. Of course I want you. you to come, Jordan had said. Of course I want you.

Which had affected him more than was good for him, he thought. It made a little pain in his chest. It was a CIT kind of feeling, pure flux, which meant that he ought to take tape and go deep and let Justin try to take that ambivalence away before it disturbed his value-sets. But Justin would argue with him. And that curious pain was a feeling he wanted to understand: it seemed a window into CIT mentality, and a valuable thing to understand, in his profession, in the projects he did with Justin. So he let it fester, thinking, when he could be more sensible about it: maybe this is the downside of the deep-set links. Or maybe it's just surface-set flux: but should it make such physiological reactions?

The plane rolled up to the terminal: Justin had said there was no tube-connection, but there was, and there was a good long wait while they got the plane hosed down and the tube-connect sealed down.

Then everyone began to get up and change into D-suits, the way Justin had said they would. everyone began to get up and change into D-suits, the way Justin had said they would.

He did as the Security escort asked him. He put on the flimsy protection over his clothes and walked out into the tube and through into Decontamination.

Foam and another hose-down, and a safety-barrier, where he had to strip the suit off and step out, without touching its exterior- In places he had been, like Krugers', if one had to make a fast transfer, one held one's breath, got to shelter, held an oxy mask tight to one's face with one hand and stripped with the other under a hosing-down that was supposed to take any woolwood fiber down the drain.

Planys was terrifyingly elaborate, a long series of procedures that made him wonder what he had been exposed to, or whether all this was just to make people at this desolate place feel safer.

"This way, ser," one of the Decon agents said, and took him by the elbow and brought him aside into a small alcove.

Body-search. He expected this too, and stripped down when they told him and suffered through the procedure, a little cold, a little anxious, but even Reseune Security people got this treatment going in or out of Planys. So they said.

Not mentioning what they did to the luggage.

"Grant," Jordan said, in person, meeting him in the hall, and: "h.e.l.lo, ser," he said, suddenly shy and formal, the surface-sets knowing he should go and embrace Jordan, and the deep-sets knowing him as a Supervisor, and knowing him from his childhood, when all instruction had come from him, and he was G.o.d and teacher.

This was the man Justin would have become, if rejuv had not stopped them both a decade earlier.

He did not move. He could not, suddenly, cope with this. Jordan came and embraced him instead.

"My G.o.d, you've grown," Jordan said, patting him on the back. "Vid didn't show how tall you'd grown. Look at the shoulders on you! What are you doing, working docks?"

"No, ser." He let Jordan lead him to his office, where Paul waited- Paul, who had doctored his skinned knees and Justin's. Paul embraced him too. Then the reality of where he was began to settle through the flux and he began to believe in being here, in being welcome, in everything being all right.

But there were no guards in the office. That was not the way Justin had warned him it would be.

Jordan smiled at him and said: "They'll send the papers up as soon as they've been over them-Justin did send that report with you, didn't he?"

"Yes, ser. Absolutely."

"d.a.m.n, it's good to see you."

"I thought-security would be more than it is." Are we monitored, ser? What's going on? Are we monitored, ser? What's going on?

"I told you it's been saner here. That's one of the things. Come on, we're closing up the office. We'll go home, fix dinner-not as fancy as Reseune, but we've got real groceries. We bought a ham for the occasion. Wine from Pell, not the synth stuff."

His spirits lifted. He was still anxious, but Jordan, he thought, was in charge of things; he relaxed a bit into dependency, azi on Supervisor, which he had not done with Justin- -had not done since he was in hospital, recovering from Giraud's probes. Had never done, after, because he was always either Justin's caretaker or Justin's partner.

It was like years of pressure falling away from him, to follow Jordan when he said Come, to sink into azi simplicity with someone he could trust-someone, finally, besides Justin, who would not harm him, who knew the place better than he did, and whose wishes were sane and sensible.

It was finally, one brief interlude in all these years, not not his responsibility. his responsibility.

Only when he thought that, he thought: No, I can't stop watching things. I can't trust anything. Not even Jordan-that far. No, I can't stop watching things. I can't trust anything. Not even Jordan-that far.

He felt exhausted then, as if just for a few weeks he would like to go somewhere and do mindless work under someone's direction, and be fed and sleep and have responsibility for nothing.

That was not not what he could do. what he could do.

He walked with them to the apartment they had; and inside, and looked around him- Things are very grim there, Things are very grim there, Justin had said. Justin had said. Very primitive. Very primitive.

It was certainly not Reseune. The chairs were plastic and metal; the tables were plastic; the whole decor was plastic, except a corner full of real geraniums, under light, and a fish-tank, and a general inefficient pleasantness to the place that had all the stamp of CITs in residence . . . what Justin called a homey feeling, and what he thought of as the CIT compulsion to collect things charged with flux and full of fractals. A potted geranium represented the open fields. The fish were random, living motion. The water was a.s.surance of life-requirements in abundance; and made a fractally repet.i.tive sound which might be soothing to flux-habituated, non-a.n.a.lytical minds. G.o.d knew what else. He only knew Justin had let all the plants die after Jordan left, but when things started to go well, Justin began to fuss with a few plants, which always died back and thrived by turns-in time to the rise and fall of Justin's spirits.

Healthy plants, Grant reckoned, were a very good sign among CITs.

Things felt felt safe here, he thought as he gave his jacket up and let Paul hang it in the closet, people were tolerably happy here. safe here, he thought as he gave his jacket up and let Paul hang it in the closet, people were tolerably happy here.

So the improvements in the world, the changes that had made this last couple of years more livable, even happy-had gotten to Planys too, despite the frustrations of the Paxer scare. All the same he wished Jordan knew even a few of the mult.i.tudinous signals he and Justin had worked out, the little indicators whether a thing was to be believed.

Maybe Jordan picked up his nervousness, because Jordan looked at him, laughed and said: "Relax. They monitor us from time to time. It's all right. h.e.l.lo, Jean!" -to the ceiling.

"We know each other," Jordan said then. "Planys is a very small establishment. Sit down. We'll make coffee. G.o.d, there's so much to talk about."

ii It was very lonely, the apartment without Grant. There was ample justification for worry, and Justin swore he was not going to spend four uninterrupted days at it.

So he read awhile, did tape awhile, an E-dose only, a piece of fluff from library. And read again. Ari had given him an advance copy of Emory's IN PRINCIPIO, IN PRINCIPIO, the first of the three-volume annotated edition of Emory's archived notes, which the Bureau of Science was publis.h.i.+ng in the first of the three-volume annotated edition of Emory's archived notes, which the Bureau of Science was publis.h.i.+ng in cooperation with the Bureau of Information, and which was now selling as fast as presses could turn them out in the Cyteen edition and already on its way on s.h.i.+ps which had bid fabulously for it, a packet of information destined for various stations which would in turn pay for the license, sell printout and electronic repros to their own populations and sell more rights to s.h.i.+ps bound further on. cooperation with the Bureau of Information, and which was now selling as fast as presses could turn them out in the Cyteen edition and already on its way on s.h.i.+ps which had bid fabulously for it, a packet of information destined for various stations which would in turn pay for the license, sell printout and electronic repros to their own populations and sell more rights to s.h.i.+ps bound further on.

Even, possibly, more than possibly, to Earth.

While Reseune accounts piled up an astonis.h.i.+ng amount of credit.

Every library wanted copies. Scientists in the field did. But it was selling in the general market with a demand that could only be called hysteria: a volume of extremely heavy going, ill.u.s.trated, with annotations so extensive there were about three lines of Emory's notes to every page, and the rest was commentary, provided by himself and by Grant, among others: he was the JW and Grant was the GALX; YS was Yanni Schwartz; and WP, Wendell Peterson; and AE2 was Ari, who had gotten the original text out of Archive and provided reference notes on some of the most obscure parts. DN was Denys Nye; GN was Giraud; JE was John Edwards; and PI was Petros Ivanoy, besides dozens of techs and a.s.sistants who served in editing and collation-each department head and administrator to read and vet the material from his own staff.

Dr. Justin Warrick, it said in the fine print in the table of contributors. Which, secretly, like a little child, he read over and over just to see it confirmed. Grant, they listed as Grant ALX Warrick, E.P., emeritus psychologiae, emeritus psychologiae, which meant an azi who should have a doctorate in psych, and would have, automatically, if he became CIT. It pleased Grant more than Grant would let on. which meant an azi who should have a doctorate in psych, and would have, automatically, if he became CIT. It pleased Grant more than Grant would let on.

CIT silliness, Grant had said. My patients certainly don't care.

But it was there, in print. And meanwhile the general public was buying copies, long waiting lists at booksellers-the Bureau had figured on strong library interest, but never never antic.i.p.ated average citizens would buy them, and certainly was bewildered that they were selling at that rate at a pre-publication price of 250 cred per volume-until an embarra.s.sed Bureau of Information cut the price to 120 and then to 75, based on advance orders; and that brought in an absolute flood of orders. There were precious few sales in fiche or tape, except to the libraries: the actual books, printed on permasheet, thank you, were status objects: one could hardly display a microfilm to one-up one's neighbors. antic.i.p.ated average citizens would buy them, and certainly was bewildered that they were selling at that rate at a pre-publication price of 250 cred per volume-until an embarra.s.sed Bureau of Information cut the price to 120 and then to 75, based on advance orders; and that brought in an absolute flood of orders. There were precious few sales in fiche or tape, except to the libraries: the actual books, printed on permasheet, thank you, were status objects: one could hardly display a microfilm to one-up one's neighbors.

Young Ari avowed herself completely bewildered by the phenomenon.

People know, Justin had said to her, that your predecessor did tremendously important things. They don't know what what she did. They certainly can't understand the notes. But they feel like they ought to understand. What you ought to do, you know-is write a volume of your own notes: your own perspective on doing the volume. The things you've learned from your predecessor. You she did. They certainly can't understand the notes. But they feel like they ought to understand. What you ought to do, you know-is write a volume of your own notes: your own perspective on doing the volume. The things you've learned from your predecessor. You ask ask the BI if they'd be interested in the rights to the BI if they'd be interested in the rights to that. that.

Not surprisingly, Information jumped at the chance.

Now Ari was struggling to put her own notes in shape. And coming to him with: Do you think . . . and sometimes just chatter-about the hidden notes, about things as full of revelations as the books he had spent a year helping annotate with the barest explanations of the principles involved.

She had sent a copy of IN PRINCIPIO IN PRINCIPIO to Jordan. to Jordan.

"Because it has your name in it," Ari had said to him, "and Grant's."

"If it gets through," he had said. "Planys Security may not like it. Not to mention Customs."

"All right," she had said. "So I'll send it with Security. Let them argue with that."

She did thoughtful things like that. In a year and a half in her wing she had come through with every promise she had made, gotten him and Grant a secretary, taken the pressure off- If something went wrong or something glitched, Florian was on the phone very quickly; and if Florian could not resolve it, it was-Wait, ser, sera will handle it-after which Ari would be on the line, with a technique that ranged rapidly between This has to be mistaken- This has to be mistaken- to a flare that department heads learned to avoid. Maybe it was a realization Ari might remember these things in future. Maybe-Justin suspected so-it was because that voice could start so soft, go to a controlled low resonance uncommon at her age-then pick up volume in a punch that made nerves jump: that made his jump, for certain, and evoked memories. But she never raised that voice with him, never pushed him, always said please and thank you-until he found himself actually on the inside of a very safe circle and to a flare that department heads learned to avoid. Maybe it was a realization Ari might remember these things in future. Maybe-Justin suspected so-it was because that voice could start so soft, go to a controlled low resonance uncommon at her age-then pick up volume in a punch that made nerves jump: that made his jump, for certain, and evoked memories. But she never raised that voice with him, never pushed him, always said please and thank you-until he found himself actually on the inside of a very safe circle and liking liking where he worked-with a small, niggling fear that he was losing his edge, becoming less worried, less defensive, relying too much on Ari's promises- where he worked-with a small, niggling fear that he was losing his edge, becoming less worried, less defensive, relying too much on Ari's promises- Fool, he told himself.

But he grew so tired of fighting, and the thought that he might have reached a situation where he could draw breath awhile, that he might actually have found a land of safety, even if it meant difficulties to come. . . later later was all right. was all right.

Ari was well aware of what came in and out of her wing, was aggressively defensive of her staffs time-her attention to pennies and minutes was, G.o.d, the living echo of Jane Stra.s.sen; so that, beyond the annotations which totaled about a hundred twenty pages between himself and Grant, and three months' intensive work, she accepted only design work for her wing, only troubleshooting after others had done the brute work, and it went, thank G.o.d, immediately back back to junior levels in some other wing when he or Grant had provided the fix, no returns, no would-you-mind's? and no 'but we thought you could do that, we're running behind.' to junior levels in some other wing when he or Grant had provided the fix, no returns, no would-you-mind's? and no 'but we thought you could do that, we're running behind.'

So he critiqued Ari's work, answered Ari's questions, did the few fixes her wing ran, and had the actual majority of his time to use on his own projects-as Grant did, doing study of his own on the applications of endocrine matrix theory in in azi tape, which Grant was going to get a chance to talk over with Jordan-Grant was very much looking forward to it. azi tape, which Grant was going to get a chance to talk over with Jordan-Grant was very much looking forward to it.

They were, overall, happier than he remembered since-a long time; and it was the d.a.m.nedest thing, waking up in the middle of the night as he did, with nightmares he could not remember.

Or stopping sometimes in the middle of work or walking home or wherever, overwhelmed by a second's panic, of nothing he could name except fear of the ground under his feet, fear that he was being a fool, and fear because he had no choice but be where he was.

Fear, perhaps, that he had not won: that he had in fact lost by the decisions he had made, and it would only take some few years yet to come clear to him.

All of which, he told himself severely, was a neurotic, compulsive state, and he resisted it-tried to weed it out when he found it operative. But take tape for it, he would not; not even have Grant run a little tranquilizing posthyp on him-being afraid of that too.

Fool, he told himself, exasperated at the track his thoughts tended to run, and marked his place and laid the book aside.

Emory for bedtime reading.

Maybe it was the fact he could still hear that voice, the exact inflection she would use on those lines he read.

And the nerves still twitched.

He rattled around an empty apartment in the morning, toasted a biscuit for breakfast, and went to the office-not the cramped, single office he and Grant had used for years, but the triple suite that Ari had leased-physically in the Ed Wing, which was back, in a sense, to where they had begun-simply because that wing had s.p.a.ce and no one else did: an office apiece for himself and Grant, and one for Em, the secretary the pool had sent, a plump, earnest lad quite glad to get into a permanent situation where he could, conceivably, come up in rating.

He read the general advisories, the monthly plea from catering to book major orders a week in advance; a tirade from Yanni about through-traffic in Wing One, people cutting through the lower hall. Em arrived at 0900, anxious at finding the office already open, and got to work on the filing while he started on the current design.

That went on till lunch and during-a pocket-roll and a cup of coffee in the office; and a concentration that left him stiff-shouldered and blinking when the insistent blip of an Urgent Message started flas.h.i.+ng in the upper left corner of the screen.

He keyed to it. It flashed up: I need to talk to you. I'm working at home today. -AE. need to talk to you. I'm working at home today. -AE.

He picked up the phone. "Ari, Base One," he told it.

Florian answered. "Yes, ser, just a second." And immediately, Ari: "Justin. Something's come up. I need to talk to you."

"Sure, I'll meet you at your office." Is it Grant? G.o.d, has something happened? Is it Grant? G.o.d, has something happened?

"Meet me here. Your card's cleared. Endit."

"Ari, I don't-"

The Base had gone off. Dammit.

He did not meet Ari except with Grant; except in the offices; except sometimes with Catlin and Florian, out to lunch or an early dinner. He kept it that way.