Cyteen

Gorodin thought about it—civilians ru

Reseune wanted to start a close cooperation, on a project Gorodin, dammit, saw shifting the balance of power irrevocably toward Union—

Ariane Emory experimenting with a kid on Fargone had seemed a hell of a lot safer. Reseune trying to raise the dead seemed—

—hell, go for the big gain. Go for everything.

It was a pittance, to the Defense budget.

"I don't think there's much problem," Gorodin said. "We just appropriate the Fargone facility. We invoke the Military Secrets Act. We can cover any damn thing you need."

"No problem," Nye said. "No problem in that. As long as it stays classified."

"No problem with that," Gorodin said.

"So we stamp everything Rubin project," Nye said. "We build the Fargone facility; we work the Rubin project under deep secrecy out there; we get deeper cover for our work on Cyteen."

"Two for the price of one?" It struck Gorodin after he had said it that the expression was a little coarse, on the day of Emory's funeral. But, hell, it was her resurrection they were talking about. Not identity, Warrick had said. Ability.That was close enough.

He was damned sure Giraud Nye had the inclination to keep Reseune's control over the project. The Project, meaning an embryo in a womb-tank and a kid growing up in Reseune. Twenty years.

He suddenly added that to his own age. He was a hundred twenty-six, ground time. A hundred forty-six by then. And Nye—was not young.

It was the first time it had ever really hit him—what Warrick had meant about the time factor in Reseune. He was used to time-dilation—in a spacer's sense: that hundred forty-six ground-time would lie far lighter on him, who lost months of ground-time in days of jump. But Reseune's kind of time meant lifetimes.

"We'd like that second project full-scale," Nye said. "Having a comparative study could save us in a crisis, and we're beyond any tentative test of theories. Comparison is going to give us our answers. It's not a luxury."

Part of the Rubin project at Fargone meant part of the data within easy reach. And meant a fail-safe. Gorodin always believed in fail-safes—in equipment; or in pla

"Do it," he said. "Makes cover a hell of a lot easier." There was the matter of clearing it with Lu, and the chiefs of staff. But Lu and the chiefs of staff would go with anything that promised this kind of return and put Emory's work at the disposal of Defense.

Defense took a lot of projects under its wing. Some were conspicuous failures. Those that worked—paid for all the rest.

ix

Steps passed the door continually. More than usual. There were voices. Some of them Justin thought he knew; someone had stopped outside the door, a group of people talking.

Please,he thought. Please. Somebody stop here.He hoped for a moment; and feared. He listened, sitting on the sleeping mat that was all the furniture in the room. He clenched his hands together in the hollow of his crossed legs.

"Call Ari," he kept saying to anyone who dealt with him. "Tell her I want to talk with her."

But they were azi. They had no authority to go above their Supervisor. And as many times as he asked, the Supervisor never came.

It was a suicide cell he was in, padded walls and door, just a sink and the toilet and the sleeping mat. The light was always on. Food came in water-soluble wrappers little more substantial than toilet paper, without utensils. They had taken his clothes and given him only hospital pajamas, made of white paper. They had not questioned him any more. They had not spoken to him again. He did not know how much time had passed, and his sleeping was erratic with depression and lack of cues from lights or activity outside. And the tape-flashes, seductive and destructive. He refused to let the flashes take hold in the isolation. He refused it even when it would have been consolation.

Not me, he kept thinking, keeping himself awake, away from the dreams. Not my choice. I'm not hers. I won't think her thoughts.

Ari was holding him hostage, he thought. She was holding him and maybe Grant against some threat of Jordan's to go to the Bureau with charges. Maybe she had arrested Jordan too. Maybe Jordan could nothelp him. But in any case—the police would come. And they had not psychprobed him again; they could not psychprobe Jordan.

It was Grant who was vulnerable. She would use Grant against Jordan—and use him too. He had no doubt of it.

He hoped for the police to come. Internal Affairs. Science Bureau. Anyone.

He hoped that was the small commotion outside.

But he had hoped that—time after time.

Grant would have been waiting for him to come back; but instead it was security that would have come in on him, hauled him off for more questions—

He heard the electronic lock tick. The door opened.

"Ser Nye wants to talk to you," one of two azi said; both Security. "Please come."

He got up. His knees went to jelly. He walked out into the light, knowing it was another psychprobe session; but at least he would get a chance to say something to Giraud, at least he would have a chance for a half-dozen words before they put the drug into him.

That they just let him walk loose was the last thing he was prepared for. He felt himself dizzy, his knees aching and shaking so it was hard to navigate.

Tape-flash again. And Florian—

Down the hall to the barren little interview room he had seen before. He reached the open door and stopped, dazed and disoriented by the realization it was not Giraud Nye at the table. It was a stout round-faced man that for a bewildered second his mind insisted to make into Giraud's lean form.

Not Giraud.

DenysNye, rising from his chair with a distressed look.

"Where's Grant?" Justin demanded. "Where's my father? What's going on?" His voice gave way on him. His legs shook as he reached the narrow table and leaned on it in Denys' face. "I've got the right to talk to my family, dammit! I'm a minor! Remember?"

"Sit down," Denys said, fluttering a hand. "Sit. Please. —Get him something to drink."

"I don't want anything! I want to know—"

"Please," Denys said in his quiet, distressed way, and made a second appeal with his hand. "Please sit down. —Get him something. —Please, sit down."

Justin fell into the chair, feeling a crying jag coming on. He clamped his jaw and drew breaths until he had it under control; and Denys sank into his seat, folded his hands on the table in front of him and let him calm down while one of the azi brought back a soft drink and set it down on the table.

"What's in it?"

"Nothing. Nothing. Poor boy. Damn this all anyway. Have they told you about Ari?"

It was a strange thing to say. It made no sense. It fluttered like a cold chill through his nerves. "What aboutAri? Where's my father?"

"Ari's dead, Justin."

It was like the world jolted sideways. For a moment everything went out of focus. Then where he was came crashing in on him. Where he was and what they were doing and the silence all around him.

Dead. Like not-natural-dead. Like—

—the plane crashed?

—some crazy person—in Novgorod?

"Jordan found out what she was doing to you," Denys said in the gentlest voice Justin had ever heard him use, "and he killed her. Locked her into the cold-lab and killed her."