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He found enough air to breathe finally. He tried to think that through. He tried to think—what was the safest thing for his father and what his father would want. Tried notto think—O God!—that it was his own mistakes that had caused it.
"Can you get yourself together?" Denys pressed him.
"I'm together. I'm all right. What about Grant?" Oh, God, they could mindwipe him. Florian dead! And Catlin—
"Giraud is assigning Grant back to you."
Good things no longer happened to him. He did not believe them. He did not trust them.
"He has,"Denys said, "because I just signed the papers. Get through this business with Jordan and you can get him out of hospital. —Do you want that sedative, son?"
Justin shook his head. Because Jordan would know if there was any drug involved. He had read him all along. Jordan must have. He hoped—
He hoped he could keep from tape-flashes if Jordan hugged him. That was how bad it was. That was what Ari had done to him. He was losing his father. He was not going to see him again. And he could not even tell Jordan goodbye without feeling Ari's hands on him.
"I'm all right," he said. If he could not lie to Denys and make it credible, he had no hope of lying to Jordan. Getting himself together had to start now. Or he was not going to make it.
x
Mikhail Corain looked anxiously at the aide who had laid the fiche-card on his desk. "Dell's?" he asked.
The aide nodded.
Corain waved a hand, dismissing the aide, slid the card into the desktop viewer and tilted the screen.
Dell Hewitt was a member of Internal Affairs. She happened to be a Centrist who was a friend of Gi
Regarding the azi Catlin and Florian: no conclusion. Perhaps the termination was ordered outside the system. Perhaps inside, by persons unknown. Perhaps Ariane Emory did order the termination, not wanting them interviewed. Perhaps she felt it was humane. Perhaps it was some kind of death pact the azi themselves had asked for: Reseune says they would have been very profoundly affected by the thought of losing her. Also, Reseune says, they were Security, but with a fix on Emory. They were therefore capable of harm to Reseune, and retraining would be difficult if not impossible without mindwipe, which their age precluded. Giraud Nye refuses to open the books on their psychsets. The order did come under Emory's personal code. Giraud Nye cites security considerations in refusing to allow Internal Affairs technicians to examine the computers.
Corain sipped the coffee warmed by the desk-plate. Two hundred fifty cred the half-kilo. They were damned small sips. But, a man was due a little luxury, who had been a scratch-and-patch outback farmer most of his life.
No newnews. That was disappointing. He traced down the long list of things Reseune had refused to allow Internal Affairs to do, and read the legal justifications. Reseune's legal staff was wi
Then:
Internal Affairs is investigating the rumor at Reseune that certain genesets were checked out and not logged. This means someone could have duplicated genesets that ought not to exist. . . .
Azi-ru
. . . such as Experimental and Special material which ca
Smuggling actual genesets prepared for use by Reseune requires cryogenics which would be detected in shipment unless simply omitted from manifests. However—the digitalized readout of a geneset is another story. Reseune in the person of administrator Nye denies that there is any such activity, or that documentation could have been released without record.
Also there is some rumor on staff that there have been unwarranted terminations. Reseune is blocking this inquiry.
Corain gnawed his lip. And thought: I don't want to know this. Not right now. Things are too delicate. My God, if this hits the streets—all the arrangements can come unglued.
A side note from Dellarosa: What about the chance Emory was ru
Votes. A Council seat. Support from the very, very rich. Corain took a swallow of coffee. And sweated.
Physical evidence suffered from inexpert handling from the Moreyville police. Certain surfaces in the outer lab and the cold-lab have Jordan Warrick's fingerprints, Emory's fingerprints, the prints of the azi attendants, of certain of the other regular users of the lab, and a number of students who have come forward to be printed. The door bears a similar number of prints. No presence-tracers were available to the Moreyville police who did the preliminary investigation. Subsequent readings would have been meaningless due to the traffic in and out of the lab by police and residents. The security door records were released and corroborate the comings and goings given in verbal testimony. Again, Reseune will not allow Internal Affairs technicians access to the computers.
The autopsy results say that Emory froze to death, that the skull fracture was contributory, in that she was probably unconscious at the time of the pipe rupture. She was suffering from extremely minor rejuv failure and had arthritis of the right knee and mild asthma, all of which were known to her doctors. The only unexpected finding was a small cancer in the left lung, localized, and unknown to her physician at the time: it is a rare type, but less rare among early pioneers on Cyteen. The treatment would have been immediate surgery, with drug therapy. This type of cancer does respond to treatment but frequently recurs, and the prognosis combined with other immune-system problems due to the rejuv difficulty would have been less than favorable.
God.
She was dying anyway.
xi
Justin composed himself with several deep breaths as he walked down the hall beside Denys Nye. He had showered, shaved, was dressed in his ordinary work-clothes, blue sweater, brown pants. He was not shaking. He had asked for three aspirin and made sure that that was all he had gotten before he swallowed them. As a tranquilizer it was at least enough, with his exhaustion, to dull the nerves.
Jordan lookedall right. He would. Jordan was like that.
God, he couldn't have killed her. He couldn't. They'remaking him say these things. Someone is lying.
"Hello, son."
It was not one of the cold little interview rooms. It was an administrative office. Denys was not going to leave. He had explained that. Neither were the azi guards going to leave. And a recorder was ru
"Hello," he said back. And thought he ought to go and put his arms around his father at a time like this, in front of all the people who would see the tape, but, dammit, Jordan was not inviting it, Jordan was being reserved and quiet and had things to say to him Jordan needed to get in order. All he had to say was goodbye. All he couldsay was goodbye. Anything else— anythingelse—and he could make a mistake that would go on that tape and ruin everyone's life worse than he had already done.