Cyteen

Things like: I'm sorry I tried to deal with Ari. I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I'm sorry you had to find it out yourself. It's all my doing. All of it.

Don't bring up Grant, Denys had warned him. Don't bring it up at all. The committees could want to talk to him if you do. Let them forget about him.

"Are you all right?" Jordan asked him.

"I'm fine. Are you?"

"Son, I—"

Jordan's mouth trembled. O God, he's going to lose it. In front of all of them.

"They told me everything. You don't have to tell me. Please." Jordan drew a deep breath and eased it out again. "Justin, I want you to know whyI did it. Because Ari was an influence this world didn't need. I did it the same way I'd try to fix a bad tape. I don't have any remorse for it. I won't ever have. It was a perfectly logical decision. Now someone else is ru

The anger had been there at the start, real anger, profound, shattering anger. It cooled at the last. It became a recitation, a learned part, an act meant to look like an act. He was grateful for that last coolness, when Jordan threw the ball to him.

I know why you did it,he almost said, then thought that that could come out wrong. Instead he said: "I love you."

And nearly lost control. He bit his lip till it bled. Saw Jordan with his own jaw clenched.

"I don't know if they'll let me write to you," Jordan said.

"I'll write."

"I don't know if they'll give me the letters." Jordan managed a small laugh. "They imagine we can pass messages in hello, how's the weather?"

"I'll write anyway."

"They think—they think there's some damn conspiracy. There isn't. I promise you that, son. There isn't anyone who knew and there wasn't supposed to be anyone who knew. But they're afraid out there. People think of Ari as political. That's how she was important to them. They don't think of her first as a scientist. They don't understand what it means when someone takes your work and turns it inside out. They don't understand the ethics that were violated."

Ethics that were violated. God. He's playing for the cameras. The first was a speech to the committee but the last was a code tome. If he goes on any longer they're going to catch him at it.

"I love you," Jordan said then. "More than anything."

And held out his arms. It was over. The play was over. The actors had to embrace. It was all right to cry now.

He would not see Jordan after this. Not hear from him.

Maybe forever.

He crossed the little space like an automaton. He hugged Jordan and Jordan hugged him hard, a long time. A long time. He bit his lip through, because the pain was all that helped keep him focused. Jordan was crying. He felt the sobs, quiet as they were. But maybe that would help Jordan's case. Maybe they had done all right, in front of the cameras. He wished he could cry. But for some reason he was numb, except the pain, and the taste of blood.

Jordan had played it too hard, had sounded too cold-blooded, too dangerous. He should not have done that. They might play that tape on the news. People would be afraid of him. They might think he was crazy. Like the Alphas that went over the edge. Like Bok's clone. They might stop him from his work.

He almost shouted: He's lying. My father is lying.But Jordan was holding on to him. Jordan had done exactly what Jordan wanted to do. Jordan had not been locked in a room for a week. He knew what was going on in the world, he had been talking to the investigators. Jordan was playing a part, ru

"Come on," Denys said.

Jordan let him go and let him leave. Denys walked him out the door.

Then Justin cried. Leaned against the wall outside after the door had shut and cried until his gut ached.

xii

He had thought there could be no more shocks.

But Petros Ivanov met him at the door of the hospital, took him away from his Security escort and walked with him to Grant's room.

"How is he?" he asked before they got there.

"Not doing well," Ivanov said. "I wanted to warn you." Ivanov said other things, how they had had to put Grant under probe again; and how he had gone into shock; how they took him out to the garden in a chair every day, how they massaged him and bathed him and waited on treatment because Denys had kept telling them Justin was going to come, this day, and the next day and the next—they were afraidto probe Grant again, because he was right on the edge, and they thought there might be illegal codewords, words not in the psych record.

"No," he said before he pushed Grant's door open. And wanted to kill Ivanov. Wanted to beat him to a bloody pulp and go for the staff next and Giraud Nye into the bargain. "No. There aren't any codewords. Dammit, I toldhim I'd come back. And he was waiting."

Grant was still waiting. Right now he had his hair combed, looked comfortable enough unless you knew he did not move on his own. Unless you knew he had lost weight and the skin was too transparent and you saw the glassiness in the eyes and took his hand and felt the lack of muscle tone. "Grant," he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Grant, it's me. It's all right."

Grant did not even blink.

"Get out of here," he said to Ivanov, with a glance over his shoulder; and did not try to be polite. Ivanov left.

He shifted over and gently unfastened the restraints they kept on him. He was calmer than he had thought he could be. He picked up Grant's arm and laid it across him so he had room to sit, and raised the head of the bed a little. He reached then and with two fingers along Grant's jaw, turned his face toward him. It was like moving a ma

O God, he had thought Grant would be gone. He had thought he was coming in here to find a half-corpse that they could not do anything with except put down. He was prepared for that... in five minutes from the front door to Grant's room he had gone from the hope of recovering Grant to the expectation of losing him. Now it was full circle.

Now he was scared. He was safeif Grant was dead. O God!Damn me for thinking like that! Where did I learn to think like that? Where did I learn to be that cold? Is it tape-flash too? What did shedo to me?

He felt like he was coming apart—felt hysteria welling up like a tide; and Grant did not need that. His hand was shaking when he took Grant's hand in his. And even then he thought of Ari's apartment, how the room had looked. He began talking to distract himself, not knowing what he was saying, not wanting to think again the thought that had flashed through his mind, like it was somebody else's. He knew that he could not touch people anymore without it being sexual. He could not hold on to a friend. Or embrace his father. He kept remembering, day and night; and he knew that it was dangerous to love anyone because of the ugliness in his mind, because he was always thinking thoughts that would horrify them if they knew.