Regenesis

“Ah. So it’s fear for your reputation. But you should be golden. You were quite the hero, overthrowing the Nyes, saving her highness…”

“Neither.” Jordan was stalking some point, he saw that, and he didn’t know why or what. For a top‑flight psychset designer, it was downright embarrassing, not to know what was behind his own identical’s actions, and thathinted at a Working, either verbal or otherwise. Jordan knew him from way back, ownedmost of the buttons, knew his body from inside out, and that was a fact. Sitting here, across the table from Jordan, mirror into mirror with that damned infuriating smile on Jordan’s face that his own body knew gut‑deep was no smile at all, because it never reached the eyes– damn, he knew it. And there was nobody more dangerous to him, if Jordan decided to pull old strings.

Set psych‑switches in his own baby boy? Damned right Jordan would have done that, from the cradle up. Ari One had flipped them the other way. Jordan had had twenty years to figure how to get at him past Ari’s Working, or worse–and then those questions Sunday night. Had he been alone with Ari? Had Ari done anything further? It very much assumed the character not of an outraged father, but of a psych operator wanting a case history.

And much worse–

Jordan knew how to get at Grant. Grant hadbeen under Jordan’s supervision, too, in their collective childhood, and if Jordan could get his hands on Grant’s updated manual, which was in the computer system in that office, once Jordan got his license back…

That thought sent cold chills through him. The very thought, that Grant could be put into that situation–that sent his hand questing after the lately‑arrived drink.

Share an office with Jordan? No. Absolutely not. License or no license. And subtlety only wound his own gut in knots, it gave Jordan chance after chance to get to him.

“It’s just not going to work,” he said. “I’ll go to Ya

“I don’t want any damn charity.”

“But you damn sure want my office. And I don’t want you in there.”

“ Youroffice?”

“Let’s try honesty,” he said abruptly. “You want to start the war with Admin up again. I don’t. I don’t want to subject Grant to it, either. So make your own choices, but–”

“Are you making yourchoices these days?”

“My choice right now is to have my office to myself, to do my work, outside politics–”

“Oh, come now!”

“–to have Grant do his. To enjoy my life…”

“Will you? Enjoy it? And areyou outside politics?”

That did it. He smiled with his father’s own false warmth, right back at him, and something ticked over deep in his makeup that could be cold as ice–something he didn’t damn well trust, but right now it felt like an asset, not to have himself out of control with this man who had all the buttons. “I don’t know, Dad. I haven’t a clue who’s had a go at me or who’s reshaped my psyche during Denys Nye’s tenure–there are things I don’t actually remember. But I’m actually pretty happy these days, and I lately find I haven’t any stake in your game, whatever it is.”

“You think you haven’t.”

“I know I haven’t. I don’t give a damn for what happened twenty years ago and if you plan to live here in Reseune, I really hope you’ll just let it all go. So enjoy your di

“Justin, Justin, Justin, you really believeyou’re not in it.”

“Won’t work, Pop. Really won’t work.” He took a sip of wine. The rich tastes were sharp, solid, complex. Where Jordan wanted to lead him was complicated, too, the wrong end of Jordan’s ambitions, whatever they currently were, and he discovered, since the last fight, he truly failed to give a damn, tonight, and decided not to subscribe to Jordan’s list of problems.

“You have your own agenda,” Jordan said. “You think it’s in your practical interests to keep your own counsel. And you don’t want to share. I can respect that.”

“Thanks for the analysis.”

“You’re waiting. You plan to have influence in the great someday. Ya

He took another drink of wine, a deliberately small one, thinking: God, no. And said, “ You’rescared of her. But not scared enough. Watch it about trying to read me. You could make a mistake. You’re locked in what was. And things just may not be the same after twenty years.”

“You think I can’t read you, down to the fine print? I do, believe me, I do, right down to the fact you’re ru

“I know you owned the geneset first. But genesets are only part of the story. Weboth know that, don’t we? But do we both actually believe it? I wonder.”

“Oh, programming can do wonders,” Jordan said. “And you’ve been Worked for all those years. How many sessions did you have with Giraud Nye’s people, before you had one with little Ari?”

“Arrests, you mean?” He kept his tone light. “Oh, a few. But you were in one long detention, yourself, over on Planys. Do you find that makes a psychological difference? I’d say so.”

That actually caught Jordan just a little by surprise. Or maybe it stung, for reasons he hadn’t, until now, guessed. “So you won’t like having me in your office,” Jordan said, flank attack and redirect. “You don’t trust me.”

“Living the life I’ve lived, I don’t trust anybody. You think they didWork you over when you were arrested? Or aren’t you sure of that?”

Jordan avoided his eyes. In a psychmaster, that was a devastating flinch. And that avoidance hit him right in the heart, reminding him of his own little sojourns with interrogators. Ricochet, he thought, feeling the pain. Damn. And he didn’t look at Paul. He hadn’t invoked Paul’s name, or queried him. Paul wasn’t looking at him. But the shots didn’t go just at Jordan.

Salads arrived. They ate while Jordan sat and had more wine. They managed small talk, catching up on who was sleeping with whom, who was married, who had procreated. One of the many Carnaths had given natural birth to a daughter, opting to skip the birthlabs. It was the talk of the offices. Crazy, no few said.

“There’s a certain merit in it,” Jordan said. “Think of all the thousands who don’t have access to a lab, or don’t have it government‑subsidized. Fargone. Pan‑Paris. All those poor women doing it the hard way…those poor childless men with no other recourse…”

Justin didn’t often imagine Fargone, or Pan‑Paris, waystations in the dark which touched his personal world very little. He was glad not to have to imagine them, steel worlds orbiting stars whose planets, if any to speak of, were good only for mining. “We’re spoiled, I suppose.”

“Spoiled as hell,” Jordan said, more cheerfully. “Though there’s Planys, if you ever want not to be spoiled.”

Right back to the bitter edge.

And it didn’t pay to go there. “Rather not. Hope never to.”

“So how’s your apartment? Nice, I’ll imagine, being where it is.”

“Nice. Yes.”

“Bugged. Naturally.”

“Naturally.”

Main course arrived. Gratefully. Another service of wine. Jordan took a refill. He didn’t. Nor did Grant, nor Paul.

“Ever think of moving back to Education?” Jordan asked.

“I think about it.”

“You could come and visit me. But I can’t get into your restricted little paradise.”

“I know. I’m sorry about that. I really am.”

“Can’t do anything about it, can you?”