Regenesis

“Retired. He’s lived at Planys since the War was at its height. He’s elderly, came from Beta labs, was head of Research in that discipline, taught at the University in Novgorod for two years, moved to Planys when the terraforming project got canceled, managed the remediation program there until he retired, five years ago. Distinguished career, bit of a prick.”

“He knows Jordan, I take it.”

“They were socially acquainted at Planys. Understand, the Planys lab doesn’t have the facilities to have done anything of an anagenetic nature, not in the most esoteric sense.” That was the ten‑cred word for terraforming, where there was already life. “Let’s just say terraforming has been a hot topic behind certain closed doors, including Denys’, including the military’s, and it’s been hot for months. ReseuneSec is currently taking the whole Planys lab apart, and using Jordan’s departure as a plausible excuse to look into every nook and cra

“Because we stopped terraforming in its tracks,” she said, shaken out of any sort of complacency. “But the military kept the research going. And the crazier Centrists still want it applied here.”

“We’re giving them Eversnow. But a lot of old business exists out there at Planys. Part of the black projects in the military wing we can’t get at, and we don’t like, are nanistics of a nature I don’t like. Officially the nanistics program slowed to a stop when he retired, no other perso

“So you think he’s been talking to people? Including Jordan? It’s not Jordan’s field.”

“Politics is. Jordan’s always been a political animal. And we know there’s been a leak to Corain.”

“One we found,” she said. “You think there’s more?”

“Oh, I think we brought a major item of it here, with Jordan.”

“My fault, you’re saying.”

“Having him sucked up by the military wouldn’t have helped at all.”

It wouldn’t. She’d prevented that. That was true.

“Thieu arrived at Planys during the War,” Ya

“But he still has his security clearances.”

“He still has some clearance–though he carried on correspondence with a few people in the University in Novgorod, not all of whom we were quite comfortable with: people who’d gotten burned in the program cancellation; people who leaned just a little to the Centrist fringes–ReseuneSec found it useful to let it continue, to see where the lines of communication led, granted nothing classified got out. Meanwhile he met Jordan Warrick…when Jordanmoved out there, not, of course, voluntarily. They weren’t close for the first ten years, didn’t even speak; but in the last few, as Thieu tended toward retirement, they started up a friendship. We can’t prove a damned thing, except our quiet in‑house inquiry about resurrecting a nanistics project–the Eversnow project, which we didn’t say at the time, nor mentioned Patil’s name–got Thieu very exercised. Hebreached security, at least within that close community of academics, and contacted a student of his currently teaching in Novgorod, qualified in the field, security clearance, to be sure, but not a contact he was authorized to make.”

“Patil.”

“Patil. He’d corresponded with her for years, but all those letters were i

“Please don’t!”

“–in case, I say, I’m telling you verbally. There is that one very untidy and roundabout link to Jordan Warrick that we don’t like, the elderly and sometimes erratic Dr. Thieu, who co

“But you’re saying it’s possibly all i

“Patil’s a natural candidate for the Eversnow post. But hauling her from the Centrist party to the Expansionist side of the slate is going to mightily a

“ ‘Rethinking the Theory of Long‑Period Nanistic Self‑direction.’ ”

“God, where did you run across that?”

“It was going to run in Scientialast year. It was pretty thick going, but I read it.”

“I should think it was. You and the censors. How did you get it?”

“The Centrists had made a fuss about it, pre‑publication, said it proved they could do what they wanted to do on Cyteen without killing the rejuv ecology. Uncle Denys was mad about it. He was threatening to have the editor fired if it ran, so they pulled it. I figured I should give it a look. So she was writing up what she shouldn’t have written about?”