Страница 58 из 170
“We live in a glass box,” Grant said with a shrug of his own. “But it’s quieter for it.”
“If I have any guilt in the world,” Justin said soberly, “it’s on your account. All the things you could do, and you spend far too much time worrying about my family, my future, my problems.”
Grants brow, generally azi‑like, i
“What? If someone told you you’d be linked up with the clone of an egotistical problem case in a lifelong feud with a dead woman, you’d jump at the chance?”
“I’d at least find it an interesting proposal,” Grant said. “A source of unique experiences.”
“God.”
“Not all pleasant experiences, true, but I’ve found no need to run tape at all, not in this whole year. Which indicates I’m perfectly adjusted.” Grant gave a violent twitch of his shoulder. “Mostly.”
He had to laugh, in spite of it all. “I wish there were tape that could cure me of worrying about the damned son of a bitch.”
“Oh, I know there is for me, but there you are, the disadvantages of being a born‑man. Just shut down, go peacefully null–”
“You can’t do it so well yourself nowadays, you know.”
“Curiosity is a plague. Contagious. I can’t help it. I want to know.”
“You’re right it’s contagious. Jordan’s a carrier. God, I wish he’d use good sense. Just–calm down and let it all flow past him. But no. He’s got to be in the dead center of the flow, going upstream while he’s at it. In some ways I can admire him–” Momentarily he’d all but forgotten about the bugs, twice in five minutes, and consciously, wearily amended it: “–and in others I know he’s a lunatic.”
“There’s nothing wrong with his sanity,” Grant said.
“No. There isn’t. Everything’s perfectly reasonable if you realize he wants to manage Reseune and he thinks second prize doesn’t matter. Whyhe wants to–” He tried to make it make sense and simply shrugged. “He doesn’t like to be inconvenienced. And anybodyelse’s orders are an inconvenience.”
Grant laughed softly. “That’s one way to look at it.”
“God, I want to love him. But he doesn’t give a damn. That’s the bottom line. I stopped being his project, and he washed his hands of me. Second prize again–isn’t good enough for him. Things are perfect or they’re garbage. Thank God for you, Grant, or I’d be–God knows what I’d be. Not as good as I am, for damn certain.”
“Nor would I,” Grant said with a nod of his head, “be anything worthwhile, in that household. I escaped, along with you, and I have just enough born‑man ego to be glad of that fact.”
“Nothing wrong with your ego,” Justin shot back. “Perfectly well‑exercised.”
“Oh, now–”
A knock at the door–which opened.
Florian.
Face of an angel and inevitably the bearer of bad news. Grant sat still. Justin nodded a welcome.
“I don’t suppose you dropped by for coffee.”
“No, ser, thank you,” Florian said. “I came to ask your help.”
“My help.”
Florian let the door shut, reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a small card, and handed it to him. It had a number hand‑written. “This is Dr. Patil’s number.”
“I gave it to you. I don’t want it back.”
“We understand that. But, purely in an investigative way, we’d like you to call it and simply find out what the reaction is. Are you willing to do that?”
His heart began a thoroughly familiar acceleration of beats. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, Grant set his cup down, as if he was considering entering into the conversation.
“And say what?” he asked, forestalling that, and straightway protested, though he marginally thought he was believed on this point: “I’ve told you I don’t know this woman.”
Florian reached in his pocket, drew out a folded piece of paper, and gave it to him.
The printout said: Your father gave you the number, and you assumed he wanted you to convey his good wishes and Dr. Thieu’s. Possibly you became curious.
You wish to warn Dr. Patil that there is some concern here because of her relationship with your father. You feel that you can be of use in that matter because of your co
“This comes from Ari,” Justin surmised. “ Memeans Ari.”
“You understand that this entire thread of conversation is classified.” Florian said. “Sera suggests this line of conversation as an assistance.”
“Florian, I can’t lie. I’m terrible at lying.” Begging off, abjectly, and in front of Grant–was undignified. Embarrassing. But survival, Grant’s safety, everything was suddenly at issue. “I can’t do this.”
“You’re a certified Supervisor, ser,” Florian said smoothly. “You’re not lying if you make these representations to this woman. You’re temporarily adjusting her reality, just as you might maneuver one of us for good reasons, to reach a point. If, out of her own reality, she chooses to believe certain things about your motives, that’s hardly your fault.”
“God, Florian, it’s not the same situation. You know it’s not.”
“I’m sure sera will understand if you refuse. But she urges me to say you could do a great deal for Dr. Patil, should she be i
His heart reached max. He looked at Florian and froze inside.
But he had to ask it. Cold and clear. “What’s my father up to? Do you know?”
“We don’t. We do want to know why that peculiar juxtaposition of events.”
Florian was leveling with him: Justin had that sense. That was a situation both reassuring for his own future and as precarious for Jordan’s as he could conceive. He didn’t know what he’d been dragged into.
“I’m sureyou want to know,” he said to Florian, and picked up his coffee and had a sip to steady his nerves, looking, meanwhile, at Ari’s script for a phone call to a woman who might either be, like him, a target, or someone he wished his father had never heard of.
Nanistics, for God’s sake. Jordan had nothing to do with nanistics. Jordan had had nothing to do with Abolitionists, either, but had once had phone numbers of people who themselves had ties in such dark places, twenty years ago. Jordan’s political contacts had nearly cost him Grant that night. And since that time he had taken nothing at face value, where it regarded Jordan’s correspondents.
Grant sat over at his desk, silent, impassive–he glanced in Grant’s direction and met Grant’s eyes. Expression touched Grant’s face, a nod, support for whatever he opted to do…when Grant would assuredly suffer right along with him if he made the wrong choice or the wrong move.
Grant was an alpha, and there was a limit to how much information anybody could make him unlearn…if anything untoward should happen to his CIT Supervisor. He couldn’t forget that.
“Maybe you should take a break,” he said to Grant.
Grant shook his head slightly. “I don’t think so. You’re going to do it, are you?”
“I don’t want trouble,” he said, “but I don’t want trouble from my father, either. Damn him, Grant. Damn him.” He had another sip of coffee, a larger one. “Florian, I’ll try it. Let me wrap my mind around this note of Ari’s.”
“Sera trusts you more than any other CIT in Reseune,” Florian said quietly. “Her staff willprotect you, ser. Those are our orders. That’s why, of all CITs outside ReseuneSec, you are the only individual wehave informed of the co