Cyteen: The Betrayal (23 page)

Someone gave him the keywords the last visitor had left. And insisted he wake up. After which he was looking at Petros Ivanov sitting on his bed.

“They’re going to take you in the chair. Will you let them do that?”

“Yes,” he said. He would let them do anything. Whoever they were. He was much too busy putting things back on shelves and watching them fall off again.

The room became a different room. There were flowers. There was a waterfall. It made a rhythmical sound that had no rhythm. Of course. It was a fractal. Fractals were common in nature. He tried obligingly to discover the pattern. They had handcuffed him to the chair. He was not sure what that datum had to do with anything. He worked at the math since that was the problem they had given him. He did not know why.

He slept, perhaps. He knew they had done something to his mind because the tamper-gate was unstable: the vase kept tottering off the table by the door. Not safe. Not safe.

But of a sudden he remembered that Justin was supposed to come. That had been true before. He violated the cardinal rule and cautiously, examining the cost of it carefully, took something other than the operator’s truth as valid.

If he was wrong there was no way back from this, and he had no map.

If he was wrong he would not readily be able to reconstruct himself.

He put the vase back. He sat down to wait.

Justin would come. If not-nothing had ever existed.

He could see and taste and walk in their world. But not really. They would make wreckage of him. But not really. Nothing was-

-real.

Anyway.

vi.

The lying-in-state was barbaric, the Hall of State echoing with somber funeral music and cloyed with flowers and greenery-a spectacle right out of old Earth, some commentator had remarked, while other news analysts compared it to the similar display at the death of Corey Santessi, chief architect of the Union, whose forty-eight-year tenure on Council first in the Internal Affairs seat and then in the Citizens Bureau, had set the precedent for inertia in the electorates-then too, there had been a need, considering the far-flung colonies and the degree to which a rumor could travel and grow, to demonstrate indisputably that Santessi was dead, to have a decorous passing-of-the-torch and allow all the colleagues who had fought Santessi’s influence to get up in public, shed sufficient tears, and deliver pious speeches that stifled speculation by endless repetition.

Much more so, when the deceased was synonymous with Reseune and resurrection, and the victim of assassination.

“We had our differences,” Mikhail Corain said in his eulogy, “but Union has suffered an inestimable loss in this tragedy.” It would be tasteless to mention that it was a double loss, counting the presumed murderer. “Ariane Emory was a woman of principle and vision. Consider the arks that preserve our genetic heritage, in orbit about distant stars. Consider the rapprochement with Earth and the agreements which have made possible the preservation and recovery of rare species-“

It was one of his better speeches. He had sweated blood over it. There were worrisome mutterings about suppression of evidence in the case, about the unexplained order which Reseune had claimed was buried in the House computers by Emory herself, calling for the termination of Emory’s personal guards, a termination carried out by staff without question. There was the notorious case of the Warrick azi kidnapped and tampered with by Rocher extremists, then returned to Reseune. There was the fact of Rocher himself making inflammatory speeches, publicly rejoicing in the assassination, a newsworthy item that got far more press than the legitimate Centrist-affiliated Abolitionists like lanni Merino regretting the taking of a life, then going on to decry the termination of the azi, all of which was too complicated for the news-services: lanni never had learned the technique of one-issue-at-a-time, and it echoed too closely what Rocher had said. The reporters swarmed the stairways and office doorways like predators staking out a reef, darting out, Scribers running, to ask every Centrist in the Council and Senate: “Do you think there was a conspiracy?” and: “What’s your reaction to the Rocher speech?”

Which was a damned narrow line for some Centrists to walk.

He hoped to hell he had defused some of it. That he had been quotable.

Never say that the news-services were a function of the Bureau of Information, whose elected Councillor was Catherine Lao, Ariane Emory’s reliable echo on Council: never say that promotions could be had and careers could be made-if reporters came up with material that would make Upper Management happy. It was not the reporters’ fault if they sensed that Upper Management wanted more, more and more on the Conspiracy theory: it sure as hell was good theater.

Corain sweated every time he saw a Scriber near one of his party. He had tried to talk to each one of them, personally, urging circumspection and decorum. But cameras were an intoxicant, the schedule of meetings around the funeral was harried and high-pressure, and not every Councillor and not every staffer in the party agreed with the party line.

There were faces for the cameras that had never been available before: the director of Reseune, Giraud Nye, for one. The reporters took endless pains to explain to the viewing public that, contrary to the general assumption, Ariane Emory had not been the Administrator of Reseune, had in fact held no administrative post in Reseune at all for the last fifty-odd years. There were new names to learn. Giraud Nye. Petros Ivanov. Yanni Schwartz.

Nye, damn him, had a certain flair in interviews.

And when a Council seat fell vacant and the Councillor in question had appointed no proxy, then the Bureau Secretary of that particular electorate appointed a proxy. Which in this case was Giraud Nye.

Who might well resign his post in Reseune to run for Emory’s seat.

That meant, Corain thought bleakly, Nye would win. Unless Jordan Warrick’s trial brought up something explosive. Unless Warrick used the trial for a podium, and leveled charges. But Corain’s own informants in the Bureau of Internal Affairs said that Warrick was still under house arrest; Merild, in Novgorod, himself under investigation by the Bureau as a possible conspirator, was not the lawyer to undertake Warrick’s defense, and, God, an Abolitionist lawyer had tried to contact Warrick.

Warrick had sensibly refused, but he had told Internal Affairs to appoint one to advise him-which made a major stir in the news: a man with Warrick’s resources, a Special going before a Council hearing with a Bureau-appointed lawyer, like a virtual indigent, because his credit accounts in Reseune were frozen and Reseune could not with any propriety handle both prosecution and defense out of its own legal department.

Solemn music played. The family members gathered for a final moment at the coffin. Then the military honor guard closed it and sealed it. The military escort and Reseune Security waited outside.

Ariane Emory was going to space. No monuments, she had said. Cremation and transport into space, where the carrier Gallant, happening to be in Cyteen System, would use one of its missiles to send Emory’s ashes sunward. Which was the final extravagance she had asked of the Union government.

The bitch was determined to make sure nobody made off with a sample, that was what. And chose the whole damn sun for a cenotaph.

vii

Assassination meant a funeral on too short notice to muster the whole Council-but the Bureau Secretaries were in Novgorod or on the Station; the Cyteen senate had been in session; the Council of Worlds had been in session. And the ambassadors from Earth and Alliance had come down from Cyteen Station. Three Councillors had been accessible: Corain of the Bureau of Citizens, resident on Cyteen; Ilya Bogdanovitch of the Bureau of State; and Leonid Gorodin, of Defense.

An actual two-thirds majority of Centrists, Corain reflected. Damned little good it did at a funeral.

One was expected, of course, to offer Nye welcoming courtesies on his appointment as proxy. No reception: the solemnity of the occasion forbade, even if he had not been Emory’s cousin. But one did drop by the offices that had been Emory’s. One did present one’s respects. One did meet with Nye, however briefly, and offer condolences. And study this man and judge this man and try, in the few moments one was likely to get, to estimate what sort of man this was, who came out of complete shadow inside the enclave of Reseune, to assume the mantle of Ariane Emory… .

To judge in five minutes, if it were possible, whether this man, who was a Special, could possibly take up all the linkups of power that Emory had, give the bitch credit, wielded all too well.

“Ser,” Nye said, on that meeting, took his hand. “I feel I know you, after all the dinner discussions Ari and I had. She respected you.”

That put a body at immediate disadvantage, first because if Nye knew him, it was not mutual; and second, because he remembered what Nye was, and thought how Ariane Emory would react to that description of the situation.

For a half second he felt halfway nostalgic for the bitch. Ariane had been a bitch, but he had spent twenty years learning to read her. This man was a total blank. And that gave him a lost and frustrated feeling.

“We opposed each other on issues,” Corain murmured, as he had murmured similar things to other successors in his long tenure, “but not in our desire to see the best for the state. I find myself at a loss, ser. I don’t think I ever expressed that to her. Hut I don’t think any of us realize even yet what Union will be without her.”

“I have serious things to discuss with you,” Nye said, not having released his hand. “Concerns that would have been foremost in her mind.”

“I’d be pleased to meet with you, at your convenience, ser.”

“If you have time in your schedule now-“

It was not the sort of thing Corain liked, abrupt meetings, without briefings. But it was a new relationship, an important relationship. He hated to start it off with an excuse and a refusal to talk.

“If you prefer,” he said; and ended up in the office that had been Emory’s, with Nye behind the desk, no Florian and Catlin, but an azi staffer named Abban, whose rejuv-silvered hair had no dye, no pretenses, less than Nye, whose hair was silvered brown, who was easily a hundred, and probably the azi was no less than that. Abban served them both coffee, and Corain sat there thinking of the journalistic and political eyes watching every move outside these offices, marking who called, who stayed, and how long.

There was no graceful way to hasten matters.

“I think you know,” Nye said quietly, over the coffee, “that a great deal has changed. I’m sure you know that I will stand for election.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised, no.”

“I’m a good administrator. I’m not Ari. I don’t know how to be. I would like to see the Hope project through: it was very dear to her heart. And I believe in it, personally.”

“You know my opinion, I think.”

“We will have our differences. Philosophical ones. If I’m the choice of the Science electorate.” A sip of coffee. “But the most urgent thing-I think you understandis the Warrick case.”

Corain’s heart increased its beats. Trap? Proposition? “It’s a terrible tragedy.”

“It’s a devastating blow to us. As head-ex-head of Reseune Security, I’ve talked with Dr. Warrick, extensively. I can tell you that it was personal, that it was a situation that had arisen-“

“You’re saying he’s confessed?”

Nye coughed uncomfortably and sipped at his coffee, then looked up into Corain’s eyes. “Ari had trouble keeping her hands off her lab assistants. That was what happened. Justin Warrick, Jordan’s son, is a parental replicate. There was old business between Dr. Emory and Jordan Warrick.”

More and more tangled. Corain felt an irrational unease at this honesty from a stranger. And did not say a word in the gap Nye left for him.

“Ari transferred an Experimental who was virtually Warrick family,” Nye said, “to put pressure on the boy-to put pressure on Jordan. This much we understand now. The boy acted on his own to protect his companion, sent the azi out to people he understood as friends of his father. Unfortunately-the issue isn’t presently clear-there were further links that led to the Rocher party. And extremists.”

Damn. An evidence-trail like that was trouble. Of course he was supposed to feel the threat.

“We got the azi out, of course,” Nye said. “That’s what was behind it. There’s no way the azi got to Ari: he was under observation at the hospital. But Jordan Warrick found out what Ari had done-to his son. He confronted her in the lab, alone. They quarreled. Ari hit him; he hit her; her head hit the counter-edge. That wasn’t murder. It became murder when he took a lab-stool and used it to damage the conduits, shut the cold-lab door and upped the pressure in that line. Unfortunately that kind of damage didn’t look like an accident to the engineers.”

“Council will determine that.” Murder, between two Specials. And too much entrusted to him by a very dangerous third. Corain warmed his hand with the tiny cup, feeling a certain chill.

“Warrick doesn’t want this to go to trial.”

“Why?”

“The law has limited power over him; but reputations can be harmed. The son, in particular.”

“Meaning-forgive me-someone’s made that clear to him.”

Nye shook his head gravely. “Motive is going to come out in a trial. There’s no way to avoid it. There are other considerations, for us. We are going to withhold information in this case. That’s why I wanted to talk to you-because it’s important that you understand. We know about your interview with Dr. Warrick. We both know that the inquiry could range far afield if it got started. A political free-for-all. Damned little justice. Merino may restrain himself, but Rocher won’t, if the case comes before Council, and what could come out at that point isn’t in our interest, your interest, certainly not in the interest of the Defense Bureau or our national security; it’s not even in Jordan Warrick’s interest. He’s given us a confession. He doesn’t want to testify, -he can’t testify, you understand, by psychprobe; and young Justin’s evidence under probe is damning. We don’t want to use it against his father. The boy’s been through enough and it’s meaningless cruelty in a case where the murderer has legal immunity.”