Regenesis (81 page)

“You’re not making sense.”

“There’s a lot of vulnerability he could have created. I’m sure Defense now has the building plans for much of Reseune, and we’re going to have to do some major revisions. Worse, I’m sure they’ve got some keys; and codes, anything Kyle could reach; so Base Two is going to have to change some codes. That makes a very messy situation, since Yanni is still off in Novgorod, and I can’t get him new codes that easily: so if I don’t change how you access Base Two, I expose him to problems, and if I do, it’s another kind of risk, of his not being able to handle all the programs he might need to. I appreciate that it’s not exactly your problem at the moment, but it is a problem, and I know you’re a friend of Yanni’s. At least he thinks you are. He’s in serious danger, where he is. Spurlin’s dead; you do know that. We think Jacques will be soon. Lao’s in hospital. We’re having a real crisis in the Council.”

“What are you saying?”

“Khalid’s got Defense again. Jacques just named him Proxy.”

Hicks’ face didn’t react much; but he just seemed to wilt a bit, physically.

Ari said, “You’ve dealt with Khalid.”

“I have.”

“Did you like him?”

A slight shake of the head. Hicks looked a little pale, lips tightly compressed. “Didn’t.”

“What kind of feeling did he give you?”

“That’s subjective. It doesn’t matter.”

“I think you may record impressions a lot better than you think you do. How did Kyle react to him?”

“Kyle was just business, that’s all. I didn’t like Khalid. It wasn’t my job to judge him, just negotiate with the man.”

“Did Khalid ever propose anything you thought unethical?”

Hicks shook his head.

“Possibly Kyle told him in advance what you’d agree to. And what you wouldn’t.”

Eyes dilated. Contracted. Dilated again.

“That’s a damned fish.”

“It must have been particularly hard to negotiate with him. I hope you’ll think about that issue. Try to recall specific incidences where he seemed to know exactly how far you’d go. It may help us dealing with this man. It seems were going to have to, unfortunately.”

“I’ll think about it.” Hicks didn’t look cooperative, quite the opposite; but he was retreating a little, accepting some arguments, or acting as if he did. He was actually very smart on a beta level. He wouldn’t buy any whole package. He knew tricks, and he kept things in reserve, and he knew she was Working him to get hooks on an azi he regarded as a brother.

“You know I’m going to have to do something with Kyle,” she said. “I will—because, unfortunately, I’m about the best Alpha Super alive right now, and I’m only eighteen.”

He just stared at her.

“So,” she said. “I’m not as good as I’d like to be. And I don’t feel as confident as I’d like. I’ve got a lot of my predecessor’s techniques—I’ve studied. I’ll try. I want to do it the best, the safest way possible.”

“How many people did you just kill, shooting up my office?”

“Nobody’s dead. None of yours needed more than on-site medical. One of mine’s still in hospital. Kyle’s not hurt at all, beyond a few bruises, He just got a dose of a non-lethal and went out.”

Hicks absorbed that, seeming guardedly relieved.

“Yanni says he wants you back in charge of ReseuneSec,” she said, “and I’m not going to argue with that, personally, if we can get Kyle straightened out.”
That
brought a sharper attention. “And I’ll tell you why I agree with Yanni. Reseune is running shorter and shorter of people with an actual memory of what happened back in our beginnings. Kind of odd to think of, but I have that kind of memory—just sort-of. Just enough to know how much really valuable detail is still going to go away with administrators like you, like Yanni. Kyle’s age makes him very valuable, if we can just get him back—get him to the state you believed he was.”

No response to that. No challenge, either.

She said, “Absolutely if that axe code never did take, he’s been conflicted, he’s probably been very painfully conflicted over certain things he’s done, which he probably tries not to think about too often. He’s worked it out, saying to himself he never hurt Giraud, never hurts you, not in his self-adjusted view of the universe. Everything’s for the ultimate good. He’s been doing what Defense asks, being a good soldier while he’s in Defense; and then he can go home to Reseune and follow a program that will ultimately make the world run better. He’s comfortable again, since Denys died, because Yanni’s been making the Novgorod trips, and he’ll never have to go to Defense again.”

“Fantasy. The code took. He’s not guilty. He is what he’s always been. You want the man who murdered your predecessor, look at the man you brought back from Planys.”

“If you’re right and it is true, we’ll find it out in the process, and we won’t stress Kyle at all; if I’m right, there will be stress. There’ll be a block; and we’ll have to go after it before we can apply the axe code and get him back.”

“He’s not young, for any of this.”

“And you’re worried I’ll botch it. But you’re really, extremely worried it could possibly be true.”

“I’m worried an eighteen-year-old kid is going to start messing with his psychsets and upsetting him, and he’s not young.”

“Would you like to be there?”

“I wouldn’t
like
to be there. But I want to be there, yes.”

“He’s very strong, considering—he put up a hell of a physical fight. But you’re quite right: if there is a block, this is going to hit his endocrine system like a hammer, and at his age, it could have an impact on rejuv. So what my studies tell me is that he should have complete medical support. Everything to safeguard him. But mostly, you should be there. He’s your companion. You
are
his Supervisor, at least one of his Supervisors, though I’m betting there’s another in Defense. I hope he’ll respond to you. And I do want him to come through this all right, not just because I want the truth from him.”

“
You’re
saying he’s guilty of everything in the book. That he killed your predecessor. What reason do you have to want him to be all right?”

“
You
don’t think it’d be his fault, do you? I don’t either.”

“If it were true in the first place,” he said, “no, it’s not his fault.”

“I’m calling in Chi Prang. And Justin Warrick.”

“Oh, that’s a help.”

“You know you’re not his favorite human being, no more than Giraud was. But I know Justin as well as I know anybody outside my personal staff; and he’s very good. He’s professional. He’d never hold a grudge against an azi. And you should also know I’m consulting Jordan. Jordan’s mad at me, no question. He’s probably mad at you and at Kyle. But I don’t think that would ever extend to his work on a case.”

“Then you’re a fool.”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “Jordan’s actually written an important paper on this kind of operation—what they learned about blocks, both creating and undoing. I read it. He’s probably the best authority on it of anyone still alive.”

“I’m saying he has a grudge, and he’s the man who’d hold it. I’m saying I knew your predecessor, and she was a bitch. She’d lie with a straight face, when it suited.”

“Most people will,” she said quietly, “in a good cause. But she was exactly what you say, sometimes. And I won’t say I haven’t had a little trouble unwiring my own feelings about Abban. It got personal, about him. It never should have, because my feelings misled me. I’ve asked myself how I feel about Kyle, because I don’t think I could work if I were ambivalent on this. So I tell myself he’s been in a hell of a position for a long, long time, and I wish for a lot of reasons that Giraud hadn’t made a mistake in handling him. I wish Giraud had told Ari he had a potential problem, instead of testing his own ability to handle it. But Giraud didn’t want Ari to start paying attention to his psych operations, and particularly to Denys, whose certificate to run Seely was an outright lie—and Giraud had run the certification… I found that little detail.
You
had no reason to think Kyle had a problem, since you got him from Giraud.
Kyle
couldn’t tell you; and you weren’t going to spot it—being a provisional Super—but frankly, I know you’re better than Denys. Denys wasn’t really doing any direct Supering until Giraud died; and then he was handling both Abban and Seely and you could just watch the stress pile up on both of them. I saw it. I didn’t know at the time what I was seeing—particularly in Abban. I learned a lot from that. Is Kyle happy?”

“I think he has been.”

“Particularly in recent years?”

“Maybe.”

“I’ve asked that of people he worked with, your office people—other azi who’ve worked with him. He used to be tense, with Giraud; calmed down, after Giraud died and he shifted over to you. Tight-focused on his job. Zealous. All good things. He’d laugh.”

“He can.” Hicks said…feeling better, perhaps, with the implied positives.

“Abban couldn’t,” she said, fast, like a knife cut. “So you’re better than Denys. You’re a lot better than Denys. Reports say you’re real good with the betas. So I think you know that you’re the one that can help him—or really hurt him. And he’ll be safer if you’re there. Let him focus on you. And stay steady. Stay absolutely steady.”

Hicks’ face was quite, quite pale. He kept gnawing at his lip. “What happens if you do find a block?”

“It’s usually very simple. It’s usually just like at beta or gamma level, something hooked right to the deep sets. We give him a lot of kat, we convince him to let it go, and we give the axe code, because we want to redo everything fast. He’ll need a Contract very quickly. That’s you, if you want to take it on. That would be the easy thing.”

“A block—” Hicks said, “can stop a heart.”

“I know it can,” she said. “And we’ll support him, with everything we have available, the best in Reseune. I’m not blithely optimistic on this. I know the danger to him. It’s why I want you there. I know, whatever your opinion of me, you’ll support
him
.”

“I will,” Hicks said.

“Good,” she said. And rested her arms on the table. “There’s one other, unrelated matter I want to ask you about.”

Immediately defensive. Suspicious. Very justifiably so.

“Anton Clavery,” she said. “What do you know about that name?”

“We don’t,” he said. “We’ve investigated, connected it to the Paxers. But that’s all.”

“So you haven’t solved that one.”

Hicks shook his head, relaxing a little, deciding, maybe, that it was a change of topics. “Why Patil used that name, she died knowing. We’ve been all through her affairs. And we have nothing to show for it.”

“She knew one other thing we don’t,” she said. “She knew what Defense knew about the project she was going to work on. She knew all sorts of things Defense knows, and we don’t. It could have to do with what Defense is doing. I was just curious.” She got up and offered her hand.

Hicks took it with a peculiar look, as if wondering if there had been a connection between the two topics after all; and maybe after an hour or two he’d begin to see there was. His hand was cold. Probably it would be good to have Wes have a look at him, just in case. If they lost Hicks, they lost Kyle, almost certainly, and she didn’t want to lose either one: Hicks, for Yanni’s sake, and Kyle, because if they lost him, they’d likely never know what he’d done and what he knew and what he could say…or if he’d been contacted recently, with new orders.

So she did what she could with what she could reach.

Meanwhile Kyle, besides being on a suicide watch, was pretty deeply under, for as long as they thought it safe or good, and she wasn’t going to trouble him with an inquiry he’d only have to resist. The less apprehension he carried into the session the better, and the greater the chance they could keep him from crisis.

Put him and Hicks on ice for the duration and concentrate only on Novgorod? She thought about that, about her whole list of priorities. She thought about going down to the capital in person—which would draw media attention, maybe draw other things, but it would get attention—planetwide and up in orbit.

She thought about how the first Ari had let Reseune matters slide, and trusted Giraud to handle what he was certified to handle, when she went up to Novgorod—her mistake, her very big mistake, a long time ago. And that was the bottom line. Ari had trusted Giraud to handle what Giraud said he could handle, a simple matter for somebody with that level of certification—if Giraud hadn’t been dealing with the best Reseune could turn out, with the bollixed-up psychtech Defense could manage, exactly the kind of thing that
could
fool somebody who, being a by-the-book operator himself, only expected what was in the books.

So, faced with a choice of going to Novgorod before she had the requisite years behind her, she trusted Yanni not to make a mistake—with something not simple, either. Sometimes you just had to let things go in the hands of people who were expert at what they did. Yanni had been talking to Council for years. He knew them. He knew his contacts.

Meanwhile she had to figure out what a spy inside Reseune could have told Defense, and what kind of an organization their enemies had been building, from the War years when Reseune and Defense had had a tight, tight relationship.

Jordan, she thought…when Ari yanked back the azi from the combat zones, they’d been dealing with the old Contracts, and undoing what had been done and undone around the time of the War. Jordan, a junior in the labs in those days, must have heard the first Ari fight her battles with Defense…and when Ari was old, and he was in his prime, he’d gone to Defense with an offer to betray Reseune. Defense, who already had a man inside, had double-crossed him—why?

Because they weren’t interested in what Jordan had offered them. They’d heard what he said and drew some other conclusion. Hadn’t they? Jordan hadn’t proposed murdering Ari. Had he?

One thing seemed evident, Jordan had written that paper. He’d at least met the problem of the military sets, post-War, and analyzed the security measures Defense had set into its azi soldiers, a self-destruct if captured, in some instances—Defense work cobbled into Reseune’s clean psychsets. Involving Jordan was a risk—to Kyle AK, mentally; to Justin, emotionally; in all respects, to himself—and to Reseune, if he was still bent on revenge.