Regenesis (v1.2)

by C. J. Cherryh

  She sighed, rested her hands on his arms, looked him closely in the eyes. “You’re a genius, you know it. You really are.”

  “That’s a laugh.” He dropped the contact. “That’s the last thing I am.”

  “I know it when I see it. You are. Always were. Sam, Take care of yourself. I mean that.”

  “Is there any special reason you should say that?”

  “Selfishness. I need you. I’ll always need you. I’ll think of you when I’m studying that wretched population equation till my eyes cross.”

  Second kiss, this one on the cheek. Like a brother, if she’d been born with one. She’d never had sex with Sam. Never would. That wasn’t the way they were with each other. “You just take care of yourself, Ari, hear me? You’re going too hard, again. But what’s new about that?”

  She was so tired, she felt tears start in her eyes, but she wouldn’t shed them. She laughed, instead. “I’m paying for this place,” she said, “or I will. I’m starting real work. High time I earn my keep, I say. You’ll see.”

  “Good for you,” Sam said and let her go. And he probably did see the dampness of her eyes and had the common sense not to fuss over it.

  It was a rare morning. The bash and clatter of hollow forms and the whine of cutters was hundreds of workers and bots busy keeping Sam’s promises. She made her own promises as they walked back to the exit, and the runabout: that by summer and move-in, she was going to be in a position to take care of Sam.

  Pay for it, indeed. Her whole life paid for it.

  Just watch, she said to Yanni, in absentia. Just watch. The first Ari developed most of what we do—what every lab in the wide universe does. I’m starting where she finished. I’ve run through the teaching tapes in three months: everything but this last couple of weeks was basic, and I’m into her notes, and I’m doing integrations. I’ll be working on gammas soon. Alpha sets before New Year’s. Strassenberg population sets by next year. I’ll be able. I’ll know what I’m doing, Yanni.

  And that’s not empty bragging. That’s the truth.

  Chapter iii

  May 10, 2424

  1328 H

  Information, encouragingly abundant, in Florian’s opinion, had begun flowing along new channels. The new security team, and the domestic staff, were finally due to arrive for duty in Wing One. The security team was ready as of now, since ReseuneSec had finished their documentation—but they weren’t setting foot in Wing One, and neither were the domestics, until Justin and Grant finished their report, which they said would take longer than they thought.

  And there’d been a problem. Justin was waiting on getting general manuals from Library indefinitely postponed, as they found out, because Justin`s inquiry had triggered security alerts, and Justin hadn’t been aware that lower ReseuneSec levels were investigating his request and stalling it purposefully until the probe had gotten high enough in the ReseuneSec system—namely Hicks’ office—to contact sera’s office—as the ones with their finger on Justin.

  That was a mistake on their own part, as Florian saw it: they should have foreseen that Justin’s inquiry might have raised a flag—considering his connections. Sena had called Yanni, Yanni had called Hicks, and Hicks had sent out an order to free those items up, so they’d finally gotten to Justin… days late, but ten minutes after sera had found it out.

  Catlin had requested a few more rounds of tape-study on protocols for the security group, to keep them busy until Justin could do his work. The new domestic staff, meanwhile, had finished their preparation and passed sera’s final scrutiny, and they might be brought in once their manuals cleared—much simpler than the ReseuneSec lot, so. given Justin’s prior problems with clearance, Florian called up Hicks’ office and made his own personal request, firmly—which got other manuals liberated, to him, at least, who couldn’t read them—and who had no permission on file to have them. He took them personally to Justin’s office, solving one more bottleneck, and stacking more work on Justin and Grant, who were working extra hours and taking computer time running interface studies among sera’s staff. Most household staffs didn’t get that degree of lookover, but sera’s wasn’t the sort that could ever discharge a member and have them easily plugged in elsewhere. There was too much special knowledge: there were too many security issues.

  So they delayed that, too, and by now Justin and Grant were running short of sleep.

  But today their own promised ReseuneSec authorization clearances had come through, an apparently earnest demonstration of Hicks’ good will, a pass alleged to give them access to anything in ReseuneSec files, inside Reseune itself—and to ride ReseuneSec access through any door in the outside world—well, any door ReseuneSec itself could pass.

  Any door? They tested their new access, just running through local files… not using Base One, but a system-free set of computers they used for handling any outside contact. They could display the second-system content on the same set of screens as Base One, they could keyboard to the alternate system from the same station, or switch back and forth between operating systems in absolute security—Florian was rather proud of that finesse. He’d done a fair amount of set-up, connecting up what would be the new security facility downstairs, so that all of it, the new office and residency as yet unoccupied, and the outpouring of ReseuneSec’s version of classified material via their new link, came smoothly into their office via the same secure pipe—a pipe that flowed both ways, but didn’t ever breach Base One’s isolation.

  Everything from those two sources, ReseuneSec and their own upcoming security office, once it had staff, would dump to the system-free computers in their office, to be carefully gone over before anything touched a Base One computer. Base One could reach out to it, read-only, would compare what ReseuneSec files contained against what it could find internally, and deliver that daily report, too.

  There were, on the daily sheet from ReseuneSec, no current takedown operations anywhere in Reseune.

  There was a tolerably serious matter involving stolen meds from a pharmacy… case solved. They’d argue that one in court. Base One had interesting information on that: the pilferer was an employee with previous security issues. That would stop.

  The list went on, including actionable adultery, minor theft, public nuisance, and other CIT misbehaviors. Azi were rarely involved in any such goings-on, and if they were, the motives tended to be very different.

  “Quiet day,” Catlin remarked.

  Real-time access to ReseuneSec’s daily logs provided them a window on a level of ordinary misdeed they hadn’t hitherto investigated. It was interesting, to pick up the pulse of the house. The town itself, down the hill, had its own brand of mischief: the drunken theft of a tractor, and the destruction of a piglot fence down in AG—the individual was charged the repairs. There had been minor pilferage in the food production unit, solved with a reprimand.

  Far from the focus of their interest. Too much concentration on CIT actions could be, for one thing, stultifying, things over which an azi simply had to shake his head in slight puzzlement, never grasping the nature of the fault—except to say it broke rules by which born-men in responsible jobs and relationships were supposed to abide.

  Policing the labs and town was part of the job ReseuneSec did, generally CIT and azi pairs doing that: but none of these things affected Ari’s safety… and their very access of these items, using ReseuneSec’s access, not Base One, left a trail which might interest Hicks—that was actually desirable, so Hicks would see them using the connection. What was intriguing was not the data, which they could always get via Base One, but the extent of the data which Hicks afforded them, which was a test of Hicks and his staff, not the data.

  Reseune’s ordinary tenor of domestic life was, in fact, most often quiet—a collection of scientists, administrators, some businessmen, shopkeepers, builders, and service people all observing the law, give or take their personal idiosyncrasies—that was the expected daily event. The largest national upheaval of the a
fternoon was an ocean storm that had rolled in on Novgorod and taken down three coastal precip towers at the river port, surely a bit of excitement to their south. There was redundancy for that situation, and three towers lost on a web that size was by no means a crisis, though a regional collapse of the shield was certainly newsworthy. The temporary reliance on backup was delaying flights and river cargo out of Novgorod, and disruption in anything—a bargeload of supply orders for Reseune and Big Blue, for instance—could afford an opportunity for dishonest efforts to slip in and do harm.

  It was nicely organized data. Tabular, it was certainly easier to read than the absolute flood of information Base One could deliver in a full spate—Base One didn’t sort outstandingly well. Sera said that sorting, in itself, was a bias, best done in your head, if you scanned well.

  They were aware of that, they did scan well, at a speed nearly up to sera’s, and Florian wondered what ReseuneSec was hiding from its low-level agencies by providing them these nicely organized things to look at.

  All sorts of things could lie between and behind those neat tables.

  “They think they’ll be shipping again by 1800h,” Catlin remarked, from her station.

  “1800,” Florian echoed, mildly absent. Me was already chasing down another, much more adventurous track on their shiny new authorizations, one that took him into Planys systems: Hicks had noted their interest in the Patil case and had flagged an item for their attention.

  Florian sent the interesting find, a letter, to Catlin’s screen… again, something Hicks wanted them to see.

  Dr. Raymond Thieu was the sender. The recipient was Dr. Sandi Patil. The letter was a week old. This and other items turned up on a simple Base One search of the professor’s mailbox. Easy to do, and trackless: ReseuneSec probes left no footprints except in ReseuneSec itself and in Base Two. which was Yanni’s Base. Base One left none at all. The Base One search had already turned up nothing from Patil to Thieu within the last month. The other two letters, also from Thieu to Patil, were not interesting.

  “Apparently a mundane letter, which proves Thieu is still writing Patil. This comes from Hicks.”

  “Noted,” Catlin said. “She hasn’t answered any of them. She answered prior letters, but not immediately.”

  It was a chatty letter, advising Dr. Patil to read this article and that in Scientia, offering a little commentary on the dullness of life at Planys, asking about a dues renewal—Dr. Thieu complained he couldn’t remember whether or not he had renewed his professional membership in the teaching fraternity, and he asked Patil whether she had gotten the solicitation for membership yet because he didn’t want to go through the organization office, reason unstated. He also asked whether she happened to have the recall number of a book, the title of which he couldn’t find on the net…

  Odd, since the booklist was a basic function of the scholarly net. Was that some verbal code? Or simply the truth of an old man’s suddenly fading memory?

  And Thieu asked, at the end, whether she had heard from Jordan Warrick. It was probably what had made Hicks flag it to them.

  … He went back to Reseune. He hasn’t written yet. He’s probably busy. You ought to call him. You remember Jordan. Tall, brown hair. Nice manners…

  It went on for two more rambling paragraphs about the too-spicy restaurant fare in Planys and the need for more variety. “ ‘Nice manners,’ “ Florian quoted wryly. “It seems mundane enough,” Catlin said, “at first glance.”

  “One could wonder if Thieu did provide that card.”

  “He complains about losing a library title.”

  “Let’s see what ReseuneSec wants to tell us about the rest of his correspondence.”

  Florian searched down the list, flashed thirty-four files up at once, windowed a few up with a scroll through. Compared that to what Base One had. “Looks complete.” Base One had already been through the lot. Base One had an interesting little program that could analyze letters for style. If it found stylistic anomalies in what was certainly from the same hand, it could throw a useful spotlight on verbal code. None found, except the new letter.

  But re the issue of Thieu’s mental condition—Florian slipped a quiet, trackless Base One inquiry into Planys Medical, and what that pulled up on Thieu indicated Dr. Thieu’s rejuv was indeed failing, as Jordan Warrick had described.

  “Failing rejuv and mental lapses. This, from Base One. Maybe the request for the book number is real. He may have entered the wrong title in his search.”

  Catlin, meanwhile, had done a little Base One work on her own, last week: Jordan’s Planys records were there, too, sparse, on the medical front. And those results now popped to screen 4. “Contrast with Jordan Warrick. He seems in excellent health. No self-administered drug use or other complaints.”

  “Note the address,” Florian said, flagging the item on the medical record. Jordan’s physical address was listed as #18G in Pleiades Residency. And that had just rung a bell, against the address from Thieu’s medical records.

  #19G. Pleiades Residency.

  “Next door neighbors, it seems.”

  Catlin probed further. “Moved” was the designation that turned up on screen, regarding Jordan’s records this week. “Jordan’s personal files aren’t there, to the ReseuneSec probe. This is interesting. ReseuneSec can’t reach them.”

  The Base One record didn’t have those same holes in it. “Note. Those files are still there, for Base One—but they’re gone, to our supposedly highest-level ReseuneSec inquiry.”

  “Well,” Catlin said. “So either our ReseuneSec clearance isn’t quite as high as it might be… or somebody’s blocked those files from them. Yanni could certainly do that.”

  “I wonder about Jordan’s minder notes?” Florian said. “We had those last week.”

  “Moved.” Base One easily found them—a lengthy list of Jordan’s goings and comings and the occasional note about a need for coffee or Paul’s notes for Jordan about gym schedules. But Thieu’s popped right up, along with all Thieu’s bioprints, as good as a door key. And Jordan’s were still accessible to Base One, which didn’t recognize the fake erasures.

  “Curious,” Florian observed, “gone into the same folder as the rest of Jordan’s records. Either Hicks isn’t being allowed to access it… which would warn him that somebody, notably Yanni. doesn’t want him to access those files—or Hicks lied when he said our access would be top level. Oh, this is good, inside Thieu’s minder notes, did you note this? Lunch with Jordan, the day Jordan left Plain’s—Jordan broke that appointment because he was in the air.”

  “And Jordan detested him?”

  Florian scanned the appointments. “Once a week or so—lunch with Jordan. Next door neighbors. Or across the hall.” Florian called up a schematic of the residency strip in question. “Actually opposite each other. Certainly looks like a close association.”

  “Jordan knew we could check,” Catlin asked, “but he lied, all the same. He gave that card to Justin. He knew we were watching. And ReseuneSec, which takes orders from Yanni, can’t get to these particular files… or our new access can’t. Another lie?”

  “ReseuneSec lying doesn’t surprise me too much,” Florian said. “And Jordan’s hard to understand on every level. Including, very clearly, doing things he knows we’ll notice.”

  “He claimed to dislike Thieu. Called him a dodderer.”

  “And yet has lunch with him regularly. He and Paul.”

  “How old is Thieu, actually?” Catlin asked.

  Florian keyed back to the medicals, convenient hop on Base One. “Hundred sixty-four.” Once rejuv began to lose its effect. it took only a matter of months for a man who looked forty to start looking his actual age, losing the attributes of youth, acquiring ailments, losing faculties—and a hundred sixty-four was definitely in that territory. “If rejuv is failing him, he’ll go fast, at that age. I’d think he hasn’t doddered long, actually.”

  “And Jordan was living there for twenty years,”
Catlin said, “next door to him, unless there’s been a recent change of residence, and a very recent change in Thieu’s medical status.” Click-click-click, from Catlin’s console, Jordan’s medical records going back and back to 2404. “No. Jordan had that address from the week he arrived. Thieu was there, too, from 2398.”

  “The information Jordan gave sera is missing some interesting pieces, for sure. Now Thieu dodders. And in his latest letter Thieu jogs Patil’s memory about who Jordan is.”

  “Rejuv failure,” Catlin said. “Maybe Thieu’s short-term memory is going.”

  “Must be contagious. Forgetfulness seems to have infected Patil, too. She claims no connection with Jordan at all. Yet Thieu, whose memory is going, thinks she’d remember him. I wonder what we could find in her letter files.”

  “Worth noting.”

  Those records, except what Yanni might have, lay outside Reseune System. “Base Cue could try to crack University System, but it’s not guaranteed to leave no traces.” Florian said. “We probably shouldn’t try it. We can take what Yanni’s got. And his files on Thieu. If Thieu’s dying— whether or not Thieu has all his faculties—that might stir somebody to make a move, whatever’s going on.”

  “Thieu couldn’t possibly have anticipated Jordan leaving Planys,” Catlin said. “Jordan didn’t expect security to pull him and Paul out of their office and put them on the plane.”

  Florian ran further through medical records. “Thieu’s doctor records cognitive function definitely suffering. Short-term memory markedly impaired. Long-term recall can be intact for a time.”

  “So back to his giving Jordan the card—did he have enough faculties left for that?”

  “Maybe. Maybe Jordan had it without his knowing. Jordan had access in his apartment. The one thing that didn’t happen was Thieu knowing Jordan was being released and giving him the card as something to do once he got out, because he didn’t know Jordan was leaving. As you say, he couldn’t know. That intention was in sera’s mind, but not in any record.”