So she did that. Or she told Theo to do it, and told Jory leave the computer, she might need it.
What she needed at the moment Florian was too busy to provide. And she didn’t want anybody else. Not the way she was now. She found herself pacing, looked down at Sam’s river underneath her feet, glowing with light, the rest of Sam’s river reflecting the blue fish wall, reminding her of a tranquility that didn’t exist in the world.
So Jacques had the reins in his hands and wasn’t going to do what he’d promised Reseune he’d do–retreat quietly as Lynch had done and leave a Proxy in charge of Defense; draw his salary for two years and then go take his nice posh executive post. They’d had it all set up for Jacques, a do‑nothing Councillor, to do nothing another two years and still know his job was waiting for him. And Hicks had flown down there to get that agreement. Well, thathadn’t gone outstandingly well, had it?
Maybe Jacques just wanted Yanni to come down there in person and hold his hand through the process. Maybe he wanted face‑to‑face assurance. She doubted that was the game.
She paced. She walked up to the fish wall and watched the fish. She’d gotten rather fond of the little pearly jawfish–that was their real name: opistognathus aurifrons–golden‑brow–that made their home in the substrate, right by a rock. They came half‑out to see her, tails still in their burrow. They were white, with a blueish opal look to their fins, pale yellow head. Little jewels. Their world was on that side of the glass, hers on this one; and this evening their world was running much more smoothly than hers.
The big Achilles tang came sweeping past, black, orange‑detailed, and elegant, acanthurus achilles.The jawfish dived into their burrows, and the Achilles, ominous shadow, went on to terrify the rabbitfish, who dreaded everything.
Small wars. Small problems. Everlasting, between species that had been conducting their same business and having the same quarrels since the last ice flowed on Earth.
The more intelligent of old Earth’s species weren’t doing much better, locally.
A small commotion drew Theo and Jory to the front door, and they admitted Amy and Maddy, Tommy with a stack of pizza containers, and the rest of the gang.
“Are we doing anything yet?” Amy asked in the same cheerful tone she’d used on pranks and schemes against Denys, not so many years ago. It was incongruous. It filled her with an irrational sense of capability. Are we doing anything yet?
But they weren’t within striking distance of this problem. Just Yanni was. And it was a two‑way strike potential.
“Yanni’s going. I cleared Reseune One to fuel. He’ll probably go tonight.”
“He will, sera,” Florian said. “He’s called for a car. Ten of ReseuneSec’s higher officers are going with him.”
“Backgrounds,” she said. “Tell Rafael do it.”
“Yes, sera,” Florian said, and went off to the foyer to do it quietly.
Meanwhile Tommy was laying out the pizza containers on available tables, and Mischa opened them one after the other. The smell wafted through the living room.
“Catlin,” she said, “tell kitchen we’d like some wine.” She’d have one. She’d earned it. But no other, not tonight. “Call Justin. Tell him and Grant come across. We’re having an election party.”
“But Jacques didn’t name Bigelow,” Amy said.
“That’s why Yanni’s on his way to Novgorod,” she said, and shopped among pizzas, finding her favorite, bacon and basil. She took a slice in her fingers. “Jacques has weasled.”
“Is that a word?”
“An old word for a slinky little mammal. He’s weasled. We don’t know if somebody’s gotten to him, or if he’s just waiting for Yanni to show up in person and ask him nicely. If he does something like name Khalid–he’s been gotten to.”
“Somebody can file on him in two months,” Tommy said. Tommy had probably looked it up.
“They can,” Ari said, “and somebody’s bound to, Bigelow on one side, and Khalid on the other, and we go another seven months trying to get somebody elected who’s competent. Don’t talk to me about Khalid. I’m eating.”
Wine showed up from the hallway, at one end. And Justin and Grant showed up at the door, at the other.
“Pizza,” she said. “Drinks. Call for what you want.”
Justin didn’t ask a question, but he looked a little cautious. So did Grant.
“It wasn’t all good,” Amy said under her breath. “Jacques was supposed to name Admiral Bigelow Proxy, and didn’t, and Yanni’s going to Novgorod.”
Justin had looked Amy’s way.
“It’s not totally good,” Ari said. “But we’ve still got Jacques, and Yanni’s going there, with a guard we hope he can rely on, to call in a non‑military guard, I hope, to keep Jacques safe. Choose your pizza. It’s still warm. We’re not celebrating yet, but we’re not panicking. Spurlin was murdered.”
Justin had been picking up a piece of pizza, sausage and cheese. He let it lie.
“Have your pizza,” she said. “Just letting you know it’s dangerous out there.”
“Had that idea,” he said, and took the pizza anyway. Haze offered him a tray, white wine and red. He chose red, and had the pizza in one hand and the drink in the other. Grant had gone for cheese on cheese, and white, and settled on a settee near the fish wall, his long legs a little tucked, given the height of the seat.
“I called you here,” Ari said to Justin, “because you’re on the inside, same as everybody else. Because if I pull Hicks out of his job, and I may, I may put youin as head of ReseuneSec.”
“Don’t even joke about it,” he said, the wineglass in one hand, the pizza, frozen, in the other. “No. Lock me up, but keep me out of thatjob.”
“I think you’d actually be good at it.”
“Realtime work, remember?”
“You just arrest them. You don’t cure them.”
“I don’t want to arrest anybody,” Justin said. “Ari, you’re joking. Tell me you’re joking.”
“I’m joking,” she said, but she wasn’t–she had a short, short list of candidates she’d trust for the time it took to fill the job permanently. “Your other choice is Yanni’s job.”
“No,” he said, fast.
“If anything should happen,” she said. “But it won’t, if I can help it. That’s why you’re here. You’d do it, wouldn’t you, a week or two, if you really had to?”
He stood looking at her with the ridiculous pizza and the wineglass, and finally went and laid the pizza piece back with the nearest pizza.
“Ari, if you’re anywhere close to serious, I’m asking you, pick just about anybody else in Reseune. Amy, over there, damned near ranReseune for the duration of the last–”
“I trust you,” she said, “beyond most people over the age of eighteen. And if things go wrong, I’ll owe you and Grant a very, very big apology for all of it, because things will go to absolute hell and you’re going to get swept up in the fallout. Right now. Base One recognizes Yanni as my guardian if I should die. He’s responsible for getting me back. And Base One recognizes you as second in line to run Reseune and to do exactly that.”
“No,” he said earnestly. “Ari, no. I’m not remotely qualified.”
“Who is?” she asked. “Who has a thorough knowledge of the system when it’s going badly, and when it’s going right? I could appoint Wojkowski, or Peterson, or Edwards, but they’re none of them up to saying no to the right people.”
“I’m not outstandingly good at saying no, either. Look at how far it’s got me. I spent more time being arrested than anybody else in Reseune.”
“That’s not your sole qualification. You’re qualified to bring meup if you had to. You’d be qualified to bring up Giraudif anything happens to Yanni in the next few weeks–at least long enough to find somebody to be as non‑fit as the first Giraud’s mother. Tell me you will. Or tell me who’s going to do the job. You’d have Amy, you’d have Maddy–she does a lot more than look nice and run a dr
ess shop: believe that. You’d have Sam. He’s hands‑on, but he’s brilliant at what he does. Florian, Catlin–you’d take care of them. You’d see they were safe…they’d see you were…”
He opened his left arm of a sudden, wrapped it around her gently and hugged her against his shoulder. He smelled good. He was warm, he was stronger than you’d ever think, and he held her the way nobody ever had who was older, nobody but Ollie, a long, long time ago. She didn’t cry, though if she weren’t so hyped to fight, she might have, and he didn’t make a scene of it, he just walked her aside from everybody else, over toward the garden‑glass of the dining room, and let her go, and said, facing her, “If I’m all, Ari. If I’m absolutely all there is, I’ll do it. I wouldn’t be near good at it. I’d be looking for advice, wherever it came from. But I’d keep your people safe, with everything I could put together, and I wouldn’t waste any time getting your next edition into the tank and going, fast as I could. My father–my father I know is a question. But he wouldn’t be, in this. If it came down to it–I’d be there, long as it took for your own people to get their feet on the ground.”
“We don’t knowthings about history, Justin. We don’t know how things happened. We just know where things are now.”
“That’s pretty well the condition of everybody born, isn’t it? Except you, being what you are–”
“And you’re Jordan’sreplicate, so you know things you wouldn’t, if you were Amy, or Sam, or Maddy. You know things. You were part of that world, the way it was.”
“I know things.”
“So you’re the best I could choose. And I’ll give you a verbal code, which will only work in your voiceprint, and only if my CIT number has gone inactive in the system. Just say my name three times. Just say AriAriAri. And Base One is yours. Even if Yanni’s Base Two is still active. I trust you, more than Yanni. And if anything happens to me, you take possession of this apartment, and all my staff, and every defense this place has. And you bring my friends in until it’s safe.”
“Don’t get killed. Pleasedon’t get killed.”
He did care. He did. And that mattered. She was in the mode she’d been in when they’d come after Uncle Denys–close to that. But she could be amused, just a little, and moved to put a hand on his shoulder. “So you don’t have to run Reseune? There’s a major difference between you and your father. You really love the work, the puzzles in it; you tolerate me because I bring you puzzles.”
His brows knit, just a little offense, not much. “You’re a little better than a puzzle, young sera. Just a little.”
“And you’re a little better than a puzzle‑solver. A lot better, in fact.” She pressed her fingers into his arm. “I’ve been in love with you since forever. So far I’ve been mostly good. And you know that, too.”
“Don’t even open that door.”
“My name is Ari. Not kid. Not young sera. I wish you’d use it.”
“And you know you areyoung sera, to most everybody.”
She tilted her head to look up at him, right in the eyes, pursed her lips slightly and shook her head, ever so slightly. “I’m Ariane,” she said. “That covers everything people say I am. You’re only half a replicate. Thank God. I’m pretty damned close to the original. Don’t worry about me. Just don’t let anybody get in a hit behind my back. I want you safe while I’m gone.”
“ You’renot going with Yanni.”
“Yanni will have already left by now–or be on the verge of it. I’m going to be busy. And I’d like to give you Amy, but she’s going to Novgorod. She’s real quiet. The media let her alone. She’ll find out things. She’ll have Quentin with her, and he’ll be out of uniform. All very quiet. Just a business trip. Give me a kiss. I’m collecting them, storage for the next few days.”
He did, just a kiss on the cheek. She’d wondered what he’d do if she asked.
That he could do that, that smoothly, that collectedly, said worlds about his mental state.
She left him, then, to go talk to Amy.
“Sure.” Amy said. “When?”
“See if Yanni caninfuse some backbone into Jacques and get Khalid shut out. I’m worried, all things considered, that that won’t be enough.”
“If Khalid’s involved in Spurlin’s murder…”
“Likely it won’t stop other things from happening. That’s what’s got me worried: if Yanni succeeds, Yanni’s in imminent danger.”
“Jacques is in trouble, in either case,” Amy said.
“He’s a dead man, either walking around for a while, or cold before nightfall. But we can only protect him if he agrees with us and puts Bigelow in the line of fire–if that’s what’s going on. This is dangerous, Amy. You should understand that. I’m not sure Patil and Thieu aren’t linked into this, and that means Yanni is a majortarget.”
“I’m in the fish breeding business. It’s about your tank. I’m staying in the Wilcox, third floor–fast to reach ground level: and Quentin’s my secretary. You want some blennies.”
“You’ve got it,” she said. “Bore anybody who asks. If you’re absolutely sure you’re overheard, you and Quentin start arguing about calcium supplements and temperature stability in the bar.”
Amy laughed. Then: “Understood,” Amy said, with a little pat on her arm, and went to talk to Quentin.
A plane took off. Ari caught the sound, above the water‑sound of the room. That would probably be Yanni.
Good luck, she wished him. Good luck.
Please stay alive, Yanni.
BOOK THREE Section 5 Chapter iv
JULY 26, 2424
0828H
“Ser.” Rafael met Florian in the foyer of the little office, opened the back hall door, and showed him right through.
An item had turned up. That was what Rafael’s message had said, and when Florian went into Rafael’s office a very anxious young woman leapt up and bowed that slight degree ReseuneSec protocol taught. She was no older than the rest of them, just old enough for assignment. Her uniform tag said CARLY BC‑18, and she was dark‑skinned, broad‑faced, wide‑shouldered. She clutched half a ream of physical printout to her chest as if it were state secrets.
Which, given that Rafael was investigating staff backgrounds, it might be.
“This is Carly BC, ser. Records.”
“Ser,” Carly said.
Florian took the available conference chair. Carly settled on the edge of her seat and held her printout on her knees.
“So what do you have, Carly BC?”
“Ser, Giraud Nye’s contacts, systematized; the azi in question. Also Giraud Nye’s aides and seconds, their whereabouts, their contacts. I have the computer file.” She touched her breast pocket.
“Tell me what you learned,” Florian said. He expected a little nervousness. Carly BC was new, straight from the barracks. First real assignment.
And Carly had, first off, a shorter document, within the cover of the first. She pulled it out and handed it over, a set of graphs and schematics. Trips to Novgorod. Time spent in Novgorod. Meetings with Defense. Persons involved. Giraud. Abban. Gorodin, deceased Councillor.
Regime change. Giraud, Abban, Hicks. Khalid. Jacques. Spurlin. Jacques, just recently.
He looked up at Rafael. “You’ve seen this?”
“I’ve skimmed it, yes, ser.”
“Specific data on Hicks. Carly BC.”
“Ser.”
“Can you pull that out?”
Carly opened the printout on her lap and frantically turned pages. “It’s here, ser.” Large, dark eyes fixed on his. “I broke out stats on each individual involved. Nye, Abban AB, Hicks, Gorodin, Khalid, Jacques, Spurlin…”
“Give me the data file,” Florian said, and held out his hand. Carly BC opened her pocket and handed it to him immediately, a finger marking her place in the printout.
Branches. Branch led to branch, led to branch. One person connected to another. It didn’t always produce valid theory, but the investigative AI tended to err on the sid
e of the smallest connection, once it launched.
“Well done, Carly BC.”
“Thank you, ser.”
The threads all wove back and forth. That was the pattern. Never expect that it was going to connect up too tightly. Defense was massive.
“Visits by Abban to Hicks,” he said. “Do you have that stat?”
“A lot, ser. I can find it.” She started to resort to the printout again.
“That’s good, Carly BC. No, don’t bother. If it’s searchable, it’s in here, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ser.”
“I think we’re through with Carly BC’s report,” Florian said quietly. “Thank you, Carly BC.”
“Ser.” She looked uncertain. Then started to get up.
“I’ll take the report,” Florian said. And took it, and Carly received a nod from Rafael and left.
Florian looked at Rafael, at the azi who’d been primed to report to Hicks.
“How are you now, Rafael BR?” he asked. “Are you with us on this?”
“My Contract is to sera,” Rafael said firmly.
“No lingering troubles.”
“None, ser.”
Florian looked at him a long time, and Rafael gazed back, level and long.
“Take precautions,” Florian said. “The ferret she sent may have rung bells in certain offices. It shouldn’t. But sometimes we aren’t as clean as we hope to be. Assume we’re not. That’s safest.”
“Yes, ser,” Rafael said faintly.
“Assume nothing.” Florian said. “Expect anything. At any time.”
“Yes, ser.”
Florian pocketed the datastrip, took the printout in hand, and left what ought to be the securest office in the securest wing in Reseune.
He went upstairs to sera’s apartment, to the security station in the front hall, and laid the printout on the desk by Catlin’s elbow.
“Sera Amy is safely in the hotel,” Catlin said. “Third floor, as she wanted.”
“Hicks accompanied Giraud to Defense very many times,” he said, “and was Giraud’s go‑between there, as sera remembered. Sometimes Abban was with him. Yanni is, by comparison, a stranger in that tower.”
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