Cyteen: The Betrayal (21 page)

There was no sound out of the unit.

“Not working.”

“Maybe it’s the cold,” Giraud said. “There wasn’t any call.”

“Pressure drop was the first you knew something was wrong.”

“Pressure in the liquid nitrogen tank. The techs knew. I got a call a minute or so later.”

“Wasn’t there an on-site alarm?”

“It sounded,” Giraud said, indicating the unit on the wall, “down here. No one works back here. The way the acoustics are, no one could figure out where it was coming from. We didn’t know till we got the call from the techs that it was a nitrogen line. Then we knew it was the cold-lab. We came running down here and got the door open.”

“Ummn. And the azi weren’t here. Just Jordan Warrick. Who was back upstairs when the alarm went off. I want a report on that intercom unit.”

“We can do that,” Giraud said.

“Better if my office does.”

“You’re here for official reasons. For the record. This is not your jurisdiction, captain.”

Stern looked at him-a heavy-set, dour man with the light of intelligence in his eyes. Intelligence enough to know Reseune swallowed its secrets.

And that, since Reseune had friends high in Internal Affairs, promotion or real trouble could follow a decision.

“I think,” Stern said, “I’d better talk to Warrick.” It was a cue to retire to private interviews. Giraud’s first impulse was to follow him and cover what had to be covered. His second was a genuine panic, a sudden realization of the calamity that had overtaken Reseune, overtaken all their plans, the fact that the brain that had been so active, held so much secret-was no more than a lump of ice. The body was impossible, frozen as it was, to transport with any dignity. Even that simple necessity was a grotesque mess.

And Corain-This is going to hit the news-services before morning.

What in hell do we do? What do we do now?

Ari, dammit, what do we do?

Florian waited, sitting on a bench in the waiting room, in the west wing of the hospital. He leaned his elbows against his knees, head against his hands, and wept, because there was nothing left to do, the police had Jordan Warrick in custody, they would not let him near Ari, except that one terrible sight that had made him understand that it was true. She was dead. And the world was different than it had ever been. The orders came from Giraud Nye: report for tape.

He understood that. Report to the Supervisor, the rule had been from the time he was small; there was tape to heal distress, tape to heal doubts-tape to explain the world and the laws and the rules of it.

But in the morning Ari would still be dead and he did not know whether they could tell him anything to make him understand.

He would have killed Warrick. He still would, if he had that choice; but he had only the piece of paper, the tape order, that sent him here for an azi’s comfort; and he had never been so alone or so helpless, every instruction voided, every obligation just-gone.

Someone came down the hall and came in, quietly. He looked up as Catlin came in, so much calmer than he-always calm, no matter what the crisis, and even nowHe got up and put his arms around her, held her the way they had slept together for so many years he had lost count, the good times and the terrible ones.

He rested his head against her shoulder. Felt her arms about him. It was something, in so much void. “I saw her,” he said; but it was a memory he could not bear. “Cat, what do we do?”

“We’re here. That’s all we can do. There’s no place else to be.”

“I want the tape. It hurts so much, Cat. I want it to stop.”

She took his face between her hands and looked in his eyes.

Hers were blue and pale, like no one else’s he knew. There was always sober sense in Cat. For a moment she frightened him, that stare was so bleak, as if there was no hope at all. “It’ll stop,” she said, and held him tight. “It’ll stop, Florian. It’ll go. Were you waiting for me? Let’s go in. Let’s go to sleep, all right? And it won’t hurt anymore.”

Steps came up to the door, but people went back and forth every few minutes, and Justin had shouted himself hoarse, had sat down against the cold concrete wall and tucked himself up in a knot until he heard the door unlocked.

Then he tried for his feet, staggered his way up against the wall and kept his balance as two security guards came in after him.

He did not fight them. He did not say a word until they brought him back to a room with a desk.

With Giraud Nye behind it.

“Giraud,” he said hoarsely, and sank down into the available round-backed chair. “For God’s sake-what’s going on? What do they think they’re doing?”

“You’re an accused accessory to a crime,” Giraud said. “That’s what’s going on. Reseune law. You can make a statement now, of your own will. You know you’re subject to Administrative rules. You know you’re subject to psychprobe. I’d truly advise you be forthcoming.”

Time slowed. Thoughts went racing in every direction, sudden disbelief that this could be happening, surety that it was, that it was his fault, that his father was involved because of him-Psychprobe would turn up everything.

Everything. Jordan was going to find out. They would tell him.

He wished he were dead.

“Ari was blackmailing me,” he said. It was hard to coordinate speech with the world going so slow and things inside him going so fast. It went on forever, just hanging there in silence. Mention Jordan and why Grant had to leave? Can they find that? How far can I lie? “She said Grant could go, if I did what she wanted.”

“You didn’t know about Kruger’s link to Rocher.”

“No!” That was easy. Words tumbled one onto the other. “Kruger was just supposed to get him away safe because Ari was threatening to hurt him if I-if I didn’t-she-” He was going to be sick. Tape-flash poured in on him, and he leaned back as much as his arms let him and tried to ease the knot in his stomach. “When Grant didn’t get to the city I went to her myself. I asked for her help.”

“What did she say?”

“She called me a fool. She told me about Rocher. I didn’t know.”

“All that. You didn’t go to your father.”

“I couldn’t. He didn’t know about it. He’d-“

“What would he do?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what he’d have done. I did everything. He didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“With stealing Grant, you mean.”

“With anything. With Kruger. Rocher. Anybody.”

“And Ari was going to let this happen.”

It did not sound reasonable. Trap, he thought. She let it happen. Maybe she hoped he’d get through. Maybe-

-maybe some other reason. She was mad about it. She was—

But you never know with Ari. She plays reactions like most people use a keyboard.

“I think we’ll ask the rest of the questions under probe. Un-less you have anything else you want to tell me.”

“Who’s going to do it?” There were technicians and there were technicians, and it made a difference who he was going to be spilling his guts to. “Giraud, if I go on record, Ari’s not going to like it. Does she know where I am? Does she know-” God, is this some politics between Ari and Giraud, has he snatched me up to get something on her? ” I want to talk to Ari. I’m supposed to meet with her. She’s going to be asking where I am. If she doesn’t hear from me she’s going to start-” -start after Jordan, maybe do something even she can’t undo. They’re going to tell him. Giraud will tell him. Maybe Administration wants something on Jordan, maybe this is some team action Ari and Giraud are running, her on me and Giraud on Jordan. O God, O God! what have I walked into? “-Start asking where I am. Hear me?”

“I don’t think so. And I’m going to be asking the questions myself. You want to walk down to the room or are you going to make trouble about it? It’ll go worse if you fight it, in all senses. You understand that. I just want to make sure you remember it.”

“I’ll walk.”

“Fine.” Giraud got up, and Justin sat forward and got up on shaking legs. He was halfway numb with cold, and the thoughts that had tumbled one onto the other lost all variety, became just a circle without escape.

He walked out the door Giraud opened for him, walked ahead of Giraud and the waiting guards, down the hall to a place he had heard about all his life, a room very like the rooms over at the hospital, in that wing where azi came for tape-adjustment, green walls, a plain couch. There was a camera-rig in the corner. “Shirt,” Giraud said.

He knew what they wanted. He peeled it off and laid it on the counter. He sat down on the couch and took the shot one of the azi had ready for him, tried to help them attach the sensors, because he always did his own, with tape; but his coordination was shot. He let himself back in the hands that reached to help him, felt them lift his legs up onto the couch. He felt them working with the patches. He shut his eyes. He wanted to tell Giraud to send the azi out, because what he had to say involved Ari, and the azi who heard that-would be in for selective wipe, there was no else about it.

Giraud asked him questions, gently, professionally. He was aware of the first ones. But that slipped. He could have been in the hands of one of the techs, but Giraud was the best interrogator he could have hoped for-quiet and not given to leaving an emotional load behind him. Professional, that was all. And if Giraud was checking the truth, Giraud was at least trying to find out what it was.

Giraud told him so. And under the drug it was true. Giraud would not be shocked at what Ari had done. He had lived too long and seen too much. Giraud was truly sorry for him, and believed everything he said. A young boy of his qualifications, in Ari’s vicinity-he had to understand this was not the first time. That Ari would try to work leverage on his father, of course. Who could doubt it? Jordan had surely known.

No, he argued, with a flash of white ceiling and bright light: he came that far to the surface. He remembered Giraud touching his shoulder.

You really took care not to have your father know. Of course. What do you suppose he would do if he found out?

Go to the Bureau.

Ah.

But he didn’t know.

You can sleep now. You’ll wake up rested. You can let go. You won’t fall.

Something was still wrong. He tried to lay hold of it. But it slid sideways, out of his vision.

“I don’t think there’s much doubt,” Giraud said, looking at Jordan from across his desk. At forty-six, Jordan was far too athletic, far too capable physically to take a chance with; and they were careful, for other reasons, not to put a bruise on him. The restraints they used were webbing: no psychprobe, to be sure: Jordan Warrick was a Special, a national treasure. Not even the Bureau of Internal Affairs could do anything that might damage him, in any sense.

A Special was charged with murdering another Special. It was a situation that had no precedent. But Jordan Warrick could murder a dozen infants in Novgorod Plaza at noonday, and they could neither ask him why nor remand him to probe nor give him as much as the adjustment a public vandal would get.

Jordan glared at him from the chair Security had tied him to. “You know damn well I didn’t do it.”

“What will you do? Ask for a probe to prove it? We can’t do a thing to you. You know that. You knew it when you did it.”

“I didn’t do it. Dammit, you haven’t even got an autopsy yet.”

“Whatever she died of, the cold was enough. The pipe didn’t just break, Jordan, you know it and you know why it broke. Save us all the trouble. What did you do? Score the pipe and fill the lab tank is my guess. Fill the lab tank to capacity, then stop the main valve and turn the backflow pump to max. That’d blow the line at its weakest point, wherever someone damaged it.”

“So you know how to do it. You seem to know the plumbing a hell of a lot better than I do. I do my work with a computer, Gerry, a keyboard. I’m sure I never cared where the pipes run in Wing One lab. I don’t understand the cryogenics systems and I never cared to learn. There’s one other thing wrong with your theory. I haven’t got access there.”

“Justin does. His azi had.”

“Oh, you’re really reaching. Grant’s in hospital, remember?”

“We’ve questioned your son. We’re starting to question the azi. Yours and his.”

Jordan’s face settled into stony calm. “You won’t turn up a damn thing, because there isn’t anything to turn up. You’re going to have charges up to your eyeballs, Giraud. You had better plan on it.”

“No, I won’t. Because I know your motive.”

“What motive?”

Giraud punched a button on the office recorder, on a pre-loaded clip.

“He passed the mess to you, Gerry. So did Denys. We’re not talking about a damn records problem. We’re talking about a scared kid, Gerry.”

“Another week-“

“The hell with another week. You can start by giving me a security clearance over there, and get Petros to return my calls.”

“Your son is over there right now. He’s got absolute clearance. God knows why. He’ll take care of him.” Pause. “Look, Jordie, they say about another week. Two at most.”

“Justin’s got clearance.” End tape.

“What in hell has that got to do with anything?”

“That’s when you went down to see Ari. Isn’t it? Straight down there, right after that conversation.”

“Damn right. You couldn’t get off your ass.”

“No. ‘Justin’s got clearance,’ you said. That surprised you. A, Justin hadn’t told you something he should have told you. B, Ari never gave away her advantages. C, you know Ari’s habits. Right then, you guessed something you’d picked up on all along, right when you got onto the deal your son cut for Grant.”

“Sheer fantasy.”

“Your son tried to blackmail Ari. It was really quite a scheme. You thought he’d held Ari off. You let him run with it. But when Ari hauled Grant home, Ari had all the cards. Didn’t she? All of them. Your son went to Ari for help, not to you. And your son got a favor out of her you couldn’t get for all your threats. I wonder how.”

“You have a hell of an imagination. I never suspected it of you.”

“You confronted Ari, Ari either told you or you already knew-what your boy’d been doing for his tuition. And you killed her. You jammed a valve and turned a pump on, no great amount of time involved. Everyone in Wing One knew about that door. It was supposed to be an accident, but then you had to improvise.”