He was an ordinary enough man who showed up in the Hall of State conference room, wearing a brown casual suit, carrying a briefcase that looked as if it had been sent through baggage once too often. Corain would not have picked him out of any crowd: a brown-haired, handsome, athletic sort, not looking quite his forty-six years. But bodyguards would have attended this man until military police took him under their own wing, and very likely servants had all but dressed him and staffers attended him on ordinary business. By no means would Jordan Warrick have come by commercial carrier or a baggage department gotten its hands on that briefcase.
Emory was a Special. There were three at Reseune, the highest number at any single installation. One was this man, who devised and debugged psych tape structures, so they said, in his head. Computers ordinarily did that kind of work. When an important enough tape program had to be built or debugged, they gave it to Jordan Warrick's staff, and when a problem was more than any or all of them could handle it went to Warrick himself. That was as much as Corain understood. The man was a certified genius and a Ward of the State. Like Emory. Like the other dozen Special Persons.
And presumably if Emory wanted to accord that status to a twenty-year-old chemist on Fargone, and, the rumor said, open an office there to attach him to Reseune staff, and seemed to imply she attached a priority to that project that made it worth something in the scales right along with her cherished colonial push, there was a damned good reason for it.
"Ser Lu," Warrick said, shaking Lu's offered hand. "Adm. Gorodin. A pleasure." And a worried look but an overall friendly one as he looked toward Corain and offered his hand. "Councillor. I hadn't expected you."
Corain's heart did a little skip-and-race. Danger, it said. Warrick, he reminded himself, was not one of those bright types who operated in some foggy realm of abstract logic completely detached from humanity: he was a psych-surgeon, manipulation was his work, and he was quite in his element stripping people down to their motives. All this lay behind that sober pleasantness and those younger-than-forty eyes.
"You may have guessed," Lu said, "that this is more than I told you it would be."
A little alarm registered on Warrick's face. "Oh?" he said.
"Councillor Corain very much wanted to speak with you—without public attention. This is political, Dr. Warrick. It's quite important. Certainly if you would rather get on to your other meeting, for which you will otherwise be perhaps ten minutes late—we will understand that you don't want to involve yourself with our questions, and I hope you'll accept my personal apologies in that case. It's my profession, you understand, a disposition to intrigue."
Warrick drew a breath, distanced himself the few paces to the conference table, and set his briefcase down on it. "Is this something to do with Council? Do you mind explaining what, before I make any decision?"
"It's about the bill coming up. The Science appropriations bill."
Warrick's head lifted just the little bit that said: Ah. A small smile touched his face. He folded his arms and leaned back against the table, in every evidence a relaxed man. "What about the bill?"
"What's in it," Corain asked, "—really?"
The secret smile widened and hardened. "You mean what's it covering? Or something else?"
"Is—what it's covering—in any way connected to the Hope project?"
"No. Nothing in that budget to do with it. Nothing I'm aware of. Well, SETI-scan. But that's fairly general."
"What about the Special appointment? Is Reseune interested?"
"You might say. You want to know about Fargone in general?"
"I'm interested in whatever you have to say, Dr. Warrick."
"I can spare the ten minutes. I can tell you in less than that what's going on. I can tell you in one word. Psychogenesis. Mind-cloning, in the popular press."
It was not the answer Corain had expected. It was certainly not what the military expected. Gorodin snorted.
"What's it covering?"
"Not a cover," Warrick said. "Not the process in the popular press. Not exact duplicates, but duplicate capabilities. Not real significant for, say, a child trying to recover a lost parent. But in the case of, say, a Special, where the ability is what you want to hang on to— You're familiar with the attempt to recover Bok."
Estelle Bok. The woman whose work led to faster-than-light. "They tried," Corain said. "It didn't work."
"Her clone was bright. But she wasn't Bok. She was a better musician than she was a physicist, and desperately unhappy, thanks to all the notoriety. She wouldn't take her rejuv for days on end, till the effects caught up with her and she'd have to. Wore herself down that way, finally died at ninety-two. Wouldn't even leave her room during the last few years of her life.
"What we didn't have then was the machinery we have now; and the records. Dr. Emory's work in the war, you know, the studies with learning and body chemistry—
"The human body has internal regulating systems, the whole complex that regulates sex and growth and defense against infection. In a replication, the genetic code isn't the whole game. Experience impacts the chemical system the genetic code set up. This is all available in the scientific journals. I could give you the actual references—"
"You're doing quite well," Corain said. "Please."
"Say that we know things now that we didn't when we cloned Bok. If the program does what Dr. Emory hopes, we can recover the ability in the same field. It involves genetics, endocrinology, a large array of tests, physiological and psychological; and the records have to be there. I don't know all of it. It's Dr. Emory's project, it's secret, and it's in a different wing. But I do know that it's serious and it's not extremely far off the present state of the art. A little speculative, perhaps; but you have to understand, in our science, there's a particularly difficult constraint: the scientist himself has to live long enough to draw his conclusions; and Dr. Emory is not young. Every azi experimentation takes at least fifteen years. The Rubin project is going to take at least twenty. You see the difficulty. She has to take some small risks."
"Health problems?" Corain said quietly, recollecting the subtle change in skin tone, the loss of weight. Rejuv lasted an unpredictable number of years. Once it started to lose its effect—problems started. And aging set in with a vengeance.
Warrick's eyes left his. He was not going to answer that question frankly, Corain reckoned before he said anything. He had pressed too closely.
"Mortality is an increasing concern," Warrick said, "for anyone her age, in our field. It's what I said: the time the projects take."
"What's your estimate of this project?" Gorodin asked.
"It's very, very important to her: all her theories, understand, all her personal work, her work on endocrine systems and genetics, on psych-structures—lead toward this."
"She's a Special. She can requisition damn near anything she needs—"
"Except the Special status that would protect her subject from what happened to Bok. I agree with her on the matter of not using someone inside Reseune. The clone will be at Reseune, but not Rubin. Rubin is young.
That's a prerequisite. He's brilliant, he was born on a station, and every move he's ever made down to buying a drink out of a machine is there in station records. He was also born with an immune deficiency, and there are extensive medical records that go back to his infancy. That's the most important part. Ari can do it without the Council's approval; but she can't keep Fargone's local government from doing something that might compromise her results."
"Is Rubin supposed to be aware of this?"
"He'll be aware he's a blind control on an experiment at Reseune. More significantly, his clone won't know Rubin exists until he's the same age Rubin is now."
"Do you think it's a valid project?" Corain asked.
Warrick was silent a moment. "I think whether or not one equals the other, the scientific benefits are there."
"You have reservations," Lu said.
"I see minimal harm to Rubin. He's a scientist. He's capable of understanding what blind control means. I would oppose any meeting of the two, at any future date. I'll go on record on that. But I wouldn't oppose the program."
"It's not yours."
"I have no personal work involved in it."
"Your son," Corain said, "does work closely with Dr. Emory."
"My son is a student," Warrick said, expressionless, "in tape design. Whether or not he'll be involved is up to Dr. Emory. It would be a rare opportunity. Possibly he might apply for the Fargone office, if it goes through. I'd like to see that."
Why? Corain wondered, and wished he dared ask it. But there were limits with a hitherto friendly informant, and there were persistent rumors about Emory that no one proved.
"Student," Lu said, "at Reseune, means rather more than student at the university."
"Considerably, yes," Warrick said. All liveliness had left his face. It was guarded now, extremely careful of expressions and reactions.
"How do you feel about the Hope project?" Corain asked.
"Is that a political question?"
"It's a political question."
"Say that I avoid politics, except as a study." Warrick looked down and up again, directly at Corain. "Reseune no longer depends on the azi trade. We could live quite well off our research, whether colonies go out or not, —there'll be a need for what we do, never mind the fate of the other labs—who couldn't undercut us. We have too great a head start on other fields. We wouldn't be as rich, of course. But we'd do quite well. It's not economics that troubles me. Someday we should talk."
Corain blinked. That was not what he expected, a feeler from a Reseune scientist. He put his hands in his coat pockets and looked at the others. "Can Dr. Warrick miss that meeting—without it leaking?"
"No difficulty," Lu said; and added: "If Dr. Warrick wants to miss it."
Warrick drew a long breath, then set the briefcase on the floor and pulled a chair back at the conference table. "I'm willing," he said, and sank into the chair.
Corain sat down. Gorodin and Lu took the chairs at the end.
Warrick's face held no expression still. "I know these gentlemen," he said with a slide of the eyes toward the military. "I know your reputation, Councillor Corain. I know you're an honest man. What I'm going to tell you could cost me—considerably. I hope you'll use this—only for what it contains, and I hope you won't lay it to personal dislike. Dr. Emory and I have had our differences. You understand—working at Reseune, you have to make a lot of critical decisions. Our material is human. Sometimes the ethics of a situation are—without precedent. All we operate on is our best estimation, and sometimes those estimates don't agree.
"Dr. Emory and I have had—more than the average number of confrontations. I've written papers opposing her. We have a conflicting view of—certain aspects of her operations. So if she finds out I've been talking to you, she'll believe I've tried to do her damage. But I hope to God you give her this program at Fargone. It doesn't cost the government anything but that Special—"
"It creates a dangerous precedent, to create a Special just to satisfy a research project. Just to keep a subject in your reach."
"I want myself and my son transferred out of Reseune."
Corain stopped breathing a moment. "You're a Special, the same as she is."
"I'm not political. I don't have her pull. She'll claim I'm essential, under the very terms that make me a Special—I'm bound to stay where the government needs me. And so far it arranges to need me at Reseune. Right now my son is working in her program for two reasons: first because it's his field and she's the best; second, because he's my son and Ari wants a hold on me, and in the politics inside Reseune, there's nothing I can do about that. I can try again to get myself out of there, and if I'm out from under her direction, I can request my son over to the other project on a personal hardship transfer. That's one reason I'm anxious to see this Fargone facility built. It would be the best thing for the state. It would be the best thing for Reseune. God knows it would be the best thing for Reseune."
"Perhaps some things would come out. Is that what you're saying?"
"I'm not making any charges. I don't want to go public with any of this. I'm saying that Ari has too damn much power, inside Reseune and out. There's no question of her scientific contributions. As a scientist I have no quarrel with her. I only know the politics inside the house and politics outside it is the only way I see to get free of a situation that's become increasingly—explosive."
One had to be careful, very careful. Corain had not spent twenty years in government to take everything at face value. Or to frighten a cooperating witness. So he asked softly: "What do you want, Dr. Warrick?"
"I'd like to see that project go through. Then I'm going to transfer. She's going to try to prevent that. I'd like support—in my appeal." Warrick cleared his throat. His fingers were locked, white-edged. "The pressure at Reseune is considerable. A move would be—everything I want. I'll tell you,. . . I'm not in agreement with this colonization effort. I agree with Berger and Shlegey, there is harm dispersing humankind to that degree, that fast. We've just finished one social calamity; we're not what left Earth, we're not what left Glory Station, we're not going to be what our founders anticipated; and if we make this further push there's going to be a critical difference between us and our descendants—there's no miracle, no Estelle Bok, no great invention going to close up this gap. That's my view. I can't express that from Reseune."
"Dr. Warrick, are you telling me your communications are limited there?"
"I'm telling you there are reasons I can't express that view there. If you leak this conversation to the press I'll have to take Reseune's official position."
"Are you telling me, Dr. Warrick, that that transfer is what you're holding out for?"
"The transfer, Councillor. Myself. And my son. Then I would have no fear of expressing my opinions. Do you understand me? Most of us in the field that could speak with authority against the Hope project—are in Reseune. Without voices inside Science, without papers published—you understand that ideas don't gain currency. Xenology is strongly divided. The most compelling arguments are in our field. You do not have a majority in the nine electorates, Councillor. It's Science itself you have to crack, Ari Emory's own electorate. This, this psychogenesis project is very dear to her heart—so much her own, in fact, that she doesn't let her aides handle it. It's the time factor again. On the one hand, there's so very little in a lifetime. On the other—a process that involves a human life has so many hiatuses, so many periods when nothing but time will produce the results."
"Meaning we'll still have her to deal with."
"As long as she lives, definitely, you'll have her in Council to deal with. That's why the Fargone project is an advantage to both of us. I'd like to take a public position, on your side. An opposition from inside Reseune, as it were, particularly from another Special—would have considerable credibility in Science. But I can't do it now, as things are."
"The important question," Gorodin said, "aside from that: is the Rubin project likely to work? Is it real?"
"It's very likely that it will, Admiral. Certainly it's a much more valid effort than the Bok project was. You may know, we don't routinely create from the Specials' genesets. Even our genetic material is protected by statute. On a practical level, it's the old 'fine line' business—genius and insanity, you know. It's not total nonsense. When we create azi, the Alpha classes take far more testing and correction. Statistically speaking, of course. What went wrong with the Bok clone was what could have gone wrong with Bok, give or take her particular experiences, and influences we don't have record of. Our chances of recovering a currently living Special are much better. Better records, you understand. Bok came here as a colonist, her records went with her ship, and it was one of the de-built ones: too much was lost and too much just wasn't recorded. I'm not sure we ever will get Bok's talent back, but it certainly won't be in the present project. On the other hand—recovering, say, Kleigmann . . . who's, what?—pushing a century and a half. . . would be a real benefit."
"Or Emory herself," Corain said under his breath. "God. Is that her push? Immortality?"
"Only so far as any human might want progeny like himself. It's not immortality, certainly no sense of identity. We're talking about mental similarity, two individuals more like each other than identical twins tend to be, and without a dominant twin. Essentially the recovery of an ability latent in the interface between geneset and what we call tape in an azi."
"Done by tape?"
Warrick shook his head. "Can't be done with tape. Not by present understanding."
Corain thought it through again. And again.
"Meaning," Gorodin said, "that with our lead in genetics and reconstructive psych, we might replicate living Specials as well as dead ones."
"That is a possibility," Warrick said quietly, "if certain laws were changed. Practically—I'd speak against that. I understand why they're starting with one. But the potential for psychological trouble is very strong, even if the safeguards keep the two from meeting. Even dead ones— If I were such a subject—I'd worry about my son, and that individual—who would not, in any meaningful sense, be his brother; or his father. Do you see, it's very complicated when you're dealing with human lives? The Nine took a strong interest in the Bok case. Too strong. In this much I agree with Dr. Emory: only the Bureau of Science, in specific, only Reseune ought to have any contact with the two subjects. That's what she wants on Fargone. We're not talking about an office or a lab. We're talking about an enclave, a community Rubin will not leave except as I leave Reseune: rarely and with escorts for his protection."
"My God," Gorodin said, "Fargone will veto it."
"A separate orbiting facility. That's what she's had to promise Harogo. A compartmentalized area. Reseune will pay the construction."
"You know, then, what deals she's made."
"I happen to know that one. There may be others. That's a fat contract for certain construction companies at Fargone."
It rang true. All the way down. Corain gnawed his lip.
"Let me ask you a difficult question," Corain said. "If there were other information—"
"I would give it."
"If there were other information yet to come—"
"You're asking me to be an informant."
"A man of conscience. You know my principles. I know yours. It seems there's a great deal in common. Does Reseune own your conscience?"
"Even the admiral hasn't been able to requisition me. I'm a ward of the state. My residencies have to be approved by the Union government. That's the price of being a Special. The admiral will tell you: Reseune will call me essential. That's an automatic five votes of the Nine. That means I stay in Reseune. I'll tell you what I'm going to do, Councillor. I'm going to slip Adm. Gorodin a request for transfer, just as soon as that Special status is voted for Rubin, before the appropriations vote for the Hope Station project. Officially—that's when it will happen."
"God! You think you're worth a deal like that?"
"Councillor, —you can't win the Hope Station vote. DeFranco is in Ari's pocket. Or her bankbook, via Hayes Industries. The arrangement is— deFranco's going to try to abstain, which at least is going to show a little backbone for her constituency. Forget you heard that from me. But if you don't throw the vote into a tie and send the business into the General Council, it's inevitable. You buy me and my son out of Reseune, Councillor—and I'll start talking. I'll be worth far more—outside her direct surveillance, in the Reseune facility on Fargone. She might get Hope Station. But she can be stopped, Councillor. If you want a voice inside Science, I can be that."
It was a moment before Corain felt in command of his breathing. He looked at Lu, at Gorodin, suddenly trying to remember how Lu had maneuvered him into this meeting, suspecting these two dark eminences among the Nine, who played behind a screen of secrecies.
"You should go into politics," he said to Warrick then, and suddenly remembered to his disturbance who he was talking to: that this was a Reseune psychmaster, and that this mind was one of those twelve Union considered too precious to lose.
"Psych is my field," Warrick said, with a disturbing directness to his gaze, which no longer seemed ordinary, or harmless, or average. "I only want to practice it without harassment. I'm fully aware of politics, Councillor. I assure you it never leaves us, at Reseune. Nor we, it. Help me and I'll help you. It's that simple."
"It's not simple," Corain objected, but to Warrick it was. Whoever had drawn him into this meeting—be it Lu, be it Gorodin—be it Warrick—
He was not sure, suddenly, that it was not Emory. A man could grow insane, dealing with the potential in the Specials, especially those Specials who dealt with perception itself.
One had to trust someone sometime. Or nothing got done.