"Ari," Giraud said, settling into the seat Florian had vacated for him, across from her, while RESEUNE ONE flew through the dark and there was nothing but stars out the windows—stars and the running lights of the planes Giraud said were flying with them.
Because they had to worry about electronic interference and all sorts of things that even Florian and Catlin frowned over. Because they had challenged a very dangerous, very desperate man who had all kinds of contacts, and because the world had crazy people in it who might try something and try to blame it on Defense.
She would be very glad, she thought, when she felt them touch down at Reseune. Enemies didn't much bother her, except the kind who might aim another plane at you or take out your navigation or who might be Defense trying to blame it on extremists or extremists trying to blame it on Defense.
"We're doing fine," uncle Giraud said. "Radar's perfectly clear. Our escort is enough to keep them honest. I imagine you're anxious for your own bed tonight."
Oh, damn, we've got the Minder checkout to go through when we get back to the apartment, and Florian and Catlin are tired as I am. I just want to go to bed. And I can't sleep.
"I did worry today," Giraud said, "about one thing I was afraid they were going to throw at you. That—we really haven't wanted to go into. But I think—and Denys thinks—I've talked with him on the Bureau system—that you need to know."
God, get to it!
"You know your predecessor was murdered. And that it was somebody in Reseune."
"Who?"
"A man named Jordan Warrick."
She blinked and felt the sting of exhaustion in her eyes. There was only one Warrick at Reseune she had ever met. "Who's Jordan Warrick?"
"A Special. The absolute authority in educational design. Justin Warrick's father."
She rubbed her eyes and slid up a little in her seat, looking at Giraud.
"I didn't want you to find that out in front of the cameras. I certainly don't want you to find it out from Council next week. Jordan and Ari had personal and professional difficulties; and political ones. He accused Ari of tampering with his work and taking credit from him—as he saw it. They quarreled— Do you want to hear this in detail?"
She nodded.
"Most likely, and he claims this was the case, it wasn't premeditated. They fought—a physical fight—and she hit her head—at which point he panicked and tried to cover up what had happened. It happened in the cold lab down in Wing One basement. The section is very old, the cryogenics conduits are completely uncovered; he created a break, blew the line, shut the door—it still swings, it has to do with the way the building settled, and the door is unfixable; but we've disabled the lock. In short, Ari froze to death in a release of liquid nitrogen from a pipe rupture. It was relatively painless; she was unconscious from the blow. Jordan Warrick—being a Special—had a Council hearing. It was an absolutely unprecedented case—Specials don't commit murder. And his mind—whatever his faults—is protected by law. He did agree to accept a transfer out of Reseune. He lives at Planys. Justin does visit him now and again."
"Did he know about it?"
"Justin didn't have any idea what was going to happen. He was only seventeen. He'd attempted—using resources of his father's—to smuggle Grant out of Reseune and into Novgorod—Jordan wanted to get the directorate at RESEUNESPACE, and Grant's status as an X-number meant it might have been hard to get him to go with them. But it went wrong, the contacts Justin used—friends of his father—happened to have ties to the Abolitionists, who attempted a very misguided intervention with Grant. I've always entertained a private suspicion that Grant figured in the argument Jordan had with Ari. Grant had to be rescued; he was in hospital that night, in very precarious shape—and Justin was visiting him about the time the murder happened, so there's no question about Justin's whereabouts. He had no idea his father was going to see Ari. He certainly had no notion what his father would do."
She felt a little sick at her stomach. "He's my friend."
"He was seventeen when all this happened. Just two years older than you are. None of it was his fault. He lives at Reseune—his father lives at Planys under a kind of perpetual arrest. You understand, I think, why we've been very anxious about your contacts with him. But he's never initiated them; he's been very careful to follow the rules that let him live at Reseune. He was able to finish his education; he's made a home at Reseune, he causes no one any trouble, and it didn't seem fair to punish him for something which absolutely was none of his doing, or to send him where he wouldn't have the facilities to pursue his work. He's very bright. He's a very troubled man, a very confused one, sometimes, but I hope he'll work out his own answers. Most of all we've worried about the chance he would do something or say something to hurt you—but he never has. Has he?"
"No." Remember the source, Ari senior would say, had said, advising her how to deal with deceptions. Remember the source. "Why didn't he go to Fargone? Valery did. Valery was only four years old and he never hurt anybody."
"Frankly we wanted Justin where we could see him," Giraud said, going right past the matter of Valery. Of course. "And we didn't want him in prolonged contact with any ship crew or within reach of outside communications. His father's friends—are Rocher and that crowd, the Abolitionists—who are one of the reasons we have that escort flying off our wings."
"I understand." She needed to think about it for a while. She had no desire to talk about it with uncle Giraud, not right now.
"We knew it would upset you," Giraud said, trying for a reaction out of her.
She looked at him and let the situation flow right through her, bland as could be, the night, the planes outside, the news about Justin, Giraud's evading the Valery question. So they could get blown up. So the whole world was crazy. But she had figured it was dangerous when she made up her mind she was going to mention the Gehenna things—when she had warned uncle Denys and uncle Giraud what she was going to do, and they had been nervous about it. But one thing about Giraud—once things went inertial he had a cool head and he came across with the right things at the right time: if she had to pick somebody to be with her in Novgorod she figured Giraud was one of the best. And what he was saying had to be true: it was too easy to check out.
She sighed. "It does upset me," she said, "but I'm glad I know. I need to think about it, uncle Giraud."
He looked at her a moment, then fished in his pocket, and pulled out a little packet, reached and laid it on her side of the table.
"What's that?"
Giraud shrugged. "No shopping this trip," he said. "But I did remember this little thing in a certain shop. I had Security pick it up. They hadn't sold it."
She was bewildered. She picked it up, unwrapped the paper and opened the box. There was a pin with topazes of every shade, set in gold. "Oh," she said. "Oh!"
"So much jewelry came with Ari's estate," Giraud said, and got up to go back to his own seat at the back. "I thought you should have something that was only yours."
"Thank you, uncle Giraud." She was entirely off her balance.
And more so when she looked up at him. The way the light came down on him from the overhead in that second made his skin look papery and old; he walked by and put his hand on her arm and his hand showed deep creases. Old. Of course he was.
Something that was only yours. That rattled around in her head and found such a central place to light that she turned the thought over as often as she did the pin, turning all the facets to the light—whether Giraud had just Worked her or whether it was just that her uncle had this thing about young girls or maybe—maybe a single soft spot that had started back when she was little had just grown along with her, until he finally really had thoughts like that. After all the rotten things he had done.
He had Got her good, that was sure.
One thing that was truly hers. So very few things were.
"What is it, sera?" Florian asked, and: "It's pretty," he said.
"Nice," Catlin said, coming to take the seat beside her, and reached out a hand to touch it.
Of course they were hers. Ari and Ari blurred together and came separate and blurred together again, with very little discomfort nowadays. Ari senior had collected real trouble in her lifetime, but that was all right, she didn't like Ari's Enemies either. They had murdered Ari and now she had Security with her everywhere and planes flying beside just to be sure she got home, to Ari's bed and Ari's comforts and Ari's Reseune, in all—
She didn't mind being Ari, she decided. It was not a bad thing to be. It was a little strange. It was a little lonely a lot of the time, but that was all right, there were enough people to keep it from being too lonely. There was a lot to keep up with, but it was never boring. She would not be Maddy or 'Stasi, or even Amy—Amy, closest, maybe, but she had rather be Ari, all the same, and travel to Novgorod and have Catlin and Florian with her—not forgetting that: Amy had no company. Just her maman and her maman's staff, who were no fun.
Being Jane would have been all right. She thought about Ollie, suddenly, hurt because he never wrote; but Ollie wouldn't, Ollie was so correct when he had to be.
He might not even be alive anymore. People could die at Fargone and it took so long to find it out.
She put the pin back in the box. "Put that in my carry, will you?" she said to Florian. "I don't want anything to happen to it." When there was a chance she would wear it where Giraud could see it. He would like that.
"Are you tired, sera?" Catlin asked. "Do you want us to put out the lights?"
"No. I'm fine." But she felt after the lap robe, and tucked it up around her, listening to the drone of the engines.
She could write to Fargone. But it was not wise right now. Anything she did would make her Enemies nervous and maybe put other people in danger, like hanging a sign out over them saying: This is a friend of mine.
Her friends didn't have Security to protect them, if they came outside Reseune and Reseune's other holdings. She had to think about things like that now.
From now on.