Cherryh, C J - Alliance-Union 08 (115 page)

Grant—was over by the wall, watching, with worry evident.

"Florian," she said, "go ask Grant what the hell Justin's up to."

"Yes, sera," Florian said, and went.

Denys was gone from the room. So was Seely.

Justin's linked himself with me—publicly. Not that everyone didn't know. But that I let it go—that, they'll gossip about.

She looked to the floor, where Justin made a brave and even marginally successful attempt to take up on Catlin. And to the corner of the room, where Florian and Grant were in urgent converse.

Denys—walked out.

Florian came back before the end of the dance. "Grant says: it's CIT craziness. I had no notion of this. Grant asked your help but he says if he intervenes it may be public and tense. He says Justin's been on an emotional bent ever since he and Grant went back to their own residency—Grant says he's willing to speak to you about it, but then he said: Sera intervened: ask sera if this is the result of it."

Ari frowned. "Dammit."

"Maddy," Florian said.

Which was a better idea than she had, fluxed as she was. "Maddy," she said. "Go."
Dammit, dammit! He's pushing, damned if this is innocent. Denys was here, the whole Family watching—

She took a deep breath.
No more easy course. He's no kid. Denys isn't. Now they're not dealing with me as a kid either, are they? Grant thinks this is an emotional trip
—
or that's what Justin's told Grant to say.

Damn, I should haul him in for a question-and-answer on this little tricky damn, I should.

And he'd never trust me, never be the same Justin, would he?

Catlin and Justin were leaving the floor. Maddy Strassen moved in with Maddy's own peculiar grace, said something to Catlin and appropriated Justin's arm, walking him over to the refreshments while the band took a break; and 'Stasi Ramirez was moving in from the other side.

Thank God.

She drew quieter breaths, sure that Denys had his spies in the room, people who would report to him exactly the way things went.

Like Petros Ivanov.

Which could only help, at this point.

Grant—stayed as unobtrusive as Grant's red-haired elegance could ever be, over in a corner of the room, having a bit of cake and a cup of punch. And talking to young Melly Kennart, who was twelve. Completely innocent.

Maddy partnered Justin through two dances. Ari took the second one with Tommy Carnath, who was looking a little grim. "Patience," Ari said, "for God's sake, we've got a problem."

"He's the problem," Tommy said. "Ari, he's moving on you. Your uncle's mad."

If Tommy saw it, so did a lot of other people.

And nothing could cover it. All she could do was signal she was not responding to the overture.

Embarrass him and send him off? He was vulnerable as hell to that. Laying himself wide open to it. Betting his entire career and maybe his life on that move, and
not
stupid, no, no way that a man who had run the narrow course he had run all his life suddenly made a thorough break with pattern on a flight of emotion. No matter if he was drunk. No matter what. Justin
had
thought about what he was doing.

And put her on the spot. Support me in front of the whole Family or rebuff me. Now.
I'll kill him. I'll kill him for this.

"Ser Justin's here," Florian said, via the Minder, and Ari said, without looking up from her desk:

"Damn well about time. Bring him to the den.
Him,
not Grant."

"Grant's not with him," Florian said.

Florian had not let him in yet: the Minder always beeped in her general area to let her know when an outside access opened. It did then; and she waited to finish her note to the system before she stirred from her chair, told Base One log-off, and walked down the hall to the bar and the den.

Justin was there, in the room that held so many bad memories—walking the narrow margin behind the immense brass-trimmed couch, looking at the paintings. While Florian waited unobtrusively by the bar—unconscious echo on Florian's part: he and Catlin had never seen the tape.

She chose this place.

Favor for favor.

"I want to know," she said, to his back, across the wide expanse of the wood-floored pit, "what in
hell
you hoped to accomplish last night."

He turned to face her. Indicated the painting he had been looking at. "That's my favorite. The view of Barnard's. It's so simple. But it affects you, doesn't it?"

She took in her breath.
Affects you, indeed. He's Working me, that's what he's after.

"Grant
asked me for help," she said. "You've got
him
scared. I hope you know that. What are you trying to do? Unravel everything? It's damned ungrateful. I kept Giraud off your tail. I kept you out of Detention. I've taken chances for you—What do you expect I should do, shout across the room? I do you a favor. I do every damn thing I can to help you. What do you do for me? Push me in public. Put me in a situation. I
don't
think I'm that much smarter than you are, Justin Warrick, so don't tell me you were just going from the gut. I'll tell you you wanted me in a corner. Back you or not, on your damn timetable; and if Tommy Carnath saw it and Florian saw it and 'Stasi Ramirez saw it, you tell me whether Yanni Schwartz or Petros Ivanov or my uncle missed it."

He walked around the edge of the pit, to the front of the bar.

"I apologize."

"Apologize
won't handle it. I want to know—simply and clearly—what you want."

"You can always ask that. Isn't that the agreement?"

"Don't push me.
Don't
push me. I'm still trying to save your butt, hear me?"

"I understand you." He leaned against the bar and looked at Florian.

"Florian."

"Ser?"

"Scotch and water. Do you mind?"

"Sera?"

"My usual. His. It's all right, Florian." She walked down the steps and sat down on the couch, and Justin came down and sat. Put his elbow on the couch-back in the same way as all those years ago, unconscious habit or scene-following as deliberate as hers ... she did not know. "All right," she said, "I'm listening."

"Not much to say. Except I trusted you."

"Trusted
me! —For what, a damned fool?"

"It was just—there. That's all. What would I do? Work in your wing, be your partner another twenty years till Denys dies? Keep my head down and my mouth shut and attend all those damn parties, twenty lousy years of going through every social function, all the department functions, everything—with every CIT in the House feeling like he has to explain himself to Security or your uncle if he's spotted talking to me? Hell of a life, Ari."

"I'm sorry," she said shortly. Which was true: she had had a dose of it too, in growing up; and she had seen it happen to him and felt it in her gut. "But that still doesn't say why you did it. Why you had to wait for a damned sensitive time—I just got things smoothed over with Denys,
I just
got things settled, and you throw me a move like that."

"Sorry," he said bitterly.

"Sorry?"

"Times are always sensitive— Always. It's always something. I'm cut off from my father again, dammit, because of Giraud. I've got your word he's safe. That's all I've got."

His voice wobbled. Florian set the whiskey down by his hand, on the shelf behind the couch, and ghosted her direction, putting the vodka-and-orange by hers.

"Which," he continued, after a drink, "I don't doubt. But that's why. Others do doubt my father's safety. Giraud is one. So damned easy to have an incident—a confusion on the part of some poor sod of an azi guard—isn't it? Terrible loss—a Special. But as you say —Giraud's dying. What can he care? You underestimate him—if you think he's not going to try to be rid of my father—except—except if he finds things
aren't
settled at Reseune, and I'm a threat he can't get at. Next to you.
Then
he'll doubt. And Giraud, scheming bastard that he is, —never makes precipitate, reckless moves.
I
want his attention. I want it on me until he's dead. It's that simple."

It made sense, it made a tangled, out-of-another-mindset sense, if you were Justin Warrick, if you knew Giraud, if you had no power and nothing to bluff with except Ari Emory and a potential for trouble.

"So," he said, "I just—saw a chance. I didn't thoroughly plan it. I just saw what you did with the Carnath girl—Amy—and thought—if you blew up, well, maybe I could patch it. If you covered me—it'd get to Giraud. Maybe it'd look like more than it was and worry hell out of him. I'm sorry if it's fouled
you
up; but I doubt it has; fouled up your plans to keep me pure in Security's sight, maybe; worried Denys, I'm sure; —but messed up anything for you, personally, —I very much doubt it."

"Nothing like the mess you've made for yourself."

"Good. On both counts."

"You're a damned fool! You could
tell
me, you know, you could trust I can keep an eye to Jordan—"

"No, I can't trust that. I can't trust that, when you're
not
in contact with the military, when you're
not
in Giraud's position and you're not in Denys' chair either. I can't depend on your knowing what they're up to, I'm sorry."

He
didn't
know Base One's extent. Had no idea. And there was no telling him. Not on any account. She sipped her vodka-and-orange, set it down and shook her head.

"You could at least have consulted me."

"And put you on your guard? No. Now done's done. I'm being honest, since you've asked. I'm asking you one more thing: run a probe if you like, but
don't
give the tape to Denys."

"Who said I did?"

"I don't know. I just have my suppositions what would appease Denys. Don't give this one out. It can only harm my father. It sure won't make me look any better to either one of the Nyes."

"Except if I don't they'll be sure I'm going along with what you did."

"So you are turning the tapes over."

"The ones I admit to running. I've never let them have Ari's notes on you. I've never shown them what I did to settle some of the damage Ari left. The unresolved stuff. I've never shown them the little intervention that lets you be here, this close to me, without sweating."

"Without worse than that. Without much worse than that. I'm still getting tape-flash now and again. But most of the charge is gone. I only remember—at much more distance than I've ever had—or I never could have done what I did at the party; never could have come here; never could have contemplated—my real plan for irritating Giraud."

"That being?"

"Going to bed with you."

That jolted, hard. It was so matter-of-fact she was half embarrassed, only dimly offended at first blink.

"Not," he said, "that I thought of doing anything you hadn't flatly asked me—once and twice, and recently. Make you happy—make Giraud quite, quite unhappy. And not in a way that could hurt you ... I never wanted that. To be honest, I wasn't sure I could. So I just—took a different course when it offered itself, that's all. I hope I don't offend you. And I wouldn't mention it, except I'd rather explain it with my wits about me, thank you, where I can at least string things together in my own defense. So there you are. That's why."

It was a deliberate move that made it psychologically harder for her to insist on a probe . . . quieten things down: defuse the situation. And tell enough of the truth to make everything reasonable.

Come in here without Grant, too.
That,
when he knew he was potentially in trouble.

Damn, possibilities multiplied ad infinitum when it involved motives and an unacknowledged Special whose stresses came from everywhere and everyone—not least the fact that she had Worked him under kat, grabbed hold of things which were profoundly important to him and tried, at least, to tie up the old threads—far as one could in a mind that had changed so much since Ari's notes; and considering the psychological difference of their reversed ages.

Very tangled. Very, very tangled.

"You've messed up work of mine," she said. "You've made me problems. I've got reason to be mad. And I supported you out there, dammit."

"Yes," he said. "Which I hoped you'd do."

"It's a damn mess." She swallowed down any assurances she could give of Jordan's safety. Or how she knew. Frustrating as it was to look like a fool, better that than be one. "Dammit, you've put me at odds with Giraud. I don't see why I should have to handle problems you've made me because you could betray my interests and trust I'd forgive you. That's a hell of a thing."

"I didn't have a choice."

"You damn well did! You could have told me."

He shook his head, slowly.

"You're really pushing me, Justin. You're damn well pushing me."

"I didn't have a choice."

"And now I've got to cooperate and keep Giraud's hands off you or he'll blow your whole little scheme, is that it?"

"Something like. What else can I say? I hope you will. I
hope
you will; and I don't hope for too much in my life."

"Thanks."

He nodded, once, ironically.

"So you get off cheap," she said. "You get everything you want and you don't even have to go to bed with me."

"Ari, I didn't mean that."

"I know. Not fair."

There was a deep-link in his sets—to Ari. And she knew that. Knew that it was active, in this place, at this time.

That it was double-hooked. He hoped to snare her into it—to irritate Giraud. He was still maneuvering: she knew where it was going.

But there were deeper hooks than he knew.

"You want me to?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said. Then: "No. Not like it was pay for something. There's a security wall down the hall. There's a guest accommodation on the other side. You go there. Florian will get you through. I'll call Grant to come up. Florian and Catlin will supervise Housekeeping, shutting down your apartment, packing up what you'll need. If they leave anything out, you can go back with them to get it."