Cherryh, C J - Alliance-Union 08 (58 page)

"This is familiar, " he said lightly, to Grant; and suddenly the guards were pulling Grant off toward one of the side rooms and himself off down the hall, toward an interview room he remembered.

"Don't we get checked in?" he asked, fighting down the panic, walking with them on legs suddenly gone shaky. "I hate to complain, but you're violating procedures all the way through this. "

Neither of them spoke to him. They took him into the room, made him sit down in a hard chair facing the interview desk, and stayed there, grim and silent, behind him.

Someone else came in behind him. He turned his head and twisted to see who it was. Giraud.

"Thank God, " Justin said, half meaning it. "I'm glad to see somebody who knows the answers around here.
What
in hell's going on, do you mind?"

Giraud walked on to the desk and sat down on the corner of it. Positional intimidation. Moderate friendliness. "You tell me. "

"Look, Giraud, I'm not in any position to know a thing. I'm working in my office, these fellows come in and haul me over here, and I haven't even seen the checkin desk. What's going on here?"

"Where did you go for lunch?"

"I skipped lunch. We both did. We worked right through. Come on, Giraud, what does lunch have to do with anything?"

"Ari's missing. "

"What do you mean missing?" His heart started doubling its beats, hammering in his chest. "Like—late from lunch? Or
missing?"

"Maybe you know. Maybe you know all about it. Maybe you lured her outside. Maybe she just went with a friend. "

"God. No. "

"Something Jordan and you set up?"

"No. Absolutely not. My God, Giraud,
ask the guards at Planys,
there wasn't a time we weren't watched. Not a moment. "

"That they remember, no. "

It
had
reached to Jordan. He stared at Giraud, having trouble breathing.

"We're going over your apartment, " Giraud said calmly. "Never mind your rights, son, we're not being recorded. I'll tell you what we've found. Ari went out the kitchen door, all right. We found her clothes at the back of the pump station. "

"My God. " Justin shook his head. "No. I don't know anything. "

"That's a wide shore down there, " Giraud said. "Easy for someone to land and get in. Is that what happened? You get the girl out to a meeting, where you don't show up, but someone else does?"

"No. No. No such thing. She's probably playing a damn
prank,
Giraud, it's a damn kid escapade—didn't you ever dodge out of the House when you were a kid?"

"We're searching the shore. We've got patrols up. You understand, we're covering all the routes. "

"I wouldn't hurt that kid! I wouldn't do it, Giraud. "

Giraud stared at him, face flushed, with a terrible, terrible restraint. "You'll understand we're not going to take your word. "

"I understand that. Dammit, I want the kid found as much as you do. "

"I doubt that. "

"I'll consent. Giraud, I'll give you a consent, just for God's sake let Grant be with me. "

Giraud got up.

"Giraud, does it cost you anything? Let him be here. Is that so much?
Giraud, for God's sake, let him be here!"

Giraud left in silence. "Bring the other one, " Giraud told someone in the hall.

Justin leaned against the chair arm, broken out in cold sweat, not seeing the floor, seeing Ari's apartment, seeing it in flashes that wiped out here and now. Hearing the opening of doors, the shouts in distance, the echoes of footsteps coming his way. Grant, he hoped. He hoped to God it was Grant first, and not the tech with the hypo.

Olders passed them on the sidewalk and Ari kept on being azi, did just what Florian and Catlin did, made the little bow, and kept going.

They were not the only kids. There were youngers who bowed to them, solemn and earnest. And one group hardly more than babies following an Older leader in red, the youngers all in blue, all solemnly holding each other's hands.

"This is Blue, " Florian said as they walked along past the string of youngers. "Mostly youngers here. I was in that building right over there when I was a Five. "

They took the walk between the buildings, going farther and farther from the road that ran through the Town.

They had already seen Green Barracks, outside, because it would be hard to get out without questions, Catlin said; and they had seen the training field; and the Industry section, and they walked up and looked in the door of the thread mill; and the cloth mill; and the metal shop; and the flour mill.

The next sign on the walk was green, and then white in green. It was real easy to find a place in the town: she knew how to do it now. She knew the color sequence, and how the Town was laid out in sections, and how you could say, like they were now, red-to-white-to-brown-to-green, and you just remembered the string. That meant you went
to
red from where you were, and then you looked for red with a white square, and so on.

The next was a huge building, bigger than the mills, and they had come to the very end of the Town: fields were next, with fences that went all the way to the North Cliffs and the precip towers.

So they stood right at the edge, and looked out through the fences, where azi worked and weeded with the sniffer-pigs.

"Are there platytheres out there?" Ari asked. "Have you ever seen one?"

"I haven't, " Florian said. "But they're out there. " He pointed to where the cliffs touched the river. "That's where they come from. They've put concrete there. Deep. That stops them so far. "

She looked all along the fence to the river, and looked along the other way, toward the big barn. There were big animals there, in a pen, far away. "What are those?"

"Cows. They feed them there. Come on. I know something better. "

"Florian, " Catlin said. "That's risky. "

"What's risky?" Ari said.

Florian knew a side door to the barn. It was dark inside with light coming from open doors at the middle and down at the far end. The air was strange, almost good and not quite bad, like nothing she had ever smelled. The floor was dirt, and feed-bins, Florian called them, lined either wall. Then there were stalls. There was a goat in one.

Ari went to the rail and looked at it up close. She had seen goats and pigs up by the House, but never up close, because she was not supposed to go out on the grounds. It was white and brown. Its odd eyes looked at her, and she stared back with the strangest feeling it was thinking about her, it was alive and thinking, the way not even an AI could.

"Come on, " Catlin whispered. "Come on, they'll see us. "

She hurried with Catlin and Florian, ducked under a railing when Florian did, and followed him through a door and through a dark place and out another door into the daylight, blinking with the change.

There was a pen in front of them, and a big animal that jangled tape-memory, tapes of Earth, story-tapes of a long time ago.

"He's Horse, " Florian said, and stepped up and stood on the bottom rail.

So did she. She leaned her elbows on the top rail as Catlin stepped up beside her, and just stared with her heart thumping.

He snorted and threw his head, making his mane toss. That was what you called it. A mane. He had hooves, but not like the pigs and the goats. He had a white diamond on his forehead.

"Wait, " Florian said, and dived off the rail and went back in. He came back out with a bucket, and Horse's ears came up, Horse came right over and put his head over to the rail to eat out of the bucket.

Ari climbed a rail higher and put out her hand and stroked his fur. He smelled strong, and he felt dusty and very solid. Solid like Ollie. Solid and warm, like nothing in her life since Ollie.

"Has he got a saddle and a bridle?" she asked.

"What's that?" Florian asked.

"So you can ride him. "

Florian looked puzzled, while Horse battered away with his head in the bucket Florian was holding. "Ride him, sera?"

"Work him close to the corner. "

Florian did, so that Horse was very close to the rail. She climbed up to the last, and she put her leg out and just pushed off and landed on Horse's back.

Horse moved, real sudden, and she grabbed the mane to steer with. He felt—wonderful. Really strong, and warm.

And all of a sudden he gave a kind of a bounce and ducked his head and bounced again, really hard, so she flew off, up into the air and down again like she didn't weigh anything, the sky and the fence whirling until it was just ground.

Bang.

She was on her face, mostly. It hurt and it didn't hurt, like part of her was numb and all her bones were shaken up.

Then Catlin's voice: "Don't touch her! Careful!"

"I'm all right, " she said, tasting blood and dust, but it was hard to talk, her breath was mostly gone and her stomach hurt. She moved her leg and tried to get up on her arm, and then it really hurt.

"Look out, look out, sera, don't!" Florian's knee was right in her face, and that was good, because the pain took her breath and she fell right onto his leg instead of facedown in the dirt. "Catlin, get help! Get Andy! Fast!"

"I think I needed a saddle, " she said, thinking about it, trying not to snivel or to throw up, because she hurt all through her bones, worse than she had ever hurt, and her shoulder and her stomach were worst. There was still dust in her mouth. She thought her lip was cut. "Help me up, " she told Florian, because lying that way hurt her back.

"No, sera, please, don't move, your arm's broken. "

She tried to move on her own, to get a look at what a broken arm looked like. But she was hurting worse and worse, and she thought she would throw up if she tried.

"What did Horse do?" she asked Florian. She could not figure that.

"He just flipped his hind legs up and you flew off. I don't think he meant to, I really don't, he isn't mean. "

There were people running. She heard them, she tried to move and see them, but Florian was in the way until they were all around, azi voices, quiet and concerned, telling her the meds were coming, warning her not to move.

She wished she could get up. It was embarrassing to be lying in the dirt with everyone hovering over her and her not able to see them.

She figured Giraud was going to yell, all right; that part would work real well.

She just wished the meds would hurry.

Grant sat with his back braced against the padded wall, with a cramp in his folded legs gone all the way to pain under Justin's weight, but he was not about to move, not about to move even his hands, one on Justin's shoulder, one on Justin's forehead, that kept him stable and secure. No movement in the cell, no sound, while the drug slowly ebbed away.

Security would not leave them unattended. There were two guards in the soundproofed, glass-walled end of this recovery cell. Rules, they said, did not permit anyone but a physician with a detainee in recovery. But Giraud had not regarded any of the rules this far. He did whatever he wanted; and permission was easy for him, an afterthought.

Justin was awake, but he was still in that de-toxing limbo where the least sensation, the least sound magnified itself and echoed. Grant kept physical contact with him, talked to him now and again to reassure him. "Justin. It's Grant. I'm here. How are you doing?"

"All right. " Justin's eyes half-opened. "Are you clearer now?"

A little larger breath. "I'm doing all right. I'm still pretty open. "

"I've got you. Nothing's going on. I've been here all the time. "

"Good, " Justin murmured, and his eyes drifted shut again. Beyond that Grant did not attempt to go. Giraud had limited the questioning to the visit with Jordan and the possibility of Justin's involvement in Ari's disappearance. To reassure Justin there would be no more questions would be dangerous. There might be. To encourage him to talk, when they were likely being taped—was very dangerous, tranked as he was. Giraud had asked: "How do you feel about young Ari?" And Justin had said, with all his thresholds flat: "Sorry for her. " There was motion in the glass-walled booth. Grant looked up, saw Denys Nye in the room with the guards, saw them exchange words, saw the guards come and open the door into the recovery cell to let Denys in.

Grant gave Denys a hard look, locked his arms across Justin, and bent close to his ear: "Justin. Ser Denys is here, easy, I have you, I won't leave. "

Justin was aware. His eyes opened.

Denys walked very quietly for so large a man. He came close and stopped, leaning near, speaking very softly. "They've found Ari. She's all right. "

Justin's chest moved in a gasp after air. "Is that true?" he asked. "Grant, is he telling the truth?"

Grant glared at Denys, at a round, worried face, and gave up a little of his anger. "I think he may be. " He tightened his arms again so Justin could feel his presence.

"It's true, " Denys said and leaned closer, keeping his voice very, very quiet. "Justin, I'm terribly sorry. Truly I am. We'll make this up to you. " Justin's heart was hammering under his hand. "Easy, " Grant said, his own heart racing while he sorted Denys' words for content. And then because he had never felt so much unadulterated anger in his entire life. "How are you going to do that, ser?" he said to Denys softly, so softly. "The child is safe. What about the rest of Reseune's resources? You're
fools,
ser. You've risked a mind whose limits you don't even know, you've persecuted him all his life, and you treat him as if he were the perpetrator of every harm in Reseune—when he's never,
never, in
his entire life—done harm to any human being, when Yanni Schwartz could tell you they took him
off
real-time because he couldn't stand people suffering. Where's Reseune's vast expertise in psychology, when it can't tell that he isn't capable of harming
anyone,
not even the people who make his life
hell?"

"Grant, " Justin murmured, "Grant, —"

Denys' brow furrowed. "No, " he said in a hushed voice, "I know, I know, I'm sorry is too little, and far too late. Grant is quite right. You're going home now, you're going home. Please. Believe me. We did find Ari. She's in hospital, she had a fall, but everything's all right. She ran away on her own, disguised herself—it was a childish prank, absolutely nothing you had anything to do with, we know that. I won't stay here, I know I have no business here, but I felt I had to tell you Ari's all right. I believed you'd want to know that because you
don't
want any harm to her, and God knows you deserve some courtesy after this. I mean it. I'll make this up somehow, I promise that. I let too much go on for
security's
sake, and it's not going to go on happening. I promise that, too. " He put a hand on Grant's shoulder. "Grant, there's a group of meds coming here. They'll take him the tunnel route, over to your Residency, they'll take him home, if that's what he wants. Or he can rest here till he recovers. Whatever he wants. "