Cherryh, C J - Alliance-Union 08 (93 page)

"Well,
go to sleep."

Which was short, for people who loved her enough to stay awake after a day like this one, but she was still falling-over tired, and she did, just grabbed the pillow with her arm, tucked her head down and burrowed until she had a dark place.

Florian turned out the lights anyway; and she heard him cross the room and sit down on the other bed and start undressing.

She headed out again, then, a slow drift. Tomorrow morning was uncle Giraud's turn to testify. Then Secretary Lynch, of Science; Secretary Vinelli of Defense; Adm. Khalid—O God, Khalid, then her again, as soon as they got through. She hoped Giraud and Lynch did all right. But when Vinelli got up there, and Khalid, Giraud could cross-examine like everybody else.

Not saying, of course, that Khalid wouldn't go over uncle Giraud and Secretary Lynch the way he had headed at her.

It was going to be a long week.

Or two. We're going to win about the quarantine, Giraud had predicted at the outset. There's no way Union can do anything like move in on Gehenna without bringing in warships, and there's no way we're going to go to war with the Alliance to get access to Gehenna. What we can lose is what position Union takes about those people on Gehenna—whether they regard them as Union citizens and use that as a lever with the Alliance; or whether they negotiate a joint protectorate with the Alliance; and the hawks have a real stake in that: it's Khalid's political clout that's at issue here—

The Centrist and the Expansionist coalitions were exactly that: coalitions. The hawks were trying to pull something different together by breaking off bits of both,
that
was what had surfaced in Khalid's rise. They were too high-up in the government to call them eetee-fringes. They were
real,
the whole thing that Ari senior had been worried about had come true, the old Earth territorial craziness had found itself an issue and a time to surface—And here she was holding Ari senior's argument in both hands behind her back—
You know what it would do to Union if they found out what I've done,
Ari senior had said. So she couldn't tell them: she couldn't get the things about Sociology even Sociology didn't know they had done—for Ari senior. She couldn't tell Council about the deep-set work Ari had done, or the fact that Ari had been planning—and installing—imperatives in the azi work crews, in the military, in a whole lot of places—including the deep-sets of the Gehenna azi.

The thing was already going on. By design, thirty percent of the azi Ari senior had designed and turned out of Reseune, and thirty percent of all the azi everywhere who used Reseune tape, would have kids and teach them, all across Union. A certain number of those azi had gotten their CIT papers as early as 2384, on Fargone, then in other places. A lot of them were in Science, a whole lot were in Defense: the Defense azi couldn't get CIT papers till they retired—but they were mostly male and they could still have kids or bring tank-kids up. A lot would do that, because
that
was in the deep-sets. The rest of those azi were scattered out through the electorates, heavy in Industry and Citizens, just exactly where the Centrists were strongest—a mindset that was biased right in its deep-sets, toward Ari senior's way of things.

And even other psych people wouldn't likely see what she had done—unless they were onto it—or unless they were as good as Ari senior, simply because what she did was a very accepted kind of program, a very basic kind of azi mindset. She had
showed
Council, she had even told them the program—and they couldn't see what it did with all those military psychsets, because the connections were so wide and so abstract—except when a living azi mind integrated them and ran with them in the social matrix.

That was what had scared Ari senior so bad.

There were thousands and thousands by now: not a whole lot yet proportionate to all of Union, but the program was running, and those tapes were still turning out azi. Even out of Bucherlabs and Lifefarms, in the simpler, gentle types they trained—there were attitudes designed to mesh with the psychsets of Reseune azi in very special ways.

Look up the word
pogrom, Ari had said, in her notes to her.
And see why I am afraid for the azi if people find out too soon what I have done.

Or too late.

I don't know what I have done. But the Sociology computers in my time can't see beyond twenty of our generations. I do. I've tried to devise logarithmic systems—but I don't trust them. The holes in my thinking could be the holes in the paradigms. Field Too Large is what the damned thing spits back on my wide runs.

I'm becoming emotional about those words.

I'll tell you: if anyone threatens to access these files but you—there is a program that will move them and re-key them in such ways that they will look like a whole lot of different kinds of records
and
continually lie about file sizes and other data so that searchers will play hob finding them.

But for God's sake don't use it until they're breaking the door down: it's terribly dangerous. It has defensive aspects.

I will give you the keywords now to disorganize the System.

It has three parts.

First keyword: the year of your birth.

Second keyword: the year of mine.

Third keyword: annihilate.

Then it will ask you for a keyword to re-integrate Base One. Have one in mind and don't panic.

It was a little comfort, knowing that was in there. Knowing she could hide what was going on.

But
she
wouldn't have had just one answer in the computer, to protect something that important.

She didn't think Ari had.

She tossed over on her other side and burrowed again.

And finally she said: "Florian. . . ."

Ari stepped off the plane and into the safeway, and walked the long weary way to the terminal, to get her baggage. Just the briefcase and her carry-bag, that Florian and Catlin had.

Night-flight again, with the escort. Which was a news story unto itself, but all Giraud would say was 'precautions.'

And all the public got was: 'quarantine justified.'

There were people going to be filming here, too—Reseune Information gave a live feed to Cyteen Station, and the station distributed it everywhere. Ships were on their way, the whole of Cyteen commerce was moving again, and the world took a collective breath.

Not knowing all of it, but feeling things were steadier. They were. The markets were up on bargain-hunting and in some ways healthier, because there had been a lot of built-up war-scare that just burst like a bubble, Defense stocks were taking a beating, but diversifieds were doing fine, shipping stocks were soaring again, the futures market was shifting: the Cyteen market believed in peace again after a bad scare, and there was a lot of anti-hawk feeling coming to the surface in the Information polls, which encouraged the shyer voices to speak up and dragged the undecideds back to the peace camp.

After three bad weeks, you could say you wanted peace with the Alliance and sound like a responsible moderate—not a Universalist-eetee, who wanted all the human governments to build a capital in the Hinder Stars—never mind that Earth had over five thousand governments at last count; or a Pax agitator, the sort that had bombed a rush-hour subway car and killed thirty-two people last week in Novgorod.

The police were afraid there was some kind of a pipeline from the Rocher Abolitionists to the Paxers. They might have gotten the explosives from mine-camp pilferage or maybe just making the stuff: there were possible crime connections, everything from the illicit tape-trade to illegal drugs to the body trade, and a lot of the ones the police could get at were z-cases, just wipe-outs the real criminals used to do the work and take the hits.

The familiar walk from the plane to the safeway doors, the quiet, beige cord-carpet, the sight of Reseune Security guards
talking
with each other in more than coded monosyllables and moving easily, like there was more than a synapse-jump between a sudden noise and hosing-down the room—made her want to melt down on the spot and just sleep for a week, right there, right then, knowing she was safe.

But cameras met her at the exit into the terminal, Security reacted, the few reporters who had gotten passes shoved mikes at her and asked why Giraud had stayed—"He's still got some clean-up," she said. "Office things."

Some secret meetings, staff with staff, Secretary Lynch's staff with Chavez's staff, which was a pipeline from Corain, but that was, God knew, not for the reporters.

"Do you feel confidence in the decision?"

"I think people are going to do the right things now. I think I made them understand—everything's fine if they just treat those people all right—"

"The Gehennans, you mean."

"Yes, the Gehennans. The Science Bureau is going to advise the Alliance ambassador we need some real close communication—that's what's going on right now. But that's the Bureau and the Secretary; and Councillor Harad's office. I think everything's going to work out fine."

Time, well time, to calm the situation down: that was her job; and Giraud's; and Harad's.

"There's no truth to the rumor about a secret base on Gehenna."

She made a deliberate surprise-reaction. "Absolutely not. No. It's not about that at all. I
can
let something out: they're going to make an official statement tomorrow morning: there was some real illegal bacteriological stuff done there. It was our fault. It shouldn't have happened. And we don't need that stuff coming back."

The reporters got excited. They were supposed to. And it was absolutely true, it
was
one of the cautions, the one they could give out right away, and one of the most urgent ones. "What
sort
of bacteriological stuff?" they asked.

"Designed stuff. Viruses. It's not fatal to humans; the Gehennans tolerate it fine. But there are a lot of questions. They did some stuff back in the war that shouldn't have been done. I can't talk about more than that. Councillor Harad said I could say that; he's going to hold a news conference tomorrow morning. I'm sorry—I'm
awfully
tired, and they're signaling me come on—"

"One more question! Is the rumor accurate the Councillor is gome to propose talks with Alliance?"

"I can't talk about that." Thank God Catlin just grabbed her by the arm and Florian body-blocked and adult Security and uncle Denys' staff got there, Seely in plain-clothes, like always, and Amy and Maddy and Sam closing in—doing the Family-homecoming number—getting her
out
of there—

Getting her all the way to the bus, where she could hug Amy and Maddy and Sam for a whole different reason, for real, because Giraud had let her in on the secret, that a Family reception at the airport was the best way in the universe to get a wedge in on the reporters, get her out, and still give the cameramen the kind of human-interest endshot that left the right kind of feeling with everybody—
who
showed up to do the airport-rescue depended on the kind of impression they wanted to give out.

So uncle Denys sent her the youngers, no official stuff, no indication to the outside world what Reseune's
official
reaction was, no high administrators who could get caught for follow-up by the reporters—just a real happy group of kids slipping in with the Security people, real Family stuff. Damn, they carried it off smooth as Olders could have. And left the reporters to guess who they were and to focus on something just human, about Reseune, about the fact Reseune wasn't long-faced and worried and just ordinary kids showed up to welcome her home, after they had seen so much of Reseune Security and asked questions about the chase planes.

Fade-out on happy kids. People grabbed on to things like that real fast. "I want to sleep," she said.

"Bad news," Amy said. "They're waiting for you in the front hall." Amy patted her shoulder. "Everybody wants to see you. Just to say welcome back. You were great, Ari. You were really
great."

"Oh, God," she mumbled. And shut her eyes. She was so tired she was shivering all over. Her knees ached.

"What happened in the hearings?" Maddy asked.

"I can't say. Can't. But it was all right." Even her mouth had trouble working. The bus made the turn and started up the hill. She opened her eyes and remembered she had her hair against the seat back. She sat up and felt to see if it was mussed, and straightened it with her fingers. "Where's my comb?"

Because she was not going into the hall with her hair messed if people had come to see her.

Even if she was falling on her face.

Uncle Denys himself was at the door; she hugged him and kissed him on the cheek and said into his ear: "I'm so awful tired. Get me home."

But Florian had to go ahead to check the Minder before she could even have her bed.
Especially
now.

And she walked the hall through all the Family and the staff; and got hugs and flowers and kissed Dr. Edwards on the cheek and hugged Dr. Dietrich and even Dr. Peterson and Dr. Ivanov—him a long, long moment, because whatever else he had done, he had put her together right; and she had gotten mad at him, but she knew what he had done for her— "You and your damn shots," she said into his ear. "I held together fine in Novgorod."

He hugged her till her bones cracked and he patted her shoulder and said he was glad.

She got a little further. Then: "I've got to rest," she said finally to sera Carnath, Amy's mother, and sera Carnath scolded everybody and told them to let her through.

So they did; and she walked to the lift, went up and over to her hall, and her apartment, and her bed, clothes and all.

She woke up with somebody taking them off her, but that was Florian and Catlin, and that was all right. "Sleep with me," she said, and they got in, both of them, one warm lump, like little kids, right in the middle of the bed.

The Filly loved the open air—there was a pasture bare of everything, where the horses could get a long run—good solid ground, and safe enough if you kept the Filly's head up and never let her eat anything that grew in the fields. Sometimes the azi that worked the horses when Florian was busy used her and the Mare's daughter to exercise the Mare instead of using the walker; but when the Filly was out with her or Florian on her back she really put on her manners, ears up, everything in her just waiting for the chance to run, which was what the Filly loved best.