Cherryh, C J - Alliance-Union 08 (94 page)

It made uncle Denys nervous as hell when he got reports about her riding all-out.

Today she had Florian by her on Filly Two, both horses fretting at the bits and wanting to go. "Race you," she said, and aimed the Filly at the end of the field, to the kind of stop that had once sent her most of the way off, hanging on the Filly's neck—she had sworn she would
kill
Andy and Florian if they told; and she was very glad no one had had a camera around.

All the way there with both horses running nearly neck and neck; and it would have taken somebody on the ground to see who was first. Florian could try to be diplomatic. But the fillies had different ideas.

"Easier back," Florian said. The horses were breathing hard, and dancing around and feeling good. But
he
worried when they ran like that.

"Hell," she said. For a moment she was free as the wind and nothing could touch her.

But racing was not why they were out here, or down in AG, or why Catlin had special orders up in the House.

Not why Catlin was walking out of the barn now—a distant bit of black; with company.

"Come on," she said to Florian, and she let the Filly pick her pace, which was still a good clip, and with ears up and then back again as the Filly saw people down there too, and tried to figure it out in her own worried way.

Justin stood still beside Catlin's black, slim impassivity, waiting while the horses brought Ari and Florian back—big animals, coming fast—but he figured if there were danger of being run down Catlin would not be standing there with her arms folded, and he thought—he was sure . . . that it was Ari's choice to scare him if she could.

So he stood his ground while the horses ran up on them. They stopped in time. And Ari slid down and Florian did.

She gave Florian her horse to lead away. She had on a white blouse, her hair was pinned up in Emory's way; but coming loose all around her face. The smell of the barn, the animals, leather and earth—brought back childhood.

Brought back the days that he and Grant had been free to come down here—

A long time ago.

"Justin," Ari said. "I wanted to talk to you."

"I thought you would," he said.

She was breathing hard. But anyone would, who had come in like that. Catlin had called his office, said come to the doors; he had left Grant at work, over Grant's objections. No, he had said; just—no. And gotten his jacket and walked down, expecting—God knew—Ari, there.

Catlin had brought him down here, instead, and no one interfered with that. But no one likely interfered much with anything Ari did these days. "Let's go sit down," Ari said now. "Do you mind?"

"All right," he said; and followed her over to the corner where the fence met the barn. Azi handlers took the horses inside; and Ari sat down on the bottom rail of the metal fence, leaving him the plastic shipping cans that were clustered there, while Catlin and Florian stood a little behind him and out of his line of sight. Intentionally, he thought, a quiet, present threat.

"I don't blame you for anything," she said, hands between her knees, looking at him with no coldness, no resentment. "I feel a little funny—like I should have put
something
together, that there was something in the past—but I thought—I thought maybe you'd gotten crosswise of Administration. The family black sheep. Or something. But that's all history. I know nothing is your fault. I asked you to come here—to ask you what you think about
me."
It was a civilized, sensible question. It was the nightmare finally happening, turning out to be just a quiet question from a pretty young girl under a sunny sky. But his hands would shake if he was not sitting as he was, arms folded. "What I think about you. I think about the little girl at the New Year's party. About the damn guppies. I think about a sweet kid, Ari. That's all. I've had nightmares about your finding out.
I
didn't want what happened. I didn't want fifteen years of walking around the truth. But they couldn't tell you. And they were afraid I would. That I would—feel some resentment toward you. I don't. None."

Her face was so much Ari's. The lines and planes were beginning to be there. But the eyes were a young woman's eyes, worried—that rare little expression he had seen first that day in his office—over a jar of suffocated baby guppies.
I guess they were just in there too long.

"Your father's at Planys," she said. "They say you visit him." He nodded. A lump got into his throat. God. He was not going to break down and go maudlin in front of a fifteen-year-old. "You miss him."

Second nod. She could feel her way to all the buttons. She
was
Emory. She had proved it in Novgorod, and the whole damn government had rocked on its pinnings.

"Are you mad at me about it?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"Aren't you going to talk to me?"

Damn.
Pull it together, fool!

"Are you mad at my uncles?"

He shook his head again. There was
nothing
safe to say. Nothing safe to do. She was the one who needed to know. He knew everything. And if there was a way out for Jordan it was going to be in her administration—someday. If there was any hope at all.

She was silent a long time. Just waiting for him. Knowing, surely, that he was fracturing. Himself, who was thirty-four years old; and not doing well at all.

He leaned forward, elbows on knees, studied the dust between his feet, then looked up at her.

No knowledge at all of what the first Ari had done to him. Denys swore to that. And swore what he would do if he opened his mouth about it.

I won't,
he had said to Denys.
God, do you think I want her into that tape?

She hasn't got it,
Denys had assured him.
And won't get it.

Yet—had been his thought.

There was nothing but worry in the look Ari gave him.

"It's not easy," he said, "to be under suspicion—all the time. That's the way I live, Ari. And I never did anything. I was seventeen when it happened."

"I know that," she said. "I'll talk to Denys. I'll make it so you can go visit when you like,"

It was everything he had hoped for. "Right now—" he said, "there's too much going on in the world. The mess in Novgorod. The same reason they have you flying with an escort. There's a military base right next to Planys. The airport is in between the two. Your uncle Denys is worried they might try to grab my father; or me. I'm grounded until things settle down. I can't even talk to him on the phone. —And Grant's never even gotten to go. Grant—was like his second son."

"Damn," she said, "I'm sorry. But you
will
get to see him. Grant, too. I'll do everything I can."

"I'd be grateful."

"Justin, —does your father hate me?"

"No. Absolutely not."

"What does he say about me?"

"We stay off that subject," he said. "You understand—every call I make to him, every second I spend with him—there's always somebody listening. Talking about you—could land me back in Detention."

She looked at him a long time. Shock, no. But they had not told her that, maybe. There was a mix of expressions on her face he could not sort out.

"Your father's a Special," she said. "Yanni says you ought to be."

"Yanni says. I doubt it. And they're not even going to allow the question—because they can't touch my father—legally—so they don't want
me
unreachable. You understand."

That was another answer that bothered her. Another moment of silence.

"Someday," he said, "when things are quieter, someday when you're running Reseune—I hope you'll take another look at my father's case. You could do something to help him. I don't think anyone else ever will. Just—ask him—the things you've asked me."
But, O God, the truth . . . about that tape; about Art; the shock of that—no knowing what that will do to her.

She's
not
like her predecessor. She's a decent kid.

That tape's as much a rape of her—as me.

God, God, when's
she
going to get the thing? Two more years?

When she's seventeen?

"Maybe I will," she said. "—Justin,
why
did he do it?"

He shook his head, violently. "Nobody knows. Nobody really knows. Temper. God knows they didn't get along."

"You're his replicate."

He lost his breath a moment. And got caught looking her straight in the eyes.

"You don't have a temper like that," she said. "Do you?"

"I'm not like you," he said. "I'm just his twin. Physical resemblance, that's all."

"Did he fight with a lot of people?"

He tried to think what to say; and came up with: "No. But he and Ari had a lot of professional disagreements. Things that mattered to them. Personalities, mostly."

"Yanni says you're awfully good."

He wobbled badly on that shift of ground and knew she had seen the relief. "Yanni's very kind."

"Yanni's a bitch," she laughed. "But I like him. —He says you work deep-set stuff."

He nodded. "Experimental." He was glad to talk about his work. Anything but the subject they had been on.

"He says your designs are really good. But the computers keep spitting out Field Too Large."

"They've done some other tests."

"I'd like you to teach me," she said.

"Ari, that's kind of you, but I don't think your uncle Denys would like that. I
don't
think they want me around you. I don't think that's ever going to change."

"I want you to teach me," she said, "what you're doing."

He found no quick answer then. And she waited without saying a thing.

"Ari, that's
my
work. You know there is a little personal vanity involved here—" Truth, he was disturbed; cornered; and the child was innocent in it, he thought, completely. "Ari, I've had little enough I've really done in my hie; I'd at least like to do the first write-up on it, before it gets sucked up into someone else's work. If it's worth anything. You know there
is
such a thing as professional jealousy. And you'll do so much in your life. Leave me my little corner."

She looked put off by that. A line appeared between her brows. "I wouldn't steal from you."

He made it light, a little laugh, grim as it was. "You know what we're doing. Arguing like the first Ari and my father. Over the same damn thing. You're trying to be nice. I know that—"

"I'm not trying to be nice. I'm asking you."

"Look, Ari, —"

"I won't steal your stuff. I don't
care
who writes it up. I just want you to show me what you do and how you do it."

He sat back. It was a corner she backed him into, a damned, petulant child used to having her way in the world. "Ari, —"

"I
need
it, dammit!"

"You don't
get
everything you need in this world."

"You're saying I'd steal from you!"

"I'm not saying you'd steal. I'm saying I've got a few rights, Ari, few as they are in this place—maybe I want my name on it.
And
my father's. If just because it's the same last name."

That stopped her. She thought about it, staring at him.

"I can figure that," she said. "I
can fix
that. I promise you. I won't take anything you don't want me to.
I don't lie,
Justin. I don't tell lies. Not to my friends. Not in important things. I want to learn. I want you to teach me. Nobody in the House is going to keep me from having any teacher I want. And it's you."

"You know—if you get me in trouble, Ari, you know what it can do."

"You're not going to get in any trouble. I'm a wing supervisor. Even if I haven't got a wing to work in. So I can make my own, can't I? You. And Grant."

His heart went to long, painful beats. "I'd rather not be transferred."

She shook her head. "Not really
move.
I've got a Wing One office. It's just paper stuff. It just means my staff does your paperwork. —I'm sorry." When he said nothing in her pause: "I
did
it."

"Damn
it, Ari—"

"It's just paperwork.
And I
don't like having stuff I'm working on lying around your office. —I can change it back, if you like."

"I'd rather." He leaned his arms on his knees, looking her in the eye. "Ari, —I told you. I've got little enough in my life. I'd like to hang on to my independence. If you don't mind."

"They're bugging your apartment. You know that."

"I figured they might be."

"If you're in my wing, I can re-route the Security stuff so I get it, same as uncle Denys."

"I don't
want
it, Ari."

She gave him a worried, slightly hurt look. "Will you teach me?"

"All right," he said. Because there was no way out of it.

"You don't sound happy."

"I don't know, Ari."

She reached out and squeezed his hand. "Friends. All right? Friends?"

He squeezed hers. And tried to believe it.

"They'll probably arrest me when I get back to the House."

"No, they won't." She drew her hand back. "Come on. We'll all walk up together.
I've
got to get a shower before I go anywhere. But you can tell me what you're working on."

They parted company at the quadrangle. He walked on, heart racing as he walked toward the Wing One doors, where the guard always stood, where—quite likely, the guard was getting an advisement over the pocket-corn; or sending one and getting orders back.

He had seen enough of Security's inner rooms.

He walked through the door, looked at the guard eye to eye—offering no threat, trying without saying a thing to communicate that he was not going to be a problem: he had had enough in his life of being slammed face-about against walls.

"Good day, ser," the guard said, and his heart did a skip-beat. "Good day," he said, and walked on through the small foyer into the hall, all the way to the lift, all the time he was standing there expecting to get a sharp order from behind him, still expecting it all the way down the hall upstairs. But he got as far as his office, and Grant was there, unarrested, looking worried and frayed at the edges.