Contact Imminent (4 page)

John wadded his dispo napkin, tossed it atop his plate, then picked it up again. “I didn't realize you put that much stock in public information sources.”

“I don't when it comes to fact. But as a gauge of public mood, of what the PM wants people to think, they're hard to beat.” Jani watched him twist the corner of the napkin between his fingers until it shredded, then glanced at Val to find him staring down at his plate. “You know, I spent a few months of my life in a basement watching you two take turns not telling me things. This is Mealtime Ploy Number
Thirty-Seven—Studiously Disinterested in One Another.” She sat back and folded her arms. “What's going on?”

Val tapped his fork against his cup. “Could you spare us a few minutes?”

“Even if this mine incident hadn't occurred, we still would have arrived on your doorstep. We need to talk to you.” John's metal stare never left Jani's face. “Alone.”

Jani looked at Lucien, who continued to eat as though unaware of the insult, a skill learned through years in Family service. “I've asked Lucien to wangle a place on the mine inquiry team. If you know something that you think can help in that regard, we both need to hear it.”

John looked at Val, who held up his hands in a
Who knows?
gesture. “We're not sure if it does or not.” He glanced around the small, brightly lit kitchen, then pushed back his chair and stood. “Not in here. Someplace a little less closed in.” He circled around the table, plucked his jacket from the drawer pull on which he'd hung it, and headed out the door.

 

With Val and Lucien at her heels, Jani tracked John to the library. A shrine to paper, to information, the room was her favorite in the house, a two-story space topped by a skylight of shooter-proof scanglass and lined from floor to ceiling with filled shelves and storage niches. When alone, as she usually was, it served as her office, her dining room and lounge; when work claimed too much of her time, it served as her bedroom as well. As she followed John to the semicircular couch that served as the room's centerpiece, she harbored the selfish hope that he didn't intend to deliver bad news, since she knew it would affect her feelings toward the place, and make her feel as though she'd lost something dear.

“How secure is it in here?” John had put his jacket back on, and paced around the couch with his hands shoved in his pockets.

“How secure do you need it to be, Doctor?” Lucien stood with his back to a bookcase. His voice came sharp, the first
sign that John's animosity had started to grate. “I recognize the position Jani is in, as well as her penchant for privacy. I have adjusted matters accordingly.”

“That's what worries me.” John eyed the ceiling as though he expected a recording holosphere to float past at any moment.

“Before anyone says something I'll regret.” Jani walked to her desk, which was located near the french-windowed rear wall. She opened a touchlocked drawer and removed a flat metal case. Opening it, she picked through various discs and cylinders until she found the object she wanted, a brushed silver tube that chirped when she twisted it about the middle.

“This is the newest block out there. Covers a fifteen meter radius.” She placed the device in the center of the low table that stood in front of the couch, then fell into a nearby lounge chair. “What is said here will stay here.”

Lucien hurried over to the table, his eyes wide. “Where did you get that?” He leaned over the device as he spoke, and flinched as his voice fractured and wobbled.

Jani set about getting comfortable. She slipped off her boots, then tucked her legs beneath her and covered them with her coat. “A street vendor on South Wabash.”
By the name of Niall Pierce
. She looked from John to Val and back to John. “So?”

John walked to the couch and sat down, eyeing the block as though he didn't quite trust it to do its job. “Approximately two weeks ago I received a shipment of artwork from one of my colonial brokers.” He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and removed a metal case similar to Jani's. “My senior admin found this inside.” He flipped open the case and removed a cylinder of his own. It was shorter and thicker than the block, and flared on one end like a tiny trumpet. “He almost disposed of it, thinking it was a catalogue. I took it from him, to peruse at my leisure. I finally opened it last night.” He set the device on the table beside
the sound block, then touched a raised dot on its side and sat back.

Light flickered around the device's mouth, then burst forth toward the glass ceiling. An image formed.

A young man—no more than eighteen. Slim. Attractive in a gawky yearling way. Dark brown hair, clipped short. A green pullover that bagged at the neck.

Jani stood. The hologram consisted of the young man's head and torso only, but it displayed at such a height that she could look it in the face. She leaned close and studied the stark bones, the long neck. She looked to Val, who stood off to one side, gaze fixed on the floor. Then she leaned around the image to question John, but he sat on the edge of the couch with his head in his hands and didn't answer when she called.

She returned to the figure, her heart pounding. Green eyes. Humanish eyes. Like hers had been before she changed. Strange, though. Too monotone. Too dark and lifeless. As though someone had painted the irises with a single color.

She felt someone move beside her, and turned to find Lucien at her elbow.

“You don't realize what you're seeing, do you?” He looked to the image and shook his head.

“We had nothing to do with it. Val and I.” John's voice sounded far away. “I swear to you, Jani. You have to believe me. We didn't do this.”

“We didn't,” Val said. “You have our word.”

The young man raised his open right hand, palm facing out, lips moving as though he recited something. Jani tried to decipher what he said, but she couldn't—the image chopped in places and his mouthings weren't emphatic enough. So she concentrated instead on his spindly fingers, which were so long that at first glance she thought they contained extra joints.
Arachnodactyly—I know you well.
Jani raised her own right hand and placed it against the image of his, matching his spidery fingers with hers, length for length.
She studied his skin and found it gold, studied his wrist and found the bird-boniness she saw every time she dressed or bathed or checked her reflection in a mirror.

“He looks enough like you to be your brother.” Lucien looked from Jani to the image, his voice hushed. “He's a hybrid, too.”

The library had a bar. They all made use of it. Val took his usual gin over ice, and fixed a double shot of bourbon whiskey for John. Even Lucien, who generally avoided anything that could interfere with his self-control, opted for a shot of vodka.

Only Jani, on whom alcohol had ceased to have much effect, played the teetotaler. She made do with lemon tonic over ice, to which she added several slices of bitter orange as substitute for the ethanolic warmth and bite. “The most obvious question is,” she said as she returned to her seat and propped her stockinged feet up on the table, “are you sure this thing is real?”

“I talked to several people—CapNet technicians, an actress friend of mine.” Val dragged a wireframe chair beside Jani's and sat heavily. “Yes, these images can be faked rather readily. But even if this one was, why bother? Why make John and me think that someone out there has manufactured another hybrid if they in fact haven't?”

“Bait. To draw you out.” Lucien had taken a seat on the couch on the side opposite John. He rested his head back, drink in hand, and surveyed the view through the skylight. “Someone wants one or both of you to visit wherever this thing came from.”

Manufactured…thing
…Jani thought of filmed green eyes, and wondered at the clarity beneath. Thought of a youthful face, and wondered how old he'd been when the change took him.
Did you have a choice, whoever you are, or did you have it thrust upon you? Do you even exist, or are you simply a trick of light and technology?
“Where did the image come from, by the way?” She sensed that she knew the answer, but asked the question anyway. “Where is this particular colonial broker located?”

“I wondered when you'd ask that.” John had boosted his legs onto the couch and once more removed his jacket, but appeared more rumpled and tired than relaxed. “Amsun, the Outer Circle's most populous world. That's why Val and I would have come to see you regardless of other events. You're on your way to Elyas, another Outer Circle colony. You're acting for Tsecha in some diplomatic capacity. I wondered if there was any chance that your trip and our discovery could be related.”

Lucien kept his sights fixed on the skylight. “It's possible.”

Jani picked a slice of bitter orange from her drink and bit into it, savoring what to her hybrid palate tasted like pleasant astringency. Judging from John's wince, however, no humanish would have shared her opinion. “Tsecha hasn't been able to learn the whole story. All he's been able to piece together so far is that someone has challenged ná Feyó for dominance of the Elyan Haárin. Our feeling is that whoever the challenger is, they most likely don't possess Feyó's influence with the other Haárin or the colonial humanish. Given that, Feyó's loss could destabilize the region.”

“
Our
feeling?” John's brow arched. “Have you adopted the imperial ‘our' or are you speaking for Tsecha, too?”

“We speak with one voice. I am his suborn.” Jani paused to drink. As she did, she became aware of a quality of silence, a tension that evidenced itself whenever she referred to herself as Tsecha's underling.

This time, Val issued the objection. “I thought your official position was human-Haárin liaison.”

“It's hard to liase when one side isn't interested in participating.” Jani tried to keep her voice low and even, but over the past months she'd explained herself more times than she could recall, and the idomeni half of her had long ago lost what little patience it possessed. “First the meeting notices stopped. Then I had my ministry security clearances pulled, one by one. If I hadn't turned over my documents business to Steve Forrell and Angevin Wyle, all three of us would have gone broke.”

“You could have said something,” John muttered into his glass. “I have managed to put a little aside over the years.”

“Then you could have been criticized for involving Neoclona in an idomeni-owned business venture.”

“You're
not
idomeni!”

“I know that, and you know that, but no one else in this city is interested in the distinction anymore!” Jani hesitated as her heart skipped a beat and a reenergizing warmth pumped through her veins. Her idomeni temper, which took hold lately anytime her blood rose.
Slow down—this isn't the time
. She pulled in a deep breath, another, and waited for her throat to unclench so she could speak normally. “I don't know if you've noticed, John, but your association with me has been coming under some heavy scrutiny lately.”

“Is that all it is?” John's voice emerged softer as well, his gaze fixed on nothing. “An association?”

Lucien's head came up. “Could we please keep to the subject? We have an image of a hybrid that may or may not be real. If it isn't real, who faked it and why, and if it is real, how did that boy become a hybrid and who treated him?”

Time passed as the four of them practiced not looking at one another. Then Val raised his hand like an uncertain student in a difficult class.

“John and I have a guess as to who could have provided treatment.” He looked at Jani. “You aren't going to like it.”

“I don't like any of this so far. So it gets worse?” Jani met Val's bleary-eyed stare, and read his thoughts as though they were her own. “No. Not him.”

“I bet I know who you're thinking of, Doctor.” Lucien concentrated on the view above his head once again as he tilted his empty glass back and forth. “Eamon DeVries. The third man in the Neoclona triumvirate. He used to be my physician when I worked for Exterior Minister Ulanova. I think he's the one who augmented me, but I was never able to determine it for sure. He's been spending more and more time away from Earth these past few years. Some say he attends to Minister Ulanova when she's in residence at Exterior Main on Amsun, but I know for a fact that she's had another personal physician for the last two years because I ran the woman's security screening myself.”

Silence fell once more as everyone pondered Lucien's information. He'd been Anais Ulanova's lover for over ten years, from his early teens up to the previous year, when he met Jani—no one felt inclined to argue with him regarding his knowledge of the Exterior Minister's medical issues.

“So what's Eamon been up to if he hasn't been seeing to Anais?” Jani twisted a length of orange peel into a tight knot, then dropped it back in her glass. “Don't you two check up on him?”

“Of course we do.” John massaged his forehead. “We have a contract—call it division of labor—”

“We stay out of the gadget business, Eamon stays out of the gene business.” Val got up, glass in hand, and walked across the room to the bar. “We felt it would be better for all concerned if we each stuck to our specialties.” He saw to his own refill, then poured out a splash of bourbon and carried it over to John, all the while ignoring Lucien's empty glass.

Jani waited for Val to return to his seat. Waited for a frustrated Lucien to push to his feet and get more vodka for himself. Waited, all the while sensing John's eyes on her as she nursed the feeling that the past never died, but simply bided its time until it saw the chance to insert itself into the present. “There are people out there who felt you should have been imprisoned for the hybridization work you performed on me all those years ago. But if every person who broke the
law during the last idomeni civil war was sent to the Lunar shipyards, we wouldn't have anyone left to run the government. Or the NUVA-SCAN business conglomerates. Or the Service. So, after the Commonwealth reopened relations with the Shèrá worldskein, a few deals were made to calm troubled waters. People went away, or went into other lines of work. Was this contract Neoclona's deal? Did Eamon officially take the fall for all of you?”

John tossed back his drink in a single swallow. Val ran his finger along the edge of his glass and stared at the floor.

“Looks like he may have gotten a little of his own back, doesn't it?” Jani stared across the room at John, who eventually raised his eyes to meet hers. “Am I correct in assuming that you'd like me to look into this while I'm in the area?”

“No.” John swung his legs off the couch and sat up. “I want to accompany you.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees, looking as gangly as the figure in the image. “If Eamon is involved…his dispute is with me, not Val. Matters have accrued between us for years. Now's as good a time as any to sort them out once and for all.” He rubbed his chin. “And if he isn't involved, he may know who is. He always did have a nose for the nasty.”

Jani hoped she didn't look as uncomfortable as she felt.
Just me and John
. In the close confines of a ship.
For the next six weeks
. “I don't see how it can work,” she said too quickly. “It was hard enough getting the dispensation for me to travel on an Haárin craft, and you're not me.”

“We can always travel on a Neoclona ship. We do have one or two to spare.” John sat back slowly. “It does offer advantages. It's less official-looking—that should serve to keep the Commonwealth off both our backs. There would be more privacy for you—we have private slips at every dock between here and the Outer Circle, so you won't have to worry about being hounded by the press.”

Jani had to give John credit. His ability to sustain an attitude of studied innocence had improved over the years. “You've been thinking about this.”

“Not at all.” John glanced at her, and the light in his eyes flickered, the first crack in the façade. “Well, perhaps just a little.”

“It makes sense.” Lucien still stood at the bar. He had finished his vodka and moved on to fruit juice, a sign that recess was over and the time for clear-headed thinking had arrived. “Everyone will be so fixed on trying to figure out whether or not you've resumed your relationship, they'll forget about all the other possible reasons for your being together.”

Jani sensed John's surprise at an unexpected ally, Val's restlessness as he waited for what would come next. “The ones whose opinions count won't be so easily distracted.”

“They will be if Doctor Parini and I drop a few well-placed hints.” Lucien looked to Val, his smile brilliant. “I think we can come up with a story acceptable to all, can't we, Doctor?”

Jani stared at Lucien until she drew his attention away from Val. Then she raised her glass.
“Bravo!”
She savored Lucien's discomfort, the sight of his smile slowly fading. “You play the pimp for me and wedge Val into a corner, all in one masterstroke. John and I can't say no, because I need to get to Elyas, he needs to see to Eamon, and we both need to find out about this alleged hybrid. Meanwhile, you stay behind with Val and plan, and oh the planning you need to do. Hours and days and weeks worth, as all the while you work to wear him down.”

Lucien had been leaning against the bar. He drew up straighter now, his free hand clenching into a fist. “I'm sure I don't know what you mean.” His hand relaxed. “I'm merely suggesting a strategy for getting you off Earth with as little complication as possible.” Clench. Relax.

“That would make two of us with an in at Neoclona. You're tallying the ill-gotten gains already, aren't you?”

“I really don't know what you're talking—”

“Hah!
Liar!
”

“Jani?” John rose. He pocketed the imager and the sound block, then edged toward her in a sideways shuffle, as
though approaching an animal he didn't trust. “Did anyone in Service Medical examine you after you left the enclave?”

“No. Why?” Jani grew conscious of her pounding heart, the sing of blood in her veins. Her skin prickled, as though she sensed an approaching storm. “I feel fine.”

“I'll get the bags.” Val shot out of his seat and headed for the door, waving a dismissive hand at Lucien along the way.

Jani tried to bolt as John closed in, but his hand on her shoulder stopped her before she could rise from her seat.
“I'm all right.”

“Humor me,” John said, his grip like a trap.

 

“Follow the lights.” Val held a black cube the size of his head, dotted on one side with an array of pinpoint red illumins. “When I say ‘Now.'”

“Do I have to?” Jani sat atop the kitchen counter, pounding out a beat against the cabinet doors with her heels. “It's just my augie experiencing a storm surge. It's been happening off and on for the past month or so.” She gave the doors an extra hard kick—one jarred open under the impact, and she pushed it closed with a bang.

“Do what Val says, please.” John set up the sound block, then stepped off to the side, arms folded. “If your augmentation is still firing, we may need to bring you down.”

“Now,”
Val said.

Jani struggled to avoid looking at the lightbox Val held, even as she felt herself drawn to the flickering lights like an accident scene. “But I feel…” The first pattern splashed across the surface—she followed it like a cat tracking the flight of a bird. “I feel better than I have in months. My joints don't ache anymore. My back—” The patterns continued, irregular jumps and flutters, abrupt changes in speed and direction. “You know, those lights are really irritating.”

Val shut down the box and shook his head. “Whatever's going on, it has nothing to do with her augmentation. If it still fired, she'd have gone under by now.”

John walked to the table, on which Val had placed two
hefty carryalls. “You've felt this way for a month?” He scrabbled through one of the bags, and after a few moments' digging came up with a sensor stylus. “I wish you'd said something before now.” He approached Jani, gesturing for her to hold out her hand.

Jani held out her right hand, feeling a tremor of warmth as John enclosed it in his and pressed the vibrating end of the stylus against the tip of her index finger. “The anger comes in a rush, like a drug. Once it surfaces, it needs to discharge somewhere, I guess.” John released her—as always, she felt the pressure of his grasp long after the flesh had parted.