Cyteen: The Betrayal (40 page)

“I miss you too, son. I really do. They’re signing me I’ve got to close down now. Damn, there’s so much to say. Be good. Stay out of trouble.”

“You be good. We’re all right. I love you.”

The image broke up and went to snow. The vid cut itself off. He bit his lips and tried to look at Denys with dignity. The way Jordan would have. “Thanks,” he said.

Denys’ mouth made a little tremor of its own. “That’s all right. That went fine. You want a tape? I ran one.”

“Yes, ser, I would like it. For Grant.”

Denys ejected it from the desk recorder and gave it to him. And nodded to him. Emphatically. “I’ll tell you: they’re watching you very closely. It’s this Gehenna thing.”

“So they want a good grip on Jordan, is that it?”

“You understand very well. Yes. That’s exactly what they want. That’s exactly why Defense suddenly changed its mind about priorities. There’s even a chance-a chance, understand-you may get an escorted trip to Planys. But they’ll be watching you every time you breathe.”

That shook him. Perhaps it was meant to. “Is that in the works?”

“I’m talking with them about it. I shouldn’t tell you. But, God, son, don’t make any mistakes. Don’t do anything. You’ve done spectacularly well, since you-got your personal problem worked out. Your work’s quite, quite fine. You’re going to be taking on more responsible things-you know what I mean. More assignments. I want you and Grant to work together on some designs. Really, I want you to work into a staff position here. Both of you.”

“Why? So you’ve got something to take away?”

“Son,-” Denys gave a deep sigh and looked worried. “No. Precisely the opposite. I want you to be necessary here. Very necessary. They’re setting up the Fargone facility. And that’s a hell of a long way from Planys.”

A cold feeling crept about his heart, old and familiar.

“For God’s sake,” Denys said, “don’t give them a chance. That’s what I’m telling you. We’re not totally in control of what’s happening. Defense has gotten its’ hands on your father. It’s not going to let go. You understand, it’s Gehenna that got you what you’ve gotten this far: it’s Gehenna and the fallout from that, that’s made them think they have to give your father something to lose. But we haven’t released you to them. We’ve kept you very quiet. The fact that you were a minor protected you and Grant from some things: but without their noticing-you’ve gotten old enough to mess with. And the RESEUNESPACE facility at Fargone has a military wing, where you’d make a hell of a hostage.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Justin, -give me at least a little respite. Give me as much credit as I give you. And your father. I’m trying to warn you about a trap. Think about it, if nothing else. I truly don’t trust this sudden beneficence on the part of Defense. You’re right not to. And I’m trying to warn you of a possible problem. If you’re essential personnel we have a hold on you, and whatever you think, you’re a hell of a lot safer if we have that hold, now. Draw your own conclusions. You know damn well what an advantage it would be for them if they could have you under their hand out at Fargone and Jordan in their keeping at Planys That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Use that information any way you see fit. But I’ll give you what chance I can.”

He took the tape. He thought about it. “Yes, ser,” he said finally. Because Denys was right. Fargone was not where he wanted to be sent, not now, not any longer. No matter what Jordan might have wanted.

ix.

I thought this might handle some of your objections on MR-1959, Justin typed at the top of his explanation of the attachment to the EO-6823 work, —JW. And pulled the project files up and sent them over to Yanni Schwartz’s office.

With trepidations.

He was working again. Working overtime and very hard, and earnestly trying, because he saw where he had gotten to. He took the tapes. He assimilated things. He tried the kind of designs he had been working on in his spare time eight years ago and tried to explain to Yanni that they were only experimental alternates to the regular assignments.

Which for some reason made Yanni madder than hell.

But then, a lot of things did.

“Look,” Justin had said when Yanni blew up about the MR-1959 alternate, “Yanni, I’m doing this on my own time. I did the other thing. I just thought maybe you could give me a little help on this.”

“No damn way you can do a thing like this,” Yanni had said. “That’s all there is to it.”

“Explain.”

“You can’t link a skill tape into deep-sets. You’ll turn out rats on a treadmill. That’s what you’re doing.”

“Can we talk about this? Can we do this at lunch? I really want to talk about this, Yanni. I think I’ve got a way to avoid that. I think it’s in there.”

“I don’t see any reason to waste my time on it. I’m busy, son, I’m busy! Go ask Strassen if you can find her. If anybody can find her. Let her play instructor. For that matter, ask Peterson. He’s got patience. I don’t. Just do your job and turn in your work and don’t give me problems, for God’s sake, I don’t need any more problems!”

Peterson handled the beginners.

That was what Yanni meant.

He did not object with the fact that Denys Nye had urged him to take up his active studies. He did not object with the fact Ariane Emory had had time to look at his prototype designs. He swallowed it and told himself that Yanni always hit below the belt when he was bothered, Yanni was a psych designer, Yanni was right up there with the best they had, and Yanni working with an azi was patience itself; but Yanni arguing with a CIT cut loose with every gun he had, including the psych-tactics. Of course it stung. That was because Yanni was damned good and he was firing away at a psychological cripple who was trapped and frustrated at every turn.

So he got out of there with a quiet Yes, ser, I understand. And ached all night before he got his mental balance again, gathered up his shattered nerves, and decided: All right, that’s Yanni, isn’t it? He’s still the best I’ve got. I can wear him down. What can he do to me? What can words do?

A hell of a Jot, from a psychmaster, but living in Reseune and aiming to be what Yanni was, meant taking it and gathering himself up and going on.

“Don’t take him so seriously,” was Grant’s word on the fracas-Grant, who went totally business and very shielded when he was within ten feet of Yanni Schwartz, because Yanni scared him out of good sense.

“I don’t,” Justin said. “I won’t. He’s the only one who can teach me anything, except Jane Strassen and Giraud and Denys, and hell if I’ll go to the Nyes. Let’s don’t even think about hanging around Strassen.”

“No,” Grant said fervently. “I don’t think you’d better do that.”

Considering what else hung around Strassen’s office, to be sure.

He did not consciously set up war with Yanni. Only he hurt inside, he was unsure of himself, he tried to do his best work and Yanni wanted him to design with tabs so a surgeon could pull it out again, because, as Yanni had said on a quieter day, when pressed a second time to be specific on the MR-1959 problem: “You’re not that good, dammit, and a skill tape isn’t a master-tape. Quit putting feathers on a pig. Stay out of the deep-sets, or haven’t you got brains enough to see where that link’s going? I haven’t got time for this damn messing around.

You’re wasting your time and you’re wasting mine. You might be a damn fine designer if you got a handle on your own problems and quit fucking around with things they learned eighty years ago wouldn’t fucking work\ You haven’t invented the wheel, son, you’ve just gone down an old dead end.”

“Ari never said that,” he offered finally, which was like pulling his guts up. It came out in a half-breath and much too emotional.

“What did she say about it?”

“She just critiqued the design and said there were sociological ramifications I didn’t have-“

“Damn right.”

“She said she was going to think about it. Ari-was going to think about it. She didn’t say she could answer me right (hen. She didn’t say I should think about it. So I don’t think you can toss me off like that. I can show you the one I was working on, if that makes a difference.”

“Son, you’d better wake up to it, Ari was after one thing with you, and you damn well know what that was. Don’t go off on some damn mental tangent and fuck yourself up six, eight years later because you’re so damn sure you were better at seventeen than you are now. That’s crap. Recognize it. You got fucked up in several senses, it’s natural you want to try to pick up where you left off, but you’d do yourself a better service if you picked up where you are, son, and realized that it wasn’t your ideas that made Ari invite you into her office and spend all that time with you. All right?”

For a moment he could hardly get his breath. They were private, in Yanni’s office. No one could hear but them. But no one, no one, in all these years, had ever said to him as bluntly what Yanni said, not even Denys, not even Petros, and he got a light-flight flash that shoved enough adrenaline into his system that he reacted, he knew he was reacting: he wanted to be anywhere else but trapped in this, with a man he dared not hit-God, they would have him on the table inside the hour, then-

“Fuck you, Yanni, what are you trying to do to me?”

“I’m trying to help you.”

“Is that your best? Is that the way you deal with your patients? God help them.” He was close to breaking down. He clenched his jaw and held it. You know I’ve been in therapy, you unprincipled bastard. Get off me.

And Yanni took a long time about answering him, much more quietly. “I’m trying to tell you the truth, son. No one else is. Don’t corner him, Petros says. What do you want? Petros to put a fresh coat of plaster on it? He can’t lay a hand on you. Denys won’t let him do an intervention. And that’s what you fucking need, son, you need somebody to cut deep and grab hold of what’s eating at you and show it to you in the daylight, I don’t care how you hate it. I’m not your enemy. They’re all so damn scared how it’ll look if they bring you in for major psych. They don’t want that for fear it’ll leak and Jordan will blow. But I care about you, son, I care so damn much I’ll rip your guts out and give them to you on a plate, and trust the old adage doesn’t hold and that you can put yourself back together. Ari’s in the news right now and it’s not good; and there’s too damn much media attention hovering around the edges of our security. We can’t arrest you and haul you in for the treatment you need. You listen to me. You listen. Everybody else is saving their ass. And you’re bleeding, while Petros does half-hearted patches on a situation all of us can see. Denys tried to talk to you. You won’t cooperate. Thank God you are trying to wake up and get to work. If I did what I wanted, son, I’d have shot you full of juice before I had this little talk with you and maybe it’d sink in. But I want you to look real hard at what you’re doing. You’re trying to go back to where you were. You’re wasting time. I want you to accept what happened, figure the past is the past, and turn me in the kind of work you’re capable of. Fast work. You’re slow. You’re damned slow. You muddle along with checks and; rechecks like you’re scared shitless you’re going to fuck up, and you don’t need to do that. You’re not the final checker, you don’t have to work like you are, because I’m sure as hell not going to let you do that for a long while yet. So just relax, put the work out, and do the best you can on your own level. Not-” He made a careless flip at the pages. “Not this stuff.”

He sat there in silence a while. Bleeding, like Yanni said. And because he was stubborn, because there was only one thing he wanted, he said: “Prove to me I’m wrong. Do me a critique. Run it past Sociology. Show me what the second and third generation would do. Show me how it integrates. Or doesn’t.”

“Have you looked around you? Have you seen the kind of schedules we’ve been running? Where do you think I’ve got the time to mess with this? Where do you think I’m going to budget Sociology to solve a problem that’s been solved for eighty years?”

“I’m saying it’s solved here. I’m saying I’ve got it. You critique my designs, then. You want to tell me I’m crazy, show me where I’m wrong.”

“Dammit, I won’t help you wallow in the very thing that’s the matter with you!”

“I’m Jordan’s son. I was good enough-“

“Was, was, was, dammit! Stop looking at the past! Six years ago wasn’t worth shit, son!”

“Prove it to me. Prove it, Yanni, or admit you can’t.”

“Go to Peterson!”

“Peterson can’t prove anything to me. I’m better than he is. I started that way.”

“You arrogant little bastard! You’re not better than Peterson. Peterson pays his way around here. If you weren’t Jordan’s son, you’d be living in a one-bedroom efficiency with an allotment your work entitles you to, which won’t pay for your fancy tastes, son. Grant and you together don’t earn that place you’re living in.”

“What does my father’s work pay for, and what does he get? Send my designs to him. He’d find the time.”

Yanni took in a breath. Let it out again. “Damn. What do I do with you?”

“Whatever you want. Everyone else does. Fire me. You’re going to get these designs about once a week. And if you don’t answer me I’ll ask. Once a week. I want my education, Yanni. I’m due that. And you’re the instructor I want. Do whatever you like. Say whatever you like. I won’t give up.”

“Dammit-“

He stared at Yanni, not even putting it beyond Yanni to get up, come around the desk and hit him. “I’d ask Strassen,” he said, “but I don’t think they want me near her. And I don’t think she’s got the time. So that leaves you, Yanni. You can fire me or you can prove I’m wrong and teach me why. But do it with logic. Psyching me doesn’t do it.”

“I haven’t got the time!”

“No one does. So make it. It doesn’t take much, if you can see so clearly where I’m wrong. Two sentences are all I need. Tell me where it’ll impact the next generation.”

“Get the hell out of here.”

“Am I fired?”

“No,” Yanni snarled. Which was the friendliest thing staff had said to him in years.

So he did two tapes. One for Yanni. One the one he wished they would let him use. Because it taught him things. Because it let him see the whole set.