Regenesis

by C. J. Cherryh

  “I wouldn’t expect it to,” Spurlin said, and, as if the admission were physically painful, added: “Good. We’re happy We can back this.”

  If we’re elected, was the unspoken context. And Science was backing him as far as it dared. “Thank you, ser,” Yanni said.

  “I take it you’re going to call on Jacques, upstairs. Give him my regards. And Khalid.”

  There it was. The direct challenge.

  “I’ll of course send the proposal up to station,” Yanni said. “And of course present it to Councillor Jacques. But I’m very glad to have this particular discussion face to face.”

  Meaning Jacques was all but an afterthought, and the face to face he’d chosen had been with Spurlin, not Khalid. That had to please Spurlin.

  “Good luck in the vote,” Yanni said. He didn’t mention the name Emory. “Will of the people. Civilized understandings. We’ll hope to keep in touch, however things turn out.”

  There was a little flicker from Spurlin’s eyes, a little consideration of that point, in the long-term realities of Union politics, that Councillors could be challenged every two years, and narrowly rejected candidates often came back repeatedly—if not this time, then next. Yanni’s bet, personally, was on Spurlin—who, whatever his lack of combat experience, was the better politician. And the polls were running that way.

  “Pleasure,” Spurlin said.

  “Mutual,” Yanni said, and rose and shook hands.

  No trail of documents—no outside witnesses. There would be a vid record, to be sure—Defense was rife with bugs—but he now had to go upstairs and explain to Jacques, who would actually cast the vote, that there was an understanding, and thank you so much for your help getting this far. Jacques’ permanent retirement was a few months away, resignation from the military—given a sinecure of a corporate position. That had taken a little maneuvering, but Khalid would have beaten Jacques hands down, and no few people had moved to see Jacques step down fast and first, to make Spurlin look as attractive as possible.

  Subordinates would work out the details from this point on, and settle such things as a launch time for the military courier, bearing orders for Ollie Strassen, but not, of course, anticipating the formal vote in Council.

  Those orders, on a datastrip, he did leave with Spurlin, in a sealed envelope. The envelope, that old-fashioned precaution, wouldn’t in the least stop Spurlin’s people from getting into it, but it would occasion them just a little hesitation—a point of satisfaction, just to tweak their sensibilities—and they wouldn’t learn a damned thing once they did. What he’d told Ollie Strassen in that message, he’d told Ollie in plain words, because Ollie had his training, had gone CIT, and, canny old Reseune hand that Ollie was, from the inmost circles, he knew exactly what to make of the message:

  You’re getting a new wing and a director who’ll be under you. Keep it that way: she’ll have notions of her own, but you’re in charge. She’ll have a hell of a budget: a detached module, cleanroom and security lock, all on Reseune’s ticket, all strictest security. We’re reviving the Eversnow project, total security: she’ll run it. She’s all yours.

  He had his little pro forma meeting with Jacques, who was looking tired and overwhelmed these days, talking about his impending retirement and an apartment on Swigert Bay, and then Yanni ran the media gauntlet to the car, which delivered him and Frank back to the hotel in ample time for a little relaxation, a drink at the bar.

  And that lull offered a little opportunity for a side excursion. The hotel had a shop and the shop window, on his way to the tower lilt, had a certain trinket he wanted. He sent one of his staffers back down to buy it, gift-wrapped, and meanwhile Frank ordered supper catered to his suite…supper for two, with a choice of entrees, with a later supper for himself: this was pure business. Critical business.

  He had time for a shower, a change of clothes, nothing too informal, however. He was combing his hair—no haircut really improved it—when hotel personnel arrived, dogged by ReseuneSec, who’d have superintended the meal from the start, and Frank let them in.

  They wheeled a cart in, set up the small table with a politely low arrangement of flowers, and set a pair of wine bottles onto cooling cradles, with two more in reserve…not that they might crack a second one, but it was available, a choice of dry or not; and by the time they’d finished, Frank would deserve at least one survivor.

  Mikhail Corain of Citizens arrived on time at his door, with no aides, no entourage, and, hopefully, no reporters in train, unless someone had followed him up to the twentieth floor. It was a meeting that would have drawn attention—if reporters had been able to get past VIP security, or accurately figure which of fourteen high-profile guests Corain might be visiting. Corain was, besides Councillor for Citizens, the head of the Centrist Party, and he’d been in career-long opposition to Reseune. Certainly if he could have consigned the first Emory to hell, Mikhail Corain would have been happy to see her off. Relations with Giraud Nye had been better, but they hadn’t been warm. Relations with the second Emory? Guarded. Very guarded. It wasn’t good politics to attack a kid.

  Corain didn’t look at all comfortable in coming here. But Yanni put on his own best manners, pleasantly offered his hand, offered Corain a seat at the small dining table, while Frank politely and firmly stationed ReseuneSec personnel outside the door, not inside.

  Salad was local; the pork loin and the chicken were both Reseune’s, and the wines were from Pell. The after-dinner coffee would be an Earth import. The meal encompassed a significant half of human space.

  “So glad you were willing to come.” Yanni said. “Pell Sauvignon? Or Riesling?”

  “The Sauvignon,” Corain said, and Frank quietly prepared that bottle. “Frank,” Corain said, by way of greeting, and question. “Good evening, Frank.”

  “Good evening, ser.” Frank smiled at him, perfectly at ease in his unaccustomed role. “I’m doing the honors this evening. My discretion is impeccable. My service may not be, but I hope you’ll forgive my slips.”

  Corain nodded. Given his constituency, which compassed some of the Abolitionist types, he might be uneasy about the unegalitarian situation that surrounded the dinner, but thoughts passed through his eyes, one of which was surely that he’d rather Frank do what he was doing, and not have a leak of what they said here.

  Yanni reckoned so, at least, and lifted his glass. “Who’d have thought we’d sit at one well-stocked table? Here’s to…what shall we call it, ser?”

  “Common sense,” Corain shot back, quick on his mental feet, and glasses touched. They drank. “Did Patil agree?”

  “Agreed and signed this afternoon,” Yanni said, while Frank served the salad. “She’s on board. I’ve sent a message to Ollie Strassen, at Far-gone; I just finished a meeting with Spurlin, and he’s on board.”

  “Busy day you’ve had, ser.”

  “Very.”

  “So,” Corain said. “How is Reseune faring these days, without the Nyes? A lot more decision-making on your desk? Or do we perhaps represent someone else? I haven’t had that ever made clear, and I’d like to have, before the vote tomorrow.”

  Not a stupid man, Corain: sensing, correctly, that his own position, though he’d been in on the planning—not something Defense knew—now came down to the one vote that could and would stop the Eversnow project. His having the critical vote held advantages very much worth exploiting…judiciously, getting full value for the transaction.

  What Corain surmised was unfortunately quite true: Reseune under the Nyes, while powerful, hadn’t wielded the power it had under the first Ari; Reseune after the Nyes was perceived as yet another degree weakened. People believed, to a certain extent correctly, that the Schwartz administration was even more of a caretaker administration, but certain people saw that he was not averse to putting his own agenda forward, and hoped that it might represent a third force inside Reseune. It was a period in which concessions might be gotten, in which Reseune’s power might be trimmed a
bit, in which difficult agreements might be forced—conditions the first Ari, or the Nyes, would never have agreed to, and Yanni Schwartz might, to get what he wanted. That was the notion Corain seemed to have about him.

  But he had held these sessions with Patil, Spurlin, and now Corain, in a chosen order and for a very good reason. He was a psychmaster, as the popular term was, out of Reseune, and sensible people in Corain’s position, whatever their personal feelings, were open to a presentation of simple, career-affecting facts. He’d laid the foundation for this move. He’d gotten Corain interested before he went to Patil, he’d gotten Defense aboard, which Corain couldn’t do—and flatly told Jacques to resign and throw his support to Spurlin or see consequences to his reputation and his retirement income. Science was a key player, and Yanni played this one for all he was worth.

  “This is your chance,” Yanni said pleasantly, “to get something. By the time my successor gets hold of the project, which will be some few years yet, things will be underway, you’ll see the terraforming underway, and there’ll be nothing much worth remediating at Eversnow. We’ve extracted microbes from the deep probes—not highly varied, at four widely separated sites. That’s the total local life. We have the samples. So it’s my estimation that young Emory won’t try. She’ll go with what’s easiest, and she won’t do a thing to stop it.”

  “Seems she already does things. Huge expenditures. New building at Reseune. The new labs upriver. My informants say they’re both her projects.”

  “Keeps her busy,” Yanni said.

  “Pricey toys, ser.”

  “Useful in the long run. Reseune had a proven security problem. It won’t, hereafter.”

  “Security problem.” The breath of a laugh. Then total sobriety. “So you’ve just brought the first Ariane’s murderer back to Reseune. That just baffles hell out of me.”

  Oh, the man wanted to know about that.

  “Shouldn’t baffle you at all,” Yanni said. “He wasn’t guilty.”

  “You admit it?”

  “Jordan didn’t like Ari. But he wasn’t guilty of murder.”

  There was a small pause in Corain’s demolition of the salad. The fork went down.

  “And he agreed to detention,” Yanni said. “In his best interest.”

  “And you admit that,” Corain said. Frank took the nearly empty salad plate. And Yanni’s. Corain never looked down. Just sat, with a troubled look on his face. “Why did he agree?” Corain asked finally.

  “He had no choice. It was an assignment. For us? Expediency. The need to get Reseune going again. It was paralyzed. The Nyes were trying to get contracts honored, agreements handled… He’d broken no laws. But he’d violated Reseune policy.”

  “Do you know who did kill Emory?”

  “No,” Yanni said. “It’s not actually important, in modern context.”

  “Context! I don’t see it as a question of context. Maybe somebody should bring it up before the Judiciary and ask about your context, ser!”

  “Well, you and I can certainly do that, and settle a question of history, or we can proceed on a cooperative project that can benefit all of us.”

  “I still find it troubling.”

  “So far as I can do justice in the case, I’ve done it. Jordie Warrick is back at Reseune. Not my doing, since we’re being quite forthright here. Young Emory did it. The possible perpetrators are dead and out of reach, so, outside of correcting history, there’s no point.”

  “Correcting history has some value.”

  “Actually. I agree. More than that, Jordan’s a friend of mine and I personally assure you we’ll be engaged in that, once we’ve gathered some records that someone attempted to bury. I simply signal you that there’s more to the story and I don’t want to surprise you with any sudden revelations.”

  “That would be a welcome change.”

  “Among other things that may improve our working relationship—I want something to write down as an accomplishment for my own tenure, and righting that old wrong is one thing I intend to do. Improving relations with Citizens is another. Part of that is carrying out this Eversnow business. It was one of Ari’s last projects—and one she was willing to cede to terraforming. I agree with her, and I think you do, though I don’t think you’ll be making it a major point for your constituency’s consumption—we can’t make Cyteen a laboratory. That’s just out of the question, nowadays: too many complications, including the major city out that window—”

  Night had brought up the lights of Novgorod, other towers above the hard-roofed arcology that was the subway, the undergrounds, the deep digs, coffer-dammed against Swigert Bay and safe as a pioneering city could be in an atmosphere that could kill you, if you got much above the twentieth floor, outside the bubble. The handful of skyscrapers were precip stations, pillars of the sky, guardians of human survival.

  Corain’s look was involuntary, and snapped back with a deep frown. “We won’t ever settle that argument, I’m afraid.”

  “We may not. Say what you like for your voters. We’re here, however, to talk about a safe laboratory that we can both agree on. Eversnow can prove whether or not terraforming can ever be done anywhere, and produce an ecology we can live in. And it will prove in the affirmative, I’m firmly convinced. I think there is a place for that science. The effort will teach us things, for the benefit of my constituents. For yours, Eversnow will be that new Earth everybody dreams of.”

  “Off in the far dark,” Corain said. “At the end of the universe.”

  “For now. You know the charts.”

  “Expensive, godawful expensive, at a time when your successor is busy spending your budget in advance. This is going to cost tax dollars. The whole remediation budget. How is my constituency going to benefit in the near term? I really want to hear it in words.”

  “Immediate jobs, at Fargone, where the big construction will start.”

  “No azi there. None of this moving in your own personnel and calling it proprietary.”

  “No azi in construction except inside the labs: building of the module, all open to bids. Then there’ll be station construction at Eversnow, give or take a decade. More jobs, right down to the first off-hours snack bar, shopkeeper and supplier that pioneers it out there. Then more and more of them. Ultimately a new trade route for Fargone. A military base outflanking any possible Alliance expansion. Spurlin is aboard. Science is; you are; Information is; Trade will be. There are no losers in this project. Not even the local microbes, who are going to get an infusion of heat, light, and a chance to grow and adapt right along with our imports. We’re not going to wipe them out. We’re going to use them, bootstrapping our way up. But that gets into technicalities.”

  “Huh.” A grunt. The atmosphere had slowly eased. After a brief hiatus in the dinner, in which Frank hadn’t moved, Frank deftly offered the choice of main course, pouring more wine.

  “So,” Corain said, and ate a few bites of chicken. “This is good.”

  “Reseune farms,” Yanni said.

  “No political objections,” Corain said, and the mood lightened considerably.

  Until, over coffee, Corain said, “Patil’s in vogue with the Paxers—that’s going to create a stir when she takes a Reseune post.” Paxers wasn’t a word the head of the Centrist party liked to use in public. But Corain used it here. And then he added: “They’re already fairly stirred up, not knowing what to think of you in charge of Reseune. They were caught off-guard by Reseune’s recall of Jordan Warrick—they’d been for that. They’ll like the terraforming notion. They’ll see certain of your recent actions as unraveling the Nye era. But certain of the leaders are going to be sitting up at night wondering what you’re actually up to, and wondering what they ought to be up to, quite frankly. Are you unraveling the Nye era?”

  “Yes,” Yanni said. “In some ways, I am.”

  “Then why can’t you admit, publicly, that Warrick wasn’t guilty?”

  “I don’t think he was. I think I’ve go
t a timeline that proves it. We’re digging. But as I said, everyone who could have done it is dead, now, simple process of years.”

  “Process of the girl’s security, you mean.”

  “Nobody came to Denys Nye’s defense,” Yanni said. “ReseuneSec didn’t, more to the point.”

  “Meaning you didn’t stop her.”

  “Denys Nye’s best effort couldn’t stop her.” He really didn’t want to discuss his thought process during those hours. And he charitably didn’t mention that he damned well knew Corain had been getting Jordan’s version of affairs straight from Jordan Warrick, via a Planys tech with unspoken Centrist affiliations. That wasn’t the only leak at Planys. Defense had its own network. But he didn’t bring that up.

  “And you’re his friend?” Corain asked. “Don’t you want to see him exonerated?”

  Jordan had opposed the first Ari, opposed her philosophically—bitterly—and politically. Jordan wasn’t happy with the second one.

  “I don’t think,” Yanni said considerately, “that raising that question at this precise moment, with Eversnow at issue, can in any way benefit him or us. All it will do is stir up the Paxers at a time when we’d rather not have them stirred up—or gaining membership. Not to mention Rocher and the Abolitionists. Let me be completely honest with you: one strong theory I’m pursuing is that it was a directed killing by an azi. And that an azi can suddenly kill, in civilian circumstances, is not something we want bruited about. Nor, I hope, do you, ser. You know, on an intellectual level, that it is possible. Of course it’s possible. Frank, you’d kill to protect me, wouldn’t you?”

  “Absolutely.” Frank said pleasantly.

  Corain looked unsettled.

  “Downriver,” Corain said, “we tend to rely on civil institutions to protect us.”

  “Upriver,” Yanni said, “we occasionally find our isolation leaves us without other recourse. Not often. And Frank is a bodyguard. He doesn’t advertise the fact, but he is. The point is, it’s not going to happen without an expert intervention and some CIT’s involvement.”