Regenesis

by C. J. Cherryh

  Just wait, Ari had said, in discussing the matter. He’s not Justin. It’s the same geneset, but the first Ari changed Justin’s psychset. Jordan hated her for that.

  Jordan had hated the first Ari well before she’d taken Justin. That was true, too. Jordan had briefly been the first Ari’s working partner, sharing ideas, sharing power.

  Except, sera had said further, that neither of those two was of a nature to share anything. So the partnership had dissolved into a feud—more bitter on Jordan’s side than on Ari’s, in terms of overt anger, sera said; but not in terms of who had gotten in the first strike. The first Ari had converted Justin to her own design, appropriated Grant along with him.

  Jordan wanted Justin and Grant back—two assets their own Ari very much wanted for herself.

  That implied that there would inevitably be trouble in that quarter. And their Ari had chosen to live right beside Justin—kept him in her wing, all except his office staff, which he had clung to, and that was the reason Justin maintained his office over in Education.

  Well, as of now, sera’s wing had Justin’s office, too, and the staff was gone. Now there was no actual reason for Justin ever to leave her highly secure perimeter and cross Jordan’s path…unless Justin chose to do that, which would be many fewer opportunities, and ones they could watch.

  First on the list, they had to be sure Justin was comfortable in his new office, to keep him and sera happy.

  And they could expect that Jordan was going to be furious when he found out in the morning that that office was shut and empty—and it could be all his, for what they cared. They had even left a request for Hicks to officially allow Jordan possession of that office, with staff, if he asked, a request it was likely for several reasons might go through. They smoothed things over, not willing to provoke the man by their own action: sera might not approve that.

  Catlin keyed a screen up, saw Jordan and Paul standing in the living room of their apartment, Jordan with a drink in hand. There would be a record of that conversation. She could scan it visually faster than she could listen to it.

  “They’ve gotten to him,” was the only thing that truly leapt out of the current transcript. She took the reference as applying to Justin, and understood “they” to mean sera and her whole apparatus.

  It was true. There was also nothing Jordan could do about it.

  There was no reference to the card with the Novgorod number. Florian had set the card on the console and looked at the screen.

  “Patil,” he said. “Dr. Sandur Patil, University at Novgorod.”

  Catlin focused in on that. Sharply. “One of Yanni’s meetings in Novgorod-was with that person. Sera has a list. I have Patil’s CIT number. I asked System for a bio.”

  “Call it.”

  She located the file.

  Professor of Science, but under the Defense Bureau’s Secrecy Act. Lecturer in the Franklin Series, whatever that was. Expert in nanistics, and Catlin did know about that. It meant micro tags, stable and self-mutating nanostructures. It meant a whole class of contraband for customs, and it was a bioweapon, besides its commercial uses in medicine and manufacture, which she had never looked up, but she sent out a search.

  “Nanistics. I’m calling up references.”

  Florian copied her screen to his console.

  Nanistics, the information came back, was a course of study not banned from theoretical research or commercial use on Cyteen’s surface and on Cyteen Alpha Station, but all actual experimental work was done out at Beta Station, at the deep end of the solar system. There was a lab at Beta serving both Defense and Science. The science was used on Cyteen, in Reseune, mostly in medical or agricultural research, or in the manufacture of carefully selected exotics, particularly in replication of Earth or Pell goods.

  And a cross-search with Patil involved university offerings, lectures, Paxer and Abolitionist attendance. Nanistics and Patil had been a major part of the terraforming project, now canceled: the Preservation Act had excluded certain types of bionanistics from Cyteen surface. Bionanistics and Patil wound through the list.

  The inquiry rapidly developed side branches. A lot of them.

  Right now the words of interest were clearly nanistics, Patil, Planys, and Warrick, any two of those words in association, and that search had produced one other warning flag:

  More information is available from 1381 sources requiring higher base. 142382 sources are in Library behind gateway access. Proceed? Y/N…

  Base One, sera’s base, could cross that threshold. It warned when it was about to go somewhere securitied, and it didn’t leave footprints in System. But it would draw a lot of securitied information into their office, and that was worth a little hesitation.

  No, Catlin decided. But: “Interesting,” Catlin said. “Patil is someone Yanni was talking to. He told sera they were going to terraform a world called Eversnow, and it’s not public knowledge. He was talking to Dr. Patil.”

  And Florian asked: “How did Jordan know Yanni was meeting with her?”

  BOOK ONE Section 2 Chapter i

  APRIL 26, 2424

  0500H

  Giraud and his two companions grew fast this week.

  The organs were present—just barely starting to function inside the body cavity, largely visible through transparent skin. Fingers had discernable nails. The yolk sac had gone. Blood functioned to feed the cells.

  The babies were mostly head at this point, because brains—very high order brains—were developing fast. Nerves were growing out from the spine. Arms had wrists and elbows. Underdeveloped legs kicked, a function of those newly active nerves. Giraud and his two companions weighed only a quarter of an ounce apiece, but they had some distinction as human.

  They were becoming, was what. They were becoming what they could be.

  BOOK ONE Section 2 Chapter ii

  APRIL 26, 2424

  0744H

  Damn. Staff had been busy last night.

  Florian had taken direct action, the morning’s messages informed Ari while she dressed: Florian had gotten Justin and Grant out of range of Jordan’s machinations—well, that was good. She’d been trying to accomplish that for six weeks. There’d been the chance, the very real chance, that Jordan might resort to snatching one or the other—likely Grant—for a few hours of therapy. Her staff had been watching nonstop for just such a move. Now they could all relax a bit.

  But the next line of Florian’s report suggested otherwise.

  A contact number? Yanni’s Dr. Patil. Yanni’s transcript had included that interview. She’d initially ignored that part of the schedule as probably just one of Yanni’s frequent meetings with ranking scientists, and university professors were thick on his usual list. But Patil was clearly a significant name, and Ari did know the content of Yanni’s talk with her.

  And it wasn’t the first time she’d heard the name. Dr. Patil had had a set-to with Uncle Denys about a paper last year. Denys had gotten mad. He’d threatened to send Patil to Planys, except Yanni had talked him out of it.

  And Jordan handed Justin a card with that name on it?

  Damn! was her immediate reaction.

  Florian suggested Jordan might want to signal Yanni he knew something about Yanni’s business in Novgorod. Or maybe there was some connection with the fight Jordan and Yanni had had before Yanni left…which made a certain sense.

  Jordan wasn’t in official communication with anybody but Yanni, had no social contact but Justin, and he had no security clearance beyond Library, not all of that, and not even the most basic access to System.

  That posed a question.

  A possibly scary question.

  She keyed a message back to her security, whoever was at the desk: “Find out how Jordan got that card. Do anything that furthers that investigation.”

  Then she pushed back from the desk and got up.

  It was probably safest not to talk to Justin until the immediate irritation of the disarrangement had gone away—he was bound t
o be adrenaline-high, and that never improved communication, did it?

  Yanni, Florian’s message had said, was already notified—about the move, at least. Yanni wouldn’t object to whatever she did regarding Justin Warrick.

  But Yanni hadn’t heard about this Dr. Patil being linked to a mysterious card Jordan knew they were going to question.

  That was a matter worth telling Yanni, and getting his reaction. And since she’d officially read the transcript and it jibed with what she’d gotten from Base One, she could at least take that caution out of her thinking and ask some questions.

  If Jordan had found out that Yanni was talking to Patil, how had he known that? He didn’t get mail. He had no way to get a business card. Maybe Yanni himself had dropped information, making the move to rattle Jordan out of his cover. In that case she had better find out about it. And the worst thing she could do would be to start giving blind orders to put Florian and Catlin in the middle of it.

  She put on her sweater, searched her closet for a pair of pants, herself—she managed her own wardrobe lately.

  There was a leak somewhere. Maybe Yanni had arranged it, just to see where information flowed. She didn’t like to be caught by surprise.

  And she didn’t want Justin involved in any investigation of his father. He wasn’t involved in Jordan’s business: she’d stake everything on that. And did.

  But she still didn’t want to trip up anything Yanni was doing.

  Meanwhile Justin was probably mad as hell about being moved, and upset about the business with the card, and probably under-informed, over all. Justin without enough information was going to wonder about it, and wonder, and build his own hypotheses in private, and just stew for hours.

  Maybe it was better to send a simple friendly message to Justin, just a deliberately naive welcome-in. Justin wouldn’t believe she was innocent of ordering this disruption of his life.

  Or he might: this time he had Jordan to blame. She might be able to turn the frustration in that direction.

  She lapped her hair into three quarters of a braid and let it go—it would be hanging loose in ten minutes; but she put on makeup, at least, and took care about it.

  Grant had to be considerably relieved, this morning, to know they weren’t going to be working up close with Jordan daily, where it was oh, so easy for Jordan to get at him. Justin had to be relieved, at least, that Grant wasn’t involved. Justin would certainly focus his irritation on Jordan, unless she stepped in the line of fire and created an issue and a target. So any message she sent into that ferment of vexation had to be cautious.

  She sat down at the keyboard and tapped into the secure, local net. It wasn’t my order, she typed, which was the truth. But I think it’s a good idea. He can have the office all to himself. It was bugged anyway. —Ari.

  Justin might think that was funny.

  Or maybe he wouldn’t.

  She sighed.

  And typed a postscript: Justin, don’t be upset with me. Phone, if you have a problem with this.

  Not that she was going to back down from what Florian had done. It was only moving the schedule up, regarding the move to her wing for both residency and office space. Justin didn’t know that, but it was the truth.

  She went back to the console and keyed one more message. Yanni didn’t do it either.

  Then she put on her boots and went to gather up Florian and Catlin.

  Straight to Yanni’s office, over in Admin, before she did anything else, and she did that, with Florian—Catlin was busy with some research. By the time she got there it was 0840h, and Yanni’s foyer was already full of problems.

  She didn’t go through the foyer. She took the side entry, the one Yanni himself used, and Yanni’s secretary, Chloe, looked up in startlement.

  “Sera?”

  “Tell Yanni take a restroom break. I need to talk to him.”

  “Sera,” Chloe said respectfully, and pushed a button on the console. Chloe didn’t even talk to Yanni. Yanni came through the door fairly promptly.

  And stopped cold.

  “I need to talk,” Ari said. “Now.”

  So Yanni immediately opened the door behind Chloe, and went in. Florian walked in, to stand behind her, while she sat down at one end of the conference table—it was a big one—and Yanni did, at the other end.

  “A problem?” Yanni asked. “I had a report this morning—that there was some goings-on involving Justin. That you moved him out of the Education Wing altogether, fired his staff, and gave Jordan an office. Is this the sudden problem?”

  “Jordan is the problem. Jordan wants an office of his own.”

  “And you apparently gave him one.”

  “I did, ser,” Florian said, behind her. “It was done at my level.”

  “I stand by it,” Ari said, “if it doesn’t actually hurt anything. It didn’t seem to me it does.”

  Yanni remained as he was, just looking at her, and thinking—clearly thinking. “Jordan asked me for an office before I left. Evidently he thought he could get away with going around me.”

  “He didn’t ask me. He said he was going to move in on Justin. So Florian moved Justin to my wing.”

  “Except his staff, ser,” Florian said.

  “Are you going to talk at me from two different levels?” Yanni asked, looking from her, seated, to Florian, standing.

  “Sorry, ser,” Florian said.

  “If you want Jordan out of that office,” Ari said, “you can tell him that. Meanwhile Florian says he had no place to put Justin’s staff, but they’re good people and Florian promised they’d be taken care of. Admin should hire them.”

  Yanni was silent a moment. Then nodded. “All right. It can happen. I’ll make a note for Chloe.”

  “Good. Justin will feel a lot better about it.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he will. And Jordan’s got what he wanted…this week. Hell if that’ll content him for two days. Damn the man!”

  “That’s not all he did,” Ari said. “He dropped a business card into Justin’s pocket. Justin didn’t like it. He gave it to Florian. I have it in my apartment. It was from a Dr. Sandur Patil.”

  “Patil.”

  He didn’t say anything but that. Not after a long wait.

  So she said, “I brought Jordan here from Planys. It seemed a good idea at the time. I hoped he’d do better than this.”

  “He’s a damn maniac.”

  “I thought you were his friend.”

  “With Jordan? Being Jordan’s friend requires fireproof gloves.”

  “So did this Patil figure somehow with why you’re mad at him? I’ve read your transcript. I know who she is. Is Jordan somehow connected with this?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “So what does it mean?”

  “Let me drop another name,” Yanni said. “Thieu. Dr. Raymond Thieu.”

  It didn’t ring any bell. She was genuinely puzzled, and shook her head. “I don’t know him.”

  “Nanotech,” Yanni said. “Biologicals. Former head of the Planys remediation project.”

  So. There. Biological nanisms, living nanomachines, anathema on Cyteen, except under strictest conditions. Patil’s expertise. Beta Station was where they worked on that, where you had to have all sorts of clearance to get in, and where nothing could escape. Nanobiology applied in the remediation areas out in the Planys death zones, where Cyteen microbes met Terran ones. But when they loosed something into the biosphere they did it with great, great caution—not the wholesale dumping the terraforming plan had involved; not the extent of what they were likely to do at Eversnow.

  “So he’s no longer head of that program? Why?”

  “Retired. He’s lived at Planys since the War was at its height. He’s elderly, came from Beta labs, was head of Research in that discipline, taught at the University in Novgorod for two years, moved to Planys when the terraforming project got canceled, managed the remediation program there until he retired, five years ago. Distinguished career, bit of a pr
ick.”

  “He knows Jordan, I take it.”

  “They were socially acquainted at Planys. Understand, the Planys lab doesn’t have the facilities to have done anything of an anagenetic nature, not in the most esoteric sense.” That was the ten-cred word for terraforming, where there was already life. “Let’s just say terraforming has been a hot topic behind certain closed doors, including Denys’, including the military’s, and it’s been hot for months. ReseuneSec is currently taking the whole Planys lab apart, and using Jordan’s departure as a plausible excuse to look into every nook and cranny of Planys operations—which has made Thieu madder than hell. Thieu and Jordan socialized—only twenty-three primary researchers in the place, off and on, so everybody socializes, you can figure that. But Thieu has retained very close ties to the military at Planys and to the University in Novgorod. Terraforming Cyteen was going to be his big program. He spent decades laying out all the details for his project, right along with Patil—and Council vetoed it just before it launched, then shifted him out to Planys, threw him the sop of an applied project out there, because he was madder than hell and not keeping his mouth shut, frankly. When the nanolabs shifted their focus to remediation, it was mostly to maintain the careers of people who specialized in that field—Defense didn’t want to lose them: but it also gave us the chance to get Thieu away from the media.”

  “Because we stopped terraforming in its tracks,” she said, shaken out of any sort of complacency. “But the military kept the research going. And the crazier Centrists still want it applied here.”

  “We’re giving them Eversnow. But a lot of old business exists out there at Planys. Part of the black projects in the military wing we can’t get at, and we don’t like, are nanistics of a nature I don’t like. Officially the nanistics program slowed to a stop when he retired, no other personnel was brought in out there, and what remediation uses is very carefully regulated, but lately, with the Eversnow matter—it’s back, this time in Novgorod. There’s an inherent problem with research labs, you know. They contain knowledge you’d like to have just in case your enemies have it, but that you’d just as soon not have on the public market. And when people who know military things retire, they still know things and they have opinions—unless you want to mindwipe a Special, which wouldn’t attract too many people into the program.”