Now their jailers had the ultimate excuse, if they had ever needed one.
"I had no idea," he said to Grant, "I had no idea what she was working on, or where this was going."
"Ari is not entirely naive in this," Grant said. "If Gehenna is what she's working onand she wants to work on it with youshe knows that won't sit well in some circles; and that you'll understand right through to the heart of the designs and beyond. Ari is accustomed to having her way. More than that, Ari is convinced her way is all-important. Be careful of her. Be extremely careful."
"She knows something, something that's got to do with Gehenna, that hasn't gotten into public."
Grant looked at him long and hard. "Be careful," Grant said. "Justin, for God's sake, be careful."
"Dammit, I" The frustration in Grant's voice got to him, reached raw nerves, even past the whiskey. He set the glass down and rested his elbows on his knees, his hands on the back of his neck. "Oh, God." The tears came the way they had not in years. He squeezed his eyes shut, tried to dam them back, aware of painful silence in the room.
After a while he got up and added more whiskey to the ice-melt, and stood staring at the corner until he heard Grant get up and come over to the bar, and he looked and took Grant's glass and added ice and whiskey.
"Someday the situation will change," Grant said, took his glass and touched it to his, a light, fragile clink of glass on glass. "Keep your balance. There's no profit in anything else. The election count will be over by fall. The whole situation may change, not overnight, but change, all the same."
"Khalid could win."
"A meteor could strike us. Do we worry about such things? Finish that. Come to bed. All right?"
He shuddered, drank the rest off and shuddered again. He could not get drunk enough.
He slammed the glass down on the counter-top and pushed away from the bar, to do what Grant had said.
ii
Ari, Justin's voice had said on the Minder, be in my office in the morning.
So she came, was waiting for him when he got there, and he said, opening the doorhe had come alone this time, almost the only time: "Ari, I owe you an apology. A profound apology for yesterday." He had her report with him and he laid it down on his desk and riffled the pages. "You did this. Yourself. It was your idea."
"Yes," she said, anxious.
"It's remarkable. It's a really remarkable job. I don't say it's right, understand, but it's going to take me a little to get through it, not just because of the size. Have you shown this to your uncle?"
She shook her head. It was too hard to talk about coherently. She had not slept much. "No. I did it for you."
"I wasn't very gracious about it. Forgive me. I've been that route myself, with Yanni. I didn't mean to do that to you."
"I understand why you're upset," she said. "I do." Grant was likely to come in at any time and she wanted to get this out beforehand. "Justin, Grant took into me. He was right. But I am too. If Reseune is safe again you can travel. If it isn't, nothing will help, and this won't hurtin fact it makes you safer, because there's no way they can come at you or your father without coming at me, because your father's worked on your stuff, and that means he's working with you and you're working with me, and all he has to do, Justin, all he has to do, if he wants my helpis not do anything against me. I don't even care if he likes me. I just want to work things out so they're better. I thought about the danger in working with you, I did think, over and over againbut you're the one I need, because you work long-term and you work with the value-sets and that's what I'm interested in. I'm not a stupid little girl, Justin. I know what I want to work on and Yanni can't help me anymore. Nobody can. So I have to come to you. Uncle Denys knows it. He sayshe saysbe careful. But he also says you're honest. So am Ino!" As he opened his mouth. "Let me say this. I will not steal from you. You think about this. What if we put out a paper with your name and mine and your father's? Don't you think that would shake them up in the Bureau?"
He sat down. "That would have to get by Denys, Ari, and I don't think he'd approve it. I'm sure Giraud wouldn't."
"You know what I'd say to my uncles? I'd saysomeday I'll have to run Reseune. I'm trying to fix things. I don't want things to go the way they did. Let me try while I have your advice. Or let me try after I don't."
He scared her for a moment. His face got very still and very pale. Then Grant showed up, coming through the door, so he drew a large breath and paid attention to Grant instead. "Good morning. Coffee's not on. Yet."
"Hint," Grant said, and made a face and took the pot out for water. "Ari," Justin said then, "I wish you luck with your uncles. More than I've had. That's all I'll say. Someday you'll find me missing if you're not careful. I'll be down in Detention. Just so you know where. I'm rather well expecting it today. And I'm not sure you can prevent that, no matter how much power you think you have in the House. I hope I'm wrong. But I'll work with you. I'll do everything I can. I've got a few questions for you to start off with. Why did you install two variables?"
She opened her mouth. She wanted to talk about the other thing. But he didn't. He closed that off like a door going shut and threw her an important question. And Grant came back with the water. They were Working her, timing every thing. And he had said what he wanted to say.
"It's because one is an action and one is a substantive. Defend will drift and so will base. And there's going to be no enemy from offworld, just the possibility of one, if that gets passed down. And they're not going to have tape after the first few years: Gehenna didn't."
Justin nodded slowly. "You know that my father specializes in educational sets. That Gehenna has political consequences. You talk about my working with him. You know what you're doing, throwing this my way. You know what it could cost me. And him. If anything goes wrong, if anything blows upit comes down on us. Do you understand that?"
"It won't."
"It won't. Young sera, do you know how thin that sounds to me? For God's sake be wiser than that. Not smarter. Wiser. Hear me?"
God. Complications. Complications with Defense. With politics. With him. With everything.
"So," he said. "Now you do know. I just want you to be aware. Your idea about semantic drift and flux is quite goodbut a little simple, because there's going to be occupational diversity, which affects semantics, and so on"
Another shift of direction. Finn and definitive. "They stay agricultural."
He nodded. "Let's work through this, step by step. I'll give you my objections and you note them and give me your answers. ..."
She focused down tight, the way Florian and Catlin had taught her, mind on business, and tried to hold it, but it was not easy, she was not azi, and there was so much to him, there was so much complication with him, he was always so soft-spoken, Yanni's complete opposite. He could come off the flank and surprise her, and so few people could do that.
He could go from being mad to being kindso fast; and both things felt solid, both of them felt real.
She felt Grant's disapproval from across the room. There was nothing she could gain there: win Justin and eventually she won Grant, it was that simple. And she had made headway with Justin: she added it up in its various columns and thought that, overall, complicated as he was, he had given her a great deal.