She did not use her Wing One office. She had said so. She had a minimal clerical staff there to handle her House system clerical work, and that was all.
But she was waiting there now. Her office. Ari senior's office. He walked through the doors with Grant, faced a black desk he remembered, where Florian satwith a young face, a grave concern as he got up and said: "Grant should wait here, ser. Sera wants to see you alone."
The coffee helped his nerves. He was grateful that Ari had made it for him, grateful for the chance to collect himself, in these surroundings, with Ari behind Ari senior's desknot a particularly grandiose office, not even so much as Yanni's. The walls were all bookcases and most of the books in them were manuals. Neat. That was the jarring, surreal difference. Ari's office had always had a little clutter about it and the desk was far too clean.
The face behind itdisturbing in its similarities and disturbing in its touch of worry.
Past and future.
"I got your message," Ari said. "I went to Denys. That didn't do any good. We had a fight. The next thing I did was call Ivanov. He didn't do any good. The next thing I could do, I could call Family council. And past that I can file an appeal with the Science Bureau and the Council in Novgorod. Which is real dangerouswith all the stuff going on."
He weighed the danger that would be, and knew the answer, the same as he had known it when he was lying on the table.
"There could be worse," he said. His arm had begun to ache miserably, all the way to the bone, and he felt sick at his stomach, so that he felt his hands likely to shake. It was hard to think at all.
But the Family council would stand with Denys and Giraud, even yet, he thought; and that might be dangerous, psychologically, to Ari's ability to wield authority in future, if she lost the first round.
An appeal to the Bureau opened up the whole Warrick case history. That was what Ari was saying. Opened the case up while people were bombing subways and using Jordan's name, while the Defense election was in doubt, and Ari was too young to handle some of the things that could fall out of that land of struggleinvolving her predecessor's murderer.
They might win if it got to Bureau levelsbut they might not. The risk was very large, while the gain wasminimal.
"No," he said. "It's not a matter of pills. It's one of the damn slow-dissolving gels, and they'd have the devil's own time getting the stuff cleared out."
"Damn! I should have come there. I should have called Council and stopped it"
"Done is done, that's all. They say what they're giving us is something new; no color fade, no brittle bones. That kind of thing. I would like to get the literature on it before I say a final yes or no about a protest over what they've done. If it's everything Dr. Wojkowski claimsit's not worth the trouble even that would cause. If it costs what they say it doesit's not a detriment; because I couldn't afford it. I only suspect it has other motivesbecause I can't afford it, and that means they can always withhold it."
Her face showed no shock. None. "They're not going to do that."
"I hope not."
"I got the tape," she said.
And sent his pulse jolting so hard he thought he was going to throw up. It was the pain, he thought. Coffee mingled with the taste of blood in his mouth, where they had taken their sample from the inside of his cheek. He was not doing well at all. He wanted to be home, in bed, with all his small sore spots; the arm was hurting so much now he was not sure he could hold the cup with that hand.
"She" Ari said, "she went through phasesbefore she diedthat she had a lot of problems. I know a lot of things now, a lot of things nobody wanted to tell me. I don't want that ever to happen. I've done the moveyou and Grant into my wing. Yanni says thank God. He says he's going to kill you for the bill at Changes."
He found it in him to laugh a little, even if it hurt.
"I told uncle Denys you were going on my budget and he was damn well going to increase it. And I had him about what he did to you, so he didn't argue; and I put your monthly up to ten with a full medical, and your apartment paid, for you and Grant both."
"My God, Ari."
"It's enough you can pay a staffer to do the little stuff, so you don't have to and Grant doesn't have to. It's a waste of your time. It's a lot better for Reseune to have you on researchand teaching me. Denys didn't say a thing. He just signed it. As far as I'm concerned, my whole wing is research. Grant doesn't have to do clinical stuff unless he wants to."
"He'll bedelighted with that."
Ari held up a forefinger. "I'm not through. I asked uncle Denys why you weren't doctor when you'd gotten where Yanni couldn't teach you anymore, and he said because they didn't want you listed with the Bureau, because of politics. I said that was lousy. Uncle Denyswhen he pushes you about as far as he thinks he can get away with, and you push back, you can get stuff out of him as long as you don't startle him. Anyway, he said if we got through the election in Defense, then they'd file the papers."
He stared at her, numb, just numb with the flux. "Is that all right, what I did?" she asked, suddenly looking concerned. Like a little kid asking may-I.
"It'squite fine. Thank you, Ari."
"You don't look like you feel good."
"I'm fine." He took a deep breath and set the cup down. "Just a lot of changes, Ari. And they took some pieces out of me."
She got up from behind the desk and came and carefully, gently hugged his shouldersthe sore one sent a jolt through to the bone. She kissed him very gently, very tenderly on the forehead. "Go home," she said. Her perfume was all around him.
But through the pain, he thought it quite remarkable her touch made not a twitchno flashback, nothing for the moment, though he knew he was not past them. Maybe he escaped it for the moment because it hurt so much, maybe because for a moment he was emotionally incapable of reacting to anything.
She left, and he heard her tell Florian he should walk with them and make sure they got home all right, and get them both to bed and take care of them till they felt better.
Which sounded, at the moment, like a good idea.
xii
B/1: Ari, this is Ari senior.
You've asked about Reseune administration.
My father set it up: James Carnath. He had, I'm told, a talent for organization. Certainly my mother Olga Emory had no interest in the day to day management of details.
Even the day to day management of her daughter, but that's a different file.
I mention that because I fit somewhere in between: I've always believed in a laissez-faire management, meaning that as long as I was running Reseune, I believed in knowing what was going on in the kitchens, occasionally, in the birth-labs, occasionally, in finance, always.
An administrator of a facility like Reseune has special moral obligations which come at the top of the list: a moral obligation to humankind, the azi, the public both local and general, the specific clients, and the staff, in approximately that order.
Policies regarding genetic or biological materials; or psychological techniques and therapies are the responsibility of the chief administrator, and decisions in those areas must never be delegated.
Emphatically, the administrator should seek advice from wing supervisors and department heads. All other decisions and day to day operations can be trusted to competent staff.