"How was the trip?"
"Oh, the ground part was fine, Jordan and Pauleverything's all right with them, I really enjoyed the time; just talk, reallya lot of talk" Doors opened behind them, and Grant's attention shifted instantly, a glance back, a loss of his thought. "I"
The doors ahead opened automatically, one set and the others, onto the portico where the bus waited.
"Are we all right?" Grant asked.
"Ari's being sure we are," Justin said, keeping a hand on Grant's back, cautioning him against stopping. Florian put the luggage right up onto the bus deck and got up after, giving a sharp instruction to the driver to start up as Grant stepped up onto the deck and Justin followed him on the steps.
"We've ten more passengers," the driver objected.
"I've a priority," Florian said. "Get aboard, ser."
Justin crowded a step higher as Grant edged his way past, as Florian shut the door himself.
The driver started the motor and threw them into motion.
"You can come back down after the others," Florian said, standing by the driver as Grant sat down on the first bench and Justin sat down beside him.
"What are we doing?" Grant asked quietly, reasonably.
"We're quite all right," Justin said, and took Grant's wrist and pressed it, twice, with his fingers where the pulse was. Confirmation. He felt Grant relax a little then.
Florian came back and sat down across from them. "Catlin will hold the elevator for us," Florian said. "House Security at the doors will be just a little confused when the bus comes without the rest of the passengers. There's nothing really wrong. They'll probably move to ask the driver what's going on, and we just walk right on throughabsolutely nothing wrong with what we're doing, ser, only we just don't need a jurisdictional dispute or an argument over seniority. If we're stopped, absolutely there's no problem, don't worry, don't be nervous, we can move very smoothly through it if you'll just let me do the talking and be ready to take my cues. Ideally we'll walk straight to the doors, through, down to the elevator-Catlin and I have double-teamed senior Security many a time."
"That'll take us up to Wing One residencies," Grant said quietly.
"That's where we're going," Justin said. "There's a little boundary dispute going on. Ari's coordinating this through the House systems so we don't end up with Giraud."
"Fervently to be wished," Grant said with a shaky little sigh, and Justin patted him on the knee.
"Terrible homecoming. I'm awfully sorry."
"It's all right," Grant murmured, as undone as Justin had seen him in many a year. Justin took hold of his hand and squeezed it tight and Grant just slumped back against the seat with a sigh, while the bus started the upward pitch of the hill.
Florian was listening to something through the remote in his left ear. He frowned a little, then his brows lifted. "Ah." A sudden twinkle in the eyes, a grin. "Security was complaining about the bus leaving. House Security just reported it's a request from sera; ser Denys just came on the system to confirm sera's authority to take Grant into custody. We're going to go through quite easily."
"We are in some trouble," Grant said. "Aren't we?"
"Moderately," Justin said. "Did you have trouble at Planys?"
"None," Grant said. "Absolutely none."
"Good," he said, and, considering they were within earshot of the azi driver, did not try to answer the look Grant gave him.
The lift doors let them out in the large, barren expanse of Ari's outside hall, baggage and allwhich Catlin and Florian had appropriated, and Florian spoke quietly to empty air, advising Ari they were on the floor.
The apartment door opened for them, down the hall.
And Justin slipped his hand to Grant's arm as they walked. "We got into a bit of trouble," Justin said in the safety of Ari's private hall. "We have Giraud on our backs. They were going to plant something on you, almost certain. We've got a deal going with Ari."
"Whatdeal?"
He tightened his fingers, once, twice. "Take a probe. Just a handful of questions. It's all right, I swear to you."
"Same deal for you?" Grant asked. Worried. Terribly worried. Not: do you promise this is all right? But: Are you all right?
Justin turned Grant around and flung his arms about him, a brief, hard embrace. "It's all right, Grant. She's our kid, all right? No games, no trouble, she's just taking our side, that's what's going on."
Grant looked at him then, and nodded. "I haven't any secrets," Grant said. His voice was thin, a little hoarse. "Do you get to stay there?"
"No," he said. "Ari sayssays I make her nervous. But I'll be in the room outside. I'll be there all the while."
Justin flipped pages in the hardprint Florian had been thoughtful enough to provide himthe latest Science Bureau Reports, which he managed to lose himself in from time to time, but the physics was hard going and the genetics was Reseune's own Franz Kennart reporting on the design of zooplankton, and he had heard Franz on that before. While a biologist at Svetlansk had an article on the increasing die-off of native Cyteen ecosystems and the creation of dead-zones in which certain anaerobic bacteria were producing huge methane pockets in valleys near Svetlansk.
It was not, finally, enough to hold his attention. Even the pictures failed, and he merely read captions and isolated paragraphs in a complete hodgepodge of data-intake and stomach-wrenching anxiety, old, old condition in his lifereading reports while waiting for arrest, doing real-time life-and-death design-work while awaiting the latest whim of Administration on whether he could, in a given month, get word of his father's health.
He flipped pages, backward and forward, he absorbed himself a moment in the diagrams of Svetlansk geology and looked at the photos of dead platytheres. There seemed something sad in thatno matter that it made room for fields and green plants and pigs and goats and humans. The photo of a suited human providing scale, dwarfed by the decaying hulk of a giant that must have lived centuriesseemed as unfeeling as the photos from old Earth, the smiling hunters posing with piles of carcasses, of tiger skulls, and ivory.
For some reason tears rolled down his face, startling him, and his throat hurt. For a damn dead platythere. Because he was that strung, and he could not cry for Grant, Grant would look at him curiously and say: Flux does strange things, doesn't it?
He wiped his eyes, turned the page and turned the page again until he was calm; and finally, when he had found nothing powerful enough to engage his attention, thought: O God, how long can a few questions take?
The first Ari did Grant's designs. She's got access to those. She's got the whole manual. The same as Giraud.
Giraud left him a z-case.
Has he gone out on her?
They'd call me. Surely they'd call me.
He laid the magazine on the table in front of him and leaned his elbows on his knees, ground the heels of his hands into his eyes and clasped his hands on the back of his neck, pulling against a growing ache.
Suppose that Jordan did plant something deep in himGrant could do that, could take it in, partition it
Jordan wouldn't do that. God, surely, no.
The door opened, in the hall; he looked up, hearing Ari's voice, hearing her light footsteps.
She came out into the front room, not distressed-looking. Tired.
"He's sleeping," she said. "No trouble." She walked over to the couch where he was sitting and said: "He's absolutely clean. Nothing happened. He's asleep. He was upsetof course he had reason. He was worried about you. I won't stop you from waking him. But I've told him he's safe, that he's comfortable. I'll give the tape to Giraud; I have to. Giraud's got a real kink in his mindsets on what he calls your influence. And you know what he'd think if I didn't."