He hesitated, Ari tugging at his arm, someone nudging him from behind.
"We're going to meet with Secretary Lynch," Ari said, "upstairs. Come on. We'll talk to the press later."
"Is your father innocent?" someone shouted at him out of the echoing chaos.
He looked at that reporter. He tried to think, in the time-stretch of nightmare, whether he even knew the answer or not, and then just ignored the question, going where Ari wanted him to go, to say whatever he had to say.
"You do this one alone," Ari told him when they reached the upstairs, turning him over to Bureau Enforcement. "I'll be getting the hearing on monitor, but nobody from Reseune will be there. The Bureau wants you not to feel pressured. All right?"
So he walked with blue-uniformed strangers still of Reseune's making, taught by Reseune's tapeswho brought him into a large conference room, and brought him to a table facing a triple half-ring of tables on a dais, where other strangers took their seats in a blurred murmur of conversation
Strangers except Secretary-now-Proxy for Science Lynch: Lynch he knew from newscasts. He settled into his chair, grateful to find at least one known quantity in the room, at the head of the committee, he supposed. There was a pitcher of water in front of him, and he filled a glass and drank, trying to soothe his stomach. Ari's staff had offered him food on the plane, but he had not been able to eat more than the chips and a bite of the sandwich; and he had had another soft drink after the whiskey. Now he felt light-headed and sick. Damn fool, he told himself in the dizzying buzz of people talking in a large room, quit sleepwalking. Wake up and focus, for God's sake, they'll think you're drugged.
But the flux kept on, every thought, every nuance of everything Jordan had last said to him; everything Ari had said that might be a clue to what was going on or whether the threat was threat or only show for Denys and Security.
Secretary Lynch came up to the table where he was sitting, and offered his hand. Justin stood up and took it, felt the kindness in the gesture, saw a face that had been only an image on vid take on a human concern for him; and that small encouragement hit him in the gut, he did not know why.
"Are you all right?" the Secretary-Proxy asked.
"A little nervous," he said; and felt Lynch's fingers close harder on his. A little pat on his arm. Giraud's career-long associate, he suddenly remembered that with a jolt close to nausea, and felt the whole room go distant, sounds echoing in his skull in time with the beating of his heart. Where does Ari stand with him? Is this choreographed?
"You're inside Bureau jurisdiction now," Lynch said. "No Reseune staff is here. Three Councillors are in the city: they've asked to audit the proceedings: Chairman Harad, Councillor Corain; Councillor Jacques. Is there any other witness you want? Or do you have any objection to anyone here? You understand you have a right to object to members of the inquiry."
"No, ser."
"Are you all right?" It was the second time Lynch had asked. Justin drew in a breath and disengaged his hand.
"Just a little" Light-headed. No. God, don't say that. He thought his face must be white. He felt the air-conditioning on sweat at his temples. "I was too nervous to eat. I don't suppose I could get a soft drink before we start. Maybe crackers or something."
Lynch looked a little nonplussed; and then patted his shoulder and called an aide.
Like a damned kid, he thought. Fifteen minutes, a pastry and a cup of coffee, that little time to catch his breath in an adjoining conference room, and he was better collectedwas able to walk back into the hearing room and have Secretary Lynch walk him over to Mikhail Corain and to Simon Jacques and Nasir Harad one after the other, faces he recognized in what still passed in a haze of overload, but a less shaky one: God, he was fluxed. He had had nightmares about publicity, lifelong, felt himself still on the verge of panicstill kept flashing on Securitythe cellthe Council hearings. . . .
Giraud's voice, saying things he could not remember, but which put a profound dread in him.
Wake up, dammit! No more time for thinking. Do!
"Dr. Warrick," Corain said, taking his hand. "A pleasure to meet you, finally."
"Thank you, ser."
When did that message actually come from my father? That was what he wanted to ask.
But he did not, not being a fool. Audit, Lynch had said: then the Councillors were not here to engage in questions.
"If you need anything," Corain said, "if you feel you need protectionyou understand you can ask for it."
"No, ser. But I appreciate your concern." This is a man who wants to use Jordan. And me. What am I worth to him? Where would his protection leave me?
Out of Reseune. And Grant inside.
Corain patted him on the arm. Simon Jacques offered his hand, introducing himself, a dark-haired, neutral kind of man with a firm grip and a tendency not to meet his eyes. "Councillor. . . . Chairman Harad." as he shook Harad's thin hand, meeting a gray stare appallingly cold and hostile. One of Reseune's friends.
"Dr. Warrick," Harad said. "I hope you can clear up some of the confusion in this. Thank you for agreeing to appear."
"Yes, ser," he said. Agreeing to appear. Who asked me? Who agreed in my name? How many things have gone out, in my name, and Jordan's?
"Dr. Warrick," Lynch said, taking his arm. "If we can get this underway"
He took his seat at the table; he answered questions: No, I have no way of knowing anything beyond my father's statements. He never discussed the matter with me, beyond the timejust before the hearing. When he was leaving. No, I'm not under drugs; I'm not under coercion. I'm confused and I'm worried. I think that's a normal reaction under the circumstances. . . . His hand shook when he picked up the water glass. He sipped water and waited while committee members consulted together, talking just under his hearing.
"Why do you believe," a Dr. Wells asked him then, "or did you ever believeyour father's confession?"
"I believed it. He said so. And because" Bring out some of the sexual angle, Ari had said on the plane. It plays well in the press. Scandal always gets the attention, and you can work people en masse a lot easier if you've got their minds on sex: everybody's got an opinion on that. Just don't mention the tape and I won't mention the drugs, all right? "Because there was a motive I could believe inthat everyone in Reseune believed in. Me. Ariane Emory blackmailed me into a relationship with her. My father found out."
The reaction lacked surprise. The interrogator nodded slowly.
"Blackmailed youhow?"
He slid a glance toward Mikhail Corain, though it was a committee member who asked the question. He said, watching Corain's reactions in his peripheral vision: "There was a secret deal for Jordan's transfer to RESEUNESPACE. Ari found out Jordan had pulled strings to get past her, and she made a deal with menot to stop my father's transfer." Corain did not like that line of questioning. So, he thought, and looked back at the questioner. "She told methat she intended me to stay in Reseune; that she meant to teach me; that she saw potential in my work she wanted developed, and that she wanted a guarantee Jordan wouldn't mess up the psychogenesis project. It looked like it would be a few years. Then she said she'd approve my transfer to go with him. Probably she would have. She usually kept her promises."