Slowly, slowly, there began to be consultation. They knew, he thought to himself. They knewthe whole damn committeeeven Corain All these years; my God, the whole damn Council and the Bureauthere was no secrecy about me and Ari. But something I saidthey didn't know.
God! What am I into? What deals did Giraud make, what am I treading on?
"You wanted to keep the sexual relationship secret," Wells said. "How long did that continue?"
"A few times."
"Where?"
"Her office. Her apartment."
"Who initiated it?"
"She did." He felt the heat in his face, and leaned his arms on the table for steadiness. "Can I say something, ser? I honestly think, ser, the sex was only a means to an endto make me guilty enough to drive a wedge between me and my father. It wasn't just the encounter itself. It was the relationship between her and my father. I'm a PR, ser. And she was not my father's friend. I thought I could handle the guilt. I thought it wouldn't bother me. From the other side of the event it looked a lot different; and she was a master clinicianshe was completely in control of what was going on and I was a student way out of his limits. My father would have understood that part of it, when I couldn't, at the time. I didn't plan for him to find out. But he did." A thought flashed up with gut-deep certainty out of the flux: He didn't do it. He couldn't kill anyone. He'd have been concerned for me. He'd have wanted to work the situation, get me clear before he did anythingand I can't tell them that. . . . to change an instant later into: Anyone can do anything under the right stress. If that was the right stress for himthe unbearable point
Lynch asked: "Did your father confront you with the discovery?"
"No. He went straight to her. I had a meeting with Ari for later that evening. I didn't know she was dead until they told me, after I was arrested." Thenthen the thing that had been trying to click into place snapped into lock, clear and plain, exactly where the way out was: Disavow what Jordan's saidbe the outraged son, defending his father: put myself in a position to be courted by both sides. That's the answer.
Out of everything that Ari had said on the plane, exactly where she was trying to lead him. Her pieces, handed him bit by bitdamn, she's an operator. But there was a way to position all of it so he could step to either shore, play the emotional angle, the outrageoppose Jordan and be won over; or win Jordan overwhichever worked, hell with Corain, hell with all the would-be users in this mess: he could maneuver if he could just get a position and focus everyone's efforts on him, to persuade him. It collected information, it collected a small amount of control, and he thought, he thought it possibly exceeded the perimeters where Ari had intended he should gobut only enough to worry her and keep her working on him and his position, not so long as he could tread a very narrow line between opposition and cooperation.
Under fire. When he always did his best thinking. He picked up the glass and took a second drink, and his hand was suddenly steady, his heart still pounding: Damn, Giraud did a piece on me, didn't he? Shot my nerves to hell. But the mind works.
"Were you aware of any other person who might have had a motive for murder?"
"I'm not aware of any," he said, frowning, and plunged ahead unasked. "I'll tell you, ser, I have a major concern about what's going on here."
"What concern?"
"That my father's being used. That if he did recant his confessionthat can't be checked any more than the confession can be. No one knows. No one can know. He's a research scientist. He's been twenty years out of touch with current politics. He could make a statement. He could say anything. God knows what he's been told or what's going on, but I don't trust this, ser. I don't know if he's been told something that made him come out with this, I don't know if he's been promised something, but I'm extremely worried, ser, and I resent his name being caught up in politics he doesn't know anything abouthe's being used, ser, maybe led into something, maybe just that people are taking this up that had absolutely nothing to say to help him twenty years ago and all of a sudden everyone's interested, not because they know whether he's guilty or innocent, but because it's a political lever in things my father's not in touch with, for reasons that don't have anything to do with my father's welfare. I'll fight that, ser."
There was silence for about two breaths, then a murmur broke out in the room.
Now the knives were going to come out, he thought. Now he had found his position and now he had built Jordan a defense no matter what he had said.
His hand was shaking nearly enough to spill the water when he took his next drink, but it was the after-a-fight shakes. Inside, he had more hope for himself and Jordan and Grant than he had had since he had known where they were taking him.
Corain bit his lip as young Emory courteously shook his hand during the mid-session recess, as she said earnestly, in the insulation of her personal Security and his: "It's politics, of course: Reseune understands that; but it's very personal with Justin. He's not political. He sees what happened to his father in the first place as political and now he sees it all starting up again now that Giraud's dead and there are elections on. I've advised him to tone it down; but he's terribly upset."
"You should advise him," Corain said coldly, "if that's his primary concern, he should stay away from the media, young sera. If he raises charges, they'll go before Council."
"I'll pass him that word, ser." With a little lift of the chin. Not Ari senior's smile, not that maddening, superior smile; just a direct look. "Possibly my predecessor slipped and fell. I have no idea. I'm interested in the truth, but I really don't think it's going to come out in this hearing."
If Ari senior had said that, it would surely have meaning under meaning. He looked this incarnation in the eye and was absolutely sure it did. Reseune was pulling strings in Science, damned right it was.
"I hate it," Ari Emory said, assuming a confidential friendliness, "that this has blown up now. Politics change, positions changeand develop common interests. I'll administer Reseune before too many years; there's a lot I can do then, and there are changes I want to make. I want you to understand, ser Corain, that I'm not welded to the past."
"You have a few years yet," Corain said. And thought: Thank God.
"A few years yet. But I've been in politics a long, long time. If my predecessor were alive right now, she'd look at the general situation and say something has to be done to calm it down. It's not good for either party. All it does is help Khalid."
Corain looked at the young face a long, long moment. "We've always maintained a moderate position."
"We absolutely overlap, where it comes to solving Novgorod's problems. And the Pan-Paris loop. All of that. I think you're entirely right about those billsthe way I know I'm right about Dr. Warrick."
"You don't have any power, young sera."
"I do," she said. "At least within Reseune. That's not small. Right now I'm here because I know people, and Justin doesn't; and because Justin's my friend and quite honestly, I don't think his father is any danger to me personally and neither does Reseune Administration. So it's psychology of a sort: I want people to know that I support Justin. He sees his father in danger of getting swept up in causes he knows his father wouldn't support; and that's where Reseune is going to insist on its sovereignty to protect its citizens, both him and his father. It can end up in court; and it can get messy. And that just helps the Paxers, doesn't it, that I don't think you like either. So is there a way out of this? You've got the experience in Council. You tell me."