Yanni reckoned so, at least, and lifted his glass. “Who’d have thought we’d sit at one well‑stocked table? Here’s to…what shall we call it, ser?”
“Common sense,” Corain shot back, quick on his mental feet, and glasses touched. They drank. “Did Patil agree?”
“Agreed and signed this afternoon,” Yanni said, while Frank served the salad. “She’s on board. I’ve sent a message to Ollie Strassen, at Far‑gone; I just finished a meeting with Spurlin, and he’s on board.”
“Busy day you’ve had, ser.”
“Very.”
“So,” Corain said. “How is Reseune faring these days, without the Nyes? A lot more decision‑making on your desk? Or do we perhaps represent someone else? I haven’t had that ever made clear, and I’d like to have, before the vote tomorrow.”
Not a stupid man, Corain: sensing, correctly, that his own position, though he’d been in on the planning–not something Defense knew–now came down to the one vote that could and would stop the Eversnow project. His having the critical vote held advantages very much worth exploiting…judiciously, getting full value for the transaction.
What Corain surmised was unfortunately quite true: Reseune under the Nyes, while powerful, hadn’t wielded the power it had under the first Ari; Reseune after the Nyes was perceived as yet another degree weakened. People believed, to a certain extent correctly, that the Schwartz administration was even more of a caretaker administration, but certain people saw that he was not averse to putting his own agenda forward, and hoped that it might represent a third force inside Reseune. It was a period in which concessions might be gotten, in which Reseune’s power might be trimmed a bit, in which difficult agreements might be forced–conditions the first Ari, or the Nyes, would never have agreed to, and Yanni Schwartz might, to get what he wanted. That was the notion Corain seemed to have about him.
But he had held these sessions with Patil, Spurlin, and now Corain, in a chosen order and for a very good reason. He was a psychmaster, as the popular term was, out of Reseune, and sensible people in Corain’s position, whatever their personal feelings, were open to a presentation of simple, career‑affecting facts. He’d laid the foundation for this move. He’d gotten Corain interested before he went to Patil, he’d gotten Defense aboard, which Corain couldn’t do–and flatly told Jacques to resign and throw his support to Spurlin or see consequences to his reputation and his retirement income. Science was a key player, and Yanni played this one for all he was worth.
“This is your chance,” Yanni said pleasantly, “to get something. By the time my successor gets hold of the project, which will be some few years yet, things will be underway, you’llsee the terraforming underway, and there’ll be nothing much worth remediating at Eversnow. We’ve extracted microbes from the deep probes–not highly varied, at four widely separated sites. That’s the total local life. We have the samples. So it’s my estimation that young Emory won’t try. She’ll go with what’s easiest, and she won’t do a thing to stop it.”
“Seems she already does things. Huge expenditures. New building at Reseune. The new labs upriver. My informants say they’re both her projects.”
“Keeps her busy,” Yanni said.
“Pricey toys, ser.”
“Useful in the long run. Reseune had a proven security problem. It won’t, hereafter.”
“Security problem.” The breath of a laugh. Then total sobriety. “So you’ve just brought the first Ariane’s murderer back to Reseune. That just baffles hell out of me.”
Oh, the man wanted to know about that.
“Shouldn’t baffle you at all,” Yanni said. “He wasn’t guilty.”
“You admit it?”
“Jordan didn’t like Ari. But he wasn’t guilty of murder.”
There was a small pause in Corain’s demolition of the salad. The fork went down.
“And he agreed to detention,” Yanni said. “In his best interest.”
“And you admit that,” Corain said. Frank took the nearly empty salad plate. And Yanni’s. Corain never looked down. Just sat, with a troubled look on his face. “Why did he agree?” Corain asked finally.
“He had no choice. It was an assignment. For us? Expediency. The need to get Reseune going again. It was paralyzed. The Nyes were trying to get contracts honored, agreements handled… He’d broken no laws. But he’d violated Reseune policy.”
“Do you know who did kill Emory?”
“No,” Yanni said. “It’s not actually important, in modern context.”
“Context! I don’t see it as a question of context. Maybe somebody should bring it up before the Judiciary and ask about your context, ser!”
“Well, you and I can certainly do that, and settle a question of history, or we can proceed on a cooperative project that can benefit all of us.”
“I still find it troubling.”
“So far as I can do justice in the case, I’ve done it. Jordie Warrick is back at Reseune. Not my doing, since we’re being quite forthright here. Young Emory did it. The possible perpetrators are dead and out of reach, so, outside of correcting history, there’s no point.”
“Correcting history has some value.”
“Actually. I agree. More than that, Jordan’s a friend of mine and I personally assure you we’ll be engaged in that, once we’ve gathered some records that someone attempted to bury. I simply signal you that there’s more to the story and I don’t want to surprise you with any sudden revelations.”
“ Thatwould be a welcome change.”
“Among other things that may improve our working relationship–I want something to write down as an accomplishment for my own tenure, and righting that old wrong is one thing I intend to do. Improving relations with Citizens is another. Part of that is carrying out this Eversnow business. It was one of Ari’s last projects–and one she was willing to cede to terraforming. I agree with her, and I think you do, though I don’t think you’ll be making it a major point for your constituency’s consumption–we can’t make Cyteen a laboratory. That’s just out of the question, nowadays: too many complications, including the major city out that window–”
Night had brought up the lights of Novgorod, other towers above the hard‑roofed arcology that was the subway, the undergrounds, the deep digs, coffer‑dammed against Swigert Bay and safe as a pioneering city could be in an atmosphere that could kill you, if you got much above the twentieth floor, outside the bubble. The handful of skyscrapers were precip stations, pillars of the sky, guardians of human survival.
Corain’s look was involuntary, and snapped back with a deep frown. “We won’t ever settle that argument, I’m afraid.”
“We may not. Say what you like for your voters. We’re here, however, to talk about a safe laboratory that we can both agree on. Eversnow can prove whether or not terraforming can ever be done anywhere, and produce an ecology we can live in. And it will prove in the affirmative, I’m firmly convinced. I think there is a place for that science. The effort will teach us things, for the benefit of my constituents. For yours, Eversnow will bethat new Earth everybody dreams of.”
“Off in the far dark,” Corain said. “At the end of the universe.”
“For now. You know the charts.”
“Expensive, godawful expensive, at a time when your successor is busy spending your budget in advance. This is going to cost tax dollars. The whole remediation budget. How is my constituency going to benefit in the near term? I really want to hear it in words.”