She knew that.
She asked Base One, in a variation on a question a dozen times posed: “Who in Reseune, living, has ever dealt professionally with AK‑36?”
“ Adam Hicks,” the inevitable answer came back, the same as always. It omitted Giraud. He was dead. And a long, long string of azi, some CITs who wouldn’t have dealt with him in the offices.
Useless.
She changed the question. She said, “Who in Reseune, living, holding an alpha certificate, has ever dealt professionally with AK‑36?”
It said, solemnly, after “ Adam Hicks.” “ Ariane Emory.” Stupid program. Base One occasionally, in some applications, had trouble sorting her out from her predecessor, or figuring out that the first Ari was dead, but then, it was true, too: she did fit the qualifications.
It went on with Petros Ivanov, medical…anybody who’d been in the hospital might have run into Petros. Chi Prang, alpha psych down in the labs, again, logical, from when Giraud had been running things.
And then Base One startled hell out of her: “ Jordan Warrick.”
She filed that for thought and changed the question: “Who outside Reseune, living, has ever dealt professionally with AK‑36?”
The answer came back: “ Yanni Schwartz. Frank AF.” It listed a long string of azi. “ Numerous persons outside Base One tracking: no data available.”
“Big help,” she muttered to Base One, peevishly. Yanni and Frank were clearly notin Reseune at the moment. Yanni would have been a help. But Chi Prang, alpha supervisor down in the labs, was old, but not that old. Wendy Peterson wasn’t involved. Edwards was too voting. Jordan Warrick was too young to have had a hand in the creation of a mindset 122 years old. She was eighteen and she had a real piece of archaeology on her hands, in AK‑36.
“Base One, year of birth for Jordan Warrick.”
“ 2358.”
“Base One, year of birth for AK‑36.” But she knew it before Base One answered: calculated it for herself.
“ 2298.”
God, the last of the sublight ships hadn’t run their course when AK‑36 came into the world. Union had been just a collection of dissidents with a planet and a space station. The birthlabs and azi production were still in setup when AK‑36 had come out of them, and he’d gotten swept up into the military, because the fact Cyteen existed had just tipped the human species over into war. Kyle was old the way Ollie was old. His memory–
His memory must go way, way back. Jordan had been a baby himself when Kyle had first come back to Reseune after serving in the military. Jordan had grown up while Kyle was assisting Giraud. Kyle had been part of the scenery for whole lifetimes of people who themselves had actually died of rejuv failure and old age.
He’d still put up a hell of a fight for an old, old azi, and it was a wonder Florian hadn’t killed him when he’d had to shoot him full of paralytic. Suicide by non‑lethals, Catlin had said, and explained later that it was possible if you got hit the wrong way, or by more than one of them at once. And that was still an old, old, azi who’d taken all that to keep him down.
Tough as they came, Clever. Devious.
She said, “Base One, Alpha Detention.”
And when one of the agents on duty there answered, she responded: “Get a blood and tissue sample from AK‑36 and take it to Dr. Petros Ivanov in Hospital Admin. Say I want a compete workup, identity match, total, and I want it run on all AK‑3’s ever to come out of the labs, and I want a strict chain of custody on those samples.”
That was going to take time. Chemistry took time. They didn’t havethat much time, but it was a test overdue, if they were going to try to crack what Kyle haddone, and pin down who had had him do it.
She put in a call to Justin, meanwhile.
“ Ari?”
“Can you possibly call your father and set up both of you working on a file I’d like analyzed? I really need to ask you two some questions.”
A moment of silence on the other end. Long silence. Justin said, quietly, “I don’t think I can talk him into anything at the moment. I’m sorry. I take it this isn’t part of the lessons.”
“It’s not. It’s pretty important.”
“I think–I don’t know. He’s not speaking to me. I don’t think he’ll even open the door to me at the moment. You might actually get more out of him.”
That bad? she thought. “Is he speaking to Grant?”
“I don’t think so, honestly. He tossed us both out.”
“Well,” she said. “Thanks. Thanks all the same. Would you and Grant look over some files for me? I’m going to shoot it over to you. I really need it. I need it fast.”
“Sure. I’d be glad to.”
She sent AK‑36’s basic manual over, sent over AK‑36’s personal manual with it, which had Giraud’s annotations, and Hicks’ marks.
She called Chi Prang, and had her run an analysis.
And she thought a moment, and then she did a little file manipulation, recast the date, created a new timestamp, and called up Jordan.
“Jordan? Jordan, this is Ari. I have a problem.”
Long, long wait.
“This is Paul AP, sera. Jordan’s–Jordan’s in the shower at the moment. Can I help?”
“Actually, yes. I’m going to send a file over. I want your opinion on it. Both of you, if Jordan wouldn’t mind. It’s a set with a problem. I’d really like an analysis.”
“You can send it over, sera, of course. I’ll advise him when he gets out of the shower.”
“It’s an alpha file. We’ve had a criminal act. It’s fairly urgent. Thank you so much, Paul.”
Name was erased. Date was erased. It was all couched as current work. Which it certainly was…in the emergency sense.
She leaned back in the chair, wishing the processes of chemistry ran a little faster or that the processes of polities ran a little slower.
A lot slower.
“Sera.” Catlin said. She had her handheld, but she stooped, picked up the wand from the table and popped the main display over to the news channel.
Councillor Jacqueswas on camera. Jacques of Defense.
“After much deliberation,”Jacques said, “and thought.”The man had an unfortunate delivery. He never sounded altogether bright. “–I have reached a decision on the Proxy appointment, bearing in mind a sensitivity toward the Spurlin family, friends, and supporters, to whom we extend our most profound and heartfelt condolences…”
Get on with it, for God’s sake!
“…but we are constrained by considerations of the welfare of the nation to make an appointment representing the will of the electorate as expressed in the recent election. I am therefore retaining the seat, but will appoint as Proxy Councillor Vladislaw–”
“Good loving God!”
“–Khalid, who will serve starting immediately. This decision has been reached after, of course, considerable–”
“Cut it off.” she said to Catlin. The headache was back. And Catlin just stood there, seeming sure there would be some order to come. “I wish I could think of something,” she said to Catlin. “Thank you. Thank you for turning that on. I wanted to hear it. The man’s a fool.”
“He will likely die very soon,” Catlin said, the same assessment she’d reached, even contemplating it. “Khalid will succeed him. Am I right about the law?”
“Khalid got some hold on him.” she said. “Yes. You’re right about it. And he’ll last just long enough for the media attention to cool down about Spurlin, or until he objects to something Khalid does. Monitor Rafael. See if he’s getting any news from ReseuneSec in Novgorod or elsewhere.”