“He’s back now. This evening. Give him a day to get his feet on the ground. I’m sure he’ll give you that access.”
“Well, I’m sure I’m not a priority,” Jordan said sourly, and shoved his plate back. He’d mostly picked the chicken out of his salad and eaten a little of the green. “In any respect.”
Justin decided he was through. Grant was hardly eating. “Shall we order dessert?”
“Out of the mood, thanks.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s sad,” Jordan said. “We were one mind, once and long ago. Remember that? We were happy, then.”
“I remember you and Ari Emory got into a fight and Grant and I ended up on the short end of it. I’m not looking for a replay, Dad. If you want to pick a fight with Admin, just excuse me out of it this time.”
“Why don’t you come over for drinks after dinner?” Jordan asked. “Just a quiet family evening.”
“Did that, thanks,” Justin said. “Had enough to drink tonight, as is, and so have we all. Late supper and I’m going to bed. I’ve got a meeting in the morning.”
“Oh?”
“We’re conferring on a psychset,” Justin said.
“What stem?”
“Oh, out of the old Reza GLX tree,” Justin said, which actually was the truth, and he watched Jordan drink it in and jog a doubtless rusty memory, eyes momentarily innocent, mind working on a problem– thatwas the father he wanted back. If the conversation was going to change direction he might change his mind on dessert.
“Worker set, isn’t it?”
“There’s a new lab upriver. Or will be. It’s quite a project. Research and light manufacture.”
“And you’re picking the sets that go there?”
“Can’t discuss that one. Sorry” He wasn’t sure he should have said as much as he had. But it was common knowledge, and the answer he’d given didanswer Jordan’s question.
“And how soon does this new enterprise arise from the wasteland?”
“Awhile yet. They’ve only built the bunker as is, for the first workers. Precips are mostly built, but not online.”
“The little darling’s precocious ambition? Or Yanni’s?”
“Hers, as far as I know.”
“And only eighteen. What are we calling this installation?”
“I don’t know.”
“But with azi all picked out for it. And what CIT population? Is this where she’s sending all the dissidents?”
It wasn’t far off the mark, and Jordan Warrick could easily turn up on that list, but he didn’t want it to happen and he didn’t let his expression change, knowing that was exactly what Jordan was implying.
“I haven’t a clue about that.”
“Oh, come, you’re consulting on the psychsets of the azi component, the things they’re supposed to counter. You know damned well what CIT profile the azi will fit around, clear as a footprint.”
“Well, if I guessed, I’d be a fool to say, and you didn’t sire a fool, Dad, so give it up.”
“And she thought of this all on her own.”
“You’re assuming things I’ve never said.”
The waiter came, offering dessert. “No, thanks,” Justin said. “Just the bill.”
“Yes, ser,” the waiter said, having gotten his instructions, it seemed: the waiter tapped his handheld and called up a bill.
Thank God it was fast. Justin swept his keycard through the offered handheld and keyed a reasonable tip on a monumental charge. He gave it to the waiter, kept a pleasant smile on his own face as he pushed his chair back, and maneuvered himself between Jordan and Grant as they all got up and walked out.
“So where is this place?” Jordan asked, as they passed between the columns on their way out. “The new construction?”
“Not that far upriver.”
“Light manufacture? I just wonder what they’ll be making up there that we don’t have here. Or mining there that we can’t get elsewhere.” Jordan’s face was grim. “Oh, I have the picture, believe me. It’s no more manufacture than it is a recreation spot.”
“Assumptions are a bitch. They just don’t get you to any good outcome.”
“Lectures from my son?”
Dead stop. He faced Jordan. “I passed my majority some years ago, Dad. And you know it’s damned likely we’re bugged. So what in hell are you doing? Trying to piss off Yanni? I tell you, I really don’t appreciate being dragged into your quarrel with a kid you never met.”
“Are you afraid? Have they made you afraid?”
“The answer is no. No. I’m not afraid. I’m comfortable. I support Yanni. I support Ari, for that matter. I hope she has a long and happy career. And if you’ll take myadvice and just live here, I’m sure you’ll get along. If you want a fight for a fight’s sake, I’m sure you’ll get it from someone. I just don’t see the point in it.” He walked on, with Grant.
Jordan stayed beside him, Paul just behind. “Too beaten‑down. Too little fire. I missed your growing‑up.”
“Oh, plenty you missed, I assure you. You didn’t miss anything good. But that’s what we dealt with while you had your own troubles. It’s finished. Done is done. If you didn’t kill Ari–”
“I didn’t. You know it was a frame.”
He stopped, beyond the columns, in the public corridor, and faced Jordan. “I reserve judgement. You might have killed her–to protect your investment in me. Or Denys Nye thought she was going to die anyway, and a clone would be manageable, especially in his hands; and you weren’t connected to the right people to protect you. Whatever happened, it didn’t work for you. For good or for ill, you missed my growing‑up. You missed my times in detention. You missed my being Worked over by security, and you missed Grant’s troubles, too, but, you know, we just can’t recover those happy days, can we? So let’s not try. I’ll take your word you were innocent. You’ll take mine that I believe you. We’ll both get along.”
“We’ll talk about this tomorrow. In the office.”
“Damn it, Dad, you can’t come in there. It’s a security clearance area and you haven’t got one. So keep out!”
Jordan reached into his pocket and held out a card. Justin started to take it, automatically, and when he stalled in sudden apprehension that it had nothing to do with the office or the security clearance issue, Jordan reached out and dropped it into his coat pocket.
He wasn’t a kid, to skip out of the way. It was ludicrous. It was also an attack.
“Damn it, Jordan.”
“Damn what?”
He’d had earnest hopes when he’d heard Jordan was released and when Jordan made it home to a changed Reseune, that he’d have the father he’d been deprived of during all the Nye years. Everything would be healed and clean and new.
Neither Paul nor Grant said a word to what had just happened. He wanted to take the card out of his pocket, fling it away to be trampled by passers‑by, swept up by the cleaning‑bots–pounced on by security. He didn’t even reach into his pocket to look at it. “I really don’t appreciate this. Dad.”
“Tomorrow,” Jordan said. “See you tomorrow. That’s still one of your non‑teaching days, isn’t it?”
“No,” he said. “You’re notmoving in with us.”
“Tomorrow,” Jordan said again–the way he’d just held his ground in arguments two decades ago. No argument. Just a position from which he wouldn’t budge. “That was myoffice.”
“Damn it, Jordan.”
“My office, I say. Sure you won’t come over for an after‑dinner drink?”
“Good night,” Justin said, and started off in his own direction, toward the doors. Grant walked beside him, not saying a word until they’d exited the corridor for the outside, and started across the darkened quadrangle.
“You told him no,” Grant said. “But he will come ahead tomorrow anyway, won’t he?”
“My bet is on it,” he said. “And we’ve got to advise the staff Lock up the office if we have to. Damn him, Grant, damnhim. All he has to do to fit in is just do nothing. That’s the only requirement, just settle in, don’t push any buttons, and let things be.” Grant said nothing in reply, and Justin remembered that face, set and angry: Jordan, his elder twin–biologically speaking. Twin psychologically speaking, so far as being raised by his father went. Next best thing to psychogenesis.