There was no reference to the card with the Novgorod number. Florian had set the card on the console and looked at the screen.
“Patil,” he said. “Dr. Sandur Patil, University at Novgorod.”
Catlin focused in on that. Sharply. “One of Yanni’s meetings in Novgorod‑was with that person. Sera has a list. I have Patil’s CIT number. I asked System for a bio.”
“Call it.”
She located the file.
Professor of Science, but under the Defense Bureau’s Secrecy Act. Lecturer in the Franklin Series, whatever that was. Expert in nanistics, and Catlin did know about that. It meant micro tags, stable and self‑mutating nanostructures. It meant a whole class of contraband for customs, and it was a bioweapon, besides its commercial uses in medicine and manufacture, which she had never looked up, but she sent out a search.
“Nanistics. I’m calling up references.”
Florian copied her screen to his console.
Nanistics, the information came back, was a course of study not banned from theoretical research or commercial use on Cyteen’s surface and on Cyteen Alpha Station, but all actual experimental work was done out at Beta Station, at the deep end of the solar system. There was a lab at Beta serving both Defense and Science. The science was used on Cyteen, in Reseune, mostly in medical or agricultural research, or in the manufacture of carefully selected exotics, particularly in replication of Earth or Pell goods.
And a cross‑search with Patil involved university offerings, lectures, Paxer and Abolitionist attendance. Nanistics and Patil had been a major part of the terraforming project, now canceled: the Preservation Act had excluded certain types of bionanistics from Cyteen surface. Bionanistics and Patil wound through the list.
The inquiry rapidly developed side branches. A lot of them.
Right now the words of interest were clearly nanistics, Patil, Planys, and Warrick, any two of those words in association, and that search had produced one other warning flag:
More information is available from 1381 sources requiring higher base. 142382 sources are in Library behind gateway access. Proceed? Y/N…
Base One, sera’s base, could cross that threshold. It warned when it was about to go somewhere securitied, and it didn’t leave footprints in System. But it would draw a lot of securitied information into their office, and that was worth a little hesitation.
No, Catlin decided. But: “Interesting,” Catlin said. “Patil is someone Yanni was talking to. He told sera they were going to terraform a world called Eversnow, and it’s not public knowledge. He was talking to Dr. Patil.”
And Florian asked: “How did Jordanknow Yanni was meeting with her?”
BOOK ONE Section 2 Chapter i
APRIL 26, 2424
0500H
Giraud and his two companions grew fast this week.
The organs were present–just barely starting to function inside the body cavity, largely visible through transparent skin. Fingers had discernable nails. The yolk sac had gone. Blood functioned to feed the cells.
The babies were mostly head at this point, because brains–very high order brains–were developing fast. Nerves were growing out from the spine. Arms had wrists and elbows. Underdeveloped legs kicked, a function of those newly active nerves. Giraud and his two companions weighed only a quarter of an ounce apiece, but they had some distinction as human.
They were becoming, was what. They were becoming what they could be.
BOOK ONE Section 2 Chapter ii
APRIL 26, 2424
0744H
Damn. Staff had been busy last night.
Florian had taken direct action, the morning’s messages informed Ari while she dressed: Florian had gotten Justin and Grant out of range of Jordan’s machinations–well, that was good. She’d been trying to accomplish that for six weeks. There’d been the chance, the very real chance, that Jordan might resort to snatching one or the other–likely Grant–for a few hours of therapy. Her staff had been watching nonstop for just such a move. Now they could all relax a bit.
But the next line of Florian’s report suggested otherwise.
A contact number? Yanni’s Dr. Patil. Yanni’s transcript had included that interview. She’d initially ignored that part of the schedule as probably just one of Yanni’s frequent meetings with ranking scientists, and university professors were thick on his usual list. But Patil was clearly a significant name, and Ari didknow the content of Yanni’s talk with her.
And it wasn’t the first time she’d heard the name. Dr. Patil had had a set‑to with Uncle Denys about a paper last year. Denys had gotten mad. He’d threatened to send Patil to Planys, except Yanni had talked him out of it.
And Jordan handed Justin a card with that name on it?
Damn! was her immediate reaction.
Florian suggested Jordan might want to signal Yanni he knew something about Yanni’s business in Novgorod. Or maybe there was some connection with the fight Jordan and Yanni had had before Yanni left…which made a certain sense.
Jordan wasn’t in official communication with anybody but Yanni, had no social contact but Justin, and he had no security clearance beyond Library, not all of that, and not even the most basic access to System.
That posed a question.
A possibly scary question.
She keyed a message back to her security, whoever was at the desk: “Find out how Jordan got that card. Do anything that furthers that investigation.”
Then she pushed back from the desk and got up.
It was probably safest not to talk to Justin until the immediate irritation of the disarrangement had gone away–he was bound to be adrenaline‑high, and that never improved communication, did it?
Yanni, Florian’s message had said, was already notified–about the move, at least. Yanni wouldn’t object to whatever she did regarding Justin Warrick.
But Yanni hadn’theard about this Dr. Patil being linked to a mysterious card Jordan knew they were going to question.
Thatwas a matter worth telling Yanni, and getting his reaction. And since she’d officially read the transcript and it jibed with what she’d gotten from Base One, she could at least take that caution out of her thinking and ask some questions.
If Jordan had found out that Yanni was talking to Patil, how had he known that? He didn’t get mail. He had no way to get a business card. Maybe Yanni himself had dropped information, making the move to rattle Jordan out of his cover. In that case she had better find out about it. And the worst thing she could do would be to start giving blind orders to put Florian and Catlin in the middle of it.
She put on her sweater, searched her closet for a pair of pants, herself–she managed her own wardrobe lately.
There was a leak somewhere. Maybe Yanni had arranged it, just to see where information flowed. She didn’t like to be caught by surprise.
And she didn’t want Justin involved in any investigation of his father. He wasn’t involved in Jordan’s business: she’d stake everything on that. And did.
But she still didn’t want to trip up anything Yanni was doing.
Meanwhile Justin was probably mad as hell about being moved, and upset about the business with the card, and probably under‑informed, over all. Justin without enough information was going to wonder about it, and wonder, and build his own hypotheses in private, and just stew for hours.
Maybe it was better to send a simple friendly message to Justin, just a deliberately naive welcome‑in. Justin wouldn’t believe she was innocent of ordering this disruption of his life.
Or he might: this time he had Jordan to blame. She might be able to turn the frustration in that direction.
She lapped her hair into three quarters of a braid and let it go–it would be hanging loose in ten minutes; but she put on makeup, at least, and took care about it.
Grant had to be considerably relieved, this morning, to know they weren’t going to be working up close with Jordan daily, where it was oh, so easy for Jordan to get at him. Justin had to be relieved, at least, that Grant wasn’t involved. Justin would certainly focus his irritation on Jordan, unless she stepped in the line of fire and created an issue and a target. So any message she sent into that ferment of vexation had to be cautious.