Chapter iv.

May 2, 2424 1528 H.

Maybe, she still thought, she should have been a little less aggressive, and a little more cautious. Justin wouldn't turn down her invitation, if his father was going. She was relatively sure of that: he'd be there partly out of unbearable curiosity, partly to be there to fling himself between his father and a bullet, so to speakor literally. Jordan would be there out of pure curiosity, and because he wanted to hear what calumnies his son would say about himshe'd bet on that, even more than she'd bet on Justin.

So she sent an invitation to Jordan that said dinner at 1800h. And one to Justin that said 1830. Justin would turn up five minutes early because he worried about being late. Jordan was guaranteed to be at least a quarter of an hour late, just to prove he could be. She bet on that, too.

Her staff was not happy with the arrangement. Wes and Marco were taking the security station, Florian and Catlin were dining early, to be actually on duty in the dining room. Gianni, their pro tem cook, was in a state, and dented one of their pots. The unprecedented clang set off house alarms and scrambled her security to alert.

But she dressed in silvery satin, her current favorite gown, and her hairdresser did her hair in a modern way, nothing at all like the first Ari in the portraits. It was her coming-out, like in the old stories, though not for a ballroom full of peoplejust two. She wore her hair upswept, wore a single diamond, a modest one, and her rings, several, and had the servers light the candles the very instant Jordan turned up in the hallno way could he look at a quarter of an hour's candle-melt and feel smug in being late.

Marco showed her first guests into the hall and took their coats . . . precisely at 1816h. Ari met him just outside the dining room.

"Jordan Warrick," she said in her nicest, warmest tone, and offered her hand. "I'm so glad you've come. Paul." That for the quiet, handsome man who shadowed him.

"Ariane." Jordan took her hand, a chilly and unenthusiastic grip, and what he was seeing, or remembering in that moment, there was no telling: certain things weren't in the first Ari's records, lost, lost except for this man's memory. "Is my son here?"

"Soon, I'm sure. Would you like a drink?" Service staff was hovering just inside. And Catlin moved in, very deftly, to cut Paul off with conversation and steer him aside.

"You always made a good Vodka Collins."

"I don't.'' She flashed her brightest grin, and signaled staff. "I haven't the least idea how. A Collins, Callie. Paul?" She glanced over her shoulder. "What will you have?"

"Wine, sera, white."

"Wine for me, too. I had my juvie fling with hard liquor. It does my head no favors. I'm so glad you came, Jordan."

What are you up to? was likely the question he burned to ask her. He didn't. "Invitations are rare. I'm a little out of the social circuit these days."

"Well, there hasn't been much social circuit lately, not since Denys died. It's all been too grim here. Guards everywhere. Locked doors. Minders on high alert. But that's changing. I'll imagine a lot of things have changed."

"Some have. Some haven't."

"Oh, Catlin, do entertain Paul. I'm aching to talk to Jordan a moment. Jordan, do come into the dining room. Please." She snagged his arm, moved him, solo, the two further steps through that doorway. "I'm so curious about you," she said brightly. He was warm, and smelled like Justin. "There aren't many people in my acquaintance who really remember from way back, way back when everything was starting up in Reseune."

An eyebrow lifted as she let go his arm. He looked at her, just like Justin. "I'm not that old."

"But you did actually meet my sort-of grandmother."

"I did."

"Was she really the b.i.t.c.h everybody says she was?"

That got a little flare of the pupils, and an immediately suspicious shutdown, no laughter at all. "I never knew her personally. But she was reputed to be that. And pa.s.sed the trait on."

She took that with a silent laugh. And just then Callie showed up with the drinks, d.a.m.n her timing, but she took hers and let Jordan take his own. "I know about your feud with the first Ari. Two very bright people trying to work together. Two people who each had to run things."

That didn't sit totally well. "You could say so."

"She valued you, though, as the most brilliant designer in Reseune, right along with her. She couldn't get along with you, you weren't in the same field, exactly, but she did respect you."

"The h.e.l.l."

"I have her notes. She also warned me you were pigheaded." Sip of wine. Jordan hadn't touched his Collins. "Is it all right?"

"What?"

"The drink. Did Callie do it right?" Jordan just looked at her.

"You surely," she said, "can't think I'd pull something as silly as that."

"You did on my son."

Wide eyes. "What did I do?"

"You know what your predecessor did."

Lowered lashes, a nod to the correction. "I know what she did. I'm sorry for that."

"Of course you are."

"I don't like what she did, understand. I don't like what happened to you, either. Let me tell you the truth. Uncle Denys thought he was going to make me into his own model. But he didn't. I came out something else, and not liking him much at all, especially for what he did to Justin. And the way you couldn't work with the first Ari, I can work with Justin. I don't ever want it otherwise. I just wish you could be part of that arrangement."

A sardonic smile. "Is that so?"

She drew in a breath. "You're going to see it doesn't work, aren't you?"

"That's your conclusion? You have us bugged, you have my office bugged, you have our apartment bugged, including the bedroom. And that's the best guess you can manage? I'd have thought you understood us inside out."

"Who's Dr. Patil to you?"

Ah. He didn't control that look, not well at all. She'd got him mad, and she got a reaction.

"Friend of a friend. Someone I'd like my son to know, outside the cloistered halls of Reseune. Is that a crime?"

Florian walked into the dining room. That was the arranged cue: Justin was arriving.

She smiled. "Denys would have thought it was a crime. He was your enemy. He set you up. He blamed you and made your son's years here and minemore difficult than you know. I doubt Justin's told you the half of it. You should ask him."

The front door opened, a hall away.

"When," Jordan asked, "am I going to get that chance?"

"Not over tonight's dinner, I hope." She put on her warm smile again. "Let's make peace, just for the hour. I can't offer you explanations on everything, but I'd like to see things work themselves out. I'd like to know the things you know about my grandmother. I can't call the first Ari my mother, really not the way Justin can call you his father. It wasn't, obviously, that kind of relationship."

"Being posthumous, you mean? Have it straight: she had it coming. I didn't kill her, but I'd like to have."

Oh, good shot. Just as Justin and Grant showed up at the dining room door. She smiled at Jordan and laid a hand on his arm.

"You are everything I expected. h.e.l.lo there, Justin, Grant. Delighted you could make it. Would you like a drink?"

"Vodka on ice," Justin said with a worried glance at Jordan. "H'lo, Dad."

"You're late," Jordan said.

"Am I?" It was a question whether Justin would come out with his version of the time he'd been told to arrive; but he was a survivor of the secretive Nye years, and he simply said, "I guess so."

"Grant?"

"The same, thank you, sera," Grant said. "Ser. Paul." Paul had come into the room with Catlin. "Good evening."

"Good evening," Jordan said darkly.

"Why don't we sit down?" Ari suggested with a wave at the table. There were flowers, and the lit candles. Staff had done their best on very short notice. She took the host's seat at the end, and let her guests sort things outGrant and Paul would settle farthest away. There was no endmost seat, just the service cart for the drinks, and that left Justin and Jordan one on a sideFlorian and Catlin stayed standing, and Callie, who was being bartender, offered the requested c.o.c.ktails, and prepared a bottle of wine and another of water, while stall hurried around in the hall beyonda little unpracticed in formal service, but doing their best.

"How do you like your office?" Jordan asked Justin.

"More convenient to the apartment," Justin answered, stepping neatly around that one.

"And how are you liking being back in your office?" Ari asked, as if she were completely oblivious to the undercurrent. "It won't have changed much, will it?"

"A little barren," Jordan said. "But I'm sure the walls are well-populated."

"Jordan," Justin said under his breath.

"I really don't blame your father for missing you," Ari said. "But it's regulations, Jordan. Justin's on restricted projects. No one's objecting to his being; there, or you, but it's the stuff he works with. I don't know if he felt clear to explain that, but that's a fact. You could apply for a security clearance."

"There's a waste of time," Jordan muttered. He was at the bottom of his Collins, nursing the last out of the ice. "Let's go back to honesty. There's not going to be a clearance granted. There's already an investigation going on. You gave her that card, didn't you?"

The last sailed across the table, at Justin, as Callie set the requested vodka down by his hand.

"It was a little obvious, Dad. I don't know what else you expected."

Ari smiled tightly. "Of course it was. And I'm sure it's an inconvenience to Dr. Patil, whoever she is. I'm sure you know that."

"And I'm sure," Jordan said, "you know d.a.m.ned well who she is."

"I'm learning," Ari said. "She must have really annoyed you."

Jordan rotated his empty gla.s.s, frowning at Justin.

"And why do you a.s.sume," Ari asked, "that you're: not going to get your clearance back? Don't you want it back? Or is your whole aim to a.s.sure you don't? There could certainly be several reasons for that."

"And we aren't even to the first course yet," Justin said. "Can we save this for dessert?"

"It's not my choice," Jordan said.

"Many things are," Ari said, and smiled, and signaled the servers. "But Justin's right. Let's enjoy dinner."

"We may not need dessert," Justin said, as the salad course went down. "Nice."

"Let's love each other for at least three courses," Ari said, smiling at Jordan. "How is your work going, Jordan? I think you and I are about at the same stagedeepstudy until our eyes cross. I'm trying to get started and you're trying to span the gap."

"It's not that big a gap," Jordan said defensively, and had a bite of salad, while service poured the first wine.

"Of course there's a lot I have to learn. Justin's going to cross-check me on my theta sets. Would you like to, just to get back in the game?"

Jordan frowned, probably looking for a stinger somewhere in that offer. "Might be interesting."

Curiosity, curiosity. He couldn't turn down actual information, and seeing how she worked, compared to her predecessor, was a question. "Delighted," she said. "I'll be interested in any criticism."

"I'll imagine you're quite precocious."

"I've been told so from the start. I'm really trying to make peace, here. And I really am interested in your input."

"I'll bet you are."

"Dad."

"Oh, I know she is. She still can learn some things. I'm sure she's no more omniscient than the first model. She hasn't gotten as argumentative yet, by half. But that will come, I'm sure."

"It might come earlier if she has to deal with too many disagreeable dinner guests."

"Oh," Jordan said, "are we taking sides now?"

"Neighbors," Ari said with a smile. "Thank you, Justin. But don't worry. Good minds make interesting conversation. And I think Jordan is very interesting."

They made it through the salad, even into the main course, which was pasta and imported sausage, with marinara and real cheese.

"Must say the food's better here than Planys," Jordan said.

"I'll relay the compliment," Ari said. "Thank you. Were you able to get out of the labs there, Jordan? Did you see anything of the countryside at all?"

"d.a.m.n barren," Jordan said in his conversation-stopping way. "No, we weren't offered tours. There weren't even views. One window in the main office, for the secretaries. None for the rest of your favored guests."

"There's no reason for that," Ari said. "There ought to be views. I don't know why there weren't."

"Maybe they thought giving us a view of the landscape would guide us when we made a break for it."

Across desert where there weren't even precip stations. Where the waste of the labs and residences had to be carefully processed, every iota of foreign life eradicated, so it wouldn't destroy the native micro-fauna, and contaminate the other continent. When planes flew between the main continent and Planys, they decontaminated the landing gear and the hulls and sprayed down the inside . . . because they had a world where, unlike old Earth, unlike Pell, there were two distinct ecologies, two landma.s.ses that hadn't drifted close enough to mix for eons, where there were two circulating currents either side of a high oceanic ridge, and where the only thing that flew was vegetative, most of which wouldn't survive in the opposing environmentwhat floated or swam could get there, but that was all. Ma.s.sive ankyloderms cruised the subsurface, occasionally making a nuisance of themselves; over here it was the other kind of subsurface creature, the platythere, and both of them turned their feeding-grounds to desert.

"So you never did see an anklyoderm," she said, ignoring the barb.