Deep breath. “So Gehenna worries you. Fine. Meanwhile your precious Centrists want to play god with Cyteen’s ecosystem. Populate the world. Turn it into Earth. And Eversnow’s not going to be good enough for most of them and now Patil’s dead. What do they want, Dad?”

“Well, tonight they haven’t got Thieu and they haven’t got Patil. I wonder how thatbenefits them. Idon’t think it does.”

He shut his mouth. For several seconds. He really didn’t want to know the next answer. “So who does it benefit? Do you know?”

“The short answer is, it doesn’t benefit them. Ergo it wasn’t the Centrists who did it.”

“A split in the Centrists? Centrists who were willing to have Eversnow be the project–versus those that aren’t? Yanni just made a deal with their leadership. I think you know that. I think maybe you’ve even discussed it with him.”

“So let these mythical asymmetrical Centrists all go play at Gehenna. There’s a nice lab. It bites back. They can’t make it worse than it is.”

“You gave me Patil’s card, Dad. Whatin hell was I supposed to do with it?”

“Take it to the little dear. What else would an upstanding lad like yourself do, who wants to keep his precious career spotless? Mine’s done. What do I care?”

“Your career isn’t done. It doesn’t need to be done.”

“My own son won’t work with me! What’s left?”

“For God’s sake don’t try pity, Jordan. I’ve got my own problems. You want my help, take it, or quit whining!”

Silence on the other side. Jordan spread his arms along the back of the other couch, feet extended and crossed. “Dear boy. Whining, is it?”

Somehow that posture conveyed threat. Justin became just a shade cautious. “I’d help you, Dad, I would. But everything I try to do for you is a risk. Not from her. From you. Every time I try to make a gesture, you slap it down. Every time I try to do anything for you, you do something to make me sorry I even tried.”

“Now who’s whining?”

“You dodged the question.”

“Ask it.”

“ Whatwas I supposed to do with Patil’s card? What were you doing with it? Why involve yourself with her? And why is she dead?”

Jordan sat unmoving for a moment, then leaned forward and took a sip of the vodka. “Shoved her out a window, you say? That would account for it.”

“Don’t take that tone with me.”

“The little dear can’t question me under drugs, so you volunteered.”

“I’m worried about you, dammit. Cooperate! You’re not guilty of anything.”

“Thank you,” Jordan said, with a salute of the glass. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

“Well, then don’t act the part. Tell me what in hell you meant with the card.”

“Thieu talked a lot about her. A lot. Brilliant woman. Going to save the Centrist cause. Ad nauseam. Nothing’sgoing to save the Centrist cause. Never was a chance of it from the moment they passed the law that put Cyteen off‑limits for terraforming–of course, that was afterwe had ReseuneLabs and Novgorod andPlanysLabs already down here, not to mention Big Blue–here we were in the middle of a war, and with the no‑terraforming law that hampered us protecting ourselves, it got downright dicey trying to keep civilization going down here. But on‑world settlements suddenly seemed a good backup in case somebody got a strike in at the station. Military ne‑cess‑i‑ty. So we enacted the Habitation Zones Act–incidentally what I assume the little dear is relying on for this spurt of building I hear she’s indulging in upriver. Turns out she’s the best ally the Centrists have got. One little slip, one breach of quarantine, and they’ll have to designate another big slice of land into the Zones…wouldn’t thatbe ironic?”

“Do you know some specific threat? Somebody planning–”

“Hell if I know. Construction here. Construction upriver. Accidents happen. So Patil’s dead. Thieu’s dead. And Thieu wanted me to call Patil, as if I was a total fool. No, he didn’t give me the card. I didn’t even get it there. Turned up in my coat pocket the day I gave it to you.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. How should I know?”

“How do you think it got there?”

A shrug. “Library, restaurant–breakfast and lunch–I’d been in public places all day. I found it. I figured it for a set‑up like the last set‑up. I routinely leave my coat on my chair, all right? Paul’s usually there. At one point we both went to the salad bar. Possibly I’d left it at a table in Library and we were both off at another station. I do it every day. I don’t even know it happened that particular day. I don’t keep things in my coat pockets. I don’t put my hands there, as a rule. I felt something when I straightened the pocket flap. There was that damned card, like a visit from Thieu. But not. And I didn’t the hell like it. So I just returned it to ReseuneSec. I knew it would get there.”

“You didn’t run it through your computer, did you?”

“No. Am I a fool? I just gave it to you. Maybe your little dear would run it through her computers, if it got to her, precocious little egotist that she is. Maybe it’d just fuck the whole Reseune computer system and I wouldn’t be to blame.”

“My God, Dad, you’re talking like a teenager with a grudge. You don’t want to bring down the house computers.”

“I’m sure I don’t really care.” Jordan lifted his glass, second salute. “But she might port the business home to the agency responsible, whoever that is. Can I offer my son a drink?”

“Had some already. I need to be sober, dealing with you.”

“Excuses. –Grant?”

“No, ser, thank you.”

“At least youdon’t find an excuse.”

“No, ser,” Grant said, “I don’t. And won’t. You meant for Justin to be arrested. That would have made Justin mad at Admin, and it could have caused trouble for Thieu and Patil, maybe, but more likely you found a way to get rid of the card right under security’s nose, and you did it because they can’t ask you how you got it, and you can play games with them. How does that train of logic apply to the facts of the case?”

“Remarkable. You’ve gotten very deviously CIT, Grant.”

“I hope not.”

“Certainly you’ve acquired a great imagination. Very nice. I suppose I have to credit Ari’s work in you.”

“Dammit, Dad, leave him out of this!”

A little smile, cold as ice. “ Youdon’t leave him out of this.”

“I chose to be here, ser,” Grant said calmly. “Forgive me.”

“Oh, I forgive you. I forgive my son. I just don’t forgive her.”

“Is it true?” Justin asked sharply. “Is Grant right? Was it what you were after, getting Thieu investigated? Or nailing whoever gave you that card?”

“Some of both,” Jordan said. “I’d no desire to have Thieu foul up my life. It turns up in my pocket, and I can only assume one of two things–either it’s some devotee of Thieu’s and I’m supposed to use it, or I’m supposed to be caught with it and arrested; so I passed it on in the same generous spirit in which it was given. You–what do you care? You’ve got the little darling to protect you. You’re not going to get in trouble. I had no inclination to call Patil, based on it, and carry on Thieu’s social agenda for some third party–if that’s all it was. I didn’t figure it came from her. Thieu has political contacts, or did, when he was functioning. He always assumed I was what I was sentenced for–assumed I was a poor fellow Centrist, badly done by because I’d murdered Ari. I never disabused him of that notion. It kept him happy, babbling his theories, giving me printouts, all his grand designs for his project that the legislature had axed with the Habitation Zones Act, on and on and on…for twenty damned years. After a while, he didn’t even take the trouble to be clandestine about it. He just rattled on. And so I was supposed to call Patil. I didn’t. So somebody came looking for me to give me a shove. Not my fault.”

“Dad, just talk to Yanni. Tell him all this. Talk to him.”