Part 42 (2/2)

”I'll carry them, ” Grant said.

”I've got them. ” Justin gathered everything up and they walked to the doors, to the waiting bus that would take them up to the House.

”Was it a good trip?” Grant said, when they were where no eavesdropper could likely pick it up, going out the doors into the dark.

”It was, ” Justin said, and gave the bags to the azi baggage handler.

Security was in the bus, ordinary pa.s.sengers like themselves, from this point. They sat down, last aboard. The driver shut the doors and Justin slumped in the seat as the bus pulled out of the lighted portico of the terminal and headed up toward the house.

”I got to talk to Jordan. We stayed up all night. Just talking. We both wished you were there. ”

”So do I. ”

”It's a lot better there than I thought it was. A lot worse in some ways and a lot better. There's a good staff. Really fine people. He's getting along a lot better than I thought he would. And Paul is fine. Both of them. ” Justin was a little hoa.r.s.e. Exhausted. He leaned his head on the seat-back and said: ”He's going to look at my projects. He says at least there's something there that the computers aren't handling. That he's interested and he's not just saying that to get me there. There's a good chance I can go back before the year's out. Maybe you too. Or you instead. He'd really like to see you. ”

”I'm glad, ” Grant said.

There was not much they could say, in detail. He was was glad. Glad when they pulled up in the portico of the House, checked in through the front door, and Justin doggedly, stubbornly, insisted to carry his own baggage, tired as he was. glad. Glad when they pulled up in the portico of the House, checked in through the front door, and Justin doggedly, stubbornly, insisted to carry his own baggage, tired as he was.

”You don't carry my bags, ” Justin snapped at him, hoa.r.s.ely.

Because Justin hated him playing servant in public, even when he was trying to do him an ordinary favor.

But Justin let him take them and put them over against the wall when they were inside, in their own apartment, and Justin took his coat off and fell onto the couch with a sigh. ”It was good, ” he said. ”All the way. It's hard to believe I was there. Or that I'm back. It's so d.a.m.ned different. ”

”Whiskey?”

”A little one. I slept on the plane. I'm out, already. ”

Grant smiled at him, Justin half-nodding with time-lag. He went and fixed the whiskey, never mind now that he was playing servant. He made two of them.

”How's it been here?” Justin asked, and there was a small upset at Grant's stomach.

”Fine, ” he said. ”Just fine. ” The upset was more when he brought the drink and gave it into Justin's hand.

Justin took it. His hand shook when he drank a sip of it, and Justin looked up at him with the most terrible, weary look. And smiled with the same expression as he lifted the gla.s.s in a wry toast. There was no way for either of them to know, of course, whether the other had been tampered with.

But that was all right: there was nothing either of them could do about it, if Security had done anything. There was nothing, Grant thought, worth the fight for either of them if that was the case.

Grant lifted his gla.s.s the same way, and drank.

Then he went to the bedroom and pulled a note out from under Justin's pillow. He brought it back to him.

If I'm showing this to you, it said, it said, I'm in my right mind. If I didn't, and you just found it, I'm not. Be warned. I'm in my right mind. If I didn't, and you just found it, I'm not. Be warned.

Justin looked at him in frightened surmise. And then in earnest question.

Grant smiled at him, wadded up the note, and sat down to drink his whiskey.

vii It wasn't hard at all to get out the kitchen way. They didn't go together. Catlin and Florian went first because they were Security and the kitchen staff wouldn't know they shouldn't: Security went everywhere.

Then Ari went in. She Worked her way through, made herself a pest to the azi who was mixing up batter, and got a taste, then went over to the azi chopping up onions and said it made her cry. So she went out onto the kitchen steps and dived right off and down, and ran fast to get down the hill, where the hump was Florian and Catlin told her about.

She slid down on her back and rolled over and grinned as they looked at her, lying on their stomachs too.

”Come on, ” Catlin said then. She was being Team Leader. She was the best at sneaking.

So they followed her, slithered down to the back of the pump building where she stripped off her blouse and her pants and put on the ones Florian gave her, azi-black. Getting shoes that fit was harder, so she had bought some black boots on uncle Denys' card that worked all right if n.o.body looked close. And she was wearing those. Florian got her card off her blouse and taped a black band across the bottom and a mark like the azi triangle in the CIT blank.

”Do I look right?” she said when she had clipped the card on.

”Face, ” Catlin said. So she made an azi face, very stiff and formal.

”That's good, ” Catlin said.

And Catlin slithered over, looked around the corner of the pump building, then got up and walked out. They followed Catlin as far as the road, and then they just walked together like they belonged there.

It was going to take them a while to miss her up at the House, Ari thought, and then Security was going to get real upset.

Meanwhile she had never seen the Town except from the House, and she wished they could walk faster, because she wanted to see as much as she could before they got caught.

Or before she decided to go back, somewhere around dark. It was going to be fun at the same time as it was not going to be: it was going to be a lot of trouble, but she really hoped they could sneak back up and get her clothes, and just sneak back in by the kitchen, when everyone was really in a panic. But that might look too smart, and that might make them watch her too close.

It was better to be Sam, and get caught.

That way she would say she made her azi do it, and that would work, because they had to take her orders, and everybody knew that. So they wouldn't get in any trouble. She would. And that was what she wanted.

She just wanted to have a little fun before they caught her.

viii The problem was running, the computer working timeshare on a Beta-cla.s.s design and going slow this morning, because Yanni Schwartz had the integra-tive set running: everyone else got a lower priority. So Justin leaned back, got up, poured himself a cup of coffee, and filled Grant's empty cup, Grant working away at his terminal in that kind of fixed concentration that was not going to lose that chain of thought if the ceiling fell around him.

Grant reached over without even looking away from the screen, picked up the coffee cup and took a sip.

Someone arrived in the door, brusque, abrupt, and more than one. Justin's ears had already registered that as he looked around, saw Security black, and had a man in his office, two others behind him.

Muscles tightened, gut tightened in panic.

”You're wanted in Security, ” the man said.

”What for?”

”No questions. Just come with us. ”

He thought of the hot coffee in his hands, and Grant had had noticed, Grant was getting up from his chair, as another Security guard moved in behind the first. noticed, Grant was getting up from his chair, as another Security guard moved in behind the first.

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