Cyteen: The Betrayal by C. J. Cherryh Page A

But if he sat there the night, then-it was unarguable that it was conspiracy.
    If he gave them evidence of that—
    It would land on Jordan.
    So there was nothing to do finally but use his key and trip the silent warnings he knew would be in place by now.
    Security showed up to meet him in the halls by the kitchens. “Ser,” the azi in charge said, “where are you coming from?”
    “I felt like a walk,” he said. “That’s all. I drank too much. I wanted some cold air.”
    The azi called that in to the Security office; Justin waited, expecting the man’s expression to change then, when the order came back. But the azi only nodded. “Good evening, ser.”
    He walked away, weak-kneed, rode the lift up and walked all the lonely way to the apartment.
    The lights came on inside. “No entries since the last use of this key,” the dulcet voice of the Minder said.
    He went into Grant’s room. He picked things up and hung them back in the closet and put them in drawers. He found small, strange things among Grant’s belongings, a tinsel souvenir Jordan had brought back from holiday in Novgorod, a cheap curio spacer patch of the freighter Kittyhawk that he had brought back from Novgorod airport, for Grant, who had not been allowed to go. A photo of the pair of them, aged four, Grant pale-skinned, skinny, and shockingly red-haired, himself in that damned silly hat he had thought was grown-up, digging in the garden with the azi. Another photo of them, at a mutually gawky ten, standing on the fence of the livestock pens, barefoot, toes curled identically pigeon-toed over the rail, arms under chins, both grinning like fools.
    God. It was as if a limb had been cut off, and the shock had not quite gotten to the brain yet, but it had hit his gut, and it told him it was going to get worse.
    Ari would call him now, he had no doubt.
    He went back to the living room, sat down on the couch, hugged his arms about himself and stared at the patterns in the veneer of the table, anything but shut his eyes and see the boat and the river.
    Or think of Ari.
    Only Grant? Merild would ask, when he got that phone message. Merild would take alarm. Merild might well call Reseune and try to talk to Jordan; and he could not afford that: he tried to think what he would say, how he would cover it. Grant could tell Merild enough, maybe, to set Merild working on a rescue of some sort; but, oh, God, if something got to Jordan about Ari and him, either from Grant, from Merild, or from Ari-and Jordan blew up-No. Jordan was too cagey to do something without thinking it out—
    The time passed. The air of the apartment felt cold as the chill outside; he wanted to go in to his own bed, and pull the covers about him, but he asked the Minder for more heat and kept to the living room, fighting to stay awake, afraid he would sleep through a Minder call.
    None came.
    Small boats went out of one port and never got to another, that was all. It happened even to experienced pilots.
    He thought about every step he had taken, every choice he had, over and over again. He thought about calling Jordan, telling him everything.
    No, he told himself. No. He could handle it with Ari. Jordan needed help, and Jordan not knowing was the only way it worked.
     
    iv.
     
    A plane flew over. Grant heard it even above the steady noise of his own engines, and his hands sweated on the wheel as he ran down the clear middle of the river, his meager speed boosted by the current. He had no lights on, not even the small chart-light on the panel, for fear of being spotted. He did not dare increase the speed of the engines now, for fear of widening the white boil and curl of wake that might show to searchers.
    The plane went over and lost itself in dark and distance. .
    But in a little time it circled back again: he saw it coming up the river behind him, a searchlight playing over the black waters.
    He put the throttle up full, and felt the easy rock of the boat become an increasing vibration