"You said you had something important to say," Justin said. "About Grant," Ari said, straightway. Then: "—We can make anything you want for breakfast."
"No. Thanks. Dammit, Ari, let's not do games, shall we?"
"I'm not. I just want to make sure you get something to eat. Have some toast at least. There's real honey."
He reached for it, smothering temper, patiently buttered it and put on a bit of the honey. An entire apiary set-up over in Moreyville, along with several other burgeoning commercializations. Fish. Exotics. Frogs. Moreyville was talking about expanding upriver, blasting out space on the Volga and creating new flats for agricultural use.
"This is the thing," Ari said, "I talked to uncle Denys last night and Denys pulled Security away from Grant. We had a bit of a fight about it. But I told him I couldn't trust having people in my wing gone over by people I don't know. It came down to that. So this is the deal we made. I run my own Security checks, and if I'm satisfied, that's all that gets done. What you have to do is agree that if there is a question, —I do an interview and get it settled." He stared at the piece of toast in his hand, without appetite. "Meaning you run another probe."
"Justin, I hope there won't be any more questions. But this Pax thing is really dangerous. It's going to get worse—because they're seeing I'm serious. There aren't very many people anywhere I can trust. There aren't very many people anywhere you can trust either, because when politics gets thick as it's going to get—you know better than I do how innocent people get hurt. You remember you asked me to do something for your father. Well, I have: I probably stopped him from being arrested last night, at least on suspicion, and I know I stopped Grant from getting probed by Security. Probably your father won't even know how close it was, and if you'll take my advice, please don't tell him. Grant's going to get home all right. Your father's safe. And you're not any worse off this morning than yesterday, are you?"
"I don't know." Shaken up, dammit, which I wasn't, yesterday. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, and, God, where's a choice?
"You don't want to deal with Security," Ari said. "Giraud doesn't like you, Justin, he really doesn't like you. I don't need professional psych to pick that up. I want you to stay; and that means everybody in the universe will know you could be a pressure point against me—they could put pressure on you, or Grant, or Jordan. Giraud certainly is going to put the pressure on and try to prove something against you or your father—if we don't have contrary evidence that you're working with me. That's what I need. I need it from you and I need it from Grant, and if you do that, then you'll be my friend and you'll have Security working to protect you. If you don't—I've got to put you and Grant out—outside, where you can'tbe trusted, because every enemy I've got will think of you and Grant and Jordan just as levers to be used. That's the way it is. And I think you know that. That's why you told me last night you hoped if you stayed close to me—you could make things better. You said that. Do you remember?"
"I don't remember. But I would have said that."
"I want you to be in my wing, I want you to work with me—but being on the inside of my Security means if I have the least idea something could be wrong, —I have to ask questions. That's the way it is."
"Not much choice, is there?" He took a bite of the toast, swallowed, found the honey friendlier to his stomach than he had thought it would be. "You expect me to order Grant to take a probe from a seventeen-year-old kid?"
"I don't want him to be upset. I wish you'd at least explain to him."
"Dammit, I —"
"He's safe, isn't he? When you see him off the plane, you'll know I kept my promise; and you can tell him why I'm doing it. Then you'll both be safe from anybody else. You won't have to worry about people making mistakes anymore, or blaming you for things. And I'm not a kid, Justin. I'm not. I know what I'm doing. I just don't have much real power yet. That's why I can't reach out of my wing to protect my friends, that's why I'm doing such a damn stupid thing as bringing you on the inside under mySecurity wall—you and a few others of my friends."
"Us. Grant and me. Sure,Ari. Sure, you are. Let's have the truth for a minute. Are you working some maneuver around your uncles—or did Giraud suggest this?"
"No. I trust you."
"Then you're damn stupid. Which I don't think you are."
"You figure it. You and Grant are the only adult help I can get that, first, I have to have, because I need you; second, that I can constantly check on, because there's nobody but you who needs something I can do, that only I'm willing to do. Sure I can hire help. So can my opposition."
"So can your opposition—threaten my father."
"Not—past my net. You're part of it. You'll tell me if you think he's threatened. And you figure it: are you safer on your own? Is Grant? Not at all. Besides which—if your safety is linked to mine—it's not really likely your father would make a real move against Reseune, is it?"
He stared at her, shocked; and finally shrugged and took another bite of toast and washed it down.
"You know, I tried this same move with your predecessor when I was seventeen," he said. "Blackmail. You know what it did for me."
"Not blackmail. I'm just saying what is. I'm saying if you go out that door and I put you out of my wing—"
"I get it from Giraud faster than I can turn around, I get it and Grant gets it, every time he finds an excuse. That's real clear. Thanks."
"Justin—Giraud might make upa case. I hate to say that. There's a lot good about Giraud. But he's capable of things like that. And he's dying. Don't tell that. I'm not supposed to know. But it's changed a lot of his motives. He and Jordan never got along—not personally, not professionally, not at all: they had a terrible fight when Jordan was working with Ari—really, terribly bitter. He disagrees with what he sees as a whole Warrick attitude—an influence toward a whole slant of procedure, a kind of interventionist way of proceeding that in his mind permeated Education and got out into the tapes through what he called 'Warrick's influence.' Which isn't so. Ari knew what she was doing. She knew absolutely what she was doing, and what Giraud hates so much was really Ari's—but you can't make him understand that. In Giraud's mind Jordan was the source of that whole movement—in fact, I think in Jordan's own mind Jordan was the source of the whole movement—which was never true. But Giraud won't believe it. He wantsto settle the Centrists before he dies, because Denys is getting on in years too, and Giraud foresees a time when his generation will be gone and I'll still be vulnerable. He sees your father as a pawn the Centrists could use. He sees you as a reservoir of Warrick influence in Reseune, me as a kid thinking with her glands, and he's desperate to get you away from me. So I've not only got to convince myself you're clean-clearance, I've got to convince uncle Denys andGiraud I'm absolutely sure what I'm doing. I can handle them, however crazy I make it sound . . . because I'mgoing to tell them I've got Ari's notes on your case.
" He swallowed hard. "Have you?"
"That's what I'm going to tell them."
"I heard what you're going to tell them! I also know you just evaded me. You do have them, don't you?"
"You also know that whatever I say occasionally about what I'd liketo be the truth, I do lie sometimes. Yanni says there are professional lies and they're all right. They're what you do for good reasons."