Cyteen: The Betrayal by C. J. Cherryh Read Free Book Online Page A

Bureau of State had been conceived as carefully controlled by professionals in diplomatic service; but distances pushed it into greater and greater dependency on the Defense Bureau’s accurate reporting of situations it was not there to see.
    The Bureau of Science, considering the discovery of alien life at more than Pell’s Star, had to take on diplomatic functions and train potential contact specialists.
    The Bureau of Citizens had become a disproportionately large electorate, and it had elected an able and dangerous man, a man who had still the sense to know when he was trapped.
    Possibly Corain did not know that deFranco was solidly hers. That would explain his willingness to risk his political life on a walkout. Surely he did not think he had any hope of swinging the Pan-paris trade loop, which Lao dominated. He could do nothing but cost the government money, with which other interests would not be patient. It was certainly not likely that he would create any objection on the Science bill.
    Surely.
    “Dr. Emory.” Despite her aides and her bodyguards a touch reached her arm, and Catlin was there too, instantly, her body tense and her expression baffled, because the one who had touched her was no one’s aide, it was Adm. Gorodin himself who had just brushed by Catlin’s defense. “A word with you.”
    “I’m on a tight schedule.” She had no desire to talk to this man, who, already with an enormous share of the budget at his disposal, with sybaritic waste in his own department, argued with her about the diversion of ten ships to the Hope project; and sided with Corain. She had other contacts inside Defense, and used them: a good section of Intelligence and most of Special Services was on her side, and a new election inside the military might unseat both Gorodin and Lu: let Corain consider that if he wanted a fight.
    “I’ll walk with you,” Gorodin said, refusing to be shaken, his aides mingling with hers.
    “One moment,” Catlin said, “ser.” Florian had moved in. They were not armed. The military were. But it did not prevent them: they were azi, and they answered to her, not to logic.
    “It’s all right,” Ariane said, lifting a hand in a signal that confirmed what she said.
    “An inside source tells me,” Gorodin began, “you’ve got the votes on the Hope project.”
    Damn. Her heart raced. But aloud, with a stolid calm: “Well, then, your source might be right. But I don’t take it for granted.”
    “Corain’s upset. He’s going to lose face with this.”
    What in hell is he up to?
    “You know we can stall this off,” Gorodin said.
    “Likely you can. It won’t win you anything. If you’re right.”
    “We have a source on deFranco’s staff, Dr. Emory. We are right. We also have a source inside Andrus Company; and inside Hayes Industries. Damn good stock buy. Are they finally going to get that deepspace construction?”
    My God.
    Gorodin lifted a brow. “You know, Hayes has defense contracts.”
    “I don’t know what you’re getting to, but I don’t like to talk finance anywhere near the word vote. And if you’ve got a recorder about your person, I take strong exception to it.”
    “As I would to yours, sera. But we’re not talking finance. As it happens, I set my people to talking to people in Hayes when we heard that. And we know very well that the Reseune , extension is connected to the Rubin bill, and when my staff spent last night investigating the Reseune Charter, a very helpful young aide came up with a sleeper in the articles that gives Reseune the unique right to declare any subsidiary facilities part of its Administrative Territory. That means what you’re going to build at Fargone won’t be under Fargone control. It’s going to be under yours. An independent part of Union. And Rubin has something to do with it.”
    This is more than he could come up with on his own. Damn, but it is. Someone’s spilled something and he keeps naming Hayes and Andrus. That’s who