Report to my office, the message from Yanni said, first thing that Justin read when he brought the office computer up; and he turned around and looked at Grant.  "I've got to go see Yanni," he said; and Grant swung his chair around and looked at him.

No comment.  There was nothing in particular to say.  Grant just looked worried.

"See you," Justin said with a wry attempt at humor.  "Wish you could witness this one."

"So do I," Grant said, not joking at all.

He was not up to a meeting with Yanni.  But there was no choice.  He shrugged, gave Grant a worried look, and walked out and down the hall, with his knees close to wobbling under him, it was still that bad and he was still that much in shock.

God, he thought, get me around this.

Somehow.

Grant had kept track, with Grant's azi-trained memory and Grant's professional understanding of subject, psychset, and what he was hearing, of everything that had gone on around him while he was answering Giraud's questions and of everything that had gone on around him in recovery, right down to the chance words and small comments of the coeds that had taken him home.  Playing all that back and knowing it was all that had gone on, was immeasurably comforting; having Grant simply there through the night had kept him reasonably well focused on here and now, and made him able to get up in the morning, adopt a deliberately short-sighted cheerfulness, and decide he was going to work.

I can at least get some of the damned records-keeping done, he had said to Grant, meaning the several towering mounds of their own reports that had been waiting weeks to be checked against computer files and archives and hand-stamped as Archived before being sent for the shredder.  Can't think of a better day for it.

He could not cope with changes, and he reckoned on his way down the hall and up to Yanni's door that Security thought it had found something or suspected something in the interview, God knew what, and Yanni -

God knew.

"Marge," he said to Yanni's aide, "I'm here."

"Go on in," Marge said.  "He's expecting you."

A flag on his log-on, that was what.

He opened the door and found Yanni at his desk.  "Ser."

Yanni looked up and he braced himself.  "Sit down," Yanni said very quietly.

Oh, God, he thought, gone completely off his balance.  He sank into the chair and felt himself tensed up and out of control.

"Son," Yanni said, more quietly than he had ever heard Yanni speak, "how are you?"

"I'm fine," he said, two syllables, carefully managed, damn near stammered.

"I raised hell when I heard," Yanni said.  "All the way to Denys' office and Petros and Giraud.  I understand they let Grant stay through it."

"Yes, ser."

"Petros put that as a mandate on your charts.  They better have.  I'll tell you this, they did record it, not on the Security recorders, but it exists.  You can get it if you need it.  That's Giraud' s promise, son.  They're sane over there this morning."

He stared at Yanni with a blank, sick feeling that it had to be a lead-in, that he was being set up for something.  Recorded, that was sure.  Trust the man and he would come in hard and low.

"Is this another voice-stress?" he asked Yanni, to have it out and over with.