Cyteen

i

The womb-tank tilted, spilled its contents into the fluid-filled receiving tank, and Ariane Emory struggled and twisted, small swimmer in an unfamiliar dim light and wider sea.

Until Jane Strassen reached down into the water and took her up, and the attendants tied off the cord and took her to a table for a quick examination while Jane Strassen hovered.

"She's perfect, isn't she?" There was worry in that question. An hour ago it would have been clinical worry, professional worry, anxiety about a project which could go very wrong if there was something wrong with the baby. But there was a certain personal anguish involved of a sudden, which she would not have expected to feel.

You're the closest match to Olga Emory's tests, her cousin Giraud had said; and Jane had thrown a tantrum, refused, protested that her management of Wing One labs did not include time to take on motherhood at a slightly fragile, overworked one hundred and thirty-two years of age.

Olga took it on at eighty-three, Giraud had said. You're a strong-minded woman, you're busy as hell—so was Olga—you have Olga's interest in art, you were born in space, and you've got the professional skill and the brains. You're the best match we've got. And you're old enough to remember Olga.

I hate kids, she had retorted, I had Julia by immaculate conception, and I resent any comparison to that obnoxious nit-picking bitch!

Giraud, damn him, had smiled. And said: You're on the project.

Which brought her to this, this room, this hour, agonizing while the medical experts looked over a squirming newborn, and the thoughts of personal responsibility took hold.

She had never involved herself much with her genetic daughter, who was her personal concession to immortality, conceived with the unknowing help of a Pan-paris mathematician who had made his donation to Reseune, because she had thought a random chance and new blood might be preferable. Too much planning, she had maintained, made bad gene pools; and Julia was the result of her personal selection, not bad, not good either. She had entrusted Julia mostly to nurses, and dealt with her less and less as Julia proved a sweet, sentimental space-brain—no, bright, in any less demanding environment, but overwhelmed right now by the discovery of her own biology and as feckless in her personal life as one of the azi.

But this, Ari's replicate, this end-of-life adopted daughter, was what she had hoped for. The ideal student. This was a mind that could take anything she could throw at it and throw it back again. And she was forbidden to do it. She had done tape of Olga with the child. Hand on Ari's shoulder. Sharp tug at Ari's sweater, straightening it. Ari's angry, desperate wince. That was the pair she damned well remembered. It brought back everything.

For eighteen years of her life she had listened to that voice. Olga had carped at everyone on staff. Olga had carped at the kid, what time Olga had had time, till it was a wonder the kid was sane, in between which the kid had been totally on her own with the azi. Olga had taken all those damned blood-samples and psych-tests and more psych-tests, because Olga had theories that led to theories Ari had worked on. Olga had gotten Ari's earliest Rezner tests, which damned near hit the top of the scale, and from that time on it had been a case of blood in the water: Olga Emory, with her pet theories of scientific child-rearing, had believed that she had an Estelle Bok on her hands, destined for centuries of immortality via Reseune labs. And every other kid in Reseune's halls had heard that Ari was brilliant and Ari was special because mothers and fathers on staff knew their professional heads would roll if their kid blacked the deserving eye of Olga's precious Ari.

In those pioneering days on Cyteen, when intellectuals running from the Earth Company visa laws had gathered at what had then been the far end of space and founded Cyteen Station, renegade political theorists, famous physicists, chemists and legendary explorers had been thicker in the station mess hall than people who could fix the toilets; rejuv was a new development, Reseune was being founded to work with it, Bok's physics was rewriting the textbooks, and speculations and out-there theories had possessed people who should have known better. And Olga Emory had been a brilliant intellect with an instinct for cross-disciplinary innovation, but she had entertained some real eetees in her mental basement.

Never mind James Carnath, who had more of them, and determined he and Olga were going to make a baby to outdo Bok the day he found out he was terminal.

Which had led them all to this room and this project.

So she had to do everything Olga's way. Straighten up, Ari. Stand still, Ari. Do your homework, Ari— Twitch and bitch.

Between that and throwing Ari at azi nurses, the same way she had done with Julia. She had considerable remorse for that, in retrospect.

Changing that parental disinterest would change Ari. Benign neglect. It was a terrible thing to recognize her own personal mistakes retroactively. Studying up on Olga had been like looking in a too-revealing mirror. Giraud had been right. A hell of a thing to find out, at a hundred and thirty-two.

To this day she had no more maternal feeling for Julia than for any other product of the labs ... or for the two azi the attendants were busy birthing over on the other side of the room. In the case of Ari, never mind the experience with one daughter and fifty-two years' experience with students, it had to be a question of following program. For the kid's own good. She had respected Ari Emory, and dammit, if she failed with her, that was all the reputation she was going to leave in Reseune. At a hundred and thirty-two. She hated fuck-ups. She hated personal indulgence and fuzzy thinking.

It was still damned hard to look at Julia and see what a meek thing she had come to be—constantly fouling up at work, spoiling her new baby beyond bearing, dependent on an endless succession of lovers—and know that it was partly genes and partly her fault. The same neglect, the same carping she had now to admit she had done with Julia, was part and parcel of what made Ari run. Psychsets and genetics at work.

Wrong kid, right parent, maybe. And vice versa.

Hell of a hand nature dealt out.

ii

"They're all in good shape," Petros Ivanov said.

"That's wonderful. Really wonderful." Denys took a bite of fish and another one. Private lunch, in the executive dining room, with the curtains back on the seal-windows of the observation deck. The weather-makers were giving them a rain, as requested, a major blow, water sheeting down the windows. The atmosphere was going to be compromised for a day or so. "Damn Giraud. Of course it'll go all right, he says, and runs off to the capital. And damn if he's called!"

"Everything's right on the profile so far. The azi are absolutely norm. They're already on program."

"So's Ari."

"Strassen's bitching about the head nurse."

"What else is new?"

"Says she's opinionated and she upsets her staff."

"An azi is opinionated. That means the azi is going exactly down the instructions and Jane's mad because she's got new staffers in her apartment. She'll survive." He poured more coffee. "Olga's azi is still a damn worry. Ollie's younger, he's a hell of a lot tougher-minded than that poor sod Olga had, by all accounts, and Jane's got a good point: run tape on Ollie to soften him up and Jane's temper will crack him. Her style with the kid she can manage; changing Ollie and changing the way she deals with him is further than Jane's going to go without exploding. If that kid's got even an ordinary baby's instincts she'll pick up on adult tensions right from the cradle. Figuring she's got Ari's sensitivity, God knows what she can pick up on. So what do you do?"

Petros grinned. "Run tape on Jane?"

Denys snorted into his coffee and sipped. "I sure as hell wish. No. Jane's a professional. She knows what this is worth. We've got a bargain. We keep hands off Ollie and she cues Ollie how to play this. We just trust an azi that can make our Janie happy can cope with anything." Laughter.

He was mad as hell at Giraud. There was a good deal of this Giraud could have taken off his shoulders, but Giraud had a tendency to kite off to the capital whenever things got tense on the Project.

It's all yours, Giraud had said. You're the administrator. And welcome to it. It had taken most of a year sifting through Ari's notes, that small initial part of the computer record the technicians could get at easily. Reseune's records computers had run for three weeks just compiling the initial mass of data on Ari. Thank God Olga had archived everything with cross-referencing and set it up in chronological order. The tapes had to be located, all this not only on Ari, but on two azi who had been protosets and unique. There was a tunnel under the hills out there and there were three more under construction, because that enormous vault was full, absolutely full to capacity, with workers beginning to divide tape into active, more active and most active, so more of it could be put in the House itself.

And when the data-flood from the Project came rolling out in full operation it would be a tidal wave in the House Archives. One of those tunnels was specifically to house the physical records of the Project; and that included software design for some of the things Ari had halfway worked out and someone else was going to have to finish before that baby was talking.

Reseune was not going to farm out anything to do with the Project. It was farming out some of the azi production runs, to clear personnel time. It would have been an economic crisis, except the military had thrown money at Reseune's extension at Fargone and Reseune's extension in Planys, money which funded more tanks, more computers, more production and those tunnels. Meanwhile Jordan Warrick was doing everyone a favor by actually handling the physical set-up over in Planys, which had Warrick happier than he had been since Ari's demise, turning out real work again—no small gain in itself, since it made Defense happy. They had lost Robert Carnath from House Operations and promoted him over the Planys lab: Robert was no friend of Warrick's and a sharp enough administrator to keep all the reins in his hands. They had lost other staff out to the Fargone lab construction and they were going to lose more, when that lab went active and the Rubin project kicked in. Reseune had been overstaffed when the thing began and now it was actually buying azi contracts from hackers like Bucherlabs and Lifefarms, rejuving every azi over forty and driving staff berserk with retraining tapes. Fifteen barracks were empty down in the Town, and they had just signed a buy-back deal with Defense for certain Reseune azi approaching retirement: it saved Defense expensive retraining and pensioning, it made certain azi damned happy when they learned they were going on working and getting staff positions at RESEUNEAIR and in freight and production and wherever else an azi whose outlook otherwise was transfer to some dull government work center could fill a slot and look forward instead of back. It gave Reseune a large pool of discipline-conscious, security-conscious personnel—instantly. Mistakes and glitches were bound to proliferate in Reseune's smooth operations, but not on the Project, where there were no new faces, and where the top talent could consequently pay full attention to their jobs.

The military buy-back had saved them. Denys was proud of that stroke. It took something to multiply a Project designed for one subject into four—counting Rubin and the two azi. And to coordinate the project-profile and the finance and the covert aspects of it. Giraud handled the latter. Denys had had the rest in his lap for long enough he felt he had just given birth.

"It's not easier from here," he told Petros. "From here on, it's going to be a race between that kid and profile-management. If anyone fouls up, I want to know about it. If she gets an unscheduled sniffle, I want to know about it. Nothing's minor until we've got results to check against profile."

"Hell of a way to go, developing the profile while it's running."

"We'd have to anyway. There are going to be differences. We'd always be altering it. And we'd never know where we're going anyway. If that kid is Ari in any measurable degree, we'll never damn well know, will we?"

No laughter at all.

iii

Justin poured, wine swirling into Grant's many times emptied glass. Poured another for himself and set the dead bottle down. Grant looked at his glass with a slightly worried look.

Duty. Grant was getting drunk and thinking about the fact. He knew. He knew the way he could tell that Grant was not going to say a thing, Grant had just decided that duty was not the operative word tonight.

They talked about the office. They talked about a design sequence they had been working on. A bottle of wine apiece did not do much for the design—the connections were getting fuzzy.

But Justin felt better for it.

He felt a strange dissatisfaction with himself. A baby arrived and he went through the day in a state of unreasoning depression. Reseune was aflutter with: "Is she cute?" and "How is she doing?" and he felt as if someone had a fist closed around his heart.

Over a baby being born, for God's sake. And while a kind of a party was going on in the techs' residencies, and another one over in Wing One residency, he and Grant held their own morose commemoration.

They sat in the pit in the apartment that had been home when they were both small, the apartment that had been Jordan's, crackers and drying sausage slices on the plate, two dead wine bottles standing in cracker crumbs and moisture-rings on the stone table, and a third bottle a third gone. And that was finally enough to put him at distance from things.

Wish a little baby would die? God, what kind of thinking is that?

He lifted his next glass when he had filled it, and touched it to Grant's with labored cheerfulness. "Here's to the baby."

Grant frowned and did not drink when he did.

"Come on," Justin said. "We can be charitable."

Grant lifted his eyes and made a small motion of his fingers. Remember they could have us monitored.

That was always true. They played games with the House monitors, but they had to go outside to have a word or two they did not have to worry about.

"Hell, let them listen. I don't care. I feel sorry for the kid. She didn't ask for this."

"No azi does," Grant said sharply. Then a frown made a crease between his brows. "I guess no one does."

"No one does." The depression settled back over the room. He did not know what was going to happen to them, that was what. Reseune was changing, full of strange faces, assignment shifts, the azi were—unsettled by the rejuv order. Elated by that, elated by the fact that they must have pleased someone, and distressed at the reassignments and the transfers and the arrival of strangers. Not harmfully distressed, just—having more change fall on them than they had ever had to cope with: Supervisors' interview schedules were overcrowded and Supervisors themselves were asking for relief that did not exist.

While over in Wing One residency there was an apartment shut up like a mausoleum. Not dusted, not touched, not opened.

Waiting.

"I don't think they'll have any better luck than they did with Bok," Justin said finally. "I really don't. Jane Strassen, for God's sake. The endo—" Endocrinology was not a thing one could say after a bottle and a half of wine. "Damn chemistry. Works fine on the machines. Just nature's way of getting at the thresholds. Nice theory. But they'll end up driving her crazier than Bok. They'd have better luck if they outright ran deep-tape on her. The creativity factor's a piece of garbage. Bring her up to like Ari's work, deep-tape a little empathy, for God's sake, and turn her loose. The whole project's a damn lunatic obsession. It's not Ari's talent they want, not a nice bright kid, it's Ari! It's the power they want back, it's personality! It's a clutch of rejuved relics staring at the great The End and having Reseune's budget to squander. That's what's going on. It's a damn disaster. It's too many people's lives and too damn little caring upstairs, that's what they're doing. I feel sorry for the kid. I really feel sorry for her."

Grant only stared at him a long while. Then: "I think there is something about creativity and tape—that we don't have it to the same degree—"

"Oh, hell." Sometimes he trod on Grant without knowing he had done it. Sometimes he opened his mouth and forgot with Grant the sensitivity he made his living using with azi down in the Town. And hated himself. "That's a lot of garbage. I damn sure don't believe it when you fix a design a dozen senior designers have been sweating on for a month."

"I'm not talking about that. I am azi. Sometimes I can see a problem from a vantage they don't have. Frank is azi too, but he's not what I am. I can get a little arrogant. I'm entitled. But every time I have to argue with Yanni I feel it right in the gut."

"Everybody feels it in the gut. Yanni's a—"

"Listen to me. I don't think you feel this. I can do it. But I know every bit of what makes me tighten up fits right in that book in the bedroom, and what makes you do it wouldn't fit in this apartment. Look at what they're doing with Ari. They had to build a damn tunnel in the mountain to hold what she was."

"So what's it mean that at lunch the day the war started she had fish and she was two days into her cycle? That's crap, Grant, that's plain crap, and that's the kind of thing they built that tunnel to hold." Along with those damn tapes, that's there. Till the sun freezes over. That's what people will remember I was. "You choke up with Yanni because he's got a three-second fuse, that's all. It's his sweet nature, and losing the Fargone post didn't improve it."

"No. You're not listening to me. There is a difference. The world is too complicated for me, Justin. That's the only way I can explain it. I can see the microstructures much better than you. My concentration is all on the fine things. But there's something about azi psychsets—that can't cope with random macrostructures. That whole tunnel, Justin. Just to hold her psychset."

"Psychset, hell, it's full of what she did, and who she hurt, and she was a hundred twenty years old! You want to go to Novgorod and buy councillors, you'd fill that tunnel up too, damn fast."

"I couldn't. I couldn't see behind me. That's what it feels like."

"You've lived in these walls all your life. You could learn."

"No. Not the same things. That's what I'm saying. I could learn everything Ari knew. And I'd still focus too tight."

"You don't either! Who saw the conflict in the 78s? I didn't!"

Grant shrugged. "That's because born-men make most of their mistakes by rationalizing a contradiction. I don't make that leap without noticing it."

"You read me with no trouble at all."

"Not always. I don't know what Ari did to you. I know what happened. I know I wouldn't have been affected the same way." They could talk about that now. But rarely did. "She could have re-structured me. She was very good. But she couldn't do that to you."

"She did a damn lot." It hurt. Especially tonight. He wanted off the topic.

"She couldn't. Because you don't have a psychset that only fills one book.

You're too complicated. You can change. And I have to be very careful of change. I can see the inside of my mind. It's very simple. It has rooms. Yours is Klein bottles."

"God," Justin snorted.

"I'm drunk."

"We're drunk." He leaned forward and put his hand on Grant's shoulder. "And we're both Klein-spaced. Which is why we're back where we started and I'm willing to bet my psychset is no more complicated than yours. You want to work it out?"

"I—" Grant blinked. "You want an example? My heart just skipped. That embarrasses hell out of me. It's that Supervisor trigger. I don't want to do that because I don't think it's smart to mess with your mind; and I jump inside like it was an order."

"Hell, I hate it when you go self-analytical. You don't want to do it because you don't know when Security is listening; and it's personal and you've got manners. All your deep-sets just describe the same thing I feel. Which is why I stay out of your head."

"No." Grant held up a finger. Earnest. A near hiccup. "The profound reason why we're different. Endo-endo—hell! hormones work—in learning– Blood chemistry reacts—to the environment. A given stimulus—sometimes adrenaline is up—sometimes down—sometimes some other thing—shades of gray. Variability—in a random environment. You remember some things right, some wrong, some light, some heavy. We—" Another near hiccup. "—start out from the cradle—with cataphorics. Knock the damn thresholds flatter than anything in nature. That means—no shades in our original logic set-up. Things are totally true. We can trust what we get. You take your psychset in through your senses. Through natural cataphorics. You get your informational learning through tape and your psychset through senses. Chancy as hell what you get out of anything you see or hear. You learn to average through the flux because you know there'll be variances. But we've had experts eliminate all logical incon-inconsistencies. We can take in every detail; we have to, that's the way we process—right. That's why we're damn good at seeing specific detail. That's why we process faster on some problems you can't hold in your head. We go learning-state without kat and our early memories didn't come from endocrine-learning; we have no shades of truth. You're averaging and working with a memory that has a thousand shades of value and you're better at averaging shades than you are at remembering what really happened, that's how you can process things that come at you fast and from all sides. And that's what we're worst at. You can come up with two contradicting thoughts and believe both of them because there's flux in your perceptions. I can't."

"Oh, we're back to that again! Hell, you work the same as I do. And you forget your keycard more than I do."

"Because I'm processing something else."

"So do I. Perfectly normal."

"Because I have a dump-reflex just like you: I can go through ac-actions that are purely body-habit. But I'm socialized, I rarely take tape, and I've got two processing systems. The top level I've learned in the real world; endocrine system learning. The bottom, where my reactions are, is simple, damn simple, and merci-mercilessly logical. An azi isn't a human lacking a function. He's got the logical function underneath and the random function on top. And you're backwards. You get the random stuff first."

"I'm backwards."

"Whatever."

"God. An Emoryite. You test that way because the cataphorics engrave the pathways they establish so damn deep they're the course of least resistance and they're so damn structured they trigger the endo-en—do-crine system in Pavlovian patterns that experience alone wouldn't. For every test that supports Emory there's another one that supports Hauptmann-Poley."

"Hauptmann was a social theorist who wanted his results to support his politics."

"Well, what in hell was Emory?"

Grant blinked and took a breath. "Emory asked us. Hauptmann socialized his subjects till they'd figured out what he wanted them to say. And how he wanted them to test. And an azi always wants to please his Supervisor."

"Oh, shit, Grant. So would Emory's."

"But Emory was right. Hauptmann was wrong. That's the difference."

"Tape affects how your endo-crine system responds. Period. You give me enough tape and I'll jump every time you tell me to. And my pulse will do exactly what yours does."

"I'm one hell of a tape designer. When I'm old as Strassen I'll be damn good. I'll have all this endocrine learning. That's why some old azi get more like born-men. And some of us get to be real eetees. That's why old azi have more problems. Wing Two's going to be damn—damn busy with a yardful of armies on rejuv."

Justin was shocked. They were words staff meticulously avoided using. Born-men. Annies. The Yard. It was always CITs; azi; the Town. Grant was pronouncedly drunk.

"We'll see whether it makes any difference," Justin said, "whether Ari Emory had whitefish or ham for breakfast on her twelfth birthday."

"I didn't say I thought the Project would work. I say I think Emory's right about what azi are. They didn't start out to invent us. They just needed people. Fast. So start with tape in the cradle. Perfectly benign accident. Now we're eco-economic."

Back in the pre-Union days.

"Hell."

"I didn't say I minded, ser. We already outnumber you. Soon we'll establish farms where people can grow up like weeds and commune with their glands. There's bound to be a use for them."

"Hell with you!"

Grant laughed. He did. Half of it was an argument they had had a dozen times in different guises; half of it was Grant trying to psych him. But the day fell into perspective finally. It was only a memory tick-over. A jolt backward. Done was done. There was no way to get those damned blackmail tapes out of Archive, since they were Ari's and Ari was sacred. But he had learned to live with the prospect of all of it turning up someday on the evening news.

Or finding that no bargains held forever.

Jordan had killed a dying woman for reasons the Project was going to immortalize in the records anyway—if it worked. If it worked, every hidden detail of Ari's personal life was going to have scientific significance.

If it worked to any degree, and the Project went public, there was the chance Jordan could seek a re-hearing and release maybe to Fargone—after twenty years or so of the Project itself; which would mean all the people who had conspired to cover what Ari had done and all the Centrists who had been embarrassed by potential connections the case had had to the radical underground—were going to resist it. Reputations were going to be threatened all over again. Merino and the Abolitionists. Corain. Giraud Nye. Reseune. The Defense Bureau, with all its secrets. There might be justice in the courts, but there was none among the power brokers that had put Jordan where he was. The walls of secrecy would close absolutely, to keep silent a man they could no longer control. And his son—who had set everything in motion by a kid's mistake, a kid's bad judgment.

If the Project failed it would be a failure like the Bok clone, which had done nothing but add a tragic and sordid little footnote to a great woman's life—a very expensive failure, one Reseune would never publicize, the way to this day the outside world had heard a totally different story about the murder, heard a different story about the changes at Reseune, and knew nothing about the Project: administrative reorganization, the news-services said, in the wake of Ariane Emory's death.

And went on with some drivel about Ari's will having laid out far-reaching plans and the lab being beneficiary of her considerable investments.

If it failed—it had political consequences, particularly between Reseune Administration and the Defense department, which was inside the wall of secrecy. Then there was no predicting what Giraud Nye would do to protect himself: Giraud had to carry this off to prove himself, and in the meanwhile dangling the Project in front of Defense let Giraud grab power in some ways greater than Ari had had. Power to silence. Power to use the covert agencies. If Giraud was halfway clever, and if the Project did not fail conspicuously and definitively, he was going to be older than Jane Strassen before he had to admit the Project was not working. He could even re-start, and run the whole scam again, at which point Giraud was certainly going to be looking at the end of his need for any kind of power. After Giraud, the Deluge. What should Giraud care?

Justin only hoped it failed. Which meant a poor kid who only happened to have Ari's geneset ended up a psych case, mindwiped or worse. Maybe an endless succession of babies. A power as big and a man as smart as Giraud would not fail all at once. No. There would be studies of the study of the study. Unless there was a way to make sure it failed in public.

Sometimes he had thoughts that scared him, like finding some article of Ari's lying on his bed. He would never in his life be able to know if certain thoughts were his, just the natural consequence of a deep-seated anger, of himself growing older and harder and more aware how business was done in the world; or whether it was Ari still in control of him.

Worm was an old joke between him and Grant.

He had to go on making nothing of it. Because that was all that kept it isolated.

iv

"Get down from there!" Jane snapped, startled into a snarl, and her gut tightened as the two-year-old trying for the kitchen countertop leaned and stretched, reckless of her light weight, the tile floor and the metal-capped chair legs. Ari reacted, the chair slipped a fraction, she snatched the box of crackers and turned; the chair tipped and Jane Strassen grabbed her on the way down.

Ari yelled with outrage. Or startlement.

"If you want the crackers you ask!" Jane said, tempted to give her a shake. "You want to ouch your chin again?"

Hurt-Ari was the only logic that made a dent in Ari-wants. And a universally famous genetic scientist was reduced to baby-babble and a helpless longing to smack a small hand. But Olga had never believed in corporal punishment.

And if Olga had been human Ari had picked up rage and frustration and resentment in the ambience with her the same as a genetic scientist who wanted to take her out to the river and drown her.

"Nelly!" Jane yelled at the nurse. And remembered not to shout. In her own apartment. She left the chair on the floor. No. Nit-picking Olga could never have left a chair on the floor. She stood there with her arms full of struggling two-year-old waiting on Nelly, who had damn well better have heard her. Ari struggled to get down. She set Ari down and held on to her hand when Ari wanted to sit down and throw a tantrum. "Stand up!" Holding a small hand hard. Giving an Olga-like jerk. "Stand up! What kind of behavior is that?"

Nelly showed up in the doorway, wide-eyed and worried.

"Straighten that chair up."

Ari jerked and leaned to reach after the cracker box that was lying with the chair, while adults were busy. Damned if she was going to forget what she was after.

Does she or doesn't she get the cracker? No. Bad lesson. She'd better not get away with it, she'll break her neck.

Besides, Olga was a vengeful bitch.

"Stand still. Nelly, put those crackers up where she can't get them. Shut up, Ari. —You take her. I'm going to the office. And if there's a scratch on her when I come back I'll—"

Wide azi eyes stared at her, horrified and hurt.

"Dammit, you know. What am I going to do? I can't watch her every damn minute. Shut up, Ari." Ari was trying to lie down, hanging off her hand with her full weight. "You don't understand how active she is, Nelly. She's tricking you."

"Yes, sera." Nelly was devastated. She was out-classed. She had had all the tape showing her what a two-year-old CIT could do. Or get into. Or hurt herself with. Don't stifle her, Nelly. Don't hover. Don't not watch her. The azi was on the verge of a crisis. The azi needed a Supervisor to hug her and tell her she was doing better than the last nurse. It was not Olga's style. Jane-type shouts and Olga-type coldness were driving the more vulnerable azi to distraction. And she was spending half her time keeping the kid from killing herself, half keeping the azi from nervous collapse.

"Just get a lock installed on the damn kitchen," Jane said. Ari howled like hell if she was shut into the playroom. She hated the playroom. "Ari, stop it. Maman can't hold you."

"Yes, sera. Shall I—"

"Nelly, you know your job. Just take Ari and give her a bath. She's worked up a sweat."

"Yes, sera."

The azi took Ari in hand. Ari sat down and Nelly picked her up and carried her.

Jane leaned back against the counter and stared at the ceiling. At the traditional location of God, no matter what the planet.

And Phaedra came in to say that daughter Julia was in the living room.

A second time Jane looked ceilingward. And did not shout. "Dammit, I'm a hundred thirty-four and I don't deserve this."

"Sera?"

"I'll take care of it, Phaedra. Thank you." She pushed herself away from the counter. "Go help Nelly in Ari's bathroom." She wanted to go to the office. "No. Find Ollie. Tell him calm Nelly down. Tell Nelly I shout. It's all right. Get!"

Phaedra got. Phaedra was one of her staff. Phaedra was competent. Jane walked out of the kitchen, down the hall in Phaedra's wake, and took the left turn, the glass-and-stone walk past the dining room and the library to the front living room.

Where Julia was sitting on the couch. And three-year-old Gloria was playing on the long-pile rug.

"What in hell are you doing here?" Jane asked.

Julia looked up. "I took Gloria to the dentist. Routine. I thought I'd drop by for a minute."

"You know better."

Julia's soft mouth hardened a little. "That's a fine welcome."

Jane took a deep breath and went over and sat down with her hands locked between her knees. Gloria sat up. Another baby. Meditating destruction of something. The apartment was safed for a two-year-old's reach. Gloria was a tall three. "Look, Julia. You know the situation. You're not supposed to bring Gloria in here."

"It's not like the baby was going to catch something. I was just passing by. I thought we could go out for lunch."

"That's not the point, Julia. We're being taped. You know that. I don't want any question of compromise. You understand me. You're not a child. You're twenty-two years old, and it's about time—"

"I said we could go out for lunch."

With Gloria. God. Her nerves were at the breaking point. "We'll go out for lunch—" Gloria was over at the bookcase. Gloria was after a piece of pottery. "Gloria, dammit!" No platythere and no three-year-old ever turned from an objective. She got up and snatched the kid back, dragged her toward the couch and Gloria started to scream. Which could carry all the way down the damn hall where another little girl was trying to drown her nurse. Jane shifted her grip and clamped her hand over Gloria's mouth. "Shut that up! Julia, dammit, get this kid out of here!"

"She's your granddaughter!"

"I don't care what she is, get her out of here!" Gloria was struggling hysterically and kicking her shin. "Out, dammit!"

Julia got that desperate, offended, out-of-breath look; came and snatched Gloria away, and Gloria, uncorked, screamed as if she was being skinned.

"Get out!" Jane shouted. "Dammit, shut her up!"

"You don't care about your own granddaughter!"

"We'll go to lunch tomorrow! Bring her! Just shut her up!"

"She's not one of the damn azi!"

"Watch your mouth! What kind of language is that?"

"You've got a granddaughter! You've got me, for God's sake, and you don't bloody care!"

Hysterical howls from Gloria.

"I'm not going to talk about it now! Out!"

"Damn you then!" Julia started crying. Gloria was still screaming. Julia grabbed Gloria up and hauled her to the door and out it.

Jane stood in the quiet and felt her stomach profoundly upset. Julia had finally got some guts. And damn near sabotaged the Project. There was not supposed to be another little girl. They were still feeling their way. Little changes in self-percept while it was forming at incremental rates could have big effects down the line. If the start was true, Ari would handle course deviations at the far end just fine.

Ari did not need to be wondering, Maman, who was that?

Ari had been an only child.

So now the damn Project had Julia's nose out of joint. Because mother was one of Julia's triggers, mother was the root of all Julia's problems, mother was what Julia was determined to succeed in being, because Julia knew that that was the one place where the great and famous Jane Strassen had messed up and Julia was sure she could do it right. Julia felt deprived in her childhood so she was going to the other extreme, ruining her own kid with smothering: that little brat knew exactly how to get everything from mama but consistency, and she needed a firm hand and a month away from mama before it was too late. Amazing how accurate hindsight could be.

v

It was patches again. Florian felt himself a little fluttery, fluttery like when things got confused. The big building and sitting on the edge of the table always made him feel that way, but he could answer when the Super asked him where the One patch went. Right over his heart. He knew that. He had a doll he could patch. But it didn't have so many.

"That's right," the Super said, and patted him. "You're an awfully good boy, Florian. You're very smart and you're very quick to do things. Can you tell me how old you are?"

Old meant big and as he got bigger and smarter the right answer meant more fingers. Right now he got to hold up the first and the next and the next, and stop. Which was hard to do without letting them all come up. When he did it right he felt good all over. The Super gave him a hug.

When he got through there was always a sweet. And he knew all the answers to everything the Super asked. He felt fluttery but it was a good fluttery.

He just wished they would give him the sweet now and forget about the patches.

vi

Ari was tremendously excited. She had a new suit—red, with a glittery pattern on the front and on one sleeve. Nelly had brushed her hair till it crackled and flew, all black and shiny, and then Ari, all dressed, had had to dither about the living room till maman and Ollie were ready. Maman looked very tall and very beautiful, glittery with silver, and the silver in her hair was pretty. Ollie went too, handsome in the black the azi wore. Ollie was a special azi. He was always with maman, and if Ollie said something Ari had to do it. She did, or at least she did today, because maman and Ollie were going to take her to a Party.

There were going to be a lot of big people there. She would go there and then Ollie would take her to Valery's to a children's party.

Valery was a boy. He was sera Schwartz's. Azi would watch them and they would play games and there would be ices, on a table their size. And other children. But mostly she liked Valery. Valery had a spaceship that had red lights. He had a glass thing you could look through and it made patterns.

Most of all she hoped there would be presents. Sometimes there were. Since everyone was dressed up, there might be.

But it was special, to go where the big people were. To walk down the hall holding maman's hand, dressed up and acting nice, because you were supposed to, and not make trouble. Especially when there could be presents.

They rode the lift downstairs. She saw a lot of tall azi in the hall: azi wore black more than they wore other colors; and even if they didn't, she could always tell them. They were not like maman or uncle Denys, they looked like azi. Sometimes she pretended to be them. She walked very quiet and stood straight and looked very straight like Ollie and said yes, sera to maman. (Not to Nelly. To Nelly you said, yes.) Sometimes she pretended to be maman and she told Nelly, make my bed, Nelly, please. (And to Ollie, once: Ollie, dammit, I want a drink. But that had not been a good idea. Ollie had brought her the drink and told maman. And maman had said it was not nice and Ollie was not going to do things for her when she was rude. So she said dammit to Nelly instead.)

Maman led her down the hall through the azi and through a doorway where there were a lot of people in the doorway. One woman said: "Happy new year, Ari." And bent over in her face. She had a pretty necklace and you could see way down her blouse. It was interesting. But Ollie picked her up. That was better. She could see people's faces.

The woman talked to maman, and people crowded in, all talking at once, and everything smelled like perfume and food and powder.

Someone patted her on the shoulder as Ollie held her. It was uncle Denys. Denys was fat. He made a lot of room around him. She wondered whether he was solid all the way through or sort of held his breath more than regular people to keep him so round.

"How are you, Ari?" uncle Denys yelled at her in all the racket, and all of a sudden the people stopped talking and looked at them. "Happy new year."

She was puzzled then, but interested. If it was her new year it was a birthday, and if it was a birthday party people were supposed to come to her apartment and bring her presents. She didn't see any.

"Happy new year," people said. She looked at them hopefully. But there were no presents. She sighed, and then as Ollie brought her through the crowd, she caught sight of the punch and the cake.

Ollie knew. "Do you want some punch?" he asked.

She nodded. There was a lot of noise. She was not sure she liked this many big people. The party did not make sense. But punch and cake was looking better. She clung to Ollie's strong shoulder and felt a good deal more cheerful, because Ollie could carry her right through to the table with the punch bowl and Ollie understood very well what was important. Punch, especially in a pretty bowl and with a big cake, was almost as good as presents.

"I've got to set you down," Ollie said. "All right? You stand right there and I'll get your punch."

That was not all right. Everyone was tall, the music was awfully loud, and when she was standing on the floor she could not see anything but people's legs. Somebody might step on her. But Ollie set her down, and maman was coming, with uncle Denys. And the crowd did not step on her. A lot of people looked at her. Some smiled. So she felt safe.

"Ari." Ollie gave her the cup. "Don't spill."

The punch was green. She was not altogether sure of it, but it smelled good and it tasted better.

"You're getting too big to carry," uncle Denys said. She looked up and wrinkled her nose at him. She was not sure she liked that idea. Maman said the same thing. But Ollie didn't. Ollie was big and he was very strong. He felt different than anyone. She liked him to carry her: she liked to put her arms around his neck and lean on him, because he was like a chair you could climb on, and you couldn't feel his bones, just a kind of solid. He was warm, too. And smelled good. But Ollie was getting punch for maman and uncle Denys from another bowl, and she just kept close to him and drank her punch while Denys and maman talked and loud music played.

Ollie looked down at her when maman and Denys had their punch. "Do you want some cake?" Ollie asked, talking loud. "They're going to have cake at the children's party."

That promised better. "I want some more punch," she said, and gave Ollie her cup. "And cake, please." She stood there in a little open space to wait. She put her hands behind her, and remembered maman said not to rock back and forth, it was stupid-looking. People she did not know came up and said she was pretty, and wished her happy new year, but she was ready to leave, except for the punch and cake Ollie was getting. She was going to stay for that.

Children's party sounded a lot better.

Maybe there would be presents there.

"Come on over and sit down," Ollie said, not giving her the cake or the punch. He carried it for her. There were chairs along the wall. She was relieved. If she got punch on her new suit she would look bad and maman would scold her. She climbed up onto a chair and Ollie set the dish in her lap and set the cup on the seat beside her. She had the whole row to herself.

"I'm going to get mine," Ollie said. "Stay there. I'll be back."

She nodded, with cake in her mouth. White cake. The nice kind. With good icing. She was much happier. She swung her feet and ate cake and licked her fingers while Ollie waited at the punch bowl and maman talked with Denys and Giraud.

Maybe they waited about the presents. Maybe something interesting was going to happen. They all glittered. Some of them she had seen at home. But a lot were strange. She finished her cake and licked her fingers and slid off the chair to stand, because most of the people were around the tables and the floor was mostly clear.

She walked out to see how far Ollie had got in the line. But someone had distracted Ollie. That was a chance to walk around.

So she walked. Not far. She did not want maman and Ollie to leave and lose her. She looked back to see if she could still see maman. Yes. But maman was still busy talking. Good. If maman scolded her she could say, I was right here, maman. Maman could not be too mad.

A lot of the clothes were pretty. She liked the green blouse you could see through. And the black one a man was wearing, all shimmery. But maman's jewelry was still the best.

There was a man with bright red hair.

In black. Azi. She watched him. She said hello when somebody said hello to her, but she was not interested in that. She had always thought her hair was pretty. Prettier than anybody's. But his was pretty. He was. It was not fair. If there was hair like that she wanted it. She was suddenly dissatisfied with her own.

He looked at her. He was not azi. No. Yes. His face went all straight and he turned his chin, so, and pretended he did not see her looking at him. He was with a dark-haired man. That man looked at her, but the azi did not want him to.

He looked at her anyway. He was handsome like Ollie. He looked at her different than grown-ups and she thought he was not supposed to do that, but she did not want to look anywhere else, because he was different than everyone. The azi with red hair was by him, but he was not the important one. The man was. The man was looking at her, and she had never even seen him. He had never come to visit. He had never brought presents.

She went closer. The azi didn't want her to be close to his friend. He had his hand on the man's shoulder. Like she was going to get him. But the man watched her like she was maman. Like he had done something bad and she was maman.

He was being her. And she was being maman. And the azi was being Ollie, when maman was yelling.

Then the azi saw something dangerous behind her. She looked.

Maman was coming. But maman stopped when she looked.

Everyone was stopped. Everyone was watching. They had stopped talking. There was just the music. Everyone was afraid.

She started toward maman.

Everyone twitched.

She stopped. And everyone twitched again. Even maman.

She had done that.

She looked back at maman. Twitch.

She looked back at the man.

Twitch. Everybody.

She didn't know she could do that.

Maman was going to be mad, later. Ollie was.

If maman was going to shout she might as well do something first.

The azi and the man looked at her when she walked up to them. The man looked like she was going to get him. The azi thought so too.

The man had pretty hands like Ollie. He was a lot like Ollie. People all thought he was dangerous. That was wrong. She knew it was. She could scare them good.

She came up and took his hand. Everyone was doing what she wanted. Even he was. She had maman good. The way she could do Nelly.

She liked that.

"My name's Ari," Ari said.

"Mine's Justin," Justin said quietly. In all that quiet.

"I'm going to a party," she said. "At Valery's."

Jane Strassen came to collect the child. Firmly. Grant got between them, and put his hand on Justin's shoulder, and turned him away.

They left. That was all there was to do.

"Damn," Grant said, when they were back in the apartment, "if no one had moved it would have been nothing. Nothing at all. She picked up on it. She picked up on it like it was broadcast."

"I had to see her," Justin said.

He could not say why. Except they said she was Ari. And he had not believed it until then.

vii

"Night, sweet," maman said; and kissed her. Ari put her arms up and hugged maman and kissed her too. Smack.

Maman went out and it was dark then. Ari snuggled down in bed with Poo-thing. She was full of cake and punch. She shut her eyes and all the people were glittery. Ollie got her cake. And all the people looked at her. Valery's party was nice. They played music-chairs and had favors. Hers was a glittery star. Valery's was a ball. They were real sorry about sera Schwartz's lamp.

New year was fun.

"Is she all right?" Ollie asked in the bedroom. And Jane nodded, while he unhooked her blouse. "Sera, I am sorry—"

"Don't talk about it. Don't fret about it. It's all right." He finished; she slid the silver blouse down her arms and threw it on the chair back. Ollie was still shaken.

So, in fact, was she. Not mentioning it was Denys' and Giraud's damn idea.

Olga had had the kid up in front of visitors, hauled her around like a little mannequin—subjected her to the high-pressure social circuit in which Ari's sensitive nerves must have been raw.

They could not take the curtain of secrecy off. There was only one part of that high-tension atmosphere they could access, that inside Reseune itself.

The Family. In all its multifarious, nefarious glory.

Enough sugar in her often-tested metabolism, enough no-don't and behave-Ari and promised rewards to be sure a four-year-old was going to be hyper as hell.

She felt, somehow, sick at her stomach.

viii

Justin hugged his coat about him as he and Grant took the outside walk between Residency and the office, and jammed his hands into his pockets. Not a fast walk, despite the morning chill, on a New Year's morning where everyone was slow getting started.

He stopped at the fishpond, bent and fed the fish. The koi knew him. They expected him and came swimming up under the brown-edged lotus. They ruled their little pool between the buildings, they entertained the children of the House and begat their generations completely oblivious to the fact that they were not on the world of their origin.

Here was here. The white old fellow with the orange patches had been taking food from his hand since he was a young boy, and daily, now, since Jordan had gone and he and Grant had sought the outside whenever they could. Every morning.

Spy-dishes could pick up their voices from the House, could pick them up anywhere. But surely, surely, Security just did the easy thing, and caught the temperature of things from time to time by flipping a monitor switch on the apartment, not wasting overmuch time on a quiet pair of tape-designers who had not made the House trouble in years. Security could bring them in for psychprobe anytime it wanted. That they had not—meant Security was not interested. Yet.

Still, they were careful.

"He's hungry," Justin said of the white koi. "Whiter; and children don't remember."

"One of the differences," Grant said, sitting on the rock near him. "Azi children would."

Justin laughed in spite of the distress that hovered over them. "You're so damn superior."

Grant shrugged cheerfully. "Born-men are so blind to other norms. We aren't." Another piece of wafer hit the water, and a koi took it, sending out ripples that disturbed the lotus. "I tell you, all the trouble with alien contacts is preconceptions. They should send us."

"This is the man who says Novgorod would be too foreign."

"Us. You and me. I wouldn't worry then."

A long pause. Justin held the napkin of wafers still in his hands. "I wish to hell there was a place."

"Don't worry about it." It was not Novgorod Grant meant. Of a sudden the shadow was back. The cold was back in the wind. "Don't. It's all right."

Justin nodded, mute. They were so close. He had had letters from Jordan. They looked like lace, with sentences physically cut from the paper. But they said, in one salutation: Hello, son. I hear you and Grant are well. I read and re-read all your letters. The old ones are wearing out. Please send more.

His sense of humor is intact, he had commented to Grant. And he and Grant had read and re-read that letter too, for all the little cues it had given him about Jordan's state of mind. Read and re-read the others that got through. Page after page of how the weather was. Talk about Paul—constantly, Paul and I. That had reassured him too.

Things are moving, Denys had said, when he brought up the subject of sending voice tapes. Or making phone calls, carefully monitored.

And they had been so close to getting that permission.

"I can't help but worry," Justin said. "Grant, we've got to be so damn clean for the next little while. And it won't finish it. It won't be the last time. You or I don't have to have done anything."

"They brought the girl there. They didn't stop us from coming. Maybe they didn't expect what happened, but it wasn't our doing. A roomful of psychologists—and they froze. They cued the girl. She was reading them, not us. It's that flux-thinking again. Born-men. They didn't want what happened; and they did want it, they set up the whole thing to show Ari off, and she was doing it—she was proving what they've worked to prove. And proving nothing. Maybe we cued her. We were watching her. I got caught at it. Maybe that made her curious. She's four years old, Justin. And the whole room jumped. What's any four-year-old going to do?"

"Run to her mother, dammit. She started to. Then everybody relaxed and she picked that up too. And got this look—" He twitched his shoulders as a sudden chill got down his neck. Then shoved his imagination back down again and tried to think. The way no one had, last night.

"Does it occur to you," Grant said, "the fallibility of CIT memory? Flux-thinking. You have prophetic dreams, remember? You can dream about a man drinking a glass of milk. A week later you can see Yanni drinking tea at lunch and if seeing him do that has a high shock-value, you'll super the dream-state right over him, you'll swear you dreamed about him doing that, exactly at that table, and even psychprobe can't sort it out after that. It's happened to me twice in my life. And when it does, I take my tape out of the vault and betake myself to the couch for a session until I feel better. Listen to me: I'll concede the child's behavior may have been significant. I'll wait to see how it integrates with other behavior. But if you want my analysis of the situation, every CIT in that room went dream-state. Including you. Mass hallucination. The only sane people in that room for thirty seconds were the azi and that kid, and most of us were keyed on our CITs and bewildered as hell."

"Except you?"

"I was watching you and her."

Justin gave a heavy sigh and some of the tension went out of him. It was nothing, God knew, he did not know. It was what Grant said, a roomful of psychologists forgot their science. Flux-thinking. Shades of values. "Hell with Hauptmann," he muttered. "I'm becoming an Emoryite." Two more quiet breaths. He could remember it with less emotional charge now and see the child—instead of the woman. I'm going to a party at Valery's.

Not a touch of maliciousness in that. She had not been playing her game then. She had looked up with a face as innocent as any child's and offered a let's-be-friends opening. Them and Us. Peace-making, maybe. He was not in touch with his own four-year-old memories. Jacobs, who worked that level in citizen psych, could tell him what a four-year-old CIT was like. But he could haul up a few things out of that dark water: Jordan's face when he was in his thirties.

Himself and Grant feeding the pond-fish. Four or five or six. He was not sure. It was one of his oldest memories and he could not pin it down.

And he sweated, suddenly, shying off.

Why? Why do I do that?

What's wrong with me?

Walls.

Children—had not been an interest of his. Emphatically—not an interest of his. He had mentally shied off every chance to learn, fled his own childhood like a territory he was not going back to; and the preoccupation of Reseune with the Project had disgusted him.

Twenty-three years old and a fool, doing routine work, wasting himself, not thinking to left and right. Just straight down a track. Not checking out much tape because tape meant helplessness; because tape opened up areas he did not want opened.

Throwing down those walls to then, to Jordan, to anything that had been—brought the anger up, made his palms sweat. Getting involved—

But they had become involved.

"It's a trap, isn't it?" he said to Grant. "Your psychset won't let you see what I saw. But is it valid for her, Grant? She has that flux-dimension, and so do all us CITs."

Grant gave a humorless laugh. "You're conceding I'm right."

"It was a roomful of CITs being fools. But maybe we saw something you didn't."

"Flux. Flux. Klein bottles. True and not-true. I'm glad I know what planet I'm standing on, all the time. And I saw what I saw without supering the past or the future."

"Damn. Sometimes I wish I could borrow your tape."

Grant shook his head. "You're right too. About seeing things I don't. I know you do. I'm worried. I'm worried because I know I can't see the situation the way a CIT does. I can logic my way through what you'll do, but damned if I can understand the flux."

"You mean your pathways are so down azi-tracks you don't see it." He could not let the Hauptmann-Emory debate pass; Grant nattered at him with it all the time, and Grant was trying him with it now. Under the other things, a little touch of clinical perspective: get out of it, Justin. Don't react. Think.

"I mean," Grant said, "if we were all azi we wouldn't have this problem. And she wouldn't: they could install the damn psychset and she'd be exactly what they wanted. But she isn't. They aren't. Rationality isn't what they're after, it's not what they're practicing. From where I stand, you're as upside down as they are, and I wish to hell you'd listen to me and keep your head down, throw out the hallucinations, and don't react. Any possible trouble is years away. There's time to prepare for it."

"You're absolutely right: we're not dealing with azi mindset here. They're not a hell of a lot careful. If anything goes wrong with their precious project next week they'll know it was my fault. Anytime that kid crosses my path—there's no way I can be innocent. Facts have nothing to do with it. She's just damn well killed any chance of getting any give in Jordan's situation; hell, they may not even let the letters through—"

"Don't look for blame. Don't act as if you have it. Mark me: if you go around reacting, they'll react."

Ari's voice. Out of the past. Sweet, get control of yourself. Boy, I do appreciate your distress, but get a grip on it. Are you afraid of women, sweet? Your father is. Family is such a liability.

He rested his head in his hands and knew even when he did it that he had lost his edge, lost everything, scattered it as thoroughly as he could manage it—all the fine-edged logic, all the control, all the defensive mechanisms. He walked Reseune's corridors like a ghost, laid himself open to everyone, shielded no reactions. See, I'm harmless.

No one had to worry about him. He was all nerves and reactions. He detected everyone's vague distaste and their caution around him. Jordan's calamity and his own guilt over precipitating it had taken the fight out of him, maybe made him half crazy, that was what they had to think.

Except the handful who had seen the tapes. Who had seen those damnable tapes and knew what Ari had done, knew why he waked in cold sweats and why he shied off from people touching him or being near him. Especially Petros Ivanov knew, having probed his mind after Giraud and everyone had done with him. I'm going to do a little intervention, Petros had said, patting his shoulder while he was going under; it had taken three large Security men to get him over there to hospital and several interns to get the drug into him. Giraud's orders. I'm just going to tell you it's all right. That you're safe. You've been through trauma. I'm going to close off that time. All right? Relax. You know me, Justin. You know I'm on your side. . . .

O God, what did they do to me? Ari, Giraud, Petros— He wept. Grant put a hand on his arm. Grant was the only one, the only one who could. The child had touched his hand. And he had flashed-back. It was like touching a corpse.

He sat like that for a long time. Until he heard voices, and knew other people were on the walk, far across the quadrangle. There was a hedge to hide them. But he made the effort to pull himself together. "Justin?" Grant said. "I'm all right. Dammit." And, which he had never said to Grant: "Petros did something to me. Or Giraud did. Or Ari. Don't you see it? Don't you see a difference?"

"No."

"Tell me the truth, dammit!"

Grant flinched. A strange, distant kind of flinching. And pain, after that. Profound pain.

"Grant? Do you think they did something to me?"

"I don't understand born-men," Grant said.

"Don't give me that shit!"

"—I was about to say—" Grant's face was white, his lips all but trembling. "Justin, you people—I don't understand."

"Don't lie to me. What were you going to say?"

"I don't know the answer. God, you'd been shocked over and over; if you were azi you'd have gone like I did. Better if you could have. I don't know what's going on inside you. I see—I see you—"

"Spit it out, Grant!"

"—You're not—not like you would have been if it hadn't happened. Who could be? You learn. You adjust."

"That's not what I'm asking. Did they do anything?"

"I don't know," Grant said. All but stammered. "I don't know. I can't judge CIT psychsets."

"You can judge mine."

"Don't back me into a corner, Justin. I don't know. I don't know and I don't know how to know."

"I'm psyched. Is that what you see? Come on. Give me some help, Grant."

"I think you've got scars. I don't know whether Petros helped or hurt."

"Or knocked me the rest of the way down and did it to me like Ari did. The kid—" It had been a jolt. A severe jolt. Time-trip. I'm afraid of the tape-flashes. I shut them out. I warp myself away from that time. That in itself is a decision, isn't it?

Petros: "I'm going to close it down."

Wall it off.

God. It's a psychblock. It could be.

They weren't my friends. Or Jordan's. I know that.

He drew a deep, sudden gulp of air. I'm blocking off everything I learned from her. I'm scared stiff of it.

"Justin?"

The kid's shaken it loose. The kid's thrown me back before Petros. Before Giraud. Back when there was just Ari.

Back when I didn't believe anything could get to me. I walked in her door that night thinking I was in control.

Two seconds later I knew I wasn't.

Family is a liability, sweet.

What was she telling me?

"Justin?"

Would she want what Reseune is becoming? Would she want that kid in Giraud's hands? Damn, he was in Ari's pocket while she was alive. But after she died—

"Justin!"

He became aware of Grant shaking at him. Of real fear. "I'm all right," he mumbled. "I'm all right." .

He felt Grant's hand close on his. Grant's hand was warm. The wind had gone through him. What he was looking at, he did not know. The garden. The pond. "Grant, —whether or not that kid's Ari reincarnate, she's smart. She's figured out how to psych them. Isn't that what it's all about? She's figured out what they want, isn't that what you say about Hauptmann's subjects? She's got them believing all of it. Denys and Jane and Giraud and all of them. I don't have to believe in it to believe what can happen to us if Giraud thinks we're a threat."

"Justin. Let it alone. Let's go. It's cold out here.

"Do you think they ran a psychblock on me?" He dragged himself back from out-there; looked at Grant's pale, cold-stung face. "Give me the truth, Grant."

A long silence. Grant was breathing hard. Holding back. It took no skill to see that.

"I think they could have," Grant said finally. The grip on his hand hurt. There was a tremor in Grant's voice. "I've done whatever I could. I've tried. Ever since. Don't slip on me. Don't let them get their hands on you again. And they can—if you give them any excuse. You know they can.

"I'm not going under. I'm not. I know what they did." He took a deep breath and drew Grant closer, hugged him, leaned against him, exhausted. "I'm doing all right. Maybe I'm doing better than I have been in the last six years."

Grant looked at him, pale and panicked.

"I swear," Justin said. He was beyond cold. Frozen through. Numb. "Damn," he said. "We've got time, don't we?"

"We've got time," Grant said. And pulled at him. Come on. You re freezing. So am I. Let's get inside."

He got up. He threw the rest of the food to the fish, stuffed the napkin into his pocket with numb fingers, and walked. He was not thoroughly conscious of the route, of all the automatic things. Grant had no more to say until they got to the office in Wing Two.

Then Grant lingered at the door of his office. Just looked at him, as if to ask if he was all right. "I've got to run to library."

He gave Grant a silent lift of the chin. I'm all right. Go on, then.

Grant bit his lip. "See you at lunch."

"Right."

Grant left. He sat down in the disordered little office, logged on to the House system, and prepared to get to work. But a message-dot was blinking on the corner of his screen. He windowed it up.

See me first thing, my office, it said. Giraud Nye.

He sat there staring at the thing. He found his hand shaking when he reached to punch the off switch.

He was not ready for this. Psychprobe flashed into his mind; all the old nightmares. He needed all his self-control.

All the old reflexes were gone. Everything. He was vulnerable. Grant was.

He had whatever time it took to walk over there to pull himself together. He did not know what to do, whether to route himself past the library and try to warn Grant—but that looked guilty. Every move he could make could damn him.

No, he thought then, and bit his lip till it bled. It flashed back to another meeting. A taste of blood in his mouth. Hysteria jammed behind his teeth.

It's started, he thought. It's happened.

He turned the machine on, sent a message over to Grant's office: Giraud wants to see me. I may be held up on the lunch. —J. It was warning enough. What Grant could do about it, he had no idea.

Worry. That was what.

He shut down again, got up, locked the office, and walked down the corridor, still tasting the blood. He kept looking at things and people with the thought that he might not be back. That the next thing he and Grant might see might be an interview room in the hospital.

ix

Giraud's office was the same he had always had, in the Administrative Wing, the same paneled and unobtrusive entry with the outside lock—more security than Ari had ever used. Giraud was no longer official head of Security. He was Councillor Nye these days—for outsiders' information. But everyone in the House knew who was running Security—still.

Justin slid his card into the lock, heard it click, set for his CIT-number. He walked into the short paneled hall and opened the inside door, on the office where Giraud's azi Abban was at his accustomed desk.

That was the first thing he saw. In the next split-second he saw the two Security officers and Abban was rising casually from his chair.

He stopped cold. And looked at the nearer of the azi officers, eye to eye, calmly: Let's be civilized. He took the next quiet step inside and let the door shut at his back.

They had a body-scanner. "Arms out, ser," the one on the left said. He obliged them, let them pass the wand over him. It found something in his coat pocket. The officer pulled out the paper napkin. Justin gave him a disparaging look in spite of the fact that his heart was going like a hammer and the air in the room seemed too thin.

They satisfied themselves he was not armed. Abban opened the door and they took him through it.

Giraud was not the only one there. Denys was. And Petros Ivanov. He felt his heart trying to come up his throat. One of the officers held him lightly by the arm and guided him to the remaining chair, in front of Giraud's desk. Denys sat in a chair to the left of the desk, Petros to the right.

Like a tribunal.

And the Security men stayed, one with his hand on the back of Justin's chair, until Giraud lifted a hand and told them to leave. But Justin's ears told him someone had stayed when the door had shut.

Abban, he thought.

"You understand why you're here," Giraud said. "I don't have to tell you."

Giraud wanted an answer. "Yes, ser," he said in a muted voice.

They'll do what they damned well please.

Why have they got Petros here? Unless they're going to run a probe.

"Have you got anything to say?" Giraud asked.

"I don't think I should have to." He found a tenuous control of his voice. Dammit, get a grip on things.

And like a wind out of the dark: Steady, sweet. Don't give everything away.

"I didn't provoke that. God knows I didn't want it."

"You could have damn well left."

"I left."

"After." Giraud's face was thin-lipped with anger. He picked up a stylus and posed it between his fingers. "What's your intention? To sabotage the project?"

"No. I was there like everyone else. No different. I was minding my own business. What did you do, prime her for that show? Is that it? A little show? Impress the Family? Con the press? I'll bet you've got tape."

Giraud had not expected that. He gave away very little. Denys and Petros looked distressed.

"The child wasn't prompted," Denys said quietly. "You have my word, Justin, it wasn't prompted."

"The hell it wasn't. It's a damn good show for the news, isn't it—just the sort of thing that makes great fodder for the eetees out there. The kid singles out the killer's replicate. God! what a piece of science!"

"Don't bother to play for a camera," Giraud said. "We're not being taped."

"I didn't expect." He was shaking. He shifted his foot to relax his leg, to keep it from trembling. But, God, the brain was working. They were going to haul him off for another session, that was what they were working up to; and somehow that shook the fog out of his mind. "I imagine you'll work me over good before I get to the cameras. But it'd be sloppy as hell to have me on the tape in that party and dropping right out again. Or turning up dead. Makes a problem for you, doesn't it?"

"Justin," Petros said, a tone of appeal. "No one's going to 'work you over.' That's not what we're about here."

"Sure."

"What we're about," Giraud said in a hard, clipped voice, "is one clear question. Did you cue her?"

"You find your own answers. Write down whatever you want. Look at the damn tape."

"We have," Giraud said. "Grant had eye contact with her. So did you, right before she moved."

Attack on a new target. Of course they got around to Grant. "What else were people looking at? What else were we there to look at? I looked at her. Did you think I'd come there and not? You saw me there. You could have told me to leave. But of course you didn't. You set me up. You set up the whole thing. How many people in there knew it? Just you?"

"You maintain you didn't cue her."

"Dammit, no. Neither of us did. I asked Grant. He wouldn't lie to me. He admits the eye contact. He was looking at her. 'I got caught at it,' was the way he put it. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't mine."

Petros stirred in his chair. Leaned toward Giraud. "Gerry, I think you have to take into account what I said."

Giraud touched the desk control. The screen tilted up out of the surface; he typed something with his right hand, likely a file-scan. Dataflow reflected off the metal on his collar, a flicker of green.

Manipulation of more than data. Orchestrated, Justin told himself. The whole play. A little moment of suspense now. Secrets.

And he still could not keep himself from reacting.

Giraud read or mimed reading. His breathing grew larger. His face was no friendlier when he looked up. "You don't like tapestudy. Odd, in a designer."

"I don't damn well trust it. Can you blame me?"

"You don't even do entertainment tapes."

"I work hard."

"Let's not have that kind of answer. You skipped out on your follow-ups with Petros. You don't take tape more than once every month or so. That's a damned strange attitude in a designer."

He said nothing. He had used all the glib answers.

"Even Grant," Giraud said, "doesn't go into the lab for his. He uses a home unit. Not at all regulation."

"There's no rule about that. If that satisfies him, it satisfies him. Grant's bright, he's got good absorption—"

"It's not your instruction to do that."

"No, it's not my instruction."

"You know," Petros said, "Grant's self-sufficient, completely social. He doesn't need that kind of reinforcement as often as some. But considering what he's been through, it would be better if he took it deep. Just as a checkup."

"Considering what you put him through? No!"

"So it is your instruction," Giraud said.

"No. It's his choice. It's his choice, he's entitled, the same as I am, the last I heard."

"I'm not sure we need a designer-team that's phobic about tape.

"Go to hell."

"Easy," Denys said. "Take it easy. Giraud, there's nothing wrong with his output. Or Grant's. That's not at issue."

"There was more than one victim in Ari's murder," Petros said. "Justin was. Grant was. I don't think you can ignore that fact. You're dealing with someone who was a boy when the incident happened, who was, in fact, the victim of Ari's own criminal act, among others. I haven't wanted to press the issue. I've been keeping an eye on him. I've sent him requests to come in to talk. Is that true, Justin?"

"It's true."

"You haven't answered, have you?"

"No." Panic pressed on him. He felt sick inside.

"The whole situation with the Project," Petros said, "has bothered you quite a bit, hasn't it?"

"Live and let live. I'm sorry for the kid. I'm sure you've got all the benefit of Security's eavesdropping in my apartment. I hope you get a lot of entertainment out of the intimate bits."

"Justin."

"You can go to hell too, Petros."

"Justin. Tell me the truth. Are you still getting tape-flashes?"

"No."

"You're sure."

"Yes, I'm sure."

"You felt a lot of stress when you walked into the party, didn't you?

"Hell, no. Why should I?"

"I think that's your answer," Petros said to Giraud. "He came in there stressed. Both of them did. Ari had no trouble picking up on it. That's all there is to it. I don't think it was intended. I'm more disturbed about Justin's state of mind. I think it's just best he go back to his wing, and show up at family functions, and carry on as normally as he can. I don't think anything useful is served by a probe. He's carrying enough stress as it is. I do want him to come in for counseling."

"Giraud," Denys said, "if you believe young Ari's sensitivities, bear in mind she wasn't afraid of Justin. Stressed as he was, she wasn't afraid of him. Quite the opposite."

"I don't like that either." Giraud drew a breath and leaned back, looking at Justin from under his brows. "You'll take Petros' prescription. If he tells me you're not cooperating, you'll be tending a precip station before sundown. Hear me?"

"Yes, ser."

"You'll go on working. If something takes you across Ari's path, you speak to her or not according to your judgment, whichever will provoke the least curiosity. You'll show up at Family functions. If she speaks to you, be pleasant. No more than that. You stray off that line, you'll be in here again and I won't be in a good mood. And that goes for Grant, just the same. You make it clear to him. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, ser." Like any azi. Quiet. Respectful. It's a trap. It'll still close. There's something more to this.

"You can go. Open the door, Abban."

The door did open. He shoved himself out of his chair. Denys did the same. He made it as far as the door and Denys went out it with him, caught his arm, steered him past Security out into the small box of the entry hall and out again into the main corridor.

Then Denys tugged him to a stop. "Justin."

He stayed stopped. He was shaking, still. But defiance did not serve anything.

"Justin, you're under a lot of pressure. But you know and I know—there's no memory transfer. It's not the old Ari. We don't want, frankly, another case of animosity with the Warricks. We don't want you taking Jordan's part in this. You know what's at stake."

He nodded.

"Justin, listen to me. Giraud did the probe on you. He knows damned well you're honest. He's just—"

"A bastard."

"Justin. Don't make things hard. Do what Giraud says. Don't make a mistake. You don't want to hurt the little girl. I know you don't. What Ari did to you—has nothing to do with her. And you wouldn't hurt her."

"No. I never did anything to Ari, for God's sake. You think I'd hurt a kid?"

"I know. I know that's true. Just think about that. Think about it the next time you have to deal with her. Ari tore you up. You can do the same thing to that child. You can hurt her. I want you to think seriously about that."

"I didn't do anything to her!"

"You didn't do anything. Calm down. Calm down and take a breath. Listen to me. If you can handle this right, it could help you."

"Sure."

Denys took his arm again, faced him closer to the wall as Security left the office. Held on to him. "Justin. I wanted to tell you—the request that's on my desk, the phone link: I'm going to give it a few weeks and then allow it. You'll be on some kind of delay—Jordan's clever, and Security has to have time to think. That's the best I can do. Does that make you feel better?"

"What's it cost me?"

"Nothing. Nothing. Just don't foul it up. Stay out of trouble. All right?"

He stared at the wall, at travertine patterns that blurred in front of his eyes. He felt Denys pat his shoulder.

"I'm damn sorry. I'm damn sorry. I know. You haven't had a day of peace. But I want you on the Project. That's why I fought Giraud to keep you here. Ari liked you—no. Listen to me. Ari liked you. Never mind what she did. I know her—posthumously—as well as I know myself. Ari's feud with Jordan was old and it was bitter. But she got your test scores and made up her mind she wanted you."

"They were faked!"

"No, they weren't. Not outstandingly high, you know that. But scattered through half a dozen fields. You had the qualities she had. Not her match, but then, you hadn't had Olga Emory pushing you. She told me—personally—and this is no lie, son, that she wanted you in her wing, that you were better than the tests showed, a damned lot better, she said, than Jordan. Her words, not mine."

"Science wasn't what she had in mind, you know that."

"You're wrong. It's not what you want to hear, God knows. But if you want to understand why she did what she did—that's something you should know. I have one interest in this. Ari. Understand—she had cancer. Rejuv breakdown. The doctors argue whether the cancer kicked the rejuv or whether the rejuv was failing naturally and let the cancer develop. Whatever was going on, she knew she was in trouble and the timing couldn't have been worse. Surgery would have delayed the project, so she put Petros and Irina under orders and covered it up. She set the whole project up, so that when she had to go for surgery—I'm sure she didn't rule that out: she wasn't a fool; but so when she did, it wouldn't leave the subject without support, you understand, and it could run a few months with a light hand. Understand: I knew, because I was her friend, Justin. I was the one she allowed access to her notes. Giraud's damn good at the money end of this. But my concern is her concern: the Project. I think you have your sincere doubts about it. No controls, no duplicatable result– But it's founded on two centuries of duplicatable results with the azi. And of course it's not the kind of thing that we can quantify: we're dealing with a human life, an emotional dimension, a subjective dimension. We may disagree like hell, Justin, in there, in private, and I respect you for your professional honesty. But if you try to sabotage us, you'll have me for an enemy. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, ser."

"I'll tell you another thing: Ari did some very wrong things. But she was a great woman. She was Reseune. And she was my friend. I've protected you; and I've protected her reputation by the same stroke; and damned if I'll see some sordid little incident destroy that reputation. I'll keep you from that. You understand me?"

"You've got the tapes in the archives! If this poor kid halfway follows in Ari's track, researchers are going to want every last detail—and that's no small one."

"No. That won't matter. That's from the end of her life, beyond the scope of their legitimate interest. And even so, that's why we're working with Rubin. Rubin's the one the military can paw over. Ari is our project. We keep title on the techniques. Did Reseune ever release anything—it has a financial interest in?"

"My God, you can run that scam on the military for years. Admit it. It's Giraud's damn fund-raiser. His bottomless source of military projects."

Denys smiled and shook his head. "It's going to work, Justin. We didn't prompt her."

"Then tell me this: are you sure Giraud didn't?"

Denys' eyes reacted minutely. The face did not. It went on smiling. "Time will prove it, won't it? In your position, rather than be made a public fool, I'd keep my mouth shut, Justin Warrick. I've helped you. I've spoken for you and Jordan and Grant when no one else did. I've been your patron. But remember I was Ari's friend. And I won't see this project sabotaged."

The threat was there. It was real. He had no doubt of it. "Yes, ser," he said in half a voice.

Denys patted his shoulder again. "That's the only time I'm going to say that. I don't want ever to say it again. I want you to take the favor I'm doing you and remember what I told you. All right?"

"Yes ser."

"Are you all right?"

He drew a breath. "That depends on what Petros is going to do, doesn't it?"

"He's just going to talk to you. That's all." Denys shook at him gently. "Justin, —are you getting tape-flashes?"

"No," he said. "No." His mouth trembled. He let it. It made the point with Denys. "I've just had enough hell. The hospital panics me, all right? Do you blame me? I don't trust Petros. Or anyone on his staff. I'll answer his questions. If you want my cooperation, keep him away from me and Grant."

"Is that blackmail?"

"God, I couldn't have learned anything about that, could I? No. I'm asking you. I'll do anything you want me to. I've got no percentage in hurting the kid. I don't want that. I just want my job, I want the phone-link, I want to—"

He lost his composure, turned and leaned against the wall until he had gotten his breath.

Hand them all the keys, sweet, that's right.

Damn stupid.

"You've got all that," Denys said. "Look. You answer Petros' questions. You try to work this thing out. You were a scared kid yourself. You're still scared, and I'm terribly afraid all this did you more damage than you're willing to have known—"

"I can do my job. You said that."

"That's not in question. I assure you it's not. You don't know who to trust. You think you're all alone. You're not. Petros does care. I do. I know, that's not what you want to hear. But you can come to me if you feel you need help. I've told you my conditions. I want your help. I don't want any accusations against Ari, the project, or the staff."

"Then keep Petros' hands off me and Grant. Tell Security to take their damn equipment out. Let me live my life and do my work, that's all."

"I want to help you."

"Then help me! Do what I asked. You'll get my cooperation. I'm not carrying on a feud. I just want a little peace, Denys. I just want a little peace, after all these years. Have I—ever—done anyone any harm?"

"No." A pat on his shoulder, on his back. "No. You haven't. Never anything. The harm was all against you."

He turned, leaning against the wall. "Then leave me alone, for God's sake, let me talk to my father, let me do my work, I'll be all right, just let me alone and get Security out of my bedroom!"

Denys looked at him a long time. "All right," he said. "We'll try that awhile. We'll try it, at least on the home front. I don't say we won't notice who comes and goes through your door. If something looks suspicious they'll be on you. Not otherwise. I'll give that order. Just don't give me any cause to regret it."

"No, ser," he said, because it was all he could get out.

Denys left him then.

When he got back to the office Grant met him in the doorway—Grant, scared and silent, asking questions just by being there.

"It's all right," he said. "They asked if we meant to do it. I said no. I said some other things. Denys said they were going to get Security off our tails."

Grant gave him a look that wondered who was listening and who he was playing for.

"No, it's what he said," he answered Grant. And shut the door for what privacy they had. He remembered the other thing, the important thing, then, the back and forth of promises and threats like so many hammer-blows, and he leaned on the back of the work-station chair, rinding himself short of breath. "He said they were going to let us talk to Jordan."

"Is that true?" Grant wondered.

That was the thing that threw him off his balance, that they suddenly promised him favors when they had least reason. When they could haul him off to hospital by force and they had just demonstrated that.

Something was going on.

x

"Music," he told the Minder that night, when they walked in the door. It started the tape at the cutoff point. It reported on calls. There were none. "We're not popular," he said to Grant. There was usually at least one, something from the lab, somebody asking about business, who had failed to catch them at the office.

"Ah, human inconstancy." Grant laid his briefcase on the accustomed table, shed his coat into the closet, and walked over to the sideboard and the liquor cabinet while Justin hung his up. He mixed two drinks and brought them back. "Double for you. Shoes off, feet up, sit. You can use it."

He sat down, kicked the shoes off, leaned back in the cushions and drank. Whiskey and water, a taste that promised present relief for frayed nerves. He saw Grant with the little plastic slate they used—writing things they dared not say aloud; and Grant wrote:

Do we believe them about dropping the bugging?

Justin shook his head. Set the glass down on the stone rim of the cushioned pit-group and reached for the tablet. We feed them a little disinformation and see if we can catch them.

Back to Grant; a nod. Idea?

To him. Not yet. Thinking.

Grant: I suppose I have to wait till fishfeed to find out what happened.

Himself: Complicated. Dangerous. Petros is going to do interviews with me.

Grant: a disturbed look. Unspoken question.

Himself: They suspect about the flashes.

Grant: underline of word interviews. Question mark.

Himself: Denys said. No probe. Then he added: They've realized I have a problem with tape. I'm scared. I'm afraid they were doing a voice-stress. If so, I flunked. Will flunk Petros' test worse. Long time—I tried to think the flashes were trauma. Now I think maybe a botched-up block: deliberate. Maybe they want me like this.

Grant read it with a frown growing on his face. He wrote with some deliberation. Cleared the slate and tried again. And again. Finally a brief: I think not deliberate block. I think too many probes.

Himself: Then why in hell are we writing notes in our own living room? Triple underlined.

Grant reacted with a little lift of the brows. And wrote: Because anything is possible. But I don't think deliberate block. Damage. Giraud came in asking questions on top of an intervention Ari was running and hadn't finished. If that isn't enough, what is? Whatever Ari did would have been extensive and subtle. She could run an intervention with a single sentence. We know that. Giraud came breaking in and messed something up.

Justin read that and felt the cold go a little deeper. He chewed the stylus a moment and wrote: Giraud had seen the tapes. Giraud knew what she did. Giraud may work more with military psychsets, and that doesn't reassure me either. They got him that damn Special rating. Politics. Not talent. God knows what he did to me. Or what Petros did.

Grant read and a frown came onto his face. He wrote: I can't believe it of Petros. Giraud, yes. But Petros is independent.

Himself: I don't trust him. And I've got to face those interviews. They can take me off job. Call me unstable, suspend Alpha license. Transfer you. Whole damn thing over again.

Grant grabbed the slate and wrote, frowning: You're Jordan's replicate. If you show talent matching his without psychogenics program at same time they're running Rubin Project you could call their results into question. Also me. Remember Ari created me from a Special. You and I: possible controls on Project. Is that why Ari wanted us? Is that why Giraud doesn't?

The thought upset his stomach. I don't know, he wrote.

Grant: Giraud and Denys run the Project without controls except Rubin himself, and there's no knowing how honest those results will be. We are inconvenient. Ari wouldn't ever have worked the way they're working. Ari used controls, far as you can with human psych. I think she wanted us both.

Himself: Denys swears the Project is valid. But it's compromised every step of the way.

Grant: It's valid if it works. Like you've always said: They don't plan to release data if it does work. Reseune never releases data. Reseune makes money off its discoveries. If Reseune gets Ari back, an Ari to direct further research, will they release notes to general publication? No. Reseune will get big Defense contracts. Lot of power, power of secrecy, lot of money, but Reseune will run whole deal and get more and more power. Reseune will never release the findings. Reseune will work on contract for Defense, and get anything Reseune wants as long as Defense gets promises of recovering individuals—which even Reseune won't be able to do without the kind of documentation under that mountain out there. That takes years. Takes lifetimes. In the meantime, Reseune does some things for Defense, lot of things for itself. Do I read born-men right?

He read and nodded, with a worse and worse feeling in his gut.

Grant: You're very strange, you CITs. Perhaps it goes with devising your own psychsets—and having your logic on top. We know our bottom strata are sound. Who am I to judge my makers?

xi

Jane sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled her hair out of the way as Ollie sat down by her and brushed his lips across her nape.

The Child, thank God, was asleep, and Nelly had won the battle of wills for the night.

Ari was hyper– had been hyper, all day, wanting to go back to Valery's place and play.

Time for that to change. Valery had become a problem, as she had predicted. Time for Ari to have another playmate. There had never been only one.

Damn. Hell of a thing to do to the kid.

Ollie's arms came around her, hugged her against him. "Is something the matter?" Ollie asked.

"Do something distracting, Ollie dear. I don't want to think tonight."

Damn. I'm even beginning to talk like Olga.

Ollie slid a hand lower and kissed her shoulder.

"Come on, Ollie, dammit, let's get rough. I'm in a mood to kill something."

Ollie understood then. Ollie pushed her down on the bed and made himself a major distraction, holding her hands because Ollie had no particular desire to end up with scratch marks.

Ollie was damned good. Like most azi who took the training, he was very, very good, and trying to keep him at bay was a game he won only slowly and with deliberation, a game precisely timed to what would work with her.

Work, it did. Jane sighed, and gave herself up after a while to Ollie's gentler tactics. Nice thing about an azi lover—he was always in the mood. Always more worried about her than about himself. She had had a dozen CIT lovers. But funny thing ... she cared more about Ollie. And he would never expect that.

"I love you," she said into his ear, when he was almost asleep, his head on her shoulder. She ran her fingers through his sweat-damp hair and he looked at her with a puzzled, pleased expression. "I really do, Ollie."

"Sera," he said. And stayed very still, as if she had lost her mind after all these years. He was exhausted. She was still insomniac. But he was going to stay awake if his eyes crossed, if she wanted to talk, she knew that. She had his attention.

"That's all," she said. "I just decided to tell you that."

"Thank you," he said, not moving. Looking as if he still thought there was more to this.

"Nothing else." She rubbed his shoulder. "You ever wanted to be a CIT? Take the final tape? Go out of here?"

"No," he said. Sleep seemed to leave him. His breathing quickened. "I really don't. I don't want to. I couldn't leave you."

"You could. The tape would fix that."

"I don't want it. I truly don't want it. It couldn't make me not want to be here. Nothing could do that. Don't tell me to take it."

"I won't. No one will. I only wondered, Ollie. So you don't want to leave here. But what if I have to?"

"I'll go with you!"

"Will you?"

"Where will we go?"

"Fargone. Not for a while yet. But I really want to be sure you're all right. Because I do love you. I love you more than I do anyone. Enough to leave you here if that's what you want, or to take you with me, or to do anything you want me to. You deserve that, after all these years. I want you to be happy."

He started to answer, hitching up on one elbow. Facile and quick, an azi's ready and sincere protest of loyalty. She stopped him with a hand on his lips.

"No. Listen to me. I'm getting older, Ollie. I'm not immortal. And they're so damn scared I won't turn Ari loose when I have to– That's coming, Ollie. Two more years. God, how fast it's gone! Sometimes I could kill her; and sometimes—sometimes I feel so damn sorry for her. Which is what they don't want. They're afraid I'll break the rules, that's at the center of it. They—Giraud and Denys, damn their hearts, have decided she's too attached to you. They want that to stop. No more contact with her. Cold and critical. That's the prescription. Sometimes I think they earnestly hope I'll drop dead on cue, just like the damn script. I had a talk with Giraud today—" She drew a deep breath and something hurt behind her eyes and around her heart. "They offered me the directorship at RESEUNESPACE. Fargone. The Ru-bin Project, with bows and ribbons on it."

"Did you take it?" he asked, finally, when breath was too choked in her to go on.

She nodded, bit her lip and got it under control. "I did. Sweet Giraud. Oh, you just withdraw to Wing One when she's seven, that was what they told me when I took this on. Now they've got the nervies about it and they want me the hell out of reach. It's not enough, Giraud says. Olga died when Ari was seven. Being over in Wing One, just walking out of her life, that's too much rejection, too attainable an object. Dammit. So they offer me the directorship. Morley's out, I'm in, dammit."

"You always said you wanted to go back to space." Another several breaths. "Ollie, I wanted to. I've wanted to for years and years. Until—somewhere I just got old. And they offered me this, and I realized I don't want to go anymore. That's a terrible thing to realize, for an old spacer brat. I've gotten old on the ground, and all the things I know are here, everything that's familiar, and I want it around me, that's all—" Another breath. "Not the way I'm going to have it, though. They can promote me. Or they can retire me. Damned if I'll take retirement. That's the trouble of doing your job and never bothering to power-grab. That upstart Giraud can fire me. That's what it comes down to. Damn his guts. So I go to Fargone. And start the whole thing over with another damn brat, this one with medical problems. Shit, Ollie. Do somebody a favor and look at what they do to you."

Ollie brushed at her hair. Stroked her shoulder. Ached his heart out for her, that was what Ollie would do, because she was his Supervisor, and god was in trouble.

"Well, hell if I want to drag you into the same mess. Think what it'll be, if you go out there. I'll die on you in not so many years—add it up, Ollie; and there you are, twenty lightyears from civilization. What kind of thing is that to do to somebody who's got less choice than I do? Huh? I don't want to put you in that kind of position. If you like it here at Reseune, I can get you that CIT tape and you can stay here where it's civilized, no take-hold drills and no Keis and fishcakes and no corridors where people walk off the ceiling ..."

"Jane, if I tell you I want to go, what will you tell me? That I'm a stupid azi who doesn't know what he wants? I know. Am I going to let you go off with some damn azi out of the Town?"

"I'm a hundred and—"

"—I don't care. I don't care. Don't make us both miserable. Don't playact with me. You want me to tell you I want to be with you, I'm telling you. But it's not fair to hold this over me. I can hear it. Dammit, Ollie, I'll leave you behind, I will— I don't want to listen to that for two years. I don't even want to think about it."

Ollie was not one to get upset. He was. She saw that finally and reached up and brushed his cheek with her fingertips. "I won't do that. I won't do it. Damn, this is too much seriousness. Damn Giraud. Damn the project. Ollie, they don't want you to touch Ari after this."

His brow furrowed in distress. "They blame me."

"It's not a question of blame. They see she likes you. It's the damn program. They wanted to take you out of here right away and I told them go to hell. I told them I'd blow it, right then. Tell the kid everything. And they'll walk a narrow line, damn right they will. So they had a counteroffer ready. One they thought I'd jump at. And a threat. Retirement. So what could I do? I took the directorship. I get myself and you—you—out of here. I should be glad of that."

"I'm sorry if I did this."

"Dammit, no, you didn't. I didn't. No one did it. Olga never beat the kid. Thank God. But I can't stand it, Ollie. I can't stand it anymore."

"Don't cry. I can't stand that."

"I'm not about to. Shut up. Roll over. It's my turn. Do you mind?"

xii