Cyteen

i

Uncle Giraud called it the highest priced shop in the known universe, let alone Novgorod, and Ari loved it. She tried on a blouse that would absolutely kill Maddy Strassen: it was bronze and brown, it was satin, and it had a scarf around the throat with a topaz and gold pin—real, of course, at this place.

And she looked back at uncle Giraud with a calculated smile. It was a very grown-up smile. She had practiced it in the mirror.

The blouse cost two hundred fifty credits. It went into a box, and uncle Giraud put it on his personal card without saying a word.

She signed a picture of herself for the shop, which had a lot of pictures of famous people who shopped there: it had its own garage and a security entrance, and it was an appointment-only place, near the spaceport, where you couldn't just walk in.

Which was why uncle Giraud said it was a place they could go, the only place they could go, because of Security.

There was a picture of the first Ari. It was spooky. But she had seen those before. The first Ari was pretty even when she was almost as old as maman, and she had been a hundred twenty when she died. She had pretty, pretty eyes, and her hair was long and black (but she would have been on rejuv then and she would have dyed it) and parted in the middle the way Ari wore hers. She wanted to wear makeup like Ari senior, but uncle Denys said no, she could have a little, but not that much, and besides, styles changed.

Uncle Denys had given her cologne for last New Year's, that he said had been made especially for Ari by a perfumery in Novgorod. It smelled wonder-ful, like the greenhouse gardens when the tulips were blooming.

She was growing up, he said, and she knew that. All of a sudden one day a long time back Nelly had said she was getting top old to run around without her blouse on, and she had looked down and realized it was not that she was getting a little fat, but that something was changing.

At the time she had thought it was a damn nuisance, because she liked not having to wear a shirt.

By now she definitely was getting a shape, and even Catlin was, sort of. Nothing, of course, to match her cousin Maddy Morley-Strassen, who was a year older, transferred in from Planys with her maman Eva, who was aunt Victoria Strassen's daughter, and maman's niece; and a cousin of Amy Carnath through Amy's father Vasily Morley-Peterson, who was at Planys.

Maddy was—

An early developer, uncle Denys called it.

Maddy was not anybody she would want to be, but she was certainly not the sort to let get too comfortable.

So she bought a scarf for Maddy and a real gold pin for Amy and a pullover for Sam and one for Tommy, and insisted to carry them on the plane, besides the other things she got for everybody. It didn't matter that you could order a lot of it, she told uncle Giraud, it mattered it came from Novgorod, where the other kids didn't get to go, and she was too going to take it on the plane. She got a blouse for Catlin, for parties: black, of course, but gauzy; Catlin looked surprised when she saw herself in the mirror. And a shirt for Florian over on the men's side: black and satiny and with a high collar that was sort of like his usual uniform sweaters, but very, very elegant. And then the woman who owned the shop thought of a pair of pants that would fit Catlin, very tight and satiny. So that meant it was only fair Florian should get new pants too. And while they were doing that, she found a gunmetal satin pair of pants that just fit her, and that meant the sweater that went with them, which was bronzed lavenders on the shoulders shading down to gunmetal-sheen lavender and then gunmetal-and-black at the bottom. It was elegant. Uncle Giraud said it was too old for her before she put it on. When he saw her in it he said well, she was getting older.

She thought she could sneak some lavender eyeshadow when she wore it at Maddy's next party.

So take that, Maddy Strassen.

They brought so many packages out of La Lune that uncle Giraud and Abban had to put a lot of them in the security escort car, and she and Florian and Catlin had to sit practically on top of each other in the back seat.

Uncle Giraud said they were going to be into the next century going through Decon at Reseune.

That was the wonderful thing about Novgorod: because they had the Amity escarpment on the east and the terraforming had piled up the rock and put up towers to make the Curtainwall on the west, and because they had all those people and all that sewage and all that algae and the greenbelt and algae starting out even in the marine shallows, it was one of the few places in the world besides Reseune that people went out without D-suits and the only other airport besides Reseune where you could take your baggage right through without anything but a hose-down and an inspection.

There was an interview to go through, in the lounge at the airport, while Abban was supervising the baggage being loaded. But she knew a lot of the reporters, especially one of the women and two of the oldest men and a young man who had a way of winking at her to get her to laugh; and she didn't mind taking the time.

Ransom, uncle Giraud called it, for being let alone while she got to see the botanical gardens, except for the photographers.

"What did you do today, Ari?" a woman asked.

"I went to the garden and I went shopping," she said, sitting in the middle of the cameras and in front of the pickup-bank. She had been tired until she got in front of the cameras. But she knew she was on, then, and on meant sparkle, which she knew how to do: it was easy, and it made the reporters happy and it made the people happy, and it made uncle Giraud happy—not that Giraud was her favorite person, but they got along all right: she had it figured uncle Giraud was real easy to Work in a lot of ways, and sometimes she thought he really had a soft place she got to. He would buy her things, lots of things. He had a special way of talking with her, being funny, which he wasn't, often, with other people.

And he was always so nasty every time they had a party or anything in the House.

About Giraud and maman—she never forgot that. Ever.

"What did you buy?"

She grinned. "Uncle Giraud says 'too much.'" And ducked her head and smiled up at the cameras with an expression she knew was cute. She had watched herself on vid and practiced in the mirror. "But I don't get to come to the city but once a year. And this is the first time I ever went shopping."

"Aren't there stores in Reseune?"

"Oh, yes, but they're small, and you always know what's there. You can always get what you need, but it's mostly the same things, you know, like you can get a shut, but if you want one different from everybody's you have to order it, and then you know what you're going to get."

"How are the guppies?"

Another laugh. A twitch of her shoulders. "I've got some green long-tails."

Uncle Denys had given her a whole lab. And guppies and aquariums were a craze in Novgorod, the first time in the world, uncle Denys said, that anybody had had pets, which people used to, on Earth. Reseune had gotten a flood of requests for guppies, ever since she had said on vid that they were something anybody could do.

And she got a place to sell her culls: uncle Denys said she should keep all the records on it, she would learn something.

Which meant that most every flight RESEUNEAIR's freight division made out, had some of her guppies on it, sealed in plastic bags and Purity-stamped for customs, and now it was getting to be an operation larger than the lab she did the breeding in: uncle Denys said it was about time she franchised-out, because guppies bred fast, and bred down, and the profit was in doing the really nice ones, which meant you had to get genesets. It was really funny, in some ways it was a lot easier to clone people than guppies.

"We hear," someone else said, "you've taken up another project. Can you tell us about the horse?"

"It's a filly. That's what you call a female baby horse. But she's not born yet. I had to study about her and help the techs get the tank ready; and I have to do a lot of reports—it's a lot of work. But she's going to be pretty just like her genesister. She's pregnant. She's going to birth not too long after my filly comes out of the tank. So we'll have two babies."

"Haven't you had enough of horses?"

"Oh, no. You have to see them. I'm going to ride mine. You can, they do it on Earth, you just have to train them."

"You're not going to break another arm, are you?"

She grinned and shook her head. "No. I've studied how to do it."

"How do you do it?"

"First you get them used to a saddle and a bridle and then you get them used to a weight on their back and then they don't get so scared when you climb on. But they're smart, that's what's so different, they're not like platytheres or anything, they think what they're going to do. That's the most wonderful thing. They're not like a computer. They're like us. Even pigs and goats are. You watch them and they watch you and you know they're thinking things you don't know about. And they feel warm and they play games and they do things just like people, just because they think of it."

"Could we get a clip of that?"

"Could we, uncle Giraud?"

"I think we could," Giraud said.

ii

Uncle Giraud was very, very happy with the session in Novgorod, Ari decided that on the flight back. She and Florian and Catlin sat up front in the usual spot and drank soft drinks and watched out the windows, while Giraud and the secretaries and the staffers sat at the back and did business, but there was a lot of laughing.

Which was why uncle Giraud bought her things, she thought. Which was all right. Sometimes she almost warmed up to Giraud. That was all right too. It kept Giraud at ease. And she learned to do that, be very nice to people she knew quite well were the Enemy, and even like them sometimes: it didn't mean you weren't going to Get them, because they were bound to do something that would remind you what they were sooner or later. When you were a kid you had to wait, that was all. She had told that to Catlin and Florian, and she got Catlin in front of a mirror and made Catlin practice smiling and laughing until she could do it without looking like she was faking it.

Catlin was ticklish right around her ribs. That was a discovery. Catlin was embarrassed about it and said nobody was supposed to get that close anyway. She didn't like her and Florian laughing at first. But then Catlin decided it was halfway funny, and laughed her real laugh, which was kind of a halfway grin, without a sound. The other was fake, because Catlin was good at isolating muscles and making them do whatever she wanted to.

Catlin had laughed her real laugh when she saw herself in the gauzy blouse, in the shop in Novgorod, and her eyes had lit up the way they would when Florian showed them something he had learned in electronics. Catlin had a new skill.

Then Catlin had turned around to the shop-keeper with her stage-manners on and acted just like Maddy Strassen, which was funny as hell, maman would say, right down to Maddy's slither when she turned around to look at the satin pants in the mirror. It was a Maddy-imitation. Ari had nearly gotten a stitch, inside, especially seeing Giraud's face. But Giraud was fast, especially when she winked at him and cued him in it was a prank.

Florian had stood over in the doorway to the men's side being just straight azi, which meant he was having a stitch top, because Florian never had to practice laughing. Florian just did; and stopping himself was the trick, before he gave Catlin away.

Things were a lot better in Novgorod, and there was a lot less pressure, Ari picked that up. Giraud said he thought there was a market for tapes about animals people couldn't own, that it was a real good idea, and that getting two hundred fifty credits for a fancy guppy meant there was a market for a lot of things, and hell if they were going to franchise it out: they could hire it done over in Moreyville, and maybe there was a market for koi, too, and the people who had been making aquariums and filter systems on special order for Reseune research labs might want to invest in a whole new division of manufacture.

"That's the way it works," he said. "Everything is connected to everything else."

There were miners clear out in brown little outback domes who were spending a fortune on guppy rigs, especially for the bright-colored ones, and for green weed, because they liked the colors and the water-sound, out where there was nothing but pale red and pale gray-blue. At Reseune people said it was the contact with a friendly ecosystem, and it was good for people: miners swore the air off the tanks made the environment healthier. Reseune said it just made people feel healthier and gave them a sense of connection to everything that was green and bright and Terran.

Giraud just said it made money and maybe they could look in the genebanks and the histories and see if there was something else they were missing.

Meanwhile it didn't hurt anything that people thought of her as the kid who made all that available to people. It made it hard for the people who had been the first Ari's enemies.

That was Giraud, all right. But she was doing the same thing when she practiced how to smile for the cameras. She had met the Councillor for Information, Catherine Lao, who wore a crown of braids just like Catlin, and was blonde like Catlin, but about a hundred years old: and Councillor Lao had been a friend of Ari senior's, and was so happy to see how she was growing up, the Councillor said, so pleased to see her doing so well.

Ari tried not to like people right off: that was dangerous, because you missed things that way that you ought to see—Ari senior had told her that, but it just clicked with something she already knew, down inside. All the same, she liked Councillor Lao a lot; and Councillor Lao was friendlier with her than with Giraud, no matter how hard the Councillor tried to hide it: that gave Ari a contrast to work with, which made anybody easier to read, and it made her think Councillor Lao really was someone she might like.

It didn't hurt at all that Catherine Lao was Councillor of Information, which meant the whole news-net, among other things, and libraries and publishing and archives and public education.

There was Admiral Gorodin too, who was Defense, and Defense had protected her stuff from people going through it; he was a lot different than Lao, kind of this way and that about a lot of things, not friendly, not hostile, just real interested and kind of prickly with Giraud, but coming at her like he had known her a long time.

She had even met Mikhail Corain, who was the Enemy, and said hello to him, and he tried his best to be nice. They had been in the Hall of State, in front of all the cameras. Councillor Corain had looked like he had indigestion, but he said he had a daughter about her age, and he hoped she enjoyed her trip to Novgorod, did she want to run for Council someday?

That was too close to ideas she had that she wasn't about to tell even Giraud or Denys, so she said she didn't know, she was busy with her schoolwork, which gave the reporters a stitch and made Corain laugh, a laugh like Catlin being Maddy, and he backed up and said the world had better look out.

So would he, she thought, a little worried about that: that had been a little nasty at the last, and she wished she could have thought of something else real fast to Get him in front of the cameras. But she didn't know what was going on that he could have been talking about, and uncle Giraud had said she had done exactly right, so she supposed she must have.

So it was the plane flight and touchdown at Reseune; and the reporters waiting for her at landing—so Amy and Tommy got to be on vid. She smiled for the cameras—they didn't have to do an interview, just there were some shots the news wanted, so they got them, and then the camera people folded up to catch their RESEUNEAIR flight back on up to Svetlansk, where they were covering a big platythere that had broken right through an oil pipeline—she would like to have seen that, she wanted to go, but uncle Giraud said she had been away from classes long enough, and she had better go see about her filly.

"Is she all right?" she asked, scared by that.

"Well, who knows?" uncle Giraud said, Working her for sure, but it was a good one. "You haven't checked on her in a week."

She didn't wait for baggage. She took the bus with uncle Giraud and Florian and Catlin and Amy and Tommy went too; and she didn't even go home first, she went straight over to the lab.

The filly was doing fine, the lab said; but the Super there gave her a whole packet of fiches and said that was what she had to catch up on.

It was a trap. She got a look at the filly on the monitor: she was looking less and less like a person and more and more like a horse now. That was exciting.

It was exciting when she went over to Denys' office and got permission to bring Amy and Tommy home with her, because her baggage was going to be there by now and she wanted to give them their presents.

"Don't mess the place up," uncle Denys said, because Nelly was working babies during the day and just showing up at night; and that meant Seely and Florian and Catlin had to do a lot of the pick-up. She didn't care about Seely, but she did about Florian and Catlin; so she was careful. "Give me a hug," uncle Denys said, "and be good."

She had forgotten to get something for uncle Denys. She was embarrassed. And made a note to order something from the gourmet shop in North Wing and put it on her own card, because she had an allowance.

Something like a pound of coffee. He would like that and he wouldn't care it didn't come from Novgorod.

Besides, she got to have some of that too.

So she told Base One to buy it and send it to his office when she got in, easy as talking to the Minder.

Amy and Tommy were real impressed.

They were real happy with their presents. She brought them out of her room and didn't show off the other things—it's not nice, uncle Denys would say, to advertise what you've got and others don't.

Uncle Denys was right. Also smart.

Tommy loved his sweater. He looked good in it.

Amy looked a little doubtful about the tiny box, like a little box like that wasn't going to be as nice a gift, until she opened it.

"It's real," she told Amy, about the pin. And Amy's face lit up. Amy was not a pretty girl. She was going to be tall and thin and long-faced, and she had to take tape to make her stop slouching, but for a moment Amy looked pretty. And felt pretty, she guessed, which made the difference.

She wished Amy had the allowance she did, to buy nice things.

Then she got an idea.

And made a note to ask uncle Denys if Amy could take over the guppy project, Amy knew all about it, and she was sharp about what to breed to what, and very good with numbers.

She had enough to do with the filly, and she wanted to go back to just having a few pretty fish in the aquarium in her bedroom, and not having to do in the ugly ones.

iii

Justin dumped his bags in the bedroom and went and threw himself facedown on the bed, aware of nothing until he realized he had a blanket over him and that he was being urged to tuck up onto the bed. "Come on," Grant's voice said to him. "You're going to chill. Move."

He halfway woke up then, and rolled over and found the pillow, pulling it up under his head.

"Rotten flight?" Grant asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Damn little plane; they had a hell of a storm over the Tethys and we just dodged thunderheads and bounced."

"Hungry?"

"God, no. Just sleep."

Grant let him, just cut the lights, and let him lie.

Which he dimly remembered in the morning, hearing noise in the kitchen. He found himself in his clothes, unshaven.

And the clock saying 0820.

"God," he muttered, and threw the cover over and staggered for the bath and the kitchen, in that order.

Grant, in white shirt and plain beige pants, looked informally elegant, was having morning coffee at the kitchen table.

Justin raked a hand through his hair and fumbled a cup out of the cabinet without dropping it.

Grant poured him half his cup.

"I can make some," he protested.

"Of course you can," Grant said, humoring the incompetent, and pulled his chair back. "Sit down. I don't suppose you're going in today. —How's Jordan?"

"Fine," he mumbled, "fine. He really is." And sat down and leaned his elbows on the table to be sure where the cup was when he took a drink, because his eyes were refusing to work. "He's looking great. So is Paul. We had a great work-session—usual thing, too much talk, too little sleep. It was great."

He was not lying. Grant's eyes flickered and took on a moment's honest and earnest relief. Grant had already heard the word last night, at the airport, but he seemed to believe it finally, the way they always had to doubt each other, doubt every word, without the little signals that said things were what they seemed.

And then Grant looked at the time and winced. "Damn. One of us had better make it in. Yanni's hunting hides this week."

"I'll get there," Justin said.

"You're worthless. Stay here. Rest."

Justin shook his head. "I've got a report to turn in." He swallowed down the last of the coffee at a gulp. "God. You go on first. I'll get the papers hunted down. I'll get there. Message Yanni I'm coming, I just have to get the faxes together, they messed everything up in Decon."

"I'm going." Grant dumped the last of his coffee into Justin's cup. "You need it worse. It seems to be a vital nutrient for CITs."

Damn. He had crashed incommunicado last night when Grant had been waiting days for news, and now he stole Grant's coffee at breakfast.

"I'll make it up to you," he called to Grant in the next room. "Get a rez at Changes for lunch."

Grant put his head back in. "Was it that good?"

"Sociology ran the TR design all the way past ten generations and it's still clean. Jordan called it clean as anything they're running."

Grant pounded the doorframe and grinned. "Bastard! You could have said!"

Justin raised an eyebrow. "I may be a son of a bitch, friend, but the very one thing I can't possibly be is a bastard. And now even Giraud will have to own up to it."

Grant hurled himself out into the living room again, crying: "Late, dammit! This isn't fair!"

In a moment the front door opened and shut.

There flatly was no time to go over things in the morning, even working back to back in the same office. Grant ticked away at the keyboard with occasional mutters to the Scriber-input, a constant background sound, while Justin ran the fax-scanner on his notes and Jordan's and the transcription of the whole week's sessions, punched keys where it was faster and sifted and edited and wrestled nearly fourteen hundred hours of constant transcription into five main topics with the computer's keyword scanning. Which still might miss or misfile things, so there was no question of dumping it: he created a sixth topic for Unassigned and kept the machine on autoTab, which meant it filed the original locations of the information.

He had four preliminary work-ups and one report nearing turn-in polish before Grant startled him out of a profound concentration and told him they had ten minutes to get to the restaurant.

He ground the heels of his hands into his eyes, saved down and stretched and flexed shoulders that had been rigid for longer than he had thought.

"Nearly done on the Rubin stuff," he said.

But that was not what he and Grant talked about all the way downstairs and across to North Wing, through the door at Changes and as far as their table—small respite for ordering drinks, more report, another break for ordering lunch, and into it again.

"The next thing," he said, "is getting Yanni to agree to test."

Grant said: "I'd take it."

"The hell you will."

Grant lifted a brow. "I wouldn't have any worry about it. I d actually be a damned good subject, since it couldn't put anything over on me I couldn't identify—I understand the principles of it a hell of a lot better than the Test Division is going to—"

"And you're biased as hell."

Grant sighed. "I'm curious what it feels like. You don't understand, CIT. It's quite, quite attractive."

"Seductive is what I'm worried about. You don't need any motivation, friend, —a vacation, maybe."

"A tour of Novgorod," Grant sighed. "Of course. —I still want to see the thing when you get through with it."

Justin gave him a calculated, communicative frown. They still had to worry about bugs; and telling Security how skilled Grant was at reading-absorption of a program was something neither one of them wanted to do.

That look said: Sure you would, and if you internalize it, partner, I'll break your fingers.

Grant smiled at him, wide and lazy, which meant: You smug CIT bastardy I can take care of myself.

A tightening of his lips: Dammit, Grant.

A wider smile, a narrowing of the eyes: Discuss it later.

"Hello," a young voice said, and Justin's heart jumped.

He looked at the young girl who had stopped beside their table, at a young girl in expensive clothes, clothes that somehow, overnight, seemed to have developed a hint of a waist; caught a scent that set his heart pounding in remembered panic, looked up into a face that was the child gone grave, shy—that had gotten cheekbones; dark eyes gone somber and, God, touched with a little hint of violet eyeshadow.

"Hello," he said.

"I haven't seen you in a while."

"No. I guess I've been pretty busy."

"I was back there." She indicated the area of the restaurant past the archway. "I saw you come in, but I was already started on my sandwich. I thought I'd say hello, though."

"It's good to see you," he said, and controlled his voice with everything he had, managing a cheerful smile: the kid could read people faster than any of Security's computers. "How's your classwork?"

"Oh, too much of it." Her eyes lit, kid again, but not quite. "You know uncle Denys is going to let me have a horse—but I have to birth it; and do all the paperwork. Which is his way of getting me to study." She traced a design on the table edge with her finger. "I had the guppy business—" A little laugh. "But I turned that over to Amy Carnath. It was getting to be too much work, and now she's drafted her cousin in on it. Anyway– What are you doing?"

"A government study. And some stuff of my own. I've been working hard too."

"I remember when you came to my party."

"I remember that too."

"What Wing do you work in?"

"I'm in Design."

"Grant too?" With a flash of dark eyes Grant's direction.

"Yes," Grant said.

"I'm starting to study that," she said. The finger started doing designs again. The voice was lower, lacking the little-girl pitch. It was a different, more serious expression, a different tone of voice than she gave the cameras. "You know I'm a PR, don't you?"

"Yes," he said calmly, oh, very calmly. "I knew that."

"My predecessor was pretty good at Design. Did you know her?"

God, what do I say? "I knew her, yes. Not very well. She was a lot older." Best to create no mysteries. "She was my teacher for a little while."

The eyes flashed up from their demure down-focus, mild surprise, an evident flicker of thought. "That's funny, isn't it? Now you know a lot more than I do. I wish I could just take a tape and know everything."

"It's too much to learn from one tape."

"I know." Another soft laugh. "I know where I can go if I get a question, don't I?"

"Hey, I can't help you dodge your homework, your uncle would have my skin."

She laughed, tapped the table edge with her finger. "Your lunch is getting cold. I'd better get back to the lab. Nice to see you. You too, Grant."

"Nice to see you," Justin murmured; and: "Sera," Grant murmured in courtesy, as Ari went her way.

Justin tracked her till he was sure she was out the door, then let out his breath and dropped his forehead against his hands. "God." And looked up at Grant. "She's growing up, isn't she?"

"It was a courtesy," Grant said. "I don't think it was more than that."

"No," he agreed, and got himself together, picked up his fork and prodded tentatively at a piece of ham, determined not to pay attention to the unease in his stomach. "Not a bit of malice. She's a nice kid, a damn nice kid." He took the bite. "Jordan and I talked about that, too. Damn, I'd like to see her test records."

Grant made a frightened move of his eyes toward the wall. Remember the eavesdroppers.

"They're using the other—" Justin went on doggedly: Rubin was not a word they could toss around in the restaurant. "—the other subject—to see what they can get away with. And we can't get the results, dammit, for fifteen years."

"A little late," Grant murmured.

A little late to do anything for Ari's situation, Grant meant; and gave him a brows-knit look that said: For God's sake, let's not talk about this, here, now.

It was only good sense. "Yes," Justin said, as if he were answering the former, and took another bite and a drink to wash it down. He was starved after the battering on the flight: food service had been limited. And sweating over the terminal had worked up an appetite nothing could kill.

"Talk to Yanni," Grant said when they were walking across the open quadrangle, on their way back to the office, "and call Denys, the way you're supposed to. For both our sakes."

"I have every intention to," Justin said.

Which was the truth. What else he meant to say, he hesitated to mention.

But it was in the transcripts from Planys.

His opinion, and Jordan's, both ... for what little it was worth to an Administration worried about its own survival.

iv

Down into the tunnels, and, with Florian's little manipulation of the lock, down into the ventilation service area, from a direction that did not have a keycard access involved: they always had to be first, because nobody else could get the door to their meeting-place open; and the last, because Florian and Catlin were the sharpest when it came to cleaning up and making sure they left no trace at all for the workmen to find.

They used several of these little nooks. They had them coded, so Ari had only to say: number 3, and Amy passed the word to Tommy and Maddy, and Tommy got Sam up from the port school.

So they waited for the knock, and all of them came together: Amy and Tommy and Sam. Maddy was with them. And a girl named 'Stasi Morley-Ramirez, who was the reason they were meeting in a place they didn't use very often.

'Stasi was a friend of Amy's and Maddy's, but Maddy had opened her mouth, that was what had happened.

'Stasi was scared, coming in here, she was real scared, and Ari stood there with her hands on her hips, glaring at her with Catlin on her left and the flashlight on the shipping can in front of them, which made their shadows huge and their faces scary—she knew that. She had practiced that with the mirror, too, and she knew what she looked like.

"Sit down," she told 'Stasi, and Amy and Tommy sat her straight down on a big waterpipe they used to sit on here, while Florian came up and stood behind her. So 'Stasi was the only one sitting. That was a psych.

"When you come down here," Ari said, "that's it. We either vote you in or you're in a lot of trouble, 'Stasi Ramirez. You're in a whole lot of trouble, because we don't like to lose a meeting-place. And if you tell Security, I'll fix you good, I'll see you and your maman get shipped out of here and you won't ever come back. Say you understand."

'Stasi nodded. Emphatically.

"So you tell us why you want in."

"I know all of them," 'Stasi said desperately, twisting around where she sat to look at Amy and Maddy and the rest.

"You don't know Sam."

"I know him," 'Stasi said. "I know him from the House."

"But you don't know him like friends. And Maddy can't vote, she's the one bringing you. And Amy and Tommy can't, they're friends of yours. So it's me and Sam and Florian and Catlin who get to say. —What do you think, Catlin?"

"What can she do?" Catlin asked in her flat way.

"What can you do?" Ari asked.

"Like what?" 'Stasi asked anxiously. "What do you mean?"

"Like can you wire locks or memorize messages or get past a Minder or get stuff out of the lab?"

'Stasi's eyes got wider and wider.

"Catlin and Florian can do all that. They can kill people, for real. Take your head off with a wire. Pop. Just like that. Sam can get tools and wire and stuff. Maddy can get office stuff." And eyeshadow. "Tommy can get all kinds of stuff and what Amy and I do, you don't need to know about. What can you get?"

'Stasi got a more and more desperate look. "My mama and my dad manage Ramirez's. A lot of stuff, I guess. What do you need?"

She knew that already. Ramirez's was a North Hall restaurant.

"Mmmmn," she said. "Knives and stuff."

"I could," 'Stasi said earnestly. "Or food. Or most anything like that. And my uncle's a flight controller. All sorts of airline stuff—"

"All right. That part's good enough. Here's the rest. If you get in and you do anything stupid and get caught, you don't talk about us. You say it was just you. But you don't get caught. And you don't bring anybody here without asking. And you don't tell anybody about us. Hear?"

'Stasi nodded soberly.

"Swear?"

'Stasi nodded.

'Stasi didn't talk much. Like Sam. That was a good sign.

"I vote yes," Ari said. And Sam nodded, then. She looked at Florian and Catlin.

They didn't look like it was a bad idea. Catlin always frowned when she was considering somebody.

"They say all right," Ari said.

So everybody climbed over the pipe and sat down: it was clean. Florian and Catlin always made sure the sitting place was, because otherwise people could tell they were running around in dusty places.

And Florian and Catlin just squatted down when they were relaxing.

So they got down to business, which was her telling a lot about the trip to Novgorod—Sam had his new sweater on and so did Tommy, and Maddy wore her scarf, but Amy's pin was too good to wear to classes. Then they talked about the party Maddy was going to have, which they were all going to be invites to, and Maddy was happy, about 'Stasi getting in, and about being important for a while.

It was true Maddy was an early developer. The way Maddy sat and the way the light came up from their makeshift table showed that, real plain; and she was always slinking around and fluttering at the boys.

Tommy took it all right. It really bothered Sam: poor Sam had grown up big and he was in kind of a clumsy stage, because he grew so fast, Tommy said, but Sam was mostly always banging his head on things—like he was always misjudging how tall he was. He was quick as Florian when it came to fixing something, his fingers were so fast it was amazing to watch him, and he could figure out mechanical things very fast.

Sam also was in love with her, sort of, Sam always had been, like he wanted really truly to be a special friend, but she never let him, because she just didn't feel that close to Sam from her side; and it made her mad when she saw how he took Maddy seriously and worried about it, like he knew he wasn't really part of the House, and he lived down next to the Town. Maddy was rich and that wasn't ever going to come to anything, no more than Sam with her.

She had all this figured out, in a years-away mode, that none of them were really serious yet, but Sam was born serious, and Maddy was on ever since she learned there was a difference in boys and girls.

She knew. You didn't breed guppies and study horses without figuring out how that worked, and why all of a sudden boys and girls were getting around to teasing each other.

She wasn't terribly interested. She resented the whole process. It made everybody act stupid, and it was a complication when you were trying to set things up with people.

Then she saw Maddy fake a trip when they were going out and nudge Florian with her hip.

You didn't push Florian: people bumping him scared him. But he recovered fast and put his arm out and she grabbed it, lucky she hadn't landed against the wall, because Florian had learned in Novgorod not to react too suddenly when they were in crowds.

Maddy managed to put her hands on his shoulders and laugh and pretend to catch her balance before she got out the door.

What Maddy didn't see was the funny look Florian gave her retreating back.

But Ari did. He was still wearing it when he looked back at her, like he thought he had just been Got in some vague way and wasn't sure whether he had reacted right or not.

She didn't help him out either. And she doubted Catlin understood.

v

It was a long time since Justin had come into Denys Nye's office. The last visit came back all too strongly: the heavy-set man at the desk, every detail of the room.

Giraud Nye's brother. One never forgot that either.

"Yanni said," Justin began, at the door, "you were willing to talk with me."

"Certainly. Sit down."

He came and sat down, and Denys leaned forward, hands on the desk. There was a dish of pastilles. Denys took one, offered the dish across the desk.

"No, ser, thank you."

Denys popped one in his mouth, leaned back with a creak of the chair, and folded his hands on his stomach. "Yanni sent me your work. He says you want to go Test. You're pretty confident about this one, are you?"

"Yes, ser. I am. It's a simple program. Nothing at all fancy. I don't think it'll have to run long."

"I don't think it's a problem that the Test Division can show us much about. Jordan says it'll run, it'll run without a glitch. The trouble with your work, after all, isn't what it does in generation one or even two. If it were, we—wouldn't have a problem with it, would we? We could just install and go."

Grant had arguments for the run too, azi-view. Grant understood how the Testers worked: Grant could do what the Testers did. But it was the last place he was going to say anything on that score, not if it cost him his chance, not if it was the one and only chance he would ever have.

Nothing—was worth Grant's safety.

"I value the Testers' opinion," he said quietly. "And their experience. They have a viewpoint the computers can't give me; that's why we go to them last, isn't it?"

"That's why their time is more valuable. But they still can't answer the multi-generational problem."

"I don't know, ser, I have a great deal of confidence in their emotional judgment. And the run would give me a lot if it could turn up anything, any sort of input. Jordan is saying it should run. He isn't saying that just because he's my father, ser. Not to me. Not on something that important."

Denys gave a slight, sad smile, and sighed. The chair creaked as he leaned forward and leaned his elbows on the table. And pushed a button. The bone-deep hum of the Silencer enveloped them, afflicting the nerves and unsettling the stomach. "But the problem is beyond a twenty-year study even if we gave you a full run with a geneset. That's the crux of it. Ultimately, proving whether you're right or wrong would take a Gehenna-style run. Twenty generations, not twenty years. We're just damn shy of planets to hand you. And what do we do with the culture that turns out if you're wrong? Nuke it? That's the scale you work on, son."

He heard no coming, in a slow, sarcastic way, and bit his lip and controlled his temper. "Kind of like Emory," he said, bitterly. Ultimate hubris, in Reseune. And almost said: if your committee had had to vet her projects we'd still be a damn production farm.

But then he was in no wise sure what Emory had done twenty or thirty generations down, or how far, or whether Union itself worked, Denys' Gehenna-reference chilled him.

"Kind of like Emory," Denys said slowly, without inflection. "I'll tell you, Sociology has been mightily upset with your designs—the suggestion that they might have turned up a flaw in the projection programs, you know. You've given the programmers over there some sleepless nights. And quite honestly, we haven't spilled the fact to Defense. You know how excited they get."

"I've never thought of going to them."

"Never?"

"No, ser. I don't see any percentage in doing it. Reseune—has its advantages. More than Planys does."

"Even if Defense might promise you residency with Jordan."

He took a breath and felt the unease of the Silencer to the roots of his teeth. It was hard to ignore. "I have thought of that. I hope to get him back here, ser, not—not put both of us there. He understands. He hopes for the same thing. Someday. Or we could have leaked this to Defense. Neither of us has."

"Jordan never has liked Defense," Denys said. "They certainly didn't help him at his hearing."

"You've counted on that," Justin said quietly. "He could have talked to them. He didn't. Not that I ever know of."

"No, you're quite right. He doesn't trust them. But mostly the consideration of your career. And Grant's. Let's be frank. We know—how far he could push us... and why he won't. Let me go on being honest with you. He has every motive to lie to us and to you: to convince us you're valuable in your own right, to make sure you're protected—if he gets careless. You're very naive if you think he wouldn't do that."

He ignored the body blows and kept his face unmoved. "He values Grant too," he said. "And I do. You always have a hostage. All you have to do is keep him untouched."

"Of course. That's why Grant doesn't travel."

"But once—alone—even for a few hours—that trip would be worth it to Grant. And to my father. What's a hostage worth, if the one you're holding him against—forgets his value?"

Denys gave a heavy sigh. "Son, I don't enjoy this situation; and I had far rather have peace with the Warrick clan, God knows how, without making a slip that gets someone hurt. I'm being utterly honest with you, I'm telling you my worries in the matter. I still believe in you enough to have you in on the Project on Yanni's say-so. We're solvent again, but we're sure as hell not taking chances or spending wildly, and you're asking for a major amount of effort here, on something that's already been a headache to Sociology—"

"You say yourself, if those projections are wrong, if Sociology is working on flaws, then Defense ought to be interested. I'd call that a major matter, ser, I don't know what more it takes to qualify."

Denys frowned. "I was about to say, young friend, —'but, over all, a benefit.' All right, you get your test subject. Six-month run."

"Thank you, ser." Justin drew a whole breath. "I appreciate your honesty." Like hell. "And I hope—from my side—you understand the meeting yesterday—"

"Absolutely," Denys said. "I do. I appreciate the call. Ari has lunch in there now and again. You can't stay in hiding. You handled it exactly right."

"I told her Ari was my instructor. Since she asked about my knowing her. I figured—I'd better say how I knew her—early."

"That falls in an area she can't research. But yes, I see your reasoning. I have no objection to it. Sometimes you have to make fast assessments with her—God knows. You should live with her." Denys chuckled, and leaned back again. "She's a challenge. I know that, believe me."

"I—" God, it was an opening. It was lying in front of him. "The other thing I wanted to talk with you about: the Rubin sets, ser, I wish—wish you'd take a look at that, yourself; and my arguments. Working with Ari, the way you do, —I thought you—could give me a viewpoint—I don't have."

"On the Rubin case? Or regarding Ari?"

"I—see one bearing on the other. Somewhat. Ser."

Denys rocked his chair back and forth and lifted his brows. "Yanni told me."

"I just wonder if you'd take a look at the latest paper."

"I have looked at it. Yanni sent it over. I'll tell you, a lot you're doing is quite, quite good. I'm aware of your personal profile. I know what a strain it is for you to work real-time, or anything close to it, and I appreciate the stress you've undertaken—for that boy on Fargone. I know it's hard for Morley to appreciate how much pressure you're under . . . your tendency to internalize these cases. Damn bad thing for a clinical psychologist. About Ari, let me tell you, of course the cases are linked and of course your worry for the Rubin boy is going to spill over in worry about Ari, your personal mindset guarantees it. —But we can't hand you the whole of both projects, you do understand that, Justin, no more than we can find you a planet to test with."

"I just—" He had had enough people calling him a fool in his life he should be less sensitive; but Denys didn't bludgeon, Denys was stinging and unexpected as a paper-cut. "—just hoped—if you had time, ser, you might want to consider contingencies."

Riposte to Denys.

Denys rocked forward again, leaned on the desk. "We're working an emergency course change with the Rubin baby. You're giving us a useful perspective on the Rubin case, because we have a problem, but we sure as hell aren't in that situation with Ari—"

"Rubin worked till the thing blew up, forgive me if I misunderstand, but the matter went deeper than Jenna Schwartz and Stella Rubin—"

"Let me tell you, Justin, I do worry about someone who's so sure he's right he can't conceive of being wrong. I know Yanni's talked to you about that problem."

"I'll send you my project papers. I'll pay for them. Enough for your damn committee. Point of information—is that interference?" He drew a breath. "I happen to think it's sane to consider related data in a case where a committee is running an untested program. I'm not asking you for data; I'm not asking you even for data on the Rubin case that I damn well need to work with, because I know I haven't got a chance in hell of getting it. But I can hand it to you, at my own expense, since Reseune can't afford the faxes, in the theory you ought to have it available. I don't call that interference. Shred it if you like. But at least I'll have tried!"

Denys rubbed his lip, and picked up another pastille. Popped it into his mouth. "Damn, you're persistent."

"Yes, ser."

Denys looked at him a very long time. "Tell me. Does your own experience—as Jordan's replicate—bear on your confidence that you understand the Project?"

The question he had not wanted asked. Ever. His heart hit bottom. I don't know. Everything bears on my ideas. How can I sort it out?"

"It's interesting to me. You were never aware of yourself as a replicate—until you were—how old?"

"Six. Seven. Something like. I don't remember."

"Always in Jordan's shadow. Always willing to take Jordan's opinion over your own. I think there is something in you . . . possibly a very important something. But sometimes I see other things: Jordan's stubbornness; his tendency to be right beyond all reason." Denys shook his head and sighed. "You have a hell of a way of applying for finance. Attack the people who can give it to you. Just exactly like Jordan."

"If politics matters more than what is, —"

"Damn, more and more like your father."

Justin shoved the chair back and got up to leave. Fast. Before he lost his temper altogether. "Excuse me, then."

"Justin, Justin, —remember? Remember who funded your research time? That was out of my budget, at a time we could hardly afford it. I take everything you've said as an honest intent to help. I assure you. I have your report; I'll have my secretary fax it for the committee. And any other material you want to send."

He was left, on his feet, with the anger still running through him. It made a tremor in his muscles. He jammed his hands in his pockets to hide their shaking. "Then thank you, ser. What about my Test request?"

"God," Denys sighed. "Yes, son. You have it. No change in that. Just—do us all a favor. Don't intrude any further into the Project. Keep on being prudent as you have been. Ari's handling everything very well. She's accepted being Ari's replicate, taken everything in stride. But she likes you. And she doesn't know how her predecessor died. Her time-frame on Ari is constantly lagged. The Ari she knows is five going on six, and beyond that, she's seen only a few pictures. Remember that."

"When will she know?"

"I'm not sure," Denys said. "I tell you that honestly. We make decisions real-time on this side of the Project; there's no way for me to answer that question. But believe me—I will warn you, when it becomes—immediate. That's one of the things we worry about as much as you do."

vi

It was shots again. Ari winced as the hypo popped against her arm, not one hypo, but three, besides the blood tests she had had every few days of her life.

Nothing wrong with you, Dr. Ivanov had told her repeatedly. We just do this.

Which was a lie. Dr. Ivanov had finally said so, when she found out she was a replicate and asked whether the first Ari had had something wrong with her: No, but the first Ari had tests just like yours, because her maman knew she was going to be somebody special, and because tests like these are valuable information. You're a very bright little girl. We'd like to know if something special goes on in your bloodstream.

But the shots made her dizzy and sick at her stomach and she was tired of getting shots and having needles in her arm.

She frowned at the nurse and thought where she would like to give the nurse a hypo, right when her back was turned. But she took the thermometer under her tongue a second till it registered, then took it out and looked at it.

"A point under," she told the nurse. Who insisted to look at it. "I always am. Do I get to go now?"

"Wait here," the nurse said, and went out, leaving her sitting in the damn robe and a little cold, the way the hospital always was, people could freeze to death in this place.

In a moment Dr. Ivanov came in. "Hello, Ari. Feeling fine?"

"The shot made me sick. I want to go get an orange or something."

"That's fine. That's a good idea." He came and took her pulse again. And smiled at her. "A little mad?"

"I'm tired of this. I've been in here twice this week. I'm not going to have any blood left."

"Well, your body is going through some changes. You're just growing up, sweet, that's all. Perfectly normal. You know a lot of it. But you're going to take a tape this afternoon. If you have any questions you can call me or Dr. Wojkowski, whichever you'd rather—she might be a little better at this."

She wrinkled her nose, not with any clear idea, really, what he was talking about, except she was embarrassed sitting there in the robe, which was more than she used to sit there in, and suspecting that it had to do with sex and boys and that she was going to be embarrassed as hell if she had to listen to Dr. Ivanov explain to her what she had already figured out.

Do you understand? he would ask her every three lines, and: Yes, she would say, because he would not get through it without that.

But he didn't mention it. He just told her go on to library, she had the tape to do.

They gave it to her to take home to use, on the house machine, so it wasn't one of the skill ones, that she had to take with a tech.

It certainly wasn't, she decided, when she saw the title. It said Human Sexuality. She was embarrassed in front of the librarian, who was a man, and tucked it into her bag and took it fairly straight home, very glad that Seely was out and Nelly was at her day job and there wasn't anyone around.

She applied the patch over her heart and lay down on the couch in the tape lounge and took the pill. When the pill began to work she pushed the button.

And was awfully glad, in a vague, tape-dazed way, that she hadn't had to take this one with any tech sitting by her.

There were things she hadn't known, things a lot different than horses, and things the same, and things Dr. Edwards had sort of hit on in biology, but not really explained with pictures and in the detail the tape had.

When it was over she lay there recovering from the pill and feeling really funny—not bad. Not bad at all. But like something was going on with her she could not control, that she sure as hell didn't want uncle Denys or Seely to know about.

It certainly had to do with sex. And it was hard to get up finally and get her mind off it. She thought about doing the tape again, not that she was not going to remember, but because she wanted to try out the feeling again, to see if it was the way she remembered it.

Then she thought it might not feel the same, and she didn't want it not to. So she put the tape back in her bag and because she didn't want the thing lying around her room where Nelly would find it and look at her funny, she had a glass of orange juice to get her blood moving again and walked all the way back to the library to drop it in the turn-in slot.

Then she went to lunch and went to class, but her concentration was shot to hell. Even Dr. Edwards frowned at her when he caught her woolgathering.

She did her write-up on the filly. It was a long day, because people were mostly busy, uncle Denys and Seely and Nelly and everybody, because Florian and Catlin were off since three days ago on a training exercise that was not going to finish till the end of the week.

She went over to the guppy lab to see if Amy was there. Tommy was. Tommy was not who she wanted to see, but she sat and talked with him a little while. Tommy was doing some stuff with the reds that she could give him some information on.

She went home to do more homework. Alone.

"Ari," uncle Denys said, on the Minder, when she had had dinner and she was still doing homework in her room. "Ari, I want to talk with you in my study."

Oh, God, she thought. Uncle Denys was going to ask her about the tape.

She had rather die.

But it was even more embarrassing to make a fuss about it. So she got up and slunk in and stood in uncle Denys' doorway.

"Oh. Ari. There you are."

I'm going to die. Right here. On the spot.

"I want to talk with you. Sit down."

God. I have to look at him.

She sat, and held on to the arms of the chair.

"Ari, you're getting older. Nelly's really fond of you—but she's really not doing much but housework anymore. She really lives with the lab babies. And she's awfully good at that. I wonder if you've thought any more whether you'd like—well, to see Nelly go over to lab full-time. It's the nature of nurses, you know, the babies grow up."

That was all it was. She drew a long breath, and thought about her room, and how she liked Nelly, but she liked Nelly better when she wasn't with Nelly, because Nelly always had her feelings hurt and was always upset when she wanted to spend more time with Florian and Catlin, and was constantly tweaking at her hair, her clothes, straightening her collar—sometimes Nelly made her want to scream.

"Sure," she said. "Sure, if she's all right. I don't think she's very happy."

She felt guilty about that, sort of, because Nelly had been maman's, because Nelly had been hers—because Nelly was—Nelly—and never would understand the way she was now.

And because she was so glad it was about that and not about the other thing she just wanted to agree and get out of there.

She was guilty the next morning when Nelly went to hospital not knowing what they were going to do with her tape this time.

"I'm really not upset," Nelly protested to uncle Denys at the door, with her overnight kit in her hand. "I don't think I need to."

"That's fine," uncle Denys said. "I'm glad. But I think you're due for a check."

A Super said anything that he had to say, to keep an azi from being stressed.

So Nelly came and kissed her goodbye. " 'Bye, Nelly," Ari said, and hugged her around the neck, and let her go.

She was able to do that, because letting Nelly know would scare Nelly to death. Only when the door shut she bit her lip hard enough to bleed and said to uncle Denys:

"I'm going on to class."

"Are you all right, Ari?"

"I'm fine."

But she cried when she got out in the hall, and straightened her face up and wiped her eyes and held it in, because she was not a baby anymore.

Nelly was not going to get hurt; Nelly was going to hospital where they would slide her right over to a job she was happy at, and tell her she had done a wonderful job, her first baby was grown, and she had a whole lot of others that needed her.

It was foolish to cry. It was foolish to cry when it was just part of growing up.

The apartment was going to be lonely until suppertime. She went over to Amy's to do her homework, and told Amy about Nelly leaving, because she was finally able to talk about it.

"She was in the way anyway," she said. "She was always sniping at Florian and Catlin."

Then she felt mean for saying that.

"How are you feeling?" uncle Denys asked her again at dinner. "Are you all right with Nelly?"

"I'm fine," she said. "I just wish Florian and Catlin would get back.

"Do you want to call them home?"

Right at the end of one of their Exercises. It was very serious to them. So was she, but it was like taking something away from them. "No," she said. "They really like the overnights. Not– like, because they come back all scraped up; but, like, you know—they enjoy telling me about it. I don't need them that bad."

"I'm proud of you," uncle Denys said. "A good Super has to think that way."

She felt a little better then. And went to do her homework ahead, because she could, and she had rather do it and have something to fill her time and have it over with when Florian and Catlin got home.

Except she had a message from the computer when she went in her room.

"Ari," the Minder said. "Check Base One."

"Go ahead," she said, and looked at the screen.

Ari, this is Ari senior.

Sex is part of life, sweet. Not the most important part, but this is your coming-of-age lecture. I don't know how old you are, remember, so I have to keep it simple. Library says you've checked out Human Sexuality. Have you had it?

"Yes. Yesterday."

Good. You're 10 years old. This program is triggered by your medical records.

You're about to start your monthly cycles, sweet. Welcome to a damn unfunny fact of life. Housekeeping has been notified. You're going to have the appropriate stuff in your cabinet. Hell of a thing to get caught without. You've also had a shot that means you'll reject any pregnancy. So you don't have to worry about that, at least. . . because without that, your body's perfectly capable of it now.

I'm going to leave the what-to and what-with to the tape program, sweet. I figure you know. Probably it's given you some ideas. I know. I had it too. They're not bad ideas. I want you to listen to what I'm going to say next with everything you've got, like it was tape. This is private, it's about sex, and it's one of the most important things I'll ever have to tell you. Are you alone?

"Yes."

All right.

The ideas you have, sweet, are perfectly natural. Is your pulse a little elevated?

"Yes."

You feel a little flushed?

"Yes."

That's because you're thinking about sex. If I asked you to do complicated math you'd probably make a mistake right now. That's the important lesson, sweet. Biology interferes with logic. There's two ways to deal with it—do it and get it out of your head, because that feeling explodes like a soap bubble once you've done sex—or if it's somebody you really like, or somebody you don't like, who upsets you and makes you feel very, very strong reactions, you'd better think a whole lot about doing it, because that kind explodes all right, but it keeps coming back and bothering you. When you get into bed with somebody, you're not going to be thinking with your brain, sweet, you'll be thinking with the part of you that doesn't have anything but feeling, and that's damned dangerous.

When adults meet, sweet, and start getting to know each other, this is one of the main things that's different than kids. Kids are quite logical in some ways adults aren't. That's why they seem to see character so clearly. But when adults deal with each other, this feeling you've begun to get, gets right in the middle of their judgment.

Now there are some people who just let it take over. And the thing about this feeling is that it's playing totally off the emotional level, out of memories, out of what we're set up to believe is handsome or sexy, a whole lot of things that haven't got a damn thing to do with truth.

There are some people who learn early that they're very good-looking and that they can make anybody have this feeling about them—and they use it to get what they want. This doesn't mean they have any feeling inside at all. That's one reason to watch out who you go to bed with and who you let affect you that way.

There are other times when you get that feeling about somebody who doesn't have it for you, and that's one of the hardest things in the world to deal with. But you have to stop it then and let your brain take over, because you don't get everything you want in this world, and it's not fair to the other person at all. If you think about it you'll know how they'd feel, first if they didn't care for you as a friend and then if they did, and you kept insisting on having your way.

You can see how messy that gets.

Sometimes it happens the other way around. And if you don't see it happening or if you're too soft-hearted to say no, you can hurt somebody worse than if you say: I'm sorry, this won't work, right off.

Sometimes it works right on both sides, and watch out then too, sweet, because sex isn't the only thing in life, and if you let it be, that's all you'll ever have.

I'll tell you what the most important thing is, in case you haven't figured it out: It's being able to do what makes you the happiest the longest, and I don't mean sex and I don't mean chocolates, sweet, I mean being able. Able means just exactly having the time, the money, the ability, and a thing to do that makes your life worth living long enough to get it done.

You aren't going to have a clear sight of that thing until you've had a look at the world as it is, and had a chance to figure out what the world could be if you worked at it.

So when you get that feeling, you think real clearly whether you can afford to give in to it and whether you're able to handle it without getting your whole life slanted in some direction that isn't smart. The time to give in to that feeling is when you can afford to, just the same as you don't spend money you haven't got, promise things you don't have time to do, or get involved in projects you can't finish. If it's a minor thing and nobody can get hurt, fine, do it. If it's got complications, don't do it until you know damn well you can handle it, and know how far the complications can possibly extend. At 10, you can't see everything. I was there. Believe me, I know. I got involved with somebody once, and I really liked him; unfortunately, he wasn't as smart as I am, and he wanted to tell me what to do and how to run my life, because he sensed I really was hooked on him, and he really liked ordering people around. So do I, of course. So when I got that figured out, which took longer than usual, because neurons work logic problems a hell of a lot faster than glands—I'm being facetious—anyway, I told him off, I reversed what was going on, and he hated it like hell. Hated me after that, too. So not only did the feeling go away, I lost a friend who would have stayed a friend if I hadn't lei him do a power-move on me. I'm telling you about it now because you can learn about fire two ways: put your hand in it and understand it with the neurons below your neck or listen to me tell you about it and understand it with the ones up in your head. Your brain is the operations center that has to keep your hand out of the fire in the first place, so if you can believe me, and use the sense you were born with, you can save yourself all the pain and embarrassment of a real lesson.

Brains and sex fight each other to control your life, and thank God brains get a head start before sex comes along. Sex is when you're the most vulnerable you'll ever be. Brains is when you're least. Brains have to win out, that's all, so they can make a safe time for sex to happen. Remember that.

Now, don't mistake: it's not bad to be vulnerable sometimes, but it's stupid to walk around that way: there are too many people just waiting for that chance. It's stupid to miss sex altogether for fear someone will take advantage of you—use the brain, sweet, and find somebody and some place and some time safe. Brains are nature's way of making sure you live long enough to spawn—if you were a frog. But you're better than a frog. So plan to live longer.

And for God's sake, don't ever use sex to get your own way where brains won't work. That's the dumbest thing in the world to do, because then you're operating without brains at all, aren't you? That's as plain as I can make it.

I want you to come back to this more than once, till you've understood what I'm saying.

If I could have learned this one thing early enough, I'd have been happier.

Good luck, Ari. I hope to hell you learn this part.

She thought about that a long time into the night, into a very lonely night, because Nelly was gone and Florian and Catlin were away; and she felt awful the next morning.

Then she found out why she felt awful and why her gut hurt, and mostly she just wanted to kill something. But she found the stuff in the bathroom, all right, read the instructions and got it all figured out: Dr. Wojkowski had given her a booklet with the package, which was very plain and echoed a lot of things the tape had said.

It was more biology than she wanted in one week, dammit. And she was embarrassed and mad when the Minder said uncle Denys was waiting breakfast.

"I'll get there when I can," she yelled at it.

And took her pill and got herself in order and went out to breakfast.

"Are you all right?" Denys asked.

She glared at him, figuring he damn well knew, everybody else did. "I'm just fine," she said, and ate without another word while he read his morning reports.

Florian and Catlin came home late, sore and tired and with bandages on Catlin's hand; and full of stories, what the Exercise had been, how Catlin had gotten her hand cut getting a piece of metal fixed for a trap, but it had worked, and they had survived all the way through the course. Which youngers didn't do.

She wished she had something better than losing Nelly to tell them. And she wasn't about to tell them why she was sulking in her bedroom and feeling rotten.

Certainly not Florian, anyhow. But she got Catlin apart from Florian and told Catlin what the trouble was. Catlin listened and made a face and said well, it happened: if you were on an Operation you could take stuff so it came early or later.

Never take azi-pills, maman had said, but it sure sounded attractive.

It was worth asking Dr. Wojkowski about. Damned if she was going to ask Dr. Ivanov.

It was also a damned nasty come-down from all the interesting stuff about sex. Not fair, she thought. Not fair.

Just when her friends were getting home.

And one of them was a boy, and azi, and she was his Super, which meant she had to be responsible.

Dammit.

Maman had had Ollie. She thought about Ollie a lot, when she thought about boys. Ollie was administrator of RESEUNESPACE, doing maman's job. But Ollie never wrote. And she figured he would if he wanted to. Or maman had never gotten the letters. Or never wanted them.

That hurt too much to think about. She knew what she thought: maman had never gotten them. Giraud had stopped them. And Giraud would stop any letters from getting to Ollie.

So she tried not to think about that part. Just Ollie, how nice he had been, how he had always been so patient and understood maman; and how maman could be down, and Ollie would come up and put his hand on her shoulder, and maman felt better, that was all.

There was Sam. Sam was going to be big and strong as Ollie. But Sam was one of those people Ari senior was talking about that liked you without you liking them that way.

She felt good about having figured that out before she ever heard it from Ari senior, like it proved her predecessor was giving her good advice.

She felt about the same about Tommy: Tommy was all right to work with, but he was stubborn, he was all right being Amy's cousin, and number two behind Amy; and that meant doing anything with Tommy was going to mess up things with Amy. That part of the first Ari's advice made that make sense, too: complications.

There were older boys—Mika Carnath-Edwards, Will Morley, Stef Dietrich, who were worth thinking about. But Mika was a lot older, that was no good; Will was just dull; and Stef was Yvgenia Wojkowski's, who was his age.

She sighed, and kept circling back to the same thought, and watching Florian when Florian wasn't watching her.

Florian was smarter and more fun than any of them. Even Sam.

Florian was so damned nice-looking, not baby-faced like Tommy: not clumsy like Sam. She found herself just watching him move, just staring at the way his jaw was, or his arms or—

Whatever.

He had a figure the others didn't, that was what, because he worked so hard. He could move the way they couldn't, because he had muscle Tommy didn't and he was Umber like Sam wasn't. And he had long lashes and dark eyes and a nice mouth and a jawline with nothing of baby about it.

He was also Catlin's partner. He was part of two, and they had been together forever, and they depended on each other in ways that had to do with things that could get you killed, if that partnership got messed up.

That was more serious than any hurt feelings. And they trusted her and depended on her in ways nobody else ever would, as long as she lived.

So she played Ari senior's advice over and over when she was alone in her room, silent, because of the Security monitoring, and told herself there had to be somebody safe, somewhere, somebody she couldn't hurt or who wouldn't mess things up.

Sex wasn't fun, she decided, it was a damned complicated mess, it gave you cramps and it tangled things up and made grown-ups not trust each other. And if you really fouled up you got pregnant or you got your best friends mad at each other.

No fair at all.

vii

Spring happened. The eleventh. And the filly was getting restless in her tank, a knot of legs and body, for a long time now too big for the lens to see all of. Florian loved her, loved her the moment she began to look like a horse and sera had brought him to the lab and let him look into the tank. And when it came to birthing her, which sera said felt like she had been pregnant all these months, she had to work so hard for her, and do all that paperwork—Florian knew who was the best person down in AG to help out with that, and who was strong enough to handle the filly and keep her from hurting herself, and who knew what to do.

He told sera, and sera told the staff in the AG lab, taking his advice right off. So up came Andy, a very pleased Andy, who shyly shook sera's hand and said in his quiet way, thank you, sera; because Andy loved Horse and all Horse's kind, and sera loved them in spite of the fact Horse had broken sera's arm . . . which was probably the worst moment of Andy's whole life.

So it was a very, very happy Andy who came up to the AG lab, and knew it was true what Florian had come down to the barns to tell him, that sera wasn't put out with Horse, sera loved him too, and sera wanted more of his kind, sera was working to birth another female, and was going to ride her, and show everybody what Horse and his kind could do.

"Sera," Andy said, bowing low.

"Florian says you're the best there is," sera said, and Andy knew then, Florian was sure, that his m'sera was the finest, the best, the wisest m'sera in all Reseune. And maybe farther.

"I don't know," Andy said, "sera. But I'll sure take care of her the best I can."

So the labor started in the evening, and they just watched, watched while the foal slid down the chute into the bed of fiber; and watched while the AG techs got the cord; and Andy took sponges and towels and dried the filly all over and got her up on her wobbly legs.

Sera got to touch her then, for the first time. Sera patted her and helped dry her, and Florian helped, until Andy said that was enough and picked the filly up—Andy was very strong, and he said there was no way any truck was going to take the filly down to the barn, he could carry her.

"I want to see her," sera said.

"We can walk down," Florian said, and looked at Catlin, who stood by all this, taking it in—he knew how Catlin thought—but a great deal bewildered by all the fuss, by babies, and by sera's worry over the filly—

It was healthy, it was all right: he could read Catlin's mind that well; so why was sera worried? Babies happened. They were supposed to be studying. They had an Exercise coming up.

"I'll go," he said to Catlin. "Sera and I will be back in about an hour."

"All right," Catlin said. Because Catlin had a lot of study to do. Because if he did that, Catlin was the one who was going to save them, he knew he was going to foul up, unless Catlin could brief him fast and accurately.

But for sera, for the filly, too, who was not at fault—no animal could choose its time to be born—he had not the least hesitation: training was training, and sera was—everything.

So Andy carried the filly down the hill to the horse barn, and Florian walked with sera, happy the way she was, because she was, and because now there were three horses in the world, instead of two.

Andy set the little filly down in a warm stall, and got the formula they had ready and warm, and let sera give it to the baby, which stood on shaky legs and butted with her nose as if that could get more milk faster. Sera laughed and backed up, and the filly wobbled after. "Stand still, sera," Andy called out. "Just hold it."

Sera laughed, and held on.

Down the way, in her stall, the Mare called out, leaning over the rail.

"I think she smells the baby," sera said. "That could be trouble. Or she might take up with her. I don't know."

"I don't either," Andy said.

"There being just three," sera said, "everything's like that, isn't it? The books don't say about a horse who never saw but one other horse in the world."

"And she's pregnant," Andy said in his quiet way, shy around a CIT, "and she's got milk already. And animals are like CITs, sera, they have their own ways, it's not all one psychset, and there isn't any tape for them."

Sera looked at him, not mad, just like she was a little surprised at all that out of Andy. But it was true, Florian knew it. One pig was trouble and its birthsisters weren't. It just depended on a lot of things, and when babies happened the way they did with pigs, with a boar and a sow, you were dealing with scrambled genesets and didn't know what you had—like CITs, too.

At least, with the filly, it was likely to be a lot like its genesister the Mare, which meant she was going to be easy to handle.

Bang! on the rails from down the row. The Mare called out, loud. And the azi who were standing in the barn to watch the new baby went running to get the Mare.

"This is all complicated," sera said, worried.

"Animals are like that," Andy said. "She's all right. It would be good if she would accept the baby. Animals know a lot. Some things they seem to be born knowing."

"Instinct," sera said. "You should cut a tape. I bet you know more than some of the damn books."

Andy grinned and laughed, embarrassed. "I'm a Gamma, sera, not like Florian. I'm just a Gamma." As one of the other AG-techs came running down to say the Mare was fine, they were going to move her to the little barn and get her out of here.

"No, do that, but pass her by here," Andy said. "But hold on to her. Let's see what she does. Sera, if she makes trouble, you better be ready to climb up over those rails to the side there and get into the other stall. Florian and I can hold the baby, and the boys can hold the Mare, but we sure don't want you to break another arm."

"I can help hold her."

"Please, sera. We don't know what will happen. Just be ready to move."

"He's the best," Florian said. "Andy's always out here; the Supers are always in the offices. Andy's birthed most everything there is. You should do what he says, sera."

"I'll move," sera said, which was something, from sera. But she liked Andy, and she realized right off that Andy had good sense, that was the way sera was. So she stood there watching anxiously as the techs led the Mare past, two of them, each with a lead on her.

The Mare pulled and they let her stop and put her head over the stall door. She snuffed the air and made a strange, interested sound.

The baby pricked up her ears, and stood there with her nose working hard too.

"Put the Mare in the next stall," Andy told the techs holding the Mare. "Let's just watch this awhile."

That was the way Andy worked. Sometimes he didn't know. Sometimes no one knew because no one in the world had ever tried it. But Andy didn't let his animals get hurt and he had a way of figuring what they were going to do even if Andy had never read a book in his life.

"She's talking to her," sera said, "that's what she's doing."

"They sure teach something," Andy said. "Animals sort of do tape on each other."

"They're a herd animal," sera said. "It's got to be everything to do with how they act. They want to be together, I think."

"Well, the little girl will fix on people," Andy said. "They're that way, when they're born from the tank. But the Mare could help this little horse. She's getting milk, already. And milk from a healthy animal is a lot healthier than formula. I'm just worried about how she'll act when hers comes."

"Politics," sera said. "It's always politics, isn't it?" Sera was amused, and watched as the Mare put her head over the rail of the next stall. "Look at her. Oh, she wants over here."

"Somebody's going to sit all night with the Mare, too," Andy said. "When we've got something we don't know about, we just hold on to the ropes and stay ready. But there's a chance the Mare will want this baby. And if she does, she's the best help we could get."

They were very late getting back up the hill. Florian wouldn't trade the time with sera and the filly for his own sake, but he was terribly sorry when he got back to the room, in a dark and quiet apartment, and said to Catlin: "It's me," when he opened the door.

"Urn," Catlin said, from her bunk, and started dragging herself up on an arm. "Trouble?"

"Everything's fine. The baby's doing real well. Sera's happier than I've ever seen."

"Good," Catlin said, relieved. So he knew Catlin had been worrying all this time.

"I'm sorry, Catlin."

" 'S all right. Shower. I'll tell you the stuff."

He shut the door, asked the Minder for the bathroom light and started stripping on his way to the bath while Catlin got herself focused. He hardly ran water over himself and pulled on clean underwear and came out again, cut the light and sat there on his bed while Catlin, from hers, a calm, coherent voice out of the dark, told him how they were going to have one bitch of a problem tomorrow, they had to break past a Minder and get a Hostage out alive.

They said there were going to be three Enemies, but you never knew.

You never knew what the Minder controlled, or if there wasn't some real simple, basic wire-job on the door, which was the kind of trap you could fall into if you got to concentrating too much on the tech stuff.

They had to head down the hill at 0400. It was drink the briefing down, fix what could happen, and sleep for whatever time they could without getting there out of breath, because you never knew, sometimes they threw you something they hadn't told you about at all, and you had to cope with an Enemy attack before you even got to the Exercise.

Catlin never wasted time with what and where. She had showed him a lot in the years they had worked together, about how to focus down and think narrow and fast, and he did it now with everything he had, learning the lay of the place from maps he scanned by penlight, not wanting to shine light in Catlin's eyes, learning exactly how many steps down what hall, what the distance was and what the angles and line of sight were at any given point.

You hoped Intelligence was right, that was all.

It was eighty points on the Hostage, that was all they were saying. That meant in a hundred-point scale at least one of them was expendable. They could do it that way if they had to, which meant him, if it had to be: Catlin was the one who had the set-up best in her head and she was the one who would most likely be able to get through the final door, if he could get it open. But you didn't go into anything planning what you could give away. You meant to make the Enemy do the giving.

He did the best he could, that was all.

viii

It was Catlin on the phone. Catlin made a phone call; and Ari flew out of Dr. Edwards' classroom and down the hall to the office as fast as she could run.

"Sera," Catlin said, "we're going to be late. Florian's in hospital."

"What happened?" Ari cried.

"The wall sort of fell," she said. "The hospital said I should call, sera, he's real upset."

"Oh, God," she cried. "Catlin, dammit, how bad?"

"Not too. Don't be mad, sera."

"Catlin, dammit, report! What happened?"

"The Enemy was holding a Hostage, we had to get in past a Minder, and we did that; we got all the way in, but the Hostage started a diversion while they were trying to Trap the door. The Instructor is still trying to find out what happened, but their charge went off. The whole wall went down. It wouldn't really do that, it would blow out, but this was a set-up, not a real building, and it must have touched off more than one charge."

"Don't they know?"

"Well, they're dead. Really."

"I'm coming. I'm coming to the hospital right now. Meet me at the front door." She turned around and Dr. Edwards was there. So she told him. Fast. And told him call uncle Denys. And ran.

"He thinks it's his fault," Catlin said, when she got there, at the front door, panting and sick at her stomach.

"He didn't tell me you had an Exercise today," Ari said. That was what she had thought all the terrible way down the hill. "He didn't tell me!"

"He was fine," Catlin said. "He didn't make a mistake. They shouldn't have been where they were, that's first." She pointed down the hall, where a man in black was talking to the doctors. "That's the Instructor. He's been asking questions. The Hostage—he's a Thirteen, he's the only one alive. It's a mess. It's a real mess. They're asking whether somebody got their charges mixed up, where the explosives kit was sitting, they think it was up against the wall right where they were working, and they hadn't Trapped everything they could have, so that was two charges more than they were using on the door. The whole set-up came down. Florian kind of threw himself backward and covered up, or he could have been killed too. Lucky the whole door just came down on him before the blocks did."

Ari walked on past the desk with Catlin, down where the doctors were talking with the Instructor, and past, where Florian was, in the hall, on one of the gurneys. He looked awful, white and bruised and bleeding on his shoulder and on his arms and hands, but they had cleaned those up and sprayed them with gel.

"Why is he out here?" Ari snapped at the med who was standing there.

"Waiting on X-ray, sera. There's a critical inside."

"I'm all right," Florian muttered, eyes half-opening. "I'm all right, sera."

"You—" Stupid, she almost said. But a Super couldn't say that to an azi who was tranked. She bit her lip till it hurt. She touched his hand. "Florian, it's not your fault."

"Not yours, sera. I wanted to go. With the filly. I could have said."

"I mean it's not your fault, hear me? They say something blew up." She went over where the doctors and the Instructor were, right up to them. "It wasn't Florian's fault, was it?" Her voice shook. "Because if it was, it was mine, first."

"This is sera Emory," Dr. Wojkowski said to the frowning Security Instructor who looked at her like she was an upstart CIT brat. "Florian and Catlin's Supervisor."

The man changed in a hurry. "Sera," he said, Catlin-like, stiff. "We're still investigating. We'll need to debrief both of them under trank."

"No," she said.

"Young sera, —"

"I said no. Let them alone."

"Sera is correct," a hard voice said, from a man in ordinary clothes, who had come up on the other side of the group, a man a little out of breath.

It was Seely. She never thought she would be that glad to see Seely in her whole life.

Uncle Denys couldn't run. But Seely had, clear from Administration. And Florian and Catlin were right: Seely was Security, she knew it the minute he launched into the Instructor.

It was a lot better. Florian had had a piece of metal driven into his leg, that was the worst, but they had gotten that out, and he had sprains and bruises, and he was going to be sore, because they had pulled a lot of building blocks off the door that had fallen on him.

"Fools," was what Seely said when Ari asked him what he had found out, talking to Catlin and talking to the Instructor and the Hostage, when he came around, what little he could. When she heard it she drafted Seely into the room where Florian was starting to come around. "Tell him," she said, while Catlin came into the room behind Seely and stood there with her arms folded.

So Seely did. "Are you hearing me?" Seely asked Florian.

"Yes," Florian said.

"The Instructor is under reprimand. The amount of explosives allotted exceeded the strength of the set-up. The Hostage attempted a distraction according to his orders, while the team inside was Trapping the door. The Hostage doesn't know what happened at that point. He took out one team member. Apparently the two working with the door had set their kit close to them, probably right between them, and possibly the distraction, or the third boy falling against them—dropped the charge they were working with into two others they had in the kit."

"They didn't start Trapping the door they were behind until we got in past the Minder," Catlin said, walking close to the bed. "They thought they could get out and score points, because there was a third team coming in at our backs. They didn't tell us that. They were working with the Enemy and they were supposed to hit us from behind. But they were sticking to the Instructor's timetable and we got past the Minder too fast. . . ."

"Too fast?" Florian murmured, with a flutter of his eyes. "That's crazy. What was I supposed to do?"

"... so the other team tried to improvise and tried to Trap the door when they knew we were ahead of what they expected. And the Hostage followed his orders, kicked the guard, but the guard fell into the two at the door and they dropped the charge right into their kit. Wasn't your fault. We couldn't fire into the room because of the Hostage. He was supposed to be on our side and cause them trouble. It was a double-team exercise. So it was the set-up that went wrong."

"You didn't Trap the door," Seely asked Florian.

"I can't remember," Florian said. Then, blearily: "No. I wouldn't. No reason. Not in the plan."

"You didn't," Catlin said. "I was covering your back, in case the third Enemy was behind. You were going to blow the door and gas the room, remember?"

Florian grimaced as if it hurt. "I can't—remember. It's just gone. I don't even remember it blowing."

"Happens," Seely said, arms folded, just like Catlin. Ari sat there in a straight chair and listened. And wondered at Seely. "You may never get those seconds back. The shock jolted you. But you're all right. It wasn't your fault."

"You don't put your charges—" Florian said thickly, "under where you're working."

"You don't exceed your building limits with the charges in a training exercise, either, or set up a double-team course with a Murphy-factor in it like that in a dead-end room. You exceeded expectations. The other team fell below. End report. You'll be back in training next week. They won't."

"Yes, ser," Florian said quietly. "I'm sorry about them, though."

"He needs tape," Seely said, looking at Ari. "He shouldn't feel that way. That'll give him trouble in future."

That made her mad; and shouldn't. Seely was trying to help. "I'll decide," she said, afraid he was going to say that to uncle Denys too.

Seely nodded, very short, very correct. "I have business," he said, "if that's all, sera. You're doing everything right here."

"Thank you, Seely. Very much. Tell uncle Denys I might be over here for supper."

"Yes, sera."

Seely left.

Catlin walked over to the chair, arms still folded, and sat down.

"Catlin," Ari said. "Did you get hit?"

"Not much," Catlin said. "Most of my end of the hall was still standing." She flexed her left arm and wrist. "Sprain from moving the blocks. That's all."

"I went too fast," Florian said, like he was still a little tranked. "That's crazy. It was an old-model Minder."

"They made the mistake," Catlin said firmly, definite as the sun in the sky. "We didn't."

Ari bit her lip. Florian got to use the House library. Florian got into the manuals for the House systems. Florian knew a lot of things they didn't, down in the Town, because Florian and Catlin never stopped learning.

She went out in the hall, got permission for the phone, and called uncle Denys herself.

"Uncle Denys," she said, "Florian worked the course too fast. That's what they're saying. He got hurt for being better. That's lousy, uncle Denys. He could have gotten killed. Three people did. Aren't there any better Instructors down there?"

Uncle Denys didn't answer right off. Then he said: "I've got Seely's report up now. Give me a while. How is he?"

"He's damn sore," she said, forgetting not to say damn to uncle Denys. And told him what Dr. Wojkowski had said and what Seely and Catlin had said.

"I agree with you. If that's borne out in the report, we're going to have to do something. Do you want to spend the night down there, or is he going to need that?"

"I want to do it. With Catlin."

"All right," uncle Denys said, without arguing at all. "Make sure you get something to eat. Hear?"

Uncle Denys surprised her sometimes. She went back to the room, feeling a little like she had been hit with something too. Everything had been so good, and then everything went so bad. And then Seely and Denys both got reasonable, when she least expected it.

"They're going to fix things," she said to Catlin, because Florian's eyes were shut. "I just called uncle Denys. I think there's a foul-up somewhere higher up than the Instructor. I think you know too much for down there."

"Sounds right," Catlin said. "But it makes me mad, sera. They keep saying we're a little better than they expect. They wasted those azi. They were all right. They weren't the best in Green, but they didn't need to get killed. They lived right across the hall from us."

"Dammit," she said, and sat down with her hands between her knees. Cold all over and sick at her stomach, because it was not a game, what they did was never a game, Catlin was right from the start.

ix

Florian was still limping a little, but he was doing all right when he came into the barn with Catlin and Amy and the other kids. Ari watched him, watched a smile light his face when he saw the Mare and the filly—two fillies. One with a light mane and tail, that was Ari's; and one with black—that was Horse's daughter.

"Look at her!" Florian exclaimed. And forgot all about his limp; and came and patted the Mare on the shoulder, and hugged her around the neck. Which impressed hell out of the kids. Except Catlin, of course, who knew Florian wasn't scared of horses.

The Mare deserved it in Ari's estimation. The Mare mothered both babies, the one she had birthed and the one who was her genesister, which of course the Mare could not understand, except the Mare was just generous and took care of both of them.

"She's so big," Amy said.

They were a little scared of the fillies top. It was the first time they had ever been close to animals, and they were still afraid they were going to get knocked down—good guess, because they tended to spread out and get too close and dodge into each other's and the horses' way when the horses shied. Even Catlin, who backed up and tucked her hands behind her, stiff and azi, when 'Stasi nearly bumped into her. Maddy yelped and nearly got it from the Mare's backside, and Ari just dropped her face into her hands and looked up again, with the horses all off across the big barn arena and the kids looking a little foolish.

"You have to go a little slower," Andy said from behind them. "They don't want to step on you. But you smell funny to them."

The kids looked at Andy as if they thought he was joking or they had just been insulted.

"Come on," Ari said to Florian. "Let's see if we can get her."

"Wait, sera, I can," Florian said, and walked after her.

It was strange finally to come out in the open, and pretend they were mostly friends of Amy's, that everyone knew was her friend, and who, she figured, was safer from Disappearing than anybody else because her mama was a friend of uncle Denys and uncle Giraud. She didn't think it would happen anymore, but the kids worried; and that was the set-up she had worked out with Amy—because the kids were still worried.

But, she told them, they could go to places like seeing the new babies together and not have anybody get onto the fact she had friends, the same way she could buy things for people and not have uncle Giraud know they saw each other more than at parties. Andy wasn't in the House circuit, so Andy wouldn't tell everything he saw and neither would the azi in the barn. So they felt safer.

Florian caught the Mare with no trouble. He brought her back and the fillies came right along. That impressed the kids too.

It was strange how the kids looked at Florian and Catlin now, too, since Florian had come back still a little stiff and sore, and she had had Florian and Catlin tell what had happened down there in the Exercise—it was all right to tell them, she had explained to Florian and Catlin, because they were CITs and they were in the House, except Sam, and Sam was all right. So Florian had started telling it, but when he got to the part where he went down the hall, he couldn't remember past that point, and Catlin had to tell it, and about the hospital and everything.

It was the first time either one of them had said more than a sentence or two at a time to the kids, and it was something to get Catlin to tell a story; but once Catlin got warmed up, Catlin knew enough gory stories to get them all going, and all of a sudden the kids seemed to figure out that Florian and Catlin were real. That a whole lot of things were. That they had seen dead people That they really could do what she said.

–Not, really, she thought that they had ever doubted her, but that they had had no way to understand what it was like to walk down a hall toward an Enemy, carrying explosives which, thank God, had not gone off... or even that there were Enemies who could come right up on Reseune's grounds and try to blow things up or shoot people.

They started wondering why, that was one thing that was different. They wanted to know what went on in the Council and why people had wanted to take things from her in Court—and they got to questions where she couldn't give them all the answers.

"That's something I'm still trying to figure out," she had told them. "Except there are people who don't want azi to be born and they'd like to shut Reseune down."

"We do more than azi," Sam had said.

"Florian and Catlin wouldn't like not to be born," Amy had said.

"They might be born," Ari said, "but they'd bring them up like CITs and teach them like CITs. They wouldn't like it."

"Would you?" Amy had asked them, because they had started asking Florian and Catlin questions that didn't go through her.

"No," Florian had said, very quiet, while Catlin shook her head. Ari knew. Florian was too polite to say what he had said to her when she had talked with them about it before: that he didn't like most CITs, because they were kind of slow about things; a lot of CITs, he had said, worked harder trying to make up their minds what to do than they did doing what they d decided, and he hated to be around people like that. And Catlin had said, a depth of thought which had surprised her, that she figured CITs had made azi to run things like Security because they knew they couldn't trust each other with guns. ,

"Do you like being azi?" 'Stasi had gotten far enough to ask, that time down in the tunnels.

Florian had gotten a little embarrassed, and nodded without saying a thing.

"I think he's sexy," Maddy had said outright, in school, not in Florian or Catlin's hearing. "I wish I had him." And giggled.

I'm glad you don't, had been Ari's thought.

That popped into her head again while Florian was leading the horses back: he was so neat and trim in his black uniform, you couldn't see he was a kid if you didn't know the Mare's height. Florian and Catlin—were enough to make you jealous you couldn't walk like that and look like that and be like

Because CITs didn't take care of themselves like that, she thought, they ate too much and they spent too much of their time sitting down and, face it, she told herself, nature dealt Amy eyes that had to be corrected and made Tommy just average-looking, and didn't give Maddy any sense.

While Florian and Catlin looked like that and were so good at what they did that they were out of Green and into House Security, because they were just better than their predecessors—because they were taught after the War, Denys had said, using modern-day stuff that made them work harder and use what they had, and because she was right, they had learned a lot of classified stuff up in the House that the Instructors down in Green didn't even know about, that was different since sometime in the War, too. All of which came down to the fact that they started doing their tape in House Security, and that after this no Exercise with them involved could use a double-blind situation.

Like adult Security. Because their reactions had gotten so fast and so dangerous there was no way to make it safe if they got surprised, and they could push other teams past all their training.

She was damned glad Maddy didn't have their Contracts. Damned glad Maddy didn't have her hands on Florian and didn't have any chance to mess with that partnership, because she understood now beyond any doubt that it was life-and-death business with them. She had made Florian late for one study-session, Florian and Catlin had thrown everything they had into their Exercise, afraid they were going to fail it; and that had made them overrun the course and push another team to the point it got rattled and made a mistake, that was what had happened, so that three azi had gotten killed was, at least remotely, her fault. Not blamable fault, but it was part of the chain of what had happened, and she had to live with that.

She was terribly glad she hadn't done anything with Florian that would have put any more strain on him. Because he could just as well have been dead, and it would have been her fault, really, truly her fault.

Maddy was right. He was so damned pretty. She wanted so much to do with him exactly what Maddy wanted to do.

And Maddy would have no idea in her head why she couldn't.

She wished to hell Ari senior could talk back and forth, because she had tried to ask Base One if Ari had anything to say about Florian being in hospital or about whether it was safe to do sex with her azi, if they were Security. But Base One had said there was no such information.

She was so desperate she even thought about getting Seely off in a corner somewhere and asking him that question. But Seely was as much Seely as he had ever been—and not even sex could make her that desperate.

Yet.

x

Her twelfth birthday, she had a big party—a dance in the Rec hall, with every kid in Reseune who was above nine and under twenty—uncle Denys begged off and said he had work, but that was because he hated the music.

He missed something, because Catlin learned to dance. Catlin got the idea of music—it's a mnemonic, Ari said, when Catlin looked puzzled at the dancing: the variations on the pattern are the part that makes it work.

Florian had no trouble at all picking it up—but he was too self-conscious to clown with it in public: that was the funny thing; and it was Catlin who shocked everybody, by trying to teach Sam a step he couldn't get—an azi out on the floor with a CIT. Everybody got to watching, not mad, just amazed, and Catlin, in a gauzy black blouse that covered just about what it had to with opaque places, and black satin pants that showed off her slim hips like everything, —smiled, did three or four fast steps and showed what you could do if you could isolate muscle groups and keep time with the music.

After that every boy in the room wanted to have one dance with Catlin, and it was funny as hell, because all the girls in the room didn't know whether to be jealous of an azi or not.

So Maddy Strassen flounced over and asked Florian, and the other girls started asking him, and the few older CIT kids who had azi their own age began showing them the steps, until the thing got all over the House by the next morning.

"You know," uncle Denys said about it at breakfast, "there are azi that could bother. You really ought to be careful."

"Seely was there," she said, tweaking uncle Denys just a bit. "And a lot of Security. They could have stopped it, anytime."

"Probably the music paralyzed their judgment. They were there to stop Abolitionists with grenades. They needn't have worried. They couldn't get past the noise."

"Well, none of the azi got pushed. Some would dance, some wouldn't, nobody pushed anybody. Florian said Catlin thought it was interesting. She's supposed to protect me, right? And she's not as social as Florian. But she can imitate anything physical and she can act like anybody. So she was having a great time out there. She was psyching everybody and getting the feel of how they moved and they never knew what she was doing. Want to know what she said?"

"What?"

"She said they were all soft and they were generally real vulnerable in their balance. That she could take out any one of them with an elbow."

Uncle Denys sneezed into his orange juice.

xi