Cyteen

i

There were new tapes. Maddy brought them. Maddy did the ordering of things like that, because her mother didn't mind, and uncle Denys said that it would be a scandal if it were on her account: which Maddy might have figured out, Maddy was not really stupid, but it pleased Maddy to be involved in intrigue and something she truly did best.

So that was a point Maddy got on her side. That kind of favor was something Maddy could use for blackmail, Ari thought, except there was no percentage in it. If Maddy ever wanted to use it in Novgorod, that was all right, she would be grown then and people would not see the sixteen-year-old—just a grown woman, who was, then, only like her predecessor—whose taste for such things was quietly known. Strange, Ari thought, how people were so little capable of being shocked in retrospect: old news, the proverb ran.

And Maddy could be free as she liked with sex, because Maddy was just Maddy Strassen, and the Strassens had no power to frighten anyone—outside Reseune.

It was a quiet gathering. The Kids. Period. Mostly she just wanted to relax, and they sat around watching the tape quite, quite tranked, except Florian and Catlin, and drinking a little—except Florian and Catlin. Sam spilled a drink—he was terribly embarrassed about it. But Catlin helped him mop up and took him to the back bedroom and helped him in another way, which was Catlin's own idea, because Sam and Amy were having trouble.

God, life got complicated. Amy had a fix on Stef Dietrich; and that was hopeless. Sam had one—well, on herself, Ari reckoned; and that was the trouble, that Amy got seconds on a lot of things in life. And Amy was interested in a lot of things Sam wasn't. And vice versa. She wished to hell Sam would find somebody. Anybody.

But he didn't. And Sam was the main reason why she didn't go off to the bedroom with Tommy or Stef or anyone who came to the apartment; but he wasn't the only reason. The main one was what it had always been, the same reason that she was best friends with Amy and Sam and Maddy and kept everyone else at arm's length—because Sam was always in the way to get hurt, there was no way to shut him out, nor was it fair, and yet—

And yet—

Of all the boys he was the only one who really liked just her, herself, from before he ever knew she was anybody.

And that made her sad sometimes, because all the others would be thinking about themselves and what it meant to them, and how she was a Special and she was rich and she was going to be Administrator someday, and making her happy was very, very important—

Which was a lot different than Sam, who loved her, she thought, who really truly loved her. And she loved him—what time she was not frustrated that he existed, frustrated that he had to love her that way, frustrated that he was the focus of all her other frustrations and never, ever, deserved them—

Because she would not sleep with Stef Dietrich if there never had been a Sam. That was still true.

For one thing it would kill Amy. Amy could stand to be beaten by Yvgenia, but not by her—in this. No matter that Amy was still gawky and awkward, and never worked at her appearance . . . until she took after Stef, and then it was almost pathetic. Amy, with eyeshadow. Amy, fussing with her hair, which was loose now, not in braids. After Stef, who was so damned handsome and so sure of it.

While Sam was a little at loose ends, not quite betrayed, but a lot at a loss. And if Stef had antennae for anything, he knew damned well he had better walk a narrow line between Yvgenia and Amy.

And it left her, herself, to watch the tapes and afterward, after Florian and Catlin had showed everyone out, to lie on the couch and stare at the ceiling in a melancholy not even they could relieve.

"Come to bed, sera," Florian said.

Worried about her.

Worried and absolutely devoted.

The ceiling hazed in her sight. If she blinked the tears would run and they would see them.

But the tears spilled anyway, just ran from the outside edge of her eye, so she blinked, it made no difference.

"Sera?" There was profound upset in Florian's voice. He wiped her cheek, the merest feather-touch. And was certainly in pain.

Dammit. Damn him. Damn him for that reaction.

I'm smarter than Ari senior. At least I haven't fouled up things with Sam and Amy. They've fouled it up with each other.

I don't understand CITs. I really truly don't understand CITs.

Azi are so much kinder.

And they can't help it.

"Sera." Florian patted her cheek, laid a hand on her shoulder. "Who hurt you?"

Shall we kill him? she imagined the next question. For some reason that struck her hysterically funny. She started laughing, laughing till she had to pull her legs up to save her stomach from aching, and the tears ran; and Florian held her hands and Catlin slid over the back of the couch to kneel by her and hold on to her.

Which only struck her funnier.

"I'm—I'm sorry," she gasped finally, when she could get a breath. Her stomach hurt. And they were so terribly confused. "Oh. I'm sorry." She reached and patted Florian's shoulder, Catlin's leg. "I'm sorry. I'm just tired, that's all. That damn report—"

"The report, sera?" Florian asked.

She caught her breath, flattened out with a little shift around Catlin and let go a long sigh. "I've been working so hard. You have to forgive me. CITs do this kind of thing. Oh, God, the Minder. I hope to God you didn't re-arm the system—"

"No, sera, not yet."

"That's good. Damn. Oh, damn, my sides hurt. That thing—calling the Bureau—would just about cap the whole week, wouldn't it? Blow an assignment, miss the whole damn point. Amy's making a fool of herself and Sam's walking wounded—CIT's are a bitch, you know it? They're a real pain."

"Sam seemed happy," Catlin said.

"I'm glad." For some reason the pain came back behind her heart. And she sighed again and wiped her eyes. "God, I bet that got my makeup. I bet I look a sight."

"You're always beautiful, sera." Florian wiped beneath her left eye with a fingertip, and wiped his hand on his sleeve and wiped the other one. "There."

She smiled then, and laughed silently, without the pain, seeing two worried faces, two human beings who would, in fact, take on anyone she named—never mind their own safety.

"We should get to bed," she said. "I've got to do that paper tomorrow. I've got to do it. I really shouldn't have done this. And I don't even want to get up from here."

"We can carry you."

"God," she said, feeling Florian slip his hands under. "You'll drop me– Florian!"

He stopped.

"I'll walk," she said. And got up, and did, with her arms around both of them, not that she needed the balance.

Just that she needed someone, about then.

Ari bit her lip, perfectly quiet while Justin was reading her report. She sat with her arms on her knees and her hands clenched while he flipped through the printout.

"What is this?" he asked finally, looking up, very serious. "Ari, where did you get this?"

"It's a world I made up. Like Gehenna. You start with those sets. And you tell them, you have to defend this base and you teach your children to defend it. And you give them these tapes. And you get this kind of parameter between A and Y in the matrix; and you get this set between B and Y, and so on; and there's a direct relationship between the change in A and the rest of the shifts—so I did a strict mechanics model, like it was a fluxing structure, but with all these levels—"

"I can see that." Justin's brow furrowed, and he asked apprehensively:

"This isn't Gehenna, is it?"

She shook her head. "No. That's classified. That's my problem. I built this thing with a problem in it, but that's all right, that's to keep it inside a few generations. It's whether all the sets change at the same rate, that's what I'm asking."

"You mean you're inputting the whole colony at once. No outsiders."

"They can get there in the fourth generation. Gehenna's did. Page 330."

He flipped through and looked.

"I just want to talk about it," she said. "I just got to thinking about whether some of the problems in the sociology models, you know, aren't because you're trying to do ones that work. So I'm setting up a system with deliberate problems, to see how the problems work. I changed everything. You don't need to worry I'm telling you anything you don't want to know. I just got to thinking about Gehenna and closed systems, and so I made you a model. It's in the appendix. There's a sort of a worm in it. I won't tell you what, but I think you can see it—or I'm not right about it." She bit her lip. "Page 330. One of those paragraphs is Ari's. About values and flux. You tell me a lot of things. I looked through Ari's notes for things that could help you. That's hers. So's the bit on the group sets. It's real stuff. It's stuff out of Archive. I thought you could use it. Fair trade."

It was terribly dangerous. It was terribly close to things that people weren't supposed to know about, that could bring panic down on the Gehennans; and worse.

But everybody in Reseune speculated on the Gehenna tapes, and people from inside Reseune didn't talk to people outside, and people outside wouldn't understand them anyway. She sat there with her hands clenched together and her stomach in a knot, with gnawing second thoughts, whether he would see too much—being as smart as he was. But he worked on microsystems. Ari's were macros—in the widest possible sense.

He said nothing for a long while.

"You know you're not supposed to be telling me this," he said in a whisper. Like they were being bugged; or the habit was there, like it was with her. "Dammit, Ari, you know it– What are you trying to do to me?"

"How else am I going to learn?" she hissed back, whispering because he whispered. "Who else is there?"

He fingered the edges of the pages and stared at it. And looked up. "You've put in a lot of work on this."

She nodded. It was why she had blown the last assignment. But that was sniveling. She didn't say that. She just waited for what he would say.

And he did see too much. She saw it in his face. He was not trying to hide his upset. He only stared at her a long, long time.

"Are we being monitored?" he asked.

"My uncles," she said, "probably." Not saying that she could. "It might go into Archive. I imagine they take every chance to tape me they can get, since I threw them out of my bedroom a long time ago. Don't worry about it. It doesn't matter what they listen to. There's no way they'll tell me no, when it comes to what I need to learn. Or give you any trouble."

"For somebody who held off the Council in Novgorod," Justin said, "you can still be naive."

"They won't do it, I'm telling you."

"Why? Because you say so? You don't run Reseune, your uncles do. And will, for some years. Ari, —my God, Ari—"

He shoved his chair back and got up and walked out.

Which left her sitting there, with Grant on the other side of the cluttered little office, staring at her, not quite azi-like, but very cold and very wary, like something was her fault.

"Nothing's going to happen!" she said to Grant.

Grant got up and came and took the report from Justin's desk.

"That's his," she said, putting a hand on it.

"It's yours. You can take it back or I can put it in the safe. I don't think Justin wants to teach you any more today, young sera. I imagine he'll read it very carefully if you leave it here. But you've grounded him. I don't doubt you've grounded me as well. Security would never believe I wasn't involved."

"You mean about his father?" She looked up at Grant, caught in the position of disadvantage, with Grant looming over her chair. "It doesn't make any difference. Khalid's not going to hold on to that seat. Another six months and there won't be any problem. Defense is going to be sensible again and there won't be any problem."

Grant only stared at her a moment. Then: "Free Jordan, why don't you, young sera? Possibly because you can't? —Please go. I'll put this up for him."

She sat there a moment more while Grant took the report and took it to the wall-safe and put it inside. Then Grant left.

Just—left her there.

So she left, and walked down the hall with a lump in her throat.

He was better, at home, with a drink in him. With the report in his lap—he had gotten it from the safe, and when Grant said that it was dangerous to carry about, he had said: So let them arrest me. I'm used to it. What the hell?

So he sat sipping a well-watered Scotch and reading the paragraph on 330 over and over again. "God," he said, when he had gone through it the second time, sifting through the limitation of words for the precious content. It was valuable—was like a light going on—in a small area, but there was nothing small or inconsequential where ideas had to link together. "She's talking about values here. The interlock of the ego-net and the value sets in azi psych and the styles of integration—why some are better than others. I needed this—back at the start. I had to work it out. Damn, Grant, how much else I've done—is already in Archives, just waiting there? That's a hell of a thought, isn't it?"

"It isn't true," Grant said. "If it was, Ari would have been doing the papers."

"I think I know why I interested her," he said. "At least—part of it." He took another drink and thumbed through the report. "I wonder how much of this is our Ari's. Whether it's something Ari senior suggested to her to do—and gave her the framework on—or whether Ari just—put this together. It's a graduation project. That's what it is. A thesis. And I can see how Ari must have looked at mine—when I was seventeen and naive as hell about design. But there's a lot more in this. The model work is first rate."

"She's got a major base in the House computers to help her," Grant said. "She can pull time on nets you couldn't even consult when you were her age—"

"On facilities I didn't know existed when I was her age. Yes. And I hadn't had her world-experience, and a lot of other things– I was younger—in a lot of ways—than she is right now. Damn, she's done a lot of work on this. And typically, she never said a thing about what she was working on. I think it is hers. This whole model is naive as hell, she's planted two major timebombs in the center-set, which is overkill if she's trying to get a failure—but she's likely going to run it with increasing degrees of clean-up. Maybe compare one drift against the other." Another drink and a slow shake of his head. "You know what this is, it's a bribe. It's a damn bribe. Two small windows into those Archived notes, and both of them completely unpublished material– And I'm sitting here weighing what else could be there—that could make everything I'm doing obsolete before it's published—or be the key to what I could do—what I could have done—if Ari hadn't been murdered—And I'm weighing it against losing years of contact with Jordan. Against the chance neither one of us might ever—"

He lost his voice again. Took a drink and gazed at the wall.

"Because there's no choice," he concluded, when he had had several more swallows of whiskey and he was halfway numb again. "I don't even know why, or what part of this report is real, or how much of Gehenna is in here." He looked at Grant; and hated himself for the whole situation he was in, because it was Grant's chances of Planys that had been shot to hell, equally as well as his. Grant had sat at home waiting on all his other visits—because the whole weight of law and custom and the practical facts of Grant's azi vulnerabilities to manipulation and his abilities to remember and focus on instruction—had barred him from Planys thus far.

Now their jailers had the ultimate excuse, if they had ever needed one.

"I had no idea," he said to Grant, "I had no idea what she was working on, or where this was going."

"Ari is not entirely naive in this," Grant said. "If Gehenna is what she's working on—and she wants to work on it with you—she knows that won't sit well in some circles; and that you'll understand right through to the heart of the designs and beyond. Ari is accustomed to having her way. More than that, Ari is convinced her way is all-important. Be careful of her. Be extremely careful."

"She knows something, something that's got to do with Gehenna, that hasn't gotten into public."

Grant looked at him long and hard. "Be careful," Grant said. "Justin, for God's sake, be careful."

"Dammit, I—" The frustration in Grant's voice got to him, reached raw nerves, even past the whiskey. He set the glass down and rested his elbows on his knees, his hands on the back of his neck. "Oh, God." The tears came the way they had not in years. He squeezed his eyes shut, tried to dam them back, aware of painful silence in the room.

After a while he got up and added more whiskey to the ice-melt, and stood staring at the corner until he heard Grant get up and come over to the bar, and he looked and took Grant's glass and added ice and whiskey.

"Someday the situation will change," Grant said, took his glass and touched it to his, a light, fragile clink of glass on glass. "Keep your balance. There's no profit in anything else. The election count will be over by fall. The whole situation may change, not overnight, but change, all the same."

"Khalid could win."

"A meteor could strike us. Do we worry about such things? Finish that. Come to bed. All right?"

He shuddered, drank the rest off and shuddered again. He could not get drunk enough.

He slammed the glass down on the counter-top and pushed away from the bar, to do what Grant had said.

ii

Ari, Justin's voice had said on the Minder, be in my office in the morning.

So she came, was waiting for him when he got there, and he said, opening the door—he had come alone this time, almost the only time: "Ari, I owe you an apology. A profound apology for yesterday." He had her report with him and he laid it down on his desk and riffled the pages. "You did this. Yourself. It was your idea."

"Yes," she said, anxious.

"It's remarkable. It's a really remarkable job. —I don't say it's right, understand, but it's going to take me a little to get through it, not just because of the size. Have you shown this to your uncle?"

She shook her head. It was too hard to talk about coherently. She had not slept much. "No. I did it for you."

"I wasn't very gracious about it. Forgive me. I've been that route myself, with Yanni. I didn't mean to do that to you."

"I understand why you're upset," she said. "I do." Grant was likely to come in at any time and she wanted to get this out beforehand. "Justin, Grant took into me. He was right. But I am too. If Reseune is safe again you can travel. If it isn't, nothing will help, and this won't hurt—in fact it makes you safer, because there's no way they can come at you or your father without coming at me, because your father's worked on your stuff, and that means he's working with you and you're working with me, and all he has to do, Justin, all he has to do, if he wants my help—is not do anything against me. I don't even care if he likes me. I just want to work things out so they're better. I thought about the danger in working with you, I did think, over and over again—but you're the one I need, because you work long-term and you work with the value-sets and that's what I'm interested in. I'm not a stupid little girl, Justin. I know what I want to work on and Yanni can't help me anymore. Nobody can. So I have to come to you. Uncle Denys knows it. He says—he says—be careful. But he also says you're honest. So am I—no!" —As he opened his mouth. "Let me say this. I will not steal from you. You think about this. What if we put out a paper with your name and mine and your father's? Don't you think that would shake them up in the Bureau?"

He sat down. "That would have to get by Denys, Ari, and I don't think he'd approve it. I'm sure Giraud wouldn't."

"You know what I'd say to my uncles? I'd say—someday I'll have to run Reseune. I'm trying to fix things. I don't want things to go the way they did. Let me try while I have your advice. Or let me try after I don't."

He scared her for a moment. His face got very still and very pale. Then Grant showed up, coming through the door, so he drew a large breath and paid attention to Grant instead. "Good morning. Coffee's not on. Yet."

"Hint," Grant said, and made a face and took the pot out for water. "Ari," Justin said then, "I wish you luck with your uncles. More than I've had. That's all I'll say. Someday you'll find me missing if you're not careful. I'll be down in Detention. Just so you know where. I'm rather well expecting it today. And I'm not sure you can prevent that, no matter how much power you think you have in the House. I hope I'm wrong. But I'll work with you. I'll do everything I can. I've got a few questions for you to start off with. Why did you install two variables?"

She opened her mouth. She wanted to talk about the other thing. But he didn't. He closed that off like a door going shut and threw her an important question. And Grant came back with the water. They were Working her, timing every thing. And he had said what he wanted to say.

"It's because one is an action and one is a substantive. Defend will drift and so will base. And there's going to be no enemy from offworld, just the possibility of one, if that gets passed down. And they're not going to have tape after the first few years: Gehenna didn't."

Justin nodded slowly. "You know that my father specializes in educational sets. That Gehenna has political consequences. You talk about my working with him. You know what you're doing, throwing this my way. You know what it could cost me. And him. If anything goes wrong, if anything blows up—it comes down on us. Do you understand that?"

"It won't."

"It won't. Young sera, do you know how thin that sounds to me? For God's sake be wiser than that. Not smarter. Wiser. Hear me?"

God. Complications. Complications with Defense. With politics. With him. With everything.

"So," he said. "Now you do know. I just want you to be aware. —Your idea about semantic drift and flux is quite good—but a little simple, because there's going to be occupational diversity, which affects semantics, and so on—"

Another shift of direction. Finn and definitive. "They stay agricultural."

He nodded. "Let's work through this, step by step. I'll give you my objections and you note them and give me your answers. ..."

She focused down tight, the way Florian and Catlin had taught her, mind on business, and tried to hold it, but it was not easy, she was not azi, and there was so much to him, there was so much complication with him, he was always so soft-spoken, Yanni's complete opposite. He could come off the flank and surprise her, and so few people could do that.

He could go from being mad to being kind—so fast; and both things felt solid, both of them felt real.

She felt Grant's disapproval from across the room. There was nothing she could gain there: win Justin and eventually she won Grant, it was that simple. And she had made headway with Justin: she added it up in its various columns and thought that, overall, complicated as he was, he had given her a great deal.

iii

"He was nice about it," she said to Florian and Catlin at dinner. "He truly was. I think it was real."

"We'll keep an eye on him," Florian said.

They did much less of their work at the Barracks nowadays. Just occasionally they went down to take a course, only for the day. They had taken one this day. Catlin was sporting a scrape on her hand and a bruise on her chin, but she was pleased with herself, which meant pleased with the way things had gone.

Mostly they did their study by tape. Mostly things were real, nowadays. And they watched the reports they got on the Defense Bureau, and all the comings and goings of things in the installations that bordered on Reseune properties.

There had been a lot of dirty maneuvers—attempts to create scandal around Reseune. Attempts to snare Reseune personnel into public statements. Khalid was much better behind the scenes than in front of the cameras, and he had gained ground, while Giraud told her no, no, there's no percentage in debating him. He can make charges. The minute you deny them you're news and the thing is loose again.

But she had rather have been news so she could throw trouble into Khalid's lap.

There had been a scare last week when a boat had lost its engines and come ashore down by precip 10: some CITs had taken offense at the level of security they ran into, and said so, which a Centrist senator from Svetlansk had used to some advantage, and proposed an investigation of brutality on the part of Reseune Security.

Never mind that the CIT in question had tried to repossess from Security a carry-bag that had turned out to contain a questionable number of prescription drugs. The CIT claimed they were all legitimate and that he had a respiratory ailment which was aggravated by stress. He was suing for damages.

There was a directive out to Security reaffirming that Reseune stood by the guard. But Florian worried about it; and Catlin did, when Florian pointed out that it could be a deliberate thing, and if someone hadn't thought of creating an incident with Reseune Security in front of cameras, someone surely would now, likely Khalid, and likely something in Novgorod.

Let me tell you, she had said, when they brought it up with her, don't worry about it. If that was engineered, that's a fallout that could benefit our enemies. Don't doubt your tape; react, and react on any level your tape tells you. If I'm alive I can handle whatever falls out—politically. Do you doubt that?

No, they had said solemnly.

So she slammed her hand down on the table and they jumped like a bomb had gone off, scared white.

"Got you," she said. "You're still fast enough. That was go and stop, wasn't it? Damn fast."

Two or three breaths later Florian had said: "Sera, that was good. But you shouldn't scare us like that."

She had laughed. And patted Florian's hand and Catlin's, Catlin all sober and attentive, the way Catlin got when she was On. "You're my staff. Do what I say. Not Denys. Not your instructors. Not anyone."

So when Florian said, We'll keep an eye on him, there was a certain ominous tone to it.

"He's my friend," she said, reminding them of that.

"Yes, sera," Catlin said. "But we don't take things for granted."

"Enemies are much easier to plan for," Florian said. "Enemies can't get in here."

It was sense they gave her. They were things she had known once, when they were children, in uncle Denys' apartment.

"Hormones," she said, "are a bitch. They do terrible things to your thinking. Of course you're right. Do what you have to."

"Hormones, sera?" Florian asked.

She shrugged, feeling uncomfortable. But there was no jealousy about it. Just worry. "He's good-looking," she said. "That gets in the way, doesn't it? But I'm not crazy, either."

She felt strange about that, after. Scared. And she thought of times when she had had a lot less flux going on.

So she thought of Nelly; and thought that it had been much too long since she had seen her; and found her the next morning, a Nelly a little on the plump side, and very, very busy with her charges in the nursery.

Nelly had a little trouble focusing on her, as if the changes were too sudden or the time had been too long. "Young sera?" Nelly said, blinking several times. "Young sera?"

"I got to thinking about you," she said to Nelly. "How are you doing? Are you happy?"

"Oh, yes. Yes, young sera." A baby began crying. Nelly gave it a distracted look, over her shoulder. Someone else saw to it. "You've grown so much."

"I have. I'm sixteen, Nelly."

"Is it that long?" Nelly bunked again, and shook her head. "You were my first baby."

"I'm your oldest. Can I buy you lunch, Nelly? Put on your coat and come to lunch with me?"

"Well, I—" Nelly looked back at the rows of cribs.

"I've cleared it with your Super. Everything's fine. Come on."

It was very strange. In some ways Nelly was still only Nelly, fussy with her own appearance—fussy with hers. Nelly reached out and straightened her collar, and Ari smiled in spite of the twitch it made about self-defense, because there was no one else in the universe who would do that now.

But she knew before lunch was half over that the small wistful thought she had had, of bringing Nelly back to the apartment, was not the thing to do.

Poor Nelly would never understand the pressures she stood—or, God knew, the tape library.

Nelly was only glad to have found one of her babies again. And Ari made a note to tell the nursery Super that Nelly should have reward tape: that was the best thing she could do for Nelly—besides let her know that her eldest baby was doing well.

That her eldest baby was—what she was . . . Nelly was hardly able to understand.

Only that Nelly straightened her collar again before they parted company, Ari treasured. It made a little lump in her throat and made her feel warm all the way down the hall.

She went out to the cemetery, where there was a little marker that said Jane Strassen, 2272-2414. And she sat there a long time.

"I know why you didn't write," she said to no one, because maman had gone to the sun, the way Ariane Emory had. "I know you loved me. I wish Ollie would write. But I can guess why he doesn't—and I'm afraid to write to him because Khalid knows too much about people I'm fond of as it is.

"I saw Nelly today. Nelly's happy. She has so many babies to take care of—but she never cares what they'll be, just that they're babies, that's all. She's really nice—in a way so few people are.

"I know why you tried to keep me away from Justin. But we've become friends, maman. I remember the first time I saw him. That's the first thing I remember—us going down the hall, and Ollie carrying me. And the punch bowl and Justin and Grant across the room; and me. I remember that. I remember the party at Valery's after.

"I'm doing all right, maman. I'm everything all of you wanted me to be. I wish there was something you'd left me, the way Ari senior did. Because I wish I knew so many things.

"Mostly I'm doing all right. I thought you'd like to know." Which was stupid. Of course maman knew nothing. She only made herself cry, and sat there a long time on the bench, and remembered herself with her arm in the cast, and aunt Victoria, and Novgorod and Giraud, and everything that had happened.

She was lonely. That was the problem. Florian and Catlin could not understand flux the way she felt it, and she wished when it grew as bad as it was, that there had been maman to say: Dammit, Ari, what in hell's the matter with you?

"Mostly I'm lonely, maman. Florian's fine. But he's not like Ollie. He's mostly Catlin's. And I can't interfere in that.

"I wish they'd made an Ollie too. Somebody who was just mine. And if there was, Florian would be jealous—but of him being another azi and close to me, not—not about what a CIT would be jealous of.

"I'm not altogether like Ari senior. I've been a lot smarter about sex. I haven't fouled up my friends. They've fouled each other up. 'Stasi's not speaking to Amy. Over Stef Dietrich. And Sam's hurt. And Maddy's just disgusted. I hate it.

"And I'm fluxing so badly I could die. I want Florian and I know it's smart to stay to him. But I feel like there's something in me that's just—alone all the time.

"And I feel bad about thinking it, but Florian doesn't touch the lonely feeling. He just feels good for a while. And even while we're doing it, you know, sometimes everything's all right and sometimes I feel like I'm all alone. He doesn't know all my problems, but he tries, and he'll never tell me no, I have to tell myself no for him. Like I always have to be careful. That's the trouble.

"I think it's like floating in space, maman. There's nothing around me for lightyears all around. There's times that I'd rather Florian than anybody, because there's no one understands me like he does when I'm down or when I'm scared. But there's a side of me he just can't help, that's the problem. And I think he knows it.

"That's the awful thing. He's starting to worry about me. Like it was his fault. And I don't know why I'm doing this to him. I'm so mad at myself. Ari talked about hurting Florian—her Florian. And that scares hell out of me, maman. I don't ever want to do that. But I am, when I make him feel like my problems are his fault.

"Did you ever have this with Ollie?

"Maybe I should just go down to the Town and try it with some of the azi down there, that do that kind of tiling. Maybe somebody like a Mu-class, who knows? A grown-up one. Somebody I can't mess up.

"But that kind of embarrasses me. Uncle Denys would have a fit. He'd say—O God, I couldn't discuss that with him. Besides, it would hurt Florian's feelings. Florian would be a little disgusted if I did it with Stef, but he wouldn't be hurt.

"Some azi from the Town, though—I couldn't do that to him. I don't think Ari senior ever did anything like that. I can't find it in any records. And I looked.

"I think I'm being silly. I love Florian, truly I do. If there's trouble it's my trouble, not his. I should go back and be twice as nice to him and quit being selfish, that's what I ought to do. Lonely is all in my head, isn't it?

"Mostly. Mostly, I guess it is.

"Damn, maman, I wish you'd written. I wish Ollie would.

"He's CIT now. He's Oliver AOX Strassen. Maybe he thinks it would be presumptuous, to write now, like I was his daughter.

"Maybe he's just turned that off. He'll never stop being azi, down in his deep-sets, will he?

"I thought about having the labs make another of him.

"But you taught him the important tilings. And I'm not you, and I can't make him into Ollie. Besides, Florian and Catlin would be jealous as hell, like Nelly was, of them. And I'd never do that to them.

"Wish you were here. Damn, you must have wanted to strangle me sometimes. But you did a good job, maman. I'm all right.

"Overall, I'm all right."

iv

"It won't work," Justin said. "Look. There's going to be an increase in flux in the micro-sets. I can tell you what will happen."

"But it could be proportional. That's what I'm asking. If it's proportional, that's what I'm saying, isn't that right?"

He nodded. "I know what you're saying. I'm saying it's more complicated. Look here. You've set up for matrilineal education. That means you've got the AJ group, there, that's going to go with PA—there's your trouble, you've got a fair number of Alphas, maybe more than you ought to have. God knows what they're going to make out of your instructions."

"I asked Florian and Catlin how they'd interpret that instruction to defend the base. Florian said you just build defenses around the perimeter and wait if you're sure you're the only intelligence there. Catlin said that was fine, but you train your people for the next generation. Florian agreed with that, but he said they couldn't all be specialists, somebody had to see to the other jobs. But their psychsets aren't in the group. Ask Grant."

"Grant?"

Grant turned his chair around and leaned back. "I'd tend to agree with them, except everybody will have to be trained to some extent or you can't follow your central directive and you'll have some who aren't following it except by abstraction. Once you get that abstraction, that growing potatoes is defense, then you've got a considerable drift started. Everything becomes interrelated. Your definition of base may or may not drift at this point, and if I were in charge, I'd worry about that."

That was a good answer. She drew a long breath and thought about it. And thought: Damn, he's smart. And social. And in his thirties. Maybe that's the trouble, with me and Florian. Florian and Catlin are still learning their awn jobs. And so am I. But Grant—

Grant's a designer. That's one difference.

"I've handled that abstraction," she said, "so that there is a change like that. Because they're not stressed and there isn't an Enemy early on. But I think you're right, two variables is going to blow everything full of holes."

"Maintain would have been a more variable word than defend," Justin said, "but defend brings all sorts of baggage with it, if any of your group are socialized. And you say three are. The AJ, the BY and one of the IUs. Which means, you're quite right, that you've got three who are likely going to do the interpretation and the initial flux-thinking; which means your value-sets are going to come very strongly off these three points. Which is going to hold them together tolerably well to start with, because they're all three military sets. And they're likely going to see that 'defend the base' is a multi-generational problem. But your Alpha is likely to be less skilled at communication than the Beta. So I'll reckon that's your leader. The Beta."

"Huh. But the Alpha can get around her."

"As an adviser. That's my suggestion. But the smarter the Alpha is, the less likely his instructions are going to make any immediate sense. He'll dominate as long as it's a matter of azi psychsets. But he'll lose his power as the next generation grows up. Won't he? Unless he's more socialized than the Beta."

"They don't have rejuv. It's a hard life. They're going to die around fifty and sixty. So the kids won't be much more than twenty or so before they're going on just what they could learn."

"Your Beta's instructions are likely to be more near-term, less abstract, more comprehensible to the young ones."

"My Alpha founds a religion."

"God. He'd have to be awfully well socialized. And machiavellian. Besides, it's not an azi kind of thing to do."

"Just practical."

"But, given that he does, would the kids understand the value of the instruction? Or wouldn't it just go to memorizing the forms and ritual? Ritual is a damned inefficient transmission device, and it generates its own problems. —I think we'd better start working this out in numbers and sets, and get some solid data, before we get too far into speculations. I'm not sure your Alpha can win out over the Beta in any sense. You're likely to lose virtually all his input. And you're likely to end up with a matrilinear culture in that instance—and a very small directorate if it's by kinships. The question is whether kinships are instinctive or cultural. . . I'm cheating on that, because I've read the Bureau reports on Gehenna. But they're not going to resolve it, because there were CITs in the Gehenna colony."

She had lunch with Maddy; and heard the latest in the Amy-'Stasi feud. Which made her mad. "I could kill Stef Dietrich," Maddy said.

"Don't bother," Ari said. "I'll bet Yvgenia's already thought of that."

Mostly she thought about the colony-problem, around the edges of the Amy-'Stasi thing. And thought: Damn, the minute anything goes CIT, everybody's crazy, aren't they?

The office was shut when she got back. She waited at the door and waited, and finally Justin showed up, out of breath.

"Sorry," he said, and unlocked. (Although she could have had Base One do it, through Security 10, but that was overkill, and made Security records, and meant papers. So she didn't.)

"Grant's got some stuff over at Sociology," he said. "He's running a paper for me. I do get work done outside of this—"

He was in a good mood. It cheered her up. She took the cup of coffee he made for her and sat down and they started at it again. "Let's assume," he said, "that whether or not kinships are instinctual, your socialized azi are likely to replicate the parent culture."

"Makes sense," she said.

"Likely quite thoroughly. Because they'll place abstract value on it, as the source of the orders."

She had never noticed the way he bit at his lip when he was thinking. It was a boyish kind of thing, when mostly he looked so mature. And he smelled good. A lot like Ollie. A lot like Ollie.

And she couldn't help thinking about it.

He and Grant were lovers. She knew that from gossip in the House. She couldn't imagine it.

Except at night, when she was lying in the dark looking at the ceiling and wondering what made them that way and whether—

–whether he had any feelings about her, and whether it was all just worry about Security that made him want Grant there all the time. Like he needed protection.

She liked being close to him. She always had.

She knew what was the matter finally. She felt the flux strong enough to turn everything upside down, and felt a lump in her throat and outright missed his next question.

"I—I'm sorry."

"The second-generation run. You're assuming matrilineal."

She nodded. He made a note. Tapped the paper. She got up to see, leaning by the arm of his chair. "You should have had an instructional tape in the lot to cover family units. Do you want to input one?"

"I—"

He looked over his shoulder at her. "Ari?"

"I'm sorry. I just lost things a minute."

He frowned. "Something wrong?"

"I—a couple of friends of mine are having a fight. That's all. I guess I'm a little gone-out." She looked at the printout. And felt sweat on her temples. "Justin, —did you ever—did you ever have trouble with being smart?"

"I guess I did." A frown came between his brows and he turned the chair and leaned his arm on the desk, looking up at her. "I didn't think of it like that, but I guess that was one of the reasons."

"Did you—" O God, this was scary. It could go wrong. But she was in it now. She leaned up against the chair, against him. "Did you ever have trouble with being older than everybody?" She took a breath and slid her hand onto his shoulder and sat down on the chair arm.

But he got up, fast, so fast she had to stand up to save herself from falling.

"I think you'd better talk this over with your uncle," he said.

Nervous. Real nervous. Probably, she thought, uncle Denys had said something to him. That made her mad. "Denys doesn't have a thing to say about what I do," she said, and came up against him and held on to his arm. "Justin, —there's nobody my own age I'm interested in. There isn't anybody. It doesn't hurt, I mean, I sleep-over with anybody I want. All the time."

"That's fine." He disengaged his arm and turned and picked up some papers off his desk. His hands were shaking. "Go back to them. I engaged to teach you, not—whatever."

She had trouble getting her breath. That was a hell of a reaction. It was scary, that a man reacted that way to her. He just gathered up his stuff, went to the door.

As the door opened and Grant stood there taking in what he saw, with small moves of his eyes.

"I'm going home," Justin said. "Closing up early today. How did the run go?"

"Fine," Grant said, and came in and laid it down, ignoring her presence, ignoring everything that had gone on.

"The hell," Ari said, and to Justin: "I want to talk to you."

"Not today."

"What are you doing? Throwing me out?"

"I'm not throwing you out. I'm going home. Let's give us both a little chance to cool off, all right? I'll see you in the morning."

Her face was burning. She was shaking. "I don't know what my uncle told you, but I can find something to tell him, you just walk out on me. Get out of here, Grant! Justin and I are talking!"

Grant went to the door, grabbed Justin's arm and shoved him out. "Get out of here," Grant said to him. And when Justin protested: "Out!" Grant said to him. "Go home. Now."

They had the door blocked. She was scared of a sudden—more scared when Grant argued Justin out the door and closed her in the office.

In a moment Grant came back. Alone. And closed the door again.

"I can call Security," she said. "You lay a hand on me and I'll swear Justin did it. You watch me!"

"No," Grant said, and held up a hand. "No, young sera. I'm not threatening you. Certainly I won't. I ask you, please, tell me what happened."

"I thought he told you everything."

"What did happen?"

She drew a shaken breath and leaned back against the chair. "I said I was bored with boys. I said I wanted to see if a man was any different. Maybe he hit me. Maybe he grabbed me. Who knows? Tell him go to hell."

"Did he do those things?"

"He's screwed everything up. I need him to teach me, and all I did was ask him to go to bed with me, I don't think that was an insult!" Damn, she hurt inside. Her eyes blurred. "You tell him he'd better teach me. You tell him he'd better. I need him, damn him."

Grant went azi then, and she remembered he was azi, which it was easy to forget with him; and she was in the wrong, yelling at him and not at Justin; she had a license that said responsibility, and she wanted to hit him.

"Young sera," he said, "I'll tell him. Please don't take offense. I'm sure there won't be any problem."

" 'There won't be any problem.' Hell!" She thought of working with him, day after day, and shook her head and lost her composure. "Dammit!" As the tears flooded her eyes. She pushed away from the chair and went for the door, but Grant stopped her, blocking her path. "Get out of my way!"

"Young sera," Grant said. "Please. Don't go to Security."

"I never asked for this. All I asked was a polite question!"

" I'll do whatever you want, young sera. Any time you want. I have no objection. Here, if you want. Or at your apartment. All you have to do is ask me."

Grant was tall, very tall. Very quiet and very gentle, as he reached out and took her hand. And there was very little space between her and the desk. She backed into it, her heart going like a hammer.

"Is that what you want, young sera?"

"No," she said, finding a breath.

And did, dammit, but he was too adult, too strange, too cold.

"Sera is not a child. Sera has power enough to have whatever she wants, by whatever means. Sera had better learn to control what she wants before she gets more than she bargained for. Dammit, you've cost him his father, his freedom, and his work. What else will you take?"

"Let me go!"

He did then. And bowed his head once politely, and went and opened the door.

She found herself shaking.

"Any time, young sera. I'm always available."

"Don't you take that tone with me."

"Whatever sera wishes. Please come tomorrow. I promise you—no one will bring the matter up if you don't. Ever."

"The hell!"

She got out the door, down the hall. Her chest hurt. Everything did.

Like the part of her that was herself and not Ari senior—had just fallen apart.

I fell in love about as often as any normal human being. I gave everything I had to give. And I got back resentment. Genuine hatred.

. . . isolation from my own kind. . . .

She caught her breath, reached the lift, got in and pushed the button.

Not crying. No. She wiped the underside of her lashes with a careful finger, trying not to smear her makeup, and was composed when she walked out in the hall downstairs.

She knew what the first Ari would tell her. She had read it over and over. So, well, elder Ari, you were right. I'm a fool once. Not twice. What now?

v

Grant walked into the cubbyhole of the second floor restroom and found Justin at the sink washing his face. Water beaded on white skin in the flickering light second floor had been complaining about for a week. "She's gone home," Grant said, and Justin pulled a towel from the stack and blotted his face with it.

"What did she say?" Justin asked. "What did you say?"

"I propositioned her," Grant said. "I believe that's the word."

"My God, Grant—"

Grant turned on the calm, quiet as he could manage, given the state of his stomach. "Young sera needed something else to think about," he said. "She declined. I wasn't sure that she would. I was, needless to say, relieved. Very fast work for young sera. I was so sure you were safe for an hour."

Justin threw the towel into the laundry-bin and folded his arms tight about his ribs. "Don't joke. It's not funny."

"Are you all right?"

"I'm having flashes. Oh, God, Grant, I– Dammit!"

He spun about and hit the wall with his hand and leaned there, stiff, hard-breathing, in that don't-touch-me attitude that absolutely meant it.

But Grant had ignored that before. He came and pried him away and folded him in his arms, just held on to him until Justin got a breath and a second one.

"I—lost—my sense of where I was," Justin said finally, between small efforts after air. "God, I just—went away. I couldn't navigate. She's—God knows. God knows what I said. It just blew up—she—"

"—she needed a firm no. It's doubtless a new thing for her. Calm down.

Now is now."

"A damn kid! I—had—no finesse about it, absolutely none, I just—"

"You were expressing a polite and civilized no when I walked in. That young sera doesn't recognize the word isn't your fault. Young sera may call Security and young sera may lodge charges, I have absolutely no idea. But if she does, you have a witness, and I have no trouble about going under probe. Young sera needs favors from you. I politely suggested she consider the trouble she's caused and show up tomorrow with a civilized attitude—at which time I'm going to be there; at all times hereafter, I assure you." He pushed Justin back at arm's length. "She's sixteen. Personalities aside, she's quite the other end of the proposition—a year younger than you were. A great deal more experienced, by all accounts, but not—not in adult behavior. Am I right? She has no idea what she's dealing with. No more than you did."

Justin blinked. Rapid thought: Grant knew the look. "Go back to the office."

"Where are you going?"

"To make a phone call."

"Denys?"

Justin shook his head.

"Good God," Grant said. And felt as if the floor had sunk. "You're not serious."

"I'm going alone, if she'll see me. Which is far from likely at this point."

"No. Listen. Don't do this. If you're having flashback, for God's sake don't do this."

"I'm going to straighten it out. Once for all. I'm going to tell her what happened—"

"No!" Grant seized his arm and held on, hard. "Administration will have your head on a plate– listen to me. Even if she took your side she hasn't got the authority to protect you. She hasn't got anything, not really. Not inside these walls."

"What in hell do we do? What do we do when they take us in and they trump up a rape charge—what happens when we end up in a ward over in hospital under Reseune law? All they need is a statement from her. ..."

"And you're going to go over to her apartment and talk to her. No."

"Not her apartment. I don't think I can handle that. But somewhere."

vi

Justin took a sip of Scotch as the waiter at Changes brought the three to their table—Ari in an ice-green blouse with metallic gray beading, Florian and Catlin in evening black.

Evening at Changes was a dress occasion. He and Grant had taken pains, both of them in their best. Dress shins and jackets.

"Thank you," Ari said, when the waiter pulled the chair back. "Vodka-and-orange for the three of us, please."

"Yes, sera," the waiter murmured. "Will you want menus?"

"Give us a while," Justin said. "If you will, Ari."

"That's fine." She settled in her chair and folded her hands on the table. "Thank you for coming," Justin said as soon as the waiter left. "I apologize for this afternoon. For Grant and myself. It was me. Not you. Absolutely not you."

Ari shifted back in her seat, her lips pressed to a thin line.

And said not a thing. "Has your uncle Denys called you?"

"Have you called him?"

"No. I don't think he wants to hear what happened. I don't know to what extent he can come back on you—"

"Only because he's the Administrator," Ari said. "There's nothing he'll do to me."

"I wasn't sure." He saw the waiter coming back with the drinks, and waited during the serving.

Ari sipped hers and sighed. "Whose credit is this on?"

"Mine," Justin said. "Don't hesitate." As the waiter discreetly took himself off. It was a private corner, quite private: a sizeable addition to the bill assured it. "I want to assure you first of all—I'm perfectly willing to go on working with you. I want to tell you—what you're doing—is full of problems. But it's not empty exercise. You've got some ideas that are—fairly undeveloped right now. I still don't know to what extent you've modeled this on reality—or borrowed from your predecessor. If it's considerable borrowing—it would be remarkable enough that someone so young is working integrations at all. If any portion of it is original—I have to be impressed; because there is a center of this that, if I were going faster, and not taking the time to demonstrate your problems—I would simply throw into research, because I think it's a helpful model."

"You can do that, if you like." Not spitefully. Reasonably. Quietly. "Perhaps I'll do both. With your permission. Because I'm very afraid it's classified."

"Grant can do it."

"Grant could do it. With your permission. And Yanni's. We work for him."

"Because you refused to be transferred. I can still do that."

He had not expected that. He took a drink of Scotch. And was aware of Grant beside him, subject to whatever mistakes he made. "I wouldn't think," he said, "that you'd be thinking about that after the scene this afternoon."

Redirect. Shift directions.

She sipped at the vodka-and-orange. Sixteen, and fragile—in physiology. In emotions that the alcohol could flatten or exacerbate. Flux-thinking at its finest, Grant was wont to say. Puberty, hormones run wild, and ethyl alcohol.

Oh, God, kid, back off it: it did me no favors.

Power. Political power that was still running in shockwaves across Union; threats of assassination. And all the stress that went with it.

"I'm glad you want to talk about it," Ari said, on a slight sigh following the vodka. "Because I need you. I study my predecessor's notes—on kat. I know things. I've talked to Denys about putting the stuff into print.

Organizing everything. I said I wanted you to do it and he didn't want that. I said the hell with that."

"Ari, don't swear."

"Sorry. But that was what I said. I could have sat down and said I wouldn't budge. But it's real good, politically, if the Bureau gets it about now. Sort of proof that I'm real. So you'll know pretty soon what's mine and what's Ari's. I'll tell you something else you can guess: not all the notes are going out. Some aren't finished. And some are classified." She took another sip. The glass hardly diminished. "I've thought about this. I've thought real hard. And I've got a problem, because you're the one who's working on deep-sets, you're the one who could teach me the actual things I need– Giraud's very bright; but Giraud's not down the same track. Not at all. I don't want to do the things he does. Denys is bright. He's very near-term and real-time. Do you want to know the truth? Giraud isn't really a Special. Somebody had to have it, to get some of the protections Reseune needed right then. The one who is, is Denys; but Denys wouldn't have it: it would make him too public. So he arranged it to get Giraud the Status."

He stared at her, wondering if it was true, if it could be true.

"It's in Ari's notes," Ari said. "Now you know something on Denys. But I wouldn't tell him you know. He'd be upset with me for telling you. But it's why you should be careful. I've learned from uncle Denys for years. I still do. But the work I really want is macro-sets and value-sets. You're the only one who's working on the things Ari wanted me to do. I listen to her."

"Listen to her—"

"Her notes. She had a lot to tell me. A lot of advice. Sometimes I don't listen and I'm generally sorry for it. Like this afternoon."

"Am I—in the notes?"

"Some things about you are. That she talked Jordan into doing a PR. That she and Jordan did a lot of talking about the Bok clone problem and they talked about the psych of a PR with the parent at hand—and one like the Bok clone, without. It's interesting stuff. I'll let you read it if you want."

"I'd be interested."

"Stuff on Grant, too. I can give you that. They're going to hold that out of the Bureau notes, because they don't want it in there, about you. Because your father doesn't want it, uncle Denys says."

He took a mouthful of Scotch, off his balance, knowing she had put him there, every step of the way.

Not a child. Wake up, fool. Remember who you're dealing with. Eighteen years asleep. Wake up.

"You didn't walk in here unarmed," he said. "In either sense, I'll imagine."

She ignored that remark, except for a little eye contact, deep and direct. She said: "Why don't you like me, Justin? You have trouble with women?"

A second time off his balance. Badly. And then a little use out of the anger, a little steadiness, even before he felt Grant's touch on his knee. "Ari, I'm at a disadvantage in this discussion, because you are sixteen."

"Chronologically."

"Emotionally. And you shouldn't have the damn vodka." That got a little flicker. "Keeps me quiet. Keeps me from being bored with fools. Drunk, I'm about as eetee as the rest of the world."

"You're wrong about that."

"You're not my mother."

"You want to talk about that?" Off the other topic. "I don't think you do. Shows what the stuffs doing to you."

She shook her head. "No. Hit me on that if you Like. I threw that at you. So you're being nice. Let's go back to the other thing. I want just one straight answer—since you're being nice. Is it women, is it because I'm smarter than you, or is it because you can't stand my company?"

"You want a fight, don't you? I didn't come here for this." Another shake of the head. "I'm sixteen, remember. Ari said adolescence was hell. She said relations with CITs always lose you a friend. Because people don't like you up that close. Ever. She said I'd never understand CITs. Myself—for my own education—once—I'd like to have somebody explain it to me—why you don't like me."

The smell of orange juice. Of a musky perfume.

This is all there is, sweet. This is as good as it gets.

Oh, God, Ari.

He caught his breath. Felt his own panic, felt the numbing grip on his wrist

"Sera," Grant said.

"No," he said quietly. "No." Knowing more about the woman eighteen years ago than he had learned in that night or all the years that followed.

And reacting, the way she had primed him to react, the way she had fixed him on her from that time on—

"Your predecessor," he said, carefully, civilized, "had a fondness for adolescent boys. Which I was, then. She blackmailed me. And my father. She threatened Grant, to start running test programs on him—on an Alpha brought up as a CIT. Mostly, I think—to get her hands on me, though I didn't understand that then. Nothing—absolutely nothing—of your fault. I know that. Say that I made one mistake, when I thought I could handle a situation when I was about your age. Say that I have a reluctance when I'm approached by a girl younger than I was, never mind you have her face, her voice, and you wear her perfume. It's nothing to do with you. It's everything to do with what she did. I'd rather not give you the details, but I don't have to. She made a tape. It may be in your apartment for all I know. Or your uncle can give it to you. When you see it, you'll have every key you need to take me apart. But that's all right. Other people have. Nothing to do with you."

Ari sat there for a long, long time, elbows on the table. "Why did she do that?" she asked finally.

"You'd know that. Much more than I would. Maybe because she was dying. She was in rejuv failure, Ari. She had cancer; and she was a hundred twenty years old. Which was no favorable prognosis."

She had not known that. For a PR it was a dangerous kind of knowledge—the time limits in the geneset.

"There were exterior factors," he said. "Cyteen was more native when she was young. She'd gotten a breath of native air at some time in her life. That was what would have killed her."

She caught her lip between her teeth. No hostility now. No defense. "Thank you," she said, "for telling me."

"Finish your drink," he said. "I'll buy you another one."

"I knew—when she died. Not about the cancer."

"Then your notes don't tell you everything. I will. Ask me again if I'm willing to take a transfer."

"Are you?"

"Ask Grant."

"Whatever Justin says," Grant said.

vii

"We've got a contact," Wagner said, on the walk over to State from the Library, "in Planys maintenance. Money, not conscience."

"I don't want to hear that," Corain said. "I don't want you to have heard it. Let's keep this clean."

"I didn't hear it and you didn't," Wagner agreed. A stocky woman with almond eyes and black ringleted hair, Assistant Chief of Legal Affairs in the Bureau of Citizens, complete with briefcase and conservative suit. A little walk over from Library, where both of them happened to meet—by arrangement. "Say our man's working the labs area. Say he talks with Warrick. Shows him pictures of the kids—you know. So Warrick opens up."

"We're saying what happened."

"We're saying what happened. I don't think you want to know the whole string of contacts. ..."

"I don't. I want to know, dammit, is Warrick approachable?"

"He's been under stringent security for over a year. He has a son still back in Reseune. This is the pressure point."

"I remember the son. What's he like?"

"Nothing on him. A non-person as far as anything we've got, just an active PR CIT-number. Defense has a lot more on him. Doppelganger for papa, that's a given. But apparently either Warrick senior or junior has pressured Reseune enough to get a travel pass for the son. He's thirty-five years old. Reseune national. Reseune had so much security around him when he'd come into Planys you'd have thought he was the Chairman. There's an azi, too. An Alpha—you remember the Abolitionist massacre over by Big Blue?"

"The Winfield case. I remember. Tied into Emory's murder. That was one of the points of contention—between Warrick and Emory."

"He's a foster son as far as Warrick is concerned. They don't let him out of Reseune. We can't get any data at all on him, except he is alive, he is living with the son, Warrick still regards him as part of the family. I can give you the whole dossier."

"Not to me! That stays at lower levels."

"Understood then."

"But you can get to Warrick."

"I think he's reached a state of maximum frustration with his situation. It's been, what, eighteen years? His projects are Defense; but Reseune keeps a very tight wall between him and them, absolutely no leak-through. The air-systems worker—we've had him for—eighteen months, something like. What you have to understand, ser, Reseune's security is very, very tight. But also, it's no ordinary detainee they're dealing with. A psych operator. A clinician. Difficult matter, I should imagine, to find any guard immune to him. The question is whether we go now or wait-see. That's what Gruen wants me to ask you."

Corain gnawed at his lip. Two months from the end of the Defense election, with a bomb about to blow in that one—

With Jacques likely to win the Defense seat away from Khalid and very likely to appoint Gorodin as Secretary.

But Jacques was weakening. Jacques was feeling heat from the hawks within Defense—and there were persistent rumors about Gorodin's health—and countercharges that Khalid, who had been linked to previous such rumors—was once more the source of them.

But Khalid could win: the Centrist party had as lief be shut of Khalid's brand of conservatism—but it could not discount the possibility in any planning. The Jacques as Councillor/Gorodin as Secretary compromise Corain had hammered out with Nye, Lynch, and the Expansionists—was the situation Corain had rather have, most of all, if rumors were true and Gorodin's health was failing, because Gorodin was the Expansionists' part of the bargain.

Wait—and hope that a new hand at the helm of the military would enable them to work with Defense to get to Warrick in Planys; or go in on their own and trust to their own resources. And risk major scandal. That was the problem.

If Khalid won again—Khalid would remember that his own party had collaborated in the challenge to his seat. Then he would owe no favors.

Then he could become a very dangerous man indeed.

"I think we'd better pursue the contact now," Corain said. "Just for God's sake be careful. I don't want any trails to the Bureau, hear?"

viii

"I didn't know I was going to do that," Justin said, and tossed a bit of bread to the koi. The gold one flashed to the surface and got it this time, while the white lurked under a lotus pad. "I had no idea. It just—she was going to find out about the tape, wasn't she? Someday. Better now—while she's naive enough to be shocked. God help us—if it goes the other way."

"I feel much safer," Grant said, "when you decide these things."

"I don't, dammit, I had no right to do that without warning—but I was in a corner, it was the moment—it was the only moment to make the other situation right. ..."

"Because of the tape?"

"You do understand it, then."

"I understand this is the most aggressive personality I've ever met. Not even Winfield and his people—impressed me to that extent. I'll tell you the truth: I've been afraid before. Winfield, for instance. Or the Security force that pulled me out of there—I thought that they might kill me, because those might be their orders. I've tried to analyze the flavor of this, and the flux was so extreme in me at that moment in the office doorway—I can't pin it down. I only know there was something so—violent in this girl—that it was very hard for me to respond without flux." Grant's voice was clinical, cool, soft and precise as it was when he was reasoning. "But then—that perception may have to do with my own adrenaline level—and the fact the girl is a Supervisor. Perhaps I misread the level of what I was receiving."

"No. You're quite right. I've tried to build a profile on her . . . quietly. Same thing her predecessor did to me. The choices she makes in her model, the things she'd do if she were in the Gehenna scenario—she's aggressive as hell, and self-protective. I've charted the behavior phases—menstrual cycles, hormone shifts—best I can guess, she's hormone-fluxed as hell right now; I always watch the charts with her. But that's never all of it." He broke off another bit of bread and tossed it, right where the spotted koi could get it. "Never all of it with her predecessor. That mind is brilliant. When it fluxes, the analog functions go wildly speculative—and the down-side of the flux integrates like hell. I've watched it. More, she originated the whole flux-matrix theory; you think she doesn't understand her own cycles? And use them? But young Ari made me understand something I should have seen—we deal with other people with such precision, and ourselves with such damnable lack of it—Ari is having difficulties with ego-definitions. A PR does, I should know; and it can only get worse for her. That's why I asked for the transfer."

"Fix her on us?"

He drew several long breaths. Blinked rapidly to clear away the elder Ari's face, the remembrance of her hands on him.

"She's vulnerable now," he said on a ragged breath. "She's looking for some sign of the human race—on whatever plane she lives on. That's the sense I got—that maybe she was as open then as I was—then. So I grabbed the moment's window. That's what I thought. That she's so damn self-protective—there might only be that chance—then—hi that two seconds." He shuddered, a little, involuntary twitch at the nape of the neck. "God, I hate real-time work."

"Just because you hated it," Grant said, "doesn't mean you weren't good at it. I'll tell you what this azi suspects—that she would regret harm to one of us. I don't think that's true with a CIT. If she ever does take me up on my proposition– No," Grant said as he took a breath to object; Grant held up a finger. "One: I don't think she will. Two: if she does—trust me to handle it. Trust me. All right?"

"It's not all right."

"No, but you'll stay back: do the puzzling thing, and trust me to do the same. I think you're quite right. The puzzling thing engages the intellect—and I had far rather deal with her on a rational basis, I assure you. If you can commit us to your judgment in the one thing—trust me for mine and don't make me worry. I wouldn't have been in half the flux I was in, except I wasn't sure you weren't going to come back into the office and blow everything to hell, right there. I can't think and watch my flank when it's you involved. All right? Promise me that."

"Dammit, I can't let a spoiled kid—"

"Yes. You can. Because I'm capable of taking care of myself. And in some things I'm better than you. Not many. But in this, I am. Allow me my little superiority. You can have all the rest."

He gazed a long time at Grant, at a face which had—with the years—acquired tensions azi generally lacked. He had done that to him. Life among CITs had.

"Deal?" Grant asked him. "Turn about: trust my judgment. I trust yours about the transfer. So we can both be perturbed about something. How much do you trust me?"

"It's not trusting you that's at issue."

"Yes, it is. Yes. It is. Azi to Supervisor . . . are you hearing me?"

He nodded finally. Because whatever Ari could do– he could hurt Grant.

He lied, of course. Maybe Grant knew he did.

ix

"There's a tape," Ari had said to Denys, in his office, and told him which tape.

"How did you find out about it?" he had asked.

"My Base."

"Nothing to do with dinner at Changes last night."

"No," she said without a flicker, "we discussed cultural librations."

Denys hated humor when he was serious. He always had. "All right," he said, frowning. "I certainly won't withhold it."

So he sent Seely for it. And said: "Don't use kat when you see this, don't expose Florian and Catlin to it, for God's sake don't put it where anyone can find it."

She had thought of asking him what was in it. But things were tense enough. So she talked about other things—about her work, about the project, about Justin—without mentioning the disagreement.

She drank a cup and a half of coffee and exchanged pleasant gossip; and unpleasant: about the elections; about the situation in Novgorod; about Giraud's office—and Corain—until Seely brought the tape back.

So she walked home with it, with Catlin, because she was anxious all the time she had it in her carry-bag; she was anxious when she arrived home and contemplated putting it in the player.

Her insecurity with the situation wanted Florian and Catlin to be beside her when she played it—

But that, she thought, was irresponsible. Emotional situations were her department, not theirs, no matter that sera was anxious about it, no matter that sera wanted, like a baby, to have someone with her.

I wouldn't have advised this, Denys had said—distressed, she picked that up. But not entirely surprised. But I know you well enough to know there's no stopping you once you start asking a question. I won't comment on it. But if you have questions after you've seen it—you can send them to my Base if you find them too personal. And I'll respond the same way. If you want it.

Meaning Denys wasn't putting any color on the situation.

So she closed the door on the library and locked it; and put the tape into the player– not taking a pill. She was no fool, to deep-study any tape blind and unpreviewed, and without running a check for subliminals.

She sat down and clenched her hands as it started—fascinated first-off by the sight of a familiar place, familiar faces—Florian and Catlin when they would have been a hundred twenty at least; and Justin—the boy was clearly Justin, even at the disadvantage of angle—he would be seventeen; and Ari herself—elegant, self-assured: she had seen newsclips of Ari this old, but none when Ari was not simply answering questions.

She listened—caught the nervousness in Justin's voice, the finesse of control in Ari's. Strange to know that voice so well, and to feel inside what it was doing—and to understand what kat would do to that experience, for someone skilled at tape-learning: she felt a little prickle down her back, a sense of hazard and involvement– conditioned response, a dim, analytical part of her thoughts said: the habits of this room, the physiological response of the endocrine system to the habit of taking kat here, and the lifelong habit of responding to tape– Azi must do this, she thought. And: The emotional context is kicking it off. Thank God I didn't trank down for this.

As muscles felt the sympathetic stimulus of nerves that knew what it felt like to walk and sit, and speak, and a brain that understood in all that context that Ari was On, and that her pulse was up, and that the target of her intentions was a Justin very young, very vulnerable, picking up the signals Ari was sending and reacting with extreme nervousness—

Back off, she told herself, trying to distance herself from the aggression Ari was radiating. Disinvolve.

The switch was beside her. She only had to reach to it and push it to cut it off. But the sexual feeling was too strong, toward an object otherwise out of reach—toward a Justin not quite real, not the man she knew, but Justin all the same.

She saw the glass fall—realized then what Ari had done to him, and that he was in terrible danger. She was afraid for him; but the muscles she felt move in response to that falling glass were Ari's, the impulse she felt through the heat of sex was concern for the orange juice spill on the damned upholstery– Her couch—

Oh, God, she should shut this off. Now.

But she kept watching.

x

It was a simple computer-delivered See me: my office, 0900. —Denys Nye. —that brought him to the administrative wing, and to the door that he dreaded.

So she had the tape, Justin thought; so Denys knew about the dinner at Changes.

He had not expected Giraud with Denys. He froze in the doorway, with Seely at his back, then walked in and sat down.

"Let's dispense with what we both know," Denys said, "and not bicker about details. What in hell do you think you're doing?"

"I thought about coming to you," he said, "but she was embarrassed as well as mad. I figured—if I did—come to you—she might blow. I thought you wanted to avoid that."

"So you took a wide action. On your own judgment."

"Yes, ser." Denys was being reasonable—too reasonable, with Giraud sitting there staring at him with hostility in every line of his face. "And knowing you'd call me."

"She has the tape," Denys said. "That surprised me, Justin, that truly surprised me."

Giraud's not the Special. Denys is. . . .

"I'm flattered, ser. I don't expect to surprise you. But that wasn't why I did it. I wish you'd let me explain. Ari—"

"I don't need your explanation. Neither of us does."

"It's a simple adolescent infatuation—"

"She's been sexually active since she was thirteen. At least. And this fascination is thoroughly in program. We're not worried about that. Her predecessor had a pattern of such things. That you're young, male, and working at close quarters with her– No question."

"I haven't encouraged it!"

"Of course not. But you've tried to manipulate her by that means."

"That's not so. No."

"Sins of the heart, if not the intellect. You took her on, you've taught her, you've tried to steer her—admit it."

"Away from that kind of thing—"

Denys leaned forward on folded arms.

"That," Giraud said, "is intervention, in itself."

"Not to harm her," Justin said, "or me." Giraud had only to speak and reactions started running through him, kat-dream, deep as bone. He could not help that flutter of nerves, could not forget the whip-crack that voice could become ... in his nightmares. He looked at Denys, feeling a tremor in his muscles. "I tried to keep it all low-key, non-flux."

"Until yesterday," Denys said, "when you decided to handle a situation yourself. When you exacerbated a situation—and decided to handle it... by handing her a major key. That is an intervention, you're an operator, you knew exactly what you were doing, and I want you to lay that out for me in plain words—consciously and subconsciously."

"Why should I?" His heart was slamming against his ribs. "Duplication of effort, isn't it? Why don't we just go over to Security and save us all time and trouble?"

"You're asking for a probe."

"No. I'm not. But that's never stopped you."

"Let's have a little calm, son."

Jordan. Oh, God.

He means me to think about that.

"Answer the question," Giraud said.

"I did it to save my neck. Because she's a damned dangerous enemy. Because she could as well blow up in your direction. What in hell else was charged enough to knock her back and make her reassess?"

"That's a tolerably acceptable answer," Denys said. Confusing him. He waited for the redirect and the flank attack. "The question is—what do you think you've induced? Where is your intervention going? What's her state of mind right now?"

"I hope to God," he said, his voice out of control, "I hope to God—it's going to make her careful."

"And sympathetic?"

"Careful would do."

"You're courting her, aren't you?"

"God, no!"

"Yes, you are. Not sexually, though I imagine you'll pay that if you have to—if you can gain enough stability to handle the encounter. But you'd much rather avoid it. 'Hell hath no fury'? Something like that in your considerations? Politics may make strange bedfellows, but bedfellows make deadly politics."

"I just want to survive here."

"In her administration. Yes. Of course you do. Protect yourself—protect Grant. The consequences of enmity with us—have only a few years to run, is that what you're thinking? A couple of old men—weighed against the lifespan of a sixteen-year-old whose power is—possibly adequate to work for you if you could maneuver your way into her considerations. A very dangerous course. A very dangerous course, even for a man willing to sell—what you were willing to sell her predecessor—"

Temper. Temper is . . . only what he wants here.

"— but then, your choices are limited."

"It doesn't take a probe," Giraud said, his deep voice quite gentle, "to know what your interests are. —And the latest business on my desk—I think you'll find quite—amusing in one sense. Alarming, in the other. The Paxers—you know, the people who blow up Novgorod subways, have decided to invoke your father's name—"

"He hasn't a thing to do with it!"

"Of course not. Of course not. But the Novgorod police did find some interesting documents—naming your father as a political martyr in their cause, stating that the new monstrosity in Reseune is a creation of the military—that assassinating Ari and creating maximum chaos would lead to a Paxer government—"

"That's crazy!"

"Of course it is. Of course your father knows nothing about it."

"He doesn't! My God, —"

"I said—of course. Don't let it upset you. This has been going on for years. Oh, not the Paxers. They're comparatively new. All these organizations are interlocked. That's what makes them so difficult to track. That and the fact that the people that do the bombing are z-cases. Druggers and just general fools whose devotion to the cause involves letting themselves be partial-wiped by amateur operators. That kind of fools. I thought I should tell you—there are people in this world who don't care anything for their own lives, let alone a sixteen-year-old focus of their hostilities. And they're using your father's name in their literature. I'm sorry. I suppose it doesn't amuse you."

"No, ser." He was close to shivering. Giraud did that to him. Without drugs. Because in not very long, there would be, he knew that; and not all the skill in the world could prevent it. "I'm not amused. I know Jordan wouldn't be, if he heard about it, which he hasn't, unless you've told him."

"We've mentioned it to him. He asked us to say he's well. Looking forward, I imagine, to a change of regime in Defense. —As we all are. Certainly. I just wanted to let you know the current state of things, since there are ramifications to the case that you might want to be aware of. That your father murdered Ari—is not quite old news. It's entered into threats against her successor's life. And Ari will be aware of these things. We have to make her aware—for her own protection. Perhaps you and she can work it out in a civilized way. I hope so."

What is he doing? What is he trying to do?

What does he want from me?

Is he threatening Jordan?

"How does your father feel about Ari? Do you have any idea?"

"No, ser. I don't know. Not hostility. I don't think he would feel that."

"Perhaps you can find out. If this election goes right."

"If it does, ser. Maybe I can make a difference—in how he feels."

"That's what we hope," Giraud said.

"I wouldn't, however," Denys said, "bring the matter up with Ari."

"No, ser."

"You're a valuable piece in this," Giraud said. "I'm sorry—you probably have very strong feelings about me. I'm used to them, of course, but I regret them all the same. I'm not your enemy; and you probably won't believe that. I don't even ask for comment—not taxing your politeness. This time I'm on your side, to the extent I wish you a very long life. And the committee is agreed: thirty-five is a little young for rejuv—but then, it seems to have no adverse effects—"

"Thank you, no."

"It's not up for discussion. You have an appointment in hospital. You and Grant both."

"No!"

"The usual offer. Report on schedule or Security will see you do."

"There's no damn sense in my going on rejuv—it's my decision, dammit!"

"That's the committee's decision. It's final. Certainly nothing you ought to be anxious about. Medical studies don't show any diminution of lifespan for early users—"

"In the study they've got. There's no damn sense in this. Ari's on the shots, damn well sure she is—"

"Absolutely."

"Then why in hell are you doing this?"

"Because you have value. And we care about you. You can go on over there. Or you can go the hard way and distress Grant—which I'd rather not."

He drew a careful breath. "Do you mind—if I go tell Grant myself? Half an hour. That's all."

"Perfectly reasonable. Go right ahead. Half an hour, forty-five minutes. They'll be expecting you."

xi

Another damned wait. Justin lay full-length on the table and stared at the ceiling, trying to put his mind in null, observing the pattern in the ceiling tiles, working out the repetitions.

Full body scan and hematology work-up, tracer doses shot into his bloodstream, more blood drawn. Dental checks. Respiration. Cardiac stress . . . you have a little hypertension, Wojkowski had said, and he had retorted: God, I wonder why.

Which Wojkowski did not think was amusing.

More things shot into his veins, more scans, more probings at private places and more sitting about—lying down for long periods, while they tried to get him calm enough to get accurate readings.

I'm trying, he had said, the last time they had checked on him. I'm honestly trying. Do you think I like waiting around freezing to death?

Complaining got him a robe. That was all. They finally put him on biofeedback until he could get the heart rate down, and got the tests they wanted.

Why? had been Grant's first and only question—a worried frown, a shrug, and a: Well, at least we do get it, don't we?

Which, for an azi, could be a question. He had never thought that it was, never thought that Reseune could go so far as to deny him and Grant rejuv when it was time for them to have it or vengefully postpone it beyond the point when they should have it, to avoid diminished function.

Thinking of that, he could be calmer about it. But he had sent a call through to Base One: Ari, this is Justin.

Grant and I have been told to report to hospital. We've been told we re to go on rejuv, over our protests. I want you to know where we are and what's happened. ...

Which got them nothing. Base One took the message. No one was reading it. They could try for admission to Ari's floor, but open confrontation with Administration was more than Ari could handle. No one answering, he had said to Grant.

Its only one treatment, Grant had said.

Meaning that one could still change one's mind. It took about three to eight weeks of treatments for the body to adjust—and become dependent.

Nothing permanent, yet.

"You're going to be coming here for your treatments, Wojkowski had said.

"For what?" he had said. "To have you watch me take a damned pill? Or what are you giving me?" .

"Because this was not elective. You understand—going off the drug has severe consequences. Immune system collapse."

"I'm a certified paramedic," he had snapped back. "Clinical psych. I assure you I know the cautions. What I want to know, doctor, is what else they're putting into the doses."

"Nothing," Wojkowski had said, unflappable. "You can read the order, if you like. And see the prescriptions . . . whatever you like. Neantol. It's a new combination drug: Novachem is the manufacturer, I'll give you all the literature on it. Hottest thing going, just out on the market. Avoids a lot of the side-effects."

"Fine, I'm a test subject."

"It's safe. It's safer, in fact. Avoids the thin-skin problem, the excessive bleeding and bruising; the calcium depletion and the graying effect. You'll keep your hair color, you won't lose any major amount of muscle mass, or have brittle bones or premature fatigue. Sterility—unfortunately—is still a problem."

"I can live with that." He felt calmer. Damn, he wanted to believe what Wojkowski was saying. "What are its side-effects?"

"Dry mouth and a solitary complaint of hyperactivity. Possibly some deleterious effect on the kidneys. Mostly remember to drink plenty of water. Especially if you've been drinking. You'll tend to dehydrate and you'll get a hell of a hangover. We don't know what the effects would be of switching off the regular drug and onto this. Or vice versa. We suspect there could be some serious problems about that. It's also expensive, over ten thou a dose and it's not going to get cheaper anytime soon. But especially in the case of a younger patient—definitely worth it."

"Does Grant—get the same?"

"Yes. Absolutely."

He felt better, overall, with that reassurance. He trusted Wojkowski's ethics most of the way. But it did not help get his pulse rate down.

Ten thousand a dose. Reseune was spending a lot on them, on a drug Reseune could afford—and he could not.

Not something you could find on the black market.

Substitutions contraindicated.

A dependency Reseune provided, that Reseune could withhold—with devastating effect; that nothing like—say, the Paxers or the Abolitionists—could possibly provide.

An invisible chain. Damn their insecurities. As if they needed it. But it took something away, all the same: left him with a claustrophobic sense that hereafter—options were fewer; and a nagging dread that the drug might turn up with side-effects, no matter that lab rats thrived on it.

Damn, in one day, from a young man's self-concept and a trim, fit body he had taken pains to keep that way—to the surety of sterility, of some bodily changes; not as many as he had feared, if they were right; but still—a diminishing of functions. Preservation for—as long as the drug held. A list of cautions to live with.

A favor, in some regards, if it did what they claimed.

But a psychological jolt all the same—to take it at someone else's decision, because a damned committee decided—

What? To keep a string on him and Grant? In the case they tried to escape and join the Paxers and bomb subways and kill children?

God. They were all lunatics.

The door opened. The tech came in and asked him to undress again.

Tissue sample. Sperm sample. "What in hell for?" he snapped at the tech. "I'm a PR, for God's sake!"

The tech looked at his list. "It's here," the tech said. Azi. And doggedly following his instructions.

So the tech got both. And left him with a sore spot on his leg and one inside his mouth, where the tech had taken his tissue samples.

Likely his pulse rate was through the ceiling again. He tried to calm it down, figuring they would take it again before they let him out, and if they disliked the result they got, they could put him into hospital where he was subject to any damn thing anyone wanted to run, without Grant to witness it, where neither of them could look out for the other or lodge protests.

Damn it, get the pulse rate down.

Get out of here tonight. Get home. That's the important thing now.

The door opened. Wojkowski again.

"How are we doing?" she asked.

"We're madder than hell," he said with exaggerated pleasantness, and sat up on the table, smiled at Wojkowski, trying not to let the pulse run wild, doggedly thinking of flowers. Of river water. "I'm missing patches of skin and my dignity is, I'm sure, not a prime concern here. But that's all right."

"Mmmn," Wojkowski said, and set a hypogun down on the counter, looking at the record. "I'm going to give you a prescription I want you to take, and we'll check you over again when you come in for your second treatment. See if we can do something about that blood pressure."

"You want to know what you can do about the blood pressure?"

"Do yourself a favor. Take the prescription. Don't take kat more than twice a week—are you taking aspirin?"

"Occasionally."

"How regularly?"

"It's in the—"

"Please."

"Two, maybe four a week."

"That's all right. No more than that. If you get headaches, see me. If you have any light-headedness, see me immediately. If you get a racing pulse, same."

"Of course. – Do you know what goes on in the House, doctor? —Or on this planet, for that matter?"

"I'm aware of your situation. All the same, avoid stress."

"Thanks. Thanks so much, doctor."

Wojkowski walked over with the hypo. He shed the robe off one shoulder and she wiped the area down. The shot popped against his arm and hurt like hell.

He looked and saw a bloody mark.

"Damn, that's—"

"It's a gel implant. Lasts four weeks. Go home. Go straight to bed. Drink plenty of liquids. The first few implants may give you a little nausea, a little dizziness. If you break out in a rash or feel any tightening in the chest, call the hospital immediately. You can take aspirin for the arm. See you in August."

There was a message in the House system, wailing for him when he got to the pharmacy. My office. Ari Emory.

She did not use her Wing One office. She had said so. She had a minimal clerical staff there to handle her House system clerical work, and that was all.

But she was waiting there now. Her office. Ari senior's office. He walked through the doors with Grant, faced a black desk he remembered, where Florian sat—with a young face, a grave concern as he got up and said: "Grant should wait here, ser. Sera wants to see you alone."

The coffee helped his nerves. He was grateful that Ari had made it for him, grateful for the chance to collect himself, in these surroundings, with Ari behind Ari senior's desk—not a particularly grandiose office, not even so much as Yanni's. The walls were all bookcases and most of the books in them were manuals. Neat. That was the jarring, surreal difference. Ari's office had always had a little clutter about it and the desk was far too clean.

The face behind it—disturbing in its similarities and disturbing in its touch of worry.

Past and future.

"I got your message," Ari said. "I went to Denys. That didn't do any good. We had a fight. The next thing I did was call Ivanov. He didn't do any good. The next thing I could do, I could call Family council. And past that I can file an appeal with the Science Bureau and the Council in Novgorod. Which is real dangerous—with all the stuff going on."

He weighed the danger that would be, and knew the answer, the same as he had known it when he was lying on the table.

"There could be worse," he said. His arm had begun to ache miserably, all the way to the bone, and he felt sick at his stomach, so that he felt his hands likely to shake. It was hard to think at all.

But the Family council would stand with Denys and Giraud, even yet, he thought; and that might be dangerous, psychologically, to Ari's ability to wield authority in future, if she lost the first round.

An appeal to the Bureau opened up the whole Warrick case history. That was what Ari was saying. Opened the case up while people were bombing subways and using Jordan's name, while the Defense election was in doubt, and Ari was too young to handle some of the things that could fall out of that land of struggle—involving her predecessor's murderer.

They might win if it got to Bureau levels—but they might not. The risk was very large, while the gain was—minimal.

"No," he said. "It's not a matter of pills. It's one of the damn slow-dissolving gels, and they'd have the devil's own time getting the stuff cleared out."

"Damn! I should have come there. I should have called Council and stopped it—"

"Done is done, that's all. They say what they're giving us is something new; no color fade, no brittle bones. That kind of thing. I would like to get the literature on it before I say a final yes or no about a protest over what they've done. If it's everything Dr. Wojkowski claims—it's not worth the trouble even that would cause. If it costs what they say it does—it's not a detriment; because I couldn't afford it. I only suspect it has other motives—because I can't afford it, and that means they can always withhold it."

Her face showed no shock. None. "They're not going to do that."

"I hope not."

"I got the tape," she said.

And sent his pulse jolting so hard he thought he was going to throw up. It was the pain, he thought. Coffee mingled with the taste of blood in his mouth, where they had taken their sample from the inside of his cheek. He was not doing well at all. He wanted to be home, in bed, with all his small sore spots; the arm was hurting so much now he was not sure he could hold the cup with that hand.

"She—" Ari said, "she went through phases—before she died—that she had a lot of problems. I know a lot of things now, a lot of things nobody wanted to tell me. I don't want that ever to happen. I've done the move—you and Grant into my wing. Yanni says thank God. He says he's going to kill you for the bill at Changes."

He found it in him to laugh a little, even if it hurt.

"I told uncle Denys you were going on my budget and he was damn well going to increase it. And I had him about what he did to you, so he didn't argue; and I put your monthly up to ten with a full medical, and your apartment paid, for you and Grant both."

"My God, Ari."

"It's enough you can pay a staffer to do the little stuff, so you don't have to and Grant doesn't have to. It's a waste of your time. It's a lot better for Reseune to have you on research—and teaching me. Denys didn't say a thing. He just signed it. As far as I'm concerned, my whole wing is research. Grant doesn't have to do clinical stuff unless he wants to."

"He'll be—delighted with that."

Ari held up a forefinger. "I'm not through. I asked uncle Denys why you weren't doctor when you'd gotten where Yanni couldn't teach you anymore, and he said because they didn't want you listed with the Bureau, because of politics. I said that was lousy. Uncle Denys—when he pushes you about as far as he thinks he can get away with, and you push back, you can get stuff out of him as long as you don't startle him. Anyway, he said if we got through the election in Defense, then they'd file the papers."

He stared at her, numb, just numb with the flux. "Is that all right, what I did?" she asked, suddenly looking concerned. Like a little kid asking may-I.

"It's—quite fine. —Thank you, Ari."

"You don't look like you feel good."

"I'm fine." He took a deep breath and set the cup down. "Just a lot of changes, Ari. And they took some pieces out of me."

She got up from behind the desk and came and carefully, gently hugged his shoulders—the sore one sent a jolt through to the bone. She kissed him very gently, very tenderly on the forehead. "Go home," she said. Her perfume was all around him.

But through the pain, he thought it quite remarkable her touch made not a twitch—no flashback, nothing for the moment, though he knew he was not past them. Maybe he escaped it for the moment because it hurt so much, maybe because for a moment he was emotionally incapable of reacting to anything.

She left, and he heard her tell Florian he should walk with them and make sure they got home all right, and get them both to bed and take care of them till they felt better.

Which sounded, at the moment, like a good idea.

xii

B/1: Ari, this is Ari senior.

You've asked about Reseune administration.

My father set it up: James Carnath. He had, I'm told, a talent for organization. Certainly my mother Olga Emory had no interest in the day to day management of details.

Even the day to day management of her daughter, but that's a different file.

I mention that because I fit somewhere in between: I've always believed in a laissez-faire management, meaning that as long as I was running Reseune, I believed in knowing what was going on in the kitchens, occasionally, in the birth-labs, occasionally, in finance, always.

An administrator of a facility like Reseune has special moral obligations which come at the top of the list: a moral obligation to humankind, the azi, the public both local and general, the specific clients, and the staff, in approximately that order.

Policies regarding genetic or biological materials; or psychological techniques and therapies are the responsibility of the chief administrator, and decisions in those areas must never be delegated.

Emphatically, the administrator should seek advice from wing supervisors and department heads. All other decisions and day to day operations can be trusted to competent staff.

I devised a routine within the House system coded MANAGEINDEX which may or may not be in use. Go to Executive 1 and ask for it, and it will tell you the expenses, output, number of reprimands logged, number of fines, number of requests for transfer, number of absences, medical leaves, work-related accidents, anti-management complaints, and security incidents for any individual, group of individuals, office, department, or wing in Reseune, and use that data to evaluate the quality of management and employees on any level. It can do comparisons of various wings and departments or select the most efficient managers and employees in the system.

It will also run a confidential security check on any individual, including a covert comparison of lifestyle data with income and output.

It operates without leaving a flag in the system.

Remember that it is a tool to be used in further inquiry and interview, and it is not absolutely reliable. Personal interviews are always indicated.

I was a working scientist as well as chief Administrator, which I found to be generally a fifteen-hour-a-day combination. A pocket com and an excellent staff kept me apprised of situations which absolutely required my intervention, and this extended to my research as well as my administrative duties. Typically I was in the office as early as 0700, arranged the day's schedule, reviewed the emergencies and ongoing situations via Base One, and put the office in motion as the staff arrived, left on my own work by 0900, and generally made the office again briefly after lunch, whereupon I left again after solving whatever had to be done.

I had a few rules which served me quite well:

I did my own office work while no one was there, which lei me work efficiently; I had Florian and Catlin sworn to retrieve me from idle conversations—or from being accosted and handed business. Florian, I would say, handle this. Which usually meant it went to the appropriate department head; but sometimes Florian would check it out, and advise me personally. As he still does. Now that I'm Councillor for Science, it's much the same kind of thing. I absolutely refuse to be bogged down by lobbyists. That's what my staff is for. And they're to hand me investigative reports with facts and figures; which I then have cross-checked by Reseune security, and finally, finally, if there seems to be substance that interests me, I'll have my full staff meet with the interest group; and I will, if the reports are reasonable—but not in other than a businesslike setting and with a firm time limit for them. It's quite amazing how much time you can waste.

Delegate paperwork. Insist the preparers of reports include a brief summary of content, conclusion and/or recommended action; and that they follow strict models of style: this will appear petty, but I refuse to search a report for information which should have been prominently noted.

Give directions and reprimands early and clearly: an administrator who fails to make his expectations and his rules clear is inefficient; an administrator who expects a subordinate to pick up unspoken displeasure is wasting his time.

Learn a little bit about every operation. On one notorious occasion I showed up in the hospital and spent two hours walking rounds with the nurses. It not only identified problems up and down the line, but the whole MANAGEINDEX of Reseune shifted four points upward in the next two weeks.

Most of all, know your limits and identify those areas in which you are less adept. Do not abdicate authority in those areas: learn them, and be extremely careful of the quality of your department heads.

This program finds you have the rank of: wing supervisor.

You are seventeen years old; you have held your majority for: 1 year, 4 months.

You have a staff of: 6.

You have one department head: Justin Warrick, over Research.

He has a staff of: 2.

This program is running MANAGEINDEX.

There have been 0 complaints and 0 reprimands.

There have been 0 absences on personal leave.

There have been 2 medicals in Research.

Your Research department staff has a total of 187 Security incidents, 185 of which have been resolved. Do you wish breakdown?

AE2: No. I've read the file. None of these occurred in my administration.

B/1: Projects behind schedule: 0.

Projects over budget: 0.

Project demand: 12.

Project output: 18.

Projects ongoing: 3.

Wing expenses, 3 mo. period: C 688,575.31.

Wing earnings, 3 mo. period: C 6,658,889.89.

This wing has the following problems:

1. security flag on: 2 staff in: Research: Justin Warrick, Grant ALX.

2. security watch on: 1 staff in Administration, Ariane Emory.

3. security alert: flag/watch contacts.

Status: Reseune Administration has signed waiver.

Your wing has an overall MANAGEINDEX rating of 4368 out of 5000. MANAGEINDEX congratulates you and your staff and calls your high achievement to the attention of Reseune Administration.

Your staff will receive notification of excellent performance and will receive commendations in permanent file.

xiii

The vote totals ticked by on the top of the screen and Giraud took another drink. "We're going to make it," he said to Abban.

After-dinner drinks in his Novgorod apartment. Private election-watch, with his companion Abban, who very rarely indulged. But Abban's glass had diminished by half since the Pan-paris figures had started coming in. Pan-paris had gone for Khalid in the last election. This time it went for Jacques by a two percent margin.

"It's not over," Abban said, dour as usual. "There's still Wyatt's."

The stars farther off the paths of possible expansion were very chancy electorates for any seat. The garrisons tended to be local, resisting amalgamation into other units, and voted consistently Centrist.

But Pan-paris augured very well. . . coming out of the blind storage on Cyteen Station: the computers spat up the stored results of other stations as Cyteen polls closed simultaneously, on-world and up at Station, and the tallies began to flood in.

"I told you," Giraud finally felt safe to say. "Not even with Gorodin's health at issue. Khalid's far from forming a third party. He certainly can't do it with support eroding inside his own electorate. Then we only have Jacques to worry about."

"Only Jacques," Abban echoed. "Do you think he'll keep a bargain? I don't."

"He'll appoint Gorodin. He knows damn well what reneging on that deal would do for him. All we have to hope is that Gorodin stays alive." He took a drink of his own. "And that he hurries and makes an appearance. Hope he's not going to wait overlong on proprieties."

The moderate do-nothing Simon Jacques for Councillor; Jacques to appoint Gorodin as Secretary of Defense, then Jacques to resign and appoint Gorodin proxy Councillor, back to his old seat—after which there was bound to be another round with Khalid.

But by then they had to have a viable Expansionist candidate ready to contend with Khalid. The two-year rule applied: meaning Khalid, having lost the election, could not turn around and re-file against the winner until two years had passed; which meant Jacques could hold the seat for two years without much chance of challenge—but if Jacques resigned directly after election, it would be a race to file: whoever filed first, Gorodin or Khalid, could preclude the other from filing because they were each a month short of the end of the prohibition from the election that had put Khalid in: which was sure to mean a Supreme Court ruling on the situation—the rule technically only applying to losers, but creating a window for an appeal on the grounds of legal equity.

That meant it was wiser to leave Jacques in office for as long as the two-year rule made him unassailable—while Gorodin—the health rumors were not fabricated this time—used what time he had to groom a successor of his own . . . because the one thing no one believed was that Gorodin would last the full two years.

A successor whom of course Jacques was going to support. Like hell. Jacques knew himself a figurehead, knew his own financial fortunes were solidly linked with Centrist-linked firms, and the next two years were going to be fierce infighting inside Defense, while Khalid, stripped of his Intelligence post, still had pull enough in the military system to be worrisome. The estimate was that Lu, tainted with the administrative decisions Gorodin's war record to some extent let him survive, had a reputation for side-shifting that did not serve him well in an elected post; and he was old, very old, as it was.

"We're running out of war heroes," Abban said. "Doubtful if Gorodin can find any of that generation fit to serve. This new electorate—I'm not sure they respond to the old issues. That's the trouble."

Seventy years since the war—and the obits of famous names were getting depressingly frequent.

"These young hawks," Giraud said, "they're not an issue, they're a mindset. They're pessimistic, they believe in worst-cases, they feel safe only on the side of perceived strength. Khalid worries me more as an agitator than as a single-electorate hero. He appeals to that type—to the worriers of all electorates, not just the ones who happen to be in Defense. It's always after wars—in times of confusion—or economic low spots, exactly the kind of thing a clever operator like Khalid can find a base in. There are alarming precedents. Lu would be the best for the seat, still the best for the seat and the best for the times—but this damned electorate won't vote for a man who tells them there are four and five sides to a question. There's too much uncertainty. The electorate doesn't want the truth, it wants answers in line with their thinking."

"One could," Abban said, "simply take a direct solution. I don't understand civs, I especially don't understand civ CITs. In this case the law isn't working. It's insanity to go on following it. Eliminate the problem quietly. Then restore the law." Abban was a little buzzed. "Take this man Khalid out. I could do it. And no one would find me out."

"A dangerous precedent."

"So is losing—dangerous to your cause."

"No. Politics works. When the Expansionists look strong, these pessimist types vote Expansionist. And they'll turn. We had them once. We can have them again."

"When?" Abban asked.

"We will. I'll tell you: Denys is right. Young Ari's image has been altogether too sweet." Abban's glass was empty. He filled Abban's and topped off his, finishing the bottle. "When our girl took into Khalid in front of the cameras—that threw a lot of Khalid's believers completely off their balance, but you mark me, they blamed the media. Remember they always believe in conspiracies. They weren't willing to accept Ari as anything solid—as anything that can guarantee their future. And won't, until she makes them believe it."

"Which alienates the doves."

"Oh, yes. When she went in front of those cameras head to head with Khalid—it was damned dangerous. She pulled it off—but there was a downside. I argued with Denys. Her insistence on bringing Gehenna out public again—I'm sure inflamed the hawks and scared the hell out of a few doves—enough to bring the Paxers out in force. She may have attracted the few peace-pushers who aren't more scared of her than him, and may have lost him a few of his, but she didn't gain any of his people. It's Gorodin they're re-electing. Gorodin's an old name, a safe name. They're not about to go with a young girl's opinion. Not the worry-addicts."

More figures ticked by. Widening margin, Jacques' favor.

"I'll tell you what worries me," Giraud said, finally. "Young Warrick. He's going to be very hard to hold. How's our man doing—the one with the Planys contact?"

"Proceeding."

"We document it, we find some convenient link to the Rocher gang or the Paxers and that's all we need. Or we create one. I want you to look into that."

"Good."

"We need to leave the Centrists with very embarrassing ties– There have to be ties. That will keep Corain busy. And keep young Warrick quiet, if he has any sense at all."

"Direct solutions there are just as possible," Abban said.

"Oh, no. Jordie Warrick himself can be quite a help. We keep putting off the travel passes. Start a security scandal at Planys airport. That should do. Leak the business about young Warrick going on rejuv. Our Jordie's damned clever. Just keep the pressure on, and he'll get reckless—he'll throw something to the Centrists; and our man just funnels it straight to the Paxers. Then we just turn the lights on—and watch them run for cover."

"And young Warrick?"

"Denys wants to salvage him. I think it's lunacy. At least he took my advice—hi the case we have a problem. The Paxers have handed us a beautiful issue. The doves hate them because they're violent—the hawks hate them for the lunacy they stand for. Let our Ari discover the Paxers are plotting to kill her, and that Jordan Warrick is involved with them; and watch those instincts turn on in a hurry. Watch her image shift then—on an issue of civil violence and plots. Absolutely the thing we need. Attract the peace-party and the hawks—and cultivate enemies that can only do her political good."

"Mark me, young Warrick is a danger in that scenario."

"Ah. But we've been very concerned with his welfare. Planning for his long life. Giving him rejuv puts that all on record, doesn't it? And if Ari's threatened—she'll react. If Jordan's threatened—so will young Warrick jump. You give me the incident I need, and watch the pieces fall. And watch our young woman learn a valuable lesson." A moment he stared at the screen and sipped at the wine. "I'll tell you, Abban: you know this: she matters to me. She's my concern. Reseune is. Damned if Jordie Warrick's son is going to have a voice in either. Damned if he is."

Cyteen Station results flashed up, lopsided. "That's it," Abban said. "He's got it now."

"Absolutely. I told you. Jacques is in."

xiv