Cyteen

i

Florian ran along the sidewalk that crossed the face of Barracks 3, remembered politeness when he met a handful of adults coming the other way, stopped, stood aside, panting, and gave a little bow that the adults returned with the slightest nods of their heads. Because they were older. Because Florian was six and because it was natural for a boy to want to run but it was also natural for adults to have serious business on their minds.

So, this time, did Florian have business. He was fresh from tapestudy. He had an Assignment, a real, every-morning Assignment. It was the most important thing that had ever happened to him, he loved everything about it, and he had been so excited he had begged the Super twice to let him go there and not to the Rec Hall where he was supposed to go after tape.

"What," the Super had said, with a smile and a little twinkle in her eye that he was sure meant she was going to let him, "no Rec? Work and Rec are both important, Florian."

"I've had Rec before," he had said. "Please."

She had given him the chit then, and the Rec chit, for later, she had said, as long as he showed it to the Work Super first. And held out her arms. Hug the Super, the very nice Super, and don't run in the hall, walk, walk, and walk, as far as the door, walk down the sidewalk until he hit the downhill road, and then run, fast as he could.

Which was fast, because he was not only Alpha-smart, he was good at running.

Down the shortcut between Barracks 4 and 5, zip across the road, and shortcut again to the path that led to the AG building. He slowed down finally because his side was hurting, and he hoped in the way of things that moved everybody around all the time, Olders with younger boys, they were going to check him into a bunk a little closer to AG next month: it was far from Barracks 104.

Olders with jobs had priority on the bunks nearest. That was what he had heard from an Older, who was Kappa, who said he was always in the same barracks-group.

He caught his breath as he walked up to AG-100. He had been near here before. He had seen the pens. He liked the smell. It was—it was the way AG smelled, that was all, and there was nothing like it.

It was a kind of an Ad place in front. All white, with a seal-door, of course. You were supposed to go to Ad. He knew that the way tape showed you things. He pulled down the door-latch and it let him into a busy office, where there was a counter he was supposed to go to.

He could lean on counters lately. Just barely. He was not as tall as other sixes. Taller than some, though. He waited till a Worker turned around and came to see what he wanted.

"I'm Florian AF-9979," he said, and held up the red chit. "I'm Assigned here."

She gave him a polite nod and took the chit. He waited, licking dry lips, not fidgeting while she put it in the machine.

"You certainly are," she said. "Do you know how to follow the colors?'

"Yes," he said with no doubt at all.

And didn't ask questions because she was a Worker doing her Job and she would probably say. If you didn't get everything you needed when she was finished then you asked. That way you didn't make people make mistakes. Which was a Fault on your side. He knew.

She sat down at a keyboard, she typed, and the machine put out a card she took and added a clip to. He watched, excited because he knew it was a keycard, and it was probably his because she was working on his Business.

She brought it to him and leaned over the counter to show him things about it; he stood on tiptoe and twisted around so they could both see.

"There's your name, there are your colors. This is a keycard. You clip it to your pocket. Whenever you change clothes you clip it to your pocket. That's very serious. If you lose it come to this office immediately."

"Yes," he said. It all clicked with things tape said.

"Have you any questions?"

"No. Thank you."

"Thank you, Florian."

Little bow. Walk, then, back out the door and onto the walk and look up at the corner of the building where the color-codes started, but he could read all the words on the card anyway: and on the building.

Walk. No running now. This was Business and he was important. Blue was his color and white inside that and green inside the white, so he went the blue direction until he was inside blue and then inside blue's white zone. The squares told him. More and more exciting. It was the pens. He saw green finally on a sign at the intersection of the gravel walks and followed that way until he saw the green building, which also said AG 899. That was right.

It was a barn of sorts on one side. He asked an azi for the Super, the azi pointed to a big bald man talking to someone over in the big doorway, and he went there and stood until the Super was clear.

"Florian," the Super said when he had seen the card. "Well." Looking him up and down. And called an azi named Andy to take him and show him his work.

But he knew that, from tape. He was supposed to feed the chickens, make sure all the water was clean, and check the temperature on the brooders and the pig nursery. He knew how important that was. "You're awfully young," Andy said of him, "but you sound like you understand."

"Yes," he said. He was sure he did. So Andy let him show him how much he was to feed, and how he was to mark the chart every time he did, and every time he checked the water; and how you had to be careful not to frighten the chicks because they would hurt each other. He loved how they all bunched up like a fluffy tide, and all went this way or that way; and the piglets squealed and would knock you down if you let them get to swarming round you, which was why you carried a little stick.

He did everything the best he could, and Andy was happy with him, which made him the happiest he had ever been in his life.

He carried buckets and he emptied water pans and Andy said he could try to hold a piglet as long as he was there to watch. It wiggled and squealed and tramped him with its sharp little feet and it got away while he was laughing and trying to protect himself; Andy laughed and said there was a way to do it, but he would show him later.

It was a nice feeling, though. It had been warm and alive in his arms, except he knew pigs were for eating, and for making other pigs, and you had to keep that in mind and not think of them like people.

He dusted himself off and he went out to catch his breath a minute, leaning on the fence rail by the side of the barn.

He saw an animal in that pen that he had never seen, so beautiful that he just stood there with his mouth open and never wanted to blink, it was like that. Red like the cattle, but shiny-pelted, and strong, with long legs and a way of moving that was different than any animal he had ever seen. This one—didn't walk; it—went. It moved like it was playing a game all by itself.

"What's that?" he asked, hearing Andy come up by him. "What kind is that?"

"AGCULT-894X," Andy said. "That's a horse. He's the first ever lived, the first ever in the world."

ii

Ari liked the playschool. They got to go out in the open air and play in the sandbox every afternoon. She liked to sit barefoot and make roads with the graders and Tommy or Amy or Sam or Rene would run the trucks and dump them. Sometimes they pretended there were storms and all the toy workers would run and get in the trucks. Sometimes there was a platythere and it tore up the roads and they had to rebuild them. That was what Sam said. Sam's mother was in engineering and Sam told them about platytheres. She asked maman was that so and maman said yes. Maman had seen them big as the living room couch. There were really big ones way out west. Big as a truck. The one they had was only a middle-sized one, and it was ugly. Ari liked being it. You got to tear up the roads and the walls, just push it right through under the sand and there it all went.

She took it and shoved it along with the sand going over her hand. "Look out," she said to Sam and Amy. "Here it comes." She was tired of Amy building her House. Amy had a big one going, sand all piled up, and Amy made doors and windows in the House, and fussed and fussed with it. Which was no fun, because Sam put a tower on Amy's house and Amy knocked it off and told him go make a road up to her door, she was making a house and her house didn't have towers. Amy got a spoon and hollowed out behind the windows and put plastic in so you couldn't see inside anyway. She made a wall in front and hollowed out an arch for the road. And they both had had to sit and wait while Amy built. So Ari looked at that arch where the road was supposed to come and thought it would be just the place, and the sand would all come down. "Look out!"

"No!" Amy yelled.

Ari plowed right through it. Bang. Down came the wall. The sand came down on her arm and she just kept going, because platytheres did, no matter what. Even if Amy grabbed her arm and tried to stop her.

Sam helped her knock it down.

Amy yelled and shoved her. She shoved Amy. Phaedra got there and told them they mustn't fight and they were all going inside.

Early.

So that was nasty Amy Carnath's fault.

Amy was not back the next day. That was the way with people she fought with. She was sorry about that. You fought with them and they took them away and you only saw them at parties after. There had been Tommy and Angel and Gerry and Kate, and they were gone and couldn't play with her anymore. So when Amy was gone the next day she moped and sulked and told Phaedra she wanted Amy back.

"If you don't fight with her," Phaedra said. "We'll ask sera."

So Amy did come back. But Amy was funny after that. Even Sam was. Every time she did something they let her.

That was no fun, she thought. So she teased them. She stole Sam's trucks and turned them over. And Sam let her do that. He just sat there and frowned, all unhappy. She knocked Amy's house down before she was through with it. Amy just pouted.

So she did.

Sam turned his trucks back over and decided they had had a wreck. That was an all-right game. She played too, and set the trucks up. But Amy was still pouting, so she ran a truck at her. "Don't," Amy snapped at her. "Don't!"

So she hit her with it. Amy scrambled back and Ari got up and Amy got up. And Amy shoved her.

So she shoved her harder, and kicked her good. Amy hit her. So she hit. And they were hitting each other when Phaedra grabbed her. Amy was crying, and Ari kicked her good before Phaedra snatched her out of reach.

Sam just stood there.

"Amy was a baby," Ari said that night when maman asked her why she had hit Amy.

"Amy can't come back," maman said. "Not if you're going to fight."

So she promised they wouldn't. But she didn't think so.

Amy was out for a couple of days and she came back. She was all pouty and she kept over to herself and she wasn't any fun. She wouldn't even speak when Sam was nice to her.

So Ari walked over and kicked her good, several times. Sam tried to stop her. Phaedra grabbed her by the arm and said she was wrong and she had to sit down and play by herself.

So she did. She took the grader and made sad, angry roads. Sam came over finally and ran a truck on them, but she still hurt. Amy just sat over in the other corner and sniveled. That was what maman called it. Amy wouldn't even play anymore. Ari felt a knot in her throat that made it hard to swallow, but she was not baby enough to cry, and she hated Amy's sniveling, that hurt her and made nothing any fun anymore. Sam was sad too.

After that Amy wasn't there very often. When she was she just sat to herself and Ari hit her once, good, in the back.

Phaedra took Amy by the hand and took her to the door and inside.

Ari went back to Sam and sat down. Valery wasn't there much at all. Pete wasn't. She liked them most. That left just Sam, and Sam was just Sam, a kid with a wide face and not much expression on it. Sam was all right, but Sam hardly ever talked, except he knew about platytheres and fixing trucks. She liked him all right. But she lost everything else. If you liked it most, it went away.

It was not Amy she missed, it was Valery. Sera Schwartz had gotten transferred, so that meant Valery was. She had asked him if he would come back and see her. He had said yes. Maman had said it was too far. So she understood that he was really gone and he would not come back at all. She was mad at him for going. But it was not his fault. He gave her his spaceship with the red light. That was how sorry he was. Maman had said that she had to give it back, so she had to, before she left the Schwartzes' place and said goodbye.

She did not understand why it was wrong, but Valery had cried and she had. Sera Schwartz had been mad at her. She could tell, even if sera Schwartz was being nice and said she would miss her.

Maman had taken her home and she had cried herself to sleep. Even if maman was mad at something and told her stop crying. She did for a while. But for days after she would snivel. And maman would say stop it, so she did, because maman was getting upset and things were getting tight around the apartment—tight was all she could call it. That made everything awful. So she knew she was upsetting maman.

She was scared sometimes. She could not say why.

She was unhappy about Amy, and she tried to be good to Sam and Tommy, when he came, but she thought if she got Amy back she would hit her again.

She would hit Sam and Tommy too, but if she did she would not have anybody at all. Phaedra said she had to be good, they were running out of kids.

iii

"This is the Room," the Instructor said.

"Yes, ser," Catlin said. She was nervous and anxious at the same time. She had heard about the Room from Olders. She heard about the things they did to you, like turning the lights on and off and sometimes water on the floor. But her Instructor always had the Real Word. Her Instructor told her she had to get through a tunnel and do it fast.

"Are you ready?"

"Yes, ser."

He opened the door. It was a tiny place with another door. The one behind her shut and the lights went out.

The one in front of her opened and cold wet air hit her in the face. The place had echoes.

She moved, not even sure where the tunnel was or whether she was in it.

"Stop!" a voice yelled. And a red dot lit the wall and popped.

It was a shot. She knew that. Her body knew what to do; she was tumbling and meaning to roll and find cover, but the whole floor dropped, and she kept rolling, down a tube and splash! into cold water.

She flailed and got up in knee-deep water. You never believed a Safe. Someone had shot. You ran and got to cover.

But: Get through, the Instructor had said. Fast as you can.

So she got, fast as she could, till she ran into a wall and followed it, up again, onto the dry. In a place that rang under her boots. Noise was bad. It was dark and she was easy to see in the dark because of her pale skin and hair. She did not know whether she ought to sneak or run, but fast was fast, that was what the Instructor said.

She ran easy and quick, fingers of one hand trailing on the wall to keep her sense of place in the dark and one hand out ahead of her so she wouldn't run into something.

The tunnel did turn. She headed up a climb and down again onto concrete, and it was still dark.

Something—! she thought, just before she got to it and the Ambush grabbed her.

She elbowed it and twisted and knew it was an Enemy when she felt it grab her, but it only got cloth and twisting got her away, fast, fast, hard as she could run, heart hammering.

She hit the wall where it turned, bang! and nearly knocked herself cold, but she scrambled up and kept going, kept going—

The door opened, white and blinding.

Something made her duck and roll through it, and she landed on the floor in the tiny room, with the taste of blood in her mouth and her lip cut and her nose bleeding.

One door shut and the other opened, and the man there was not the Instructor. He had the brown of the Enemy and he had a gun.

She tried to kick him, but he Got her, she heard the buzz.

The door shut again and opened and she was getting up, mad and ashamed.

But this time it was her Instructor. "The Enemy is never fair," he said. "Let's go find out what you did right and wrong."

Catlin wiped her nose. She hurt. She was still mad and ashamed. She had gotten through. She wished she had got the man at the end. But he was an Older. That was not fair either. And her nose would not stop bleeding.

The Instructor got a cold cloth and had her put it on her neck. He said the med would look at her nose and her mouth. Meanwhile he turned on the Scriber and had her tell what she did and he told her most Sixes got stopped in the tunnel.

"You're exceptionally good," he said.

At which she felt much, much better. But she was not going to forget the Enemy at the end. They Got you here even when the lesson was over. That was the Rule. She hated being Got. She hated it. She knew when you grew up you went where Got was dead. She knew what dead was. They took the Sixes down to the slaughterhouse and they saw them kill a pig. It was fast and it stopped being a pig right there. They hauled it up and cut it and they got to see what dead meant: you just stopped, and after that you were just meat. No next time when you were dead, and you had to Get the Enemy first and make the Enemy dead fast.

She was good. But the Enemy was not fair. That was a scary thing to learn. She started shaking. She tried to stop, but the Instructor saw anyhow and said the med had better have a look at her.

"Yes, ser," she said. Her nose still bubbled and the cloth was red. She blotted at it and felt her knees wobble as she walked, but she walked all right.

The med said her nose was not broken. A tooth was loose, but that was all right, it would fix itself.

The Instructor said she was going to start marksmanship. He said she would be good in that, because her genotype was rated that way. She was expected to do well in the Room. All her genotype did. He said genotypes could sometimes get better. He said that was who she had to beat. That was who every azi had to beat. Even if she had never seen any other AC-7892.

She got a good mark for the day. She could not tell anyone. You were never supposed to. She could not talk about the tunnel. The Instructor told her so. It was a Rule.

It was only the last Enemy that worried her. The Instructor said a gun would have helped and size would have helped, but otherwise there was not much she could have done. It had not been wrong to roll at the last. Even if it put her on the floor when the door opened.

"I could have run past him," she said.

"He would have shot you in the back," the Instructor said. "Even in the hall."

She thought and thought about that.

iv

"Vid off," Justin said, and the Minder cut it. He sat in his bathrobe on the couch. Grant wandered in, likewise in his bathrobe, toweling his hair.

"What's the news tonight?" Grant asked, and Justin said, with a little unease at his stomach:

"There's some kind of flap in Novgorod. Something about a star named Gehenna."

"Where's that?" There was no star named Gehenna in anybody's reckoning. Or there had not been, until tonight. Grant looked suddenly sober as he sat down on the other side of the pit.

"Over toward Alliance. Past Viking." The news report had not been entirely specific. "Seems there's a planet there. With humans on it. Seems Union colonized it without telling anybody. Sixty years ago."

"My God," Grant murmured.

"Alliance ambassador's arrived at station with an official protest. They're having an emergency session of the Council. Seems we're in violation of the Treaty. About a dozen clauses of it."

"How big a colony?" Grant asked, right to the center of it.

"They don't know. They don't say."

"And nobody knew about it. Some land of Defense base?"

"Might be. Might well be. But it isn't now. Apparently it's gone primitive."

Grant hissed softly. "Survivable world."

"Has to be, doesn't it? We're not talking about any bail of rock. The news-service is talking about the chance of some secret stuff from back in the war years."

Grant was quiet a moment, elbows on knees.

The war was the generation before them. The war was something no one wanted to repeat; but the threat was always there. Alliance merchanters came and went. Sol had explored the other side of space and got its fingers burned—dangerously. Eetees with a complex culture and an isolationist sentiment. Now Sol played desperate politics between Alliance and Union, trying to keep from falling under Alliance rule and trying to walk the narrow line that might leave it independent of Alliance ships without pushing Alliance into defending its treaty prerogatives or bringing Alliance interests and Union into conflict. Things were so damned delicate. And they had gotten gradually better.

A generation had grown up thinking it was solving the problems.

But old missiles the warships had launched a hundred years ago were still a shipping hazard. Sometimes the past came back into the daily news with a vengeance.

And old animosities surfaced like ghosts, troubling a present in which humans knew they were not alone.

"It doesn't sound like it was any case of finding three or four survivors," he said to Grant. "They're saying 'illegal colony' and they admit it's ours."

"Still going? Organized?"

"It's not real clear."

Another moment of silence. Grant sat up then and remembered to dry his hair before it dried the way it was. "Damn crazy mess," Grant said. "Did they say they got them off, or are they going to? Or what are they going to do about it?"

"Don't know yet."

"Well, we can guess where Giraud's going to be for the next week or so, can't we?"

v

Ari was bored with the offices. She watched the people come in and out. She sat at a desk in back of the office and cut out folded paper in patterns that she unfolded. She got paper and drew a fish with a long tail.

Finally she got up and slipped out while Kyle wasn't looking, while maman was doing something long and boring in the office inside; and it looked like maman was going to be talking a long time.

Which meant maman would not mind much if she walked up and down the hall. It was only offices. That meant no stores, no toys, nothing to look at and no vid. She liked sitting and coloring all right. But maman's own offices were best, because there was a window to look out.

There was nothing but doors up and down. The floor had metal stripes and she walked one, while she looked in the doors that were open. Most were.

That was how she saw Justin.

He was at a desk, working at a keyboard, very serious.

She stood in the doorway and saw him there. And waited, just watching him, for the little bit until he would see her.

He was always different from all the rest of the people. She remembered him from a glittery place, and Grant with him. She saw him only sometimes, and when she asked maman why people got upset about Justin, maman said she was imagining things.

She knew she was not. It was a danger-feeling. It was a worried feeling.

She knew she ought not to bother him. But it was all right here in the hall, where there were people going by. And she just wanted to look at him, but she did not want to go inside.

She shifted to her other foot and he saw her then.

"Hello," she said.

And got that fear-feeling again. His, as he looked up. And hers, as she thought she could get in trouble with maman.

"Hello," he said, nervous-like.

It was always like that when she was around Justin. The nervous-feeling went wherever he did, and got worse when she got close to him. From everybody. It was a puzzle she could not work out, and she sensed by the way maman shut down on questions about Justin that he was a puzzle maman did not approve of. Ollie too. Justin came to parties and she saw him from across the room, but maman always came and got her if she went to say hello. So she thought that Justin was somebody in a lot of trouble for something, and maybe there was something Wrong with him, so they were not sure he was going to behave right. Sometimes azi got like that. Sometime CITs did. Maman said. And it was harder to straighten CITs out, but easier to make azi upset. So she mustn't tease them. Except Ollie could take it all right.

There was a lot about Justin that said azi, but she knew that he wasn't. He was just Justin. And he was a puzzle that came and went and no one ever wanted kids around.

"Maman's down there with ser Peterson," she said conversationally, also because she wanted him to know she was not running around where she had no business to be. So this was Justin's office. It was awfully small. Papers were everywhere. She leaned too far and caught her balance on the door. Fool, maman would say. Stand up. Stand straight. Don't wobble around. But Justin never said much. He left everything for her to say. "Where's Grant?"

"Grant's down at the library," Justin said.

"I'm six now."

"I know."

"How do you know that?"

Justin looked uncomfortable. "Isn't your maman going to be wanting you pretty soon?"

"Maman's having a meeting. I'm tired of being down there." He was going to ignore her, going back to his work. She was not going to have him turn his shoulder to her. She walked in and up to the chair by his desk. She leaned on the arm and looked up at him. "Ollie's always working."

"So am I. I'm busy, Ari. You go along."

"What are you doing?"

"Work."

She knew a go-away when she heard one. But she did not have to mind Justin. So she leaned on her arms and frowned and tried a new approach. "I go to tapestudy. I can read that. It says Sub—" She twisted around, because it was a long word on the screen. "Sub-li-min-al mat—ma-trix."

He turned the screen off and turned around and frowned at her.

She thought maybe she had gone too far, and oughtn't to be leaning on her elbows quite so close to him. But backing up was something she didn't like at all. She stuck out her lip at him.

"Go back to maman, Ari. She's going to be looking for you."

"I don't want to. What's a sub-liminal matrix?"

"A set of things. A special arrangement of a set." He shoved his chair back and stood up, so she stood up and got back. "I've got an appointment. I've got to lock up the office. You'd better get on back to your mother."

"I don't want to." He was awfully tall. Like Ollie. Not safe like Ollie. He was pushing her out, that was what. She stood her ground.

"Out," he said, at the door, pointing to the hall.

She went out. He walked out and locked the door. She waited for him. She had that figured out. When he walked on down the hall she went with him.

"Back," he said, stopping, pointing back toward where maman was.

She gave him a nasty smile. "I don't have to."

He looked upset then. And he got very quiet, looking down at her. "Ari, that's not nice, is it?"

"I don't have to be nice."

"I'd like you better."

That hurt. She stared up at him to see if he was being nasty, but he did not look like it. He looked as if he was the hurt one.

She could not figure him. Everybody, but not him. She just stared.

"Can I go with you?" she asked.

"Your maman wouldn't like it." He had a kind face when he talked like that. "Go on back."

"I don't want to. They just talk. I'm tired of them talking."

"Well, I've got to go meet my people, Ari. I'm sorry."

"There aren't any people," she said, calling his bluff, because he had not been going anywhere until she bothered him.

"Well, I still have to. You go on back."

She did not. But he walked away down the hall like he was really going somewhere.

She wished she could. She wished he would be nice. She was bored and she was unhappy and when she saw him she remembered the glittery people and everybody being happy, but she could not remember when that was.

Only then Ollie had been there all the time and maman had been so pretty and she had played with Valery and gotten the star that hung in her bedroom.

She walked back to ser Peterson's office very slow. Kyle didn't even notice. She sat down and she drew a star. And thought about Valery. And the red-haired man, who was Grant. Who was Justin's.

She wished Ollie and maman had more time for her.

She wished maman would come out. And they would go to lunch. Maybe Ollie could come.

But maman did not come anytime soon, so she drew lines all over the star and made it ugly. Like everything.

vi

The documents show, the report came to Mikhail Corain's desk, the operation involved a clandestine military operation and the landing of 40,000 Union personnel, the majority of them azi. The mission was launched in 2355, as a Defense operation.

There was no further support given the colony. The operation was not sustained.

The best intelligence Alliance has mustered says that there are thousands of survivors who have devolved to a primitive lifestyle. Beyond question they are descended of azi and citizens. The assumption is that they had no rejuv and that after sixty years the survivors must be at least second and third generation. There are ruins of bubble-construction and a solar power installation. The world is extremely hospitable to human life and the survivors are in remarkably good health considering the conditions, practicing basic agriculture and hunting. The Alliance reports express doubt that the colonists can be removed from the world. The ecological damage is as yet undetermined, but there is apparently deep penetration of the colony into the ecosystem, and certain of the inhabitants have retreated into areas not easily accessible. It is the estimate of Alliance that the inhabitants would not welcome removal from the world and Alliance does not intend to remove the colony, for whatever reason.

The estimation within the Defense Bureau is that Alliance is interested in interviewing the survivors. Defense however will oppose any proposal to retrieve these Union nationals as an operation which Alliance will surely reject and which would be in any case counter-productive.

The azi were primarily but not exclusively from Reseune military contracts.

See attached reports.

The majority of citizens were military personnel.

Nye will offer a bill expressing official regret and an offer of cooperation to the Alliance in dealing with the colonists.

The Expansionist coalition will be unanimous in that vote.

Corain flipped through the reports. Pages of them. There was a sub-sapient on the world the colonists called Gehenna. There were a great many things that said Defense Bureau, and Information Unavailable.

There was no way in hell Alliance or Union was going to be able to retrieve the survivors, for one thing because they were scattered into the bush and mostly because (according to Alliance) they were illiterate primitives and Alliance was going to resist any attempt to remove them, that much was clear in the position the Alliance ambassador was taking.

Alliance was damned mad about the affair, because it had been confronted with a major and expensive problem: an Earth-class planet in its own sphere of influence with an ecological disaster and an entrenched, potentially hostile colony.

So was Corain angry about it, for reasons partly ethical and partly political outrage: Defense had overstepped itself, Defense had covered this mess up back in the war years, when (as now) Defense was in bed with Reseune and gifted with a blank credit slip.

And if Corain could manage it, there was going to be a light thrown on the whole Expansionist lunacy.

vii

Gorodin—was not accessible. That was not entirely a disaster, in Giraud Nye's estimation. Secretary of Defense Lu had sat proxy so often in the last thirty years he had far more respect on Council and far more latitude in voting his own opinion than a proxy was supposed to have, the same way the Undersecretary of Defense virtually merged his own staff with Lu's and Gorodin's on-planet office: it was in effect a troika at the top of Defense and had been, de facto, since the war years.

And in Giraud's unvoiced opinion it was better that the proxy was in and Gorodin was somewhere classified and inaccessible at the other end of Union space: Lu, his face a map of wise secrets as rejuv declined, his dark eyes difficult even for a veteran of Reseune to cipher, was playing his usual game of no authority to answer that and I don't feel I should comment, while reporters clamored for information and Corain called for full disclosure.

Full disclosure it had to be, at least among political allies.

And Giraud had heard enough to upset his stomach all the way from Reseune to this sound-secure office, the sound-screening working at his nerves and setting his teeth off.

"It is absolutely true," Lu said, without reference to the folio that lay under his hands. "The mission was launched in 2355; it reached the star in question and dropped the colonists and the equipment. There was never any intention to return. At the time, we knew that the world was there. We knew that Alliance knew, that it was within their reach, or Earth's, and by the accident of its position and its potential—it would be of major importance." Lu cleared his throat. "We knew we couldn't hold it in practicality, we couldn't defend it, we couldn't supply it. We did in fact purpose to remove it from profitability."

Remove it from profitability. Alliance had sent a long-prepared and careful survey to the most precious find yet in near space—and found it, to its consternation, inhabited, inhabited by humans not their own and not plausibly Earth's—leaving the absolutely undeniable conclusion, even without the ruined architecture and the fact that the survivors were azi-descended—

Union had sabotaged a living planet.

"Forty thousand people," Giraud said, feeling an emptiness at the pit of his stomach. "Dropped onto an untested planet. Just like that."

Lu blinked. Otherwise he might have been a statue. "They were military; they were expendables. It was not, you understand, my administration. Nor was there, in those days, the—sensitivity to ecological concerns. So far as anyone then was reckoning, we were in a difficult military position, we had to reckon that a Mazianni strike at Cyteen was a possibility. There were two possibilities in such a move: first, the colony would survive and maintain Union principles should we meet with disaster, should Earth have launched some suicide mission at Cyteen itself. The secrecy of the colony was important in that consideration."

"It was launched in 2355," Giraud said. "A year after the war ended. Lu folded his hands. "It was planned in the closing years of the war, when things were uncertain. It was executed after we had been confronted with general calamity, and that disastrous treaty. It was a hole card, if you like. To let either Earth or Alliance have a world potentially more productive than Cyteen—would have been disastrous. That was the second part of the plan: if the colony should perish, it would still contribute its microorganisms to the ecology. And in less than a century—present Alliance or whatever new owner—with a difficult problem, which our science could handle and theirs couldn't. I might say—some native microorganisms were even—engineered to accept our own engineered contributions. At your own facility. As I'm sure your records will say. Not mentioning the azi and the tape-tailoring."

"You're damn right the records show it." Giraud found his breath difficult. "My God, we never knew the thing was actually launched! You know what kind of a security problem we've got? This isn't the 2350s. We're not at war. Your damn little timebomb's gone off in a century when we've got aliens stirred up on Sol's far side, we've got ecological treaties—we've got our own position, for God's sake, on ecological responsibility, the genebanks, the arks, the—"

"It was, of course, the architect of the genebanks and the treaty and the arks who actually administered Reseune during the development of the Gehenna colony. Councillor Emory was signatory to all contracts with Defense."

"_the Abolitionists, my God, we've handed them the best damn issue they could have dreamed of! It was a study project. God, Jordan Warrick's father worked on those Gehenna tapes."

"We trust Reseune security procedures didn't tell the project members what they were working on."

"Trust, hell! It's on the news, general. The news gets to Planys, eventually. You want to gamble Jordan Warrick won't know who in what department might have been working on those tapes, and what names and what specifics to hand to investigators if they get to him?"

"Damage his own father's reputation?"

"To protect his father's reputation, dammit; and blast Reseune's. You spent forty thousand azi to sabotage a planet, for God's sake, you linked the research to the Science Bureau, and it couldn't have picked a worse time to surface." .

"Oh," Lu said quietly, "I can imagine worse times than this. This is a quiet time, a time when humanity—especially Alliance—has many other worries. In fact Gehenna's done exactly what it was designed to do: there is ecological calamity, Alliance is holding off development. The course of development of the Alliance has been irrevocably altered: if they absorb that population they will absorb an ethnically unique community with Union values, if you believe in the validity of your own taped instructions. In any case, we forestalled either Alliance or Earth getting a very valuable resource—and a stepping-stone to further stars. Now Alliance will either track down a scattered lot of primitives and remove them by force—a logistic nightmare—or Alliance will have to take them into account in its own settlement of the world. If they choose to settle. Intelligence informs us they're having second thoughts. They perceive a possible difficulty if they entangle themselves with this—ground-bound culture. There was always a vocal opposition to their colonization effort. The spacers who are far and away the majority in Alliance are quite doubtful about any move that puts power in the hands of the ground-bound—blue-skyers, as spacers call them, and a pre-industrial constituency—or another, much more problematical protectorate—is more than the Council of Captains wants to take on ... not mentioning of course, their science bureau, which bids fair to study it to death, while the construction companies scheduled to build a station there are holding off their creditors. The Alliance ambassador demands information for their Science people and an apology; cheap at the price. There'll be a little coolness—ultimately cooperation. I assure you, they're much more scared at what Sol has poked into than we are—only natural considering they're much closer to the problem. All in all, it's an excellent time for it to surface: we watched their preparations, we weren't taken by surprise—that's why Adm. Gorodin is inaccessible, as it happens. We knew this was coming."

"And kept it from us!"

Lu maintained an icy little silence. Then: "Us—meaning Science; or us, meaning Reseune?"

"Us, Reseune, dammit! Reseune has an interest in this!"

"A past interest," Lu said. "The child is far from adult. She can ride out this storm. Emory is beyond reach of any law, unless you are religious. Let them subpoena a few documents. Warrick is in quarantine, thoroughly discredited as far as testimony before the Council might go. If his father was working on the project, it can only harm the Warrick name. What is there to concern Reseune?"

Giraud shut his mouth. He was sweating. Bogdanovitch was dead four years ago, Harad of Fargone was in the seat of State and making common cause with Gorodin of Defense and deFranco of Trade, and Lao of Information. Damn them. The Expansionist coalition held firm, the Abolitionists were in retreat and Corain and the Centrists had lost ground, losing Gorodin to the Expansionist camp where he had always belonged, but Nasir Harad, damn him, snuggled close to Gorodin, the source of the fat Defense contracts for his station, and State and Defense and Information were the coalition within the Expansionist coalition—the secret bedfellows.

Reseune did not have the influence it had had. That was the bitter truth Giraud had to live with. It gave him stomach upsets and kept him awake at night. But Ari had been—so far as they understood—unique.

"Let me tell you," Giraud said, "there are things within our files which are very sensitive. We do not want them released. More, we don't want any chance of Warrick being called out of Planys to testify. You don't understand how volatile that situation is. He has to be kept quiet. His recall of small detail, things he might have heard, things he might have discussed with his father down the years—will be far better than you or I want. His memory is extremely exact. If you don't want Alliance to be able to unravel what you've done in specific detail, keep Warrick quiet, can I be more clear?"

"Are you saying present administration can be compromised?"

Dangerous question. Dangerous interest. Giraud took another breath. "I'm only asking you to listen to me. Before you discover that the threads of this lead, yes, under closed doors. You want the Rubin project blown to hell—you let Warrick get loose, and there won't be a Rubin project."

"Sometimes we're not sure there is a Rubin project," Lu said acidly, "since RESEUNESPACE has yet to do more than minor work. Tests, you say. Data collation. Is there a director?"

"There is a director. We're about to transfer the bank. It's not a small operation. This inquiry is not going to help us. We're strained as it is. There's an enormous amount of data involved. That's the nature of the process. We are in operation. We have been in operation for six years. We do not intend to waste resources in a half-hearted effort, general." Damn. It's a tactic. Distract and divert. "The point is Warrick. The point is that the Planys facility is under your security and we have to rely on it. We hope we can rely on it."

"Absolutely. As we hope to rely on your cooperation on the Gehenna matter, Councillor Nye."

Blackmail. Plain and simple. He saw Harad's hand in this. "To what extent?"

"Agreement to cooperate with Alliance scientists. We'll swear it was a lost operation, one concealed behind the secrecies of war. Something no one knew had been done. No one in office now. That a communications screw-up saw it launched."

"Ariane Emory's name has to be kept out of it."

"I don't think that's possible. Let the dead bear the onus of responsibility. The living have far more at stake. I assure you—far more at stake. We want to keep an active channel into this situation on Gehenna. Descendants of Union citizens are still legally our citizens. If we choose to take that view. We may not. In any case—Science should be interested in the impact on the ecology; and the social system. We stand to gain nothing by withholding an apparent cooperation. Not the actual content of the tapes, to be sure. But at least the composition of the colony, the ratio of military personnel to azi. The personal histories of some of the military. Conn, for instance. Distinguished service. They should have some recognition, after all these years,"

Sentiment. Good God.

"Reseune," Giraud said, "equally values Emory's distinguished record."

"I'm afraid that part will get out. The azi, you know. Once the public knows that, there's hardly any way you can hide it. But damage control is already in operation. State is onto it."

"Harad knew about this operation?"

"It does fall within State's area of responsibility. Science doesn't make foreign policy. Our obligation in that consideration is quite different. I do urge you to think—what your contracts are worth. We do not contract primarily with Bucherlabs. We continue to work with you. We continue to support RESEUNESPACE—even at a cost disadvantage. We expect that relationship to be a mutually satisfactory one—one we hope we can continue."

"I see," Giraud said bitterly. "I see." And after a breath or two: "Ser Secretary, we need that data protected—for more than a dead woman's reputation. To keep Council from blowing this wide open—and destroying any chance of success."

"Now you want our help. You want me to throw myself and my Bureau on the grenade. Is that it? —Let me explain to you, ser, we have other considerations right now, primarily among them a rampant anti-militarism that's feeding on this scandal as it is—which is a critical danger to our national defense, at a time when we're already under budget constraints, at a time when we can't get the ships we need and we can't get the problem of expanded perimeters through the heads of the public or the opposition of Finance in Council. We have a major problem, ser, your project has become a sink into which money goes and nothing emerges, and, dammit, you want us to stand and shield you from inquiry while you refuse our requests for records. I suggest you defend yourself, ser—with Reseune's well-known resources. Maybe it's time to bring this project of yours put. Make a choice. Give me a reason I can use to maintain that data as Classified—or give me the records I need."

"She's not ready, my God, not now, in the middle of scandal that touches her predecessor. She's a six-year-old kid, she can't handle that land of attack—"

"It's your problem," Lu said, folding his hands, settling into that implacable, bland stare. "We don't know, frankly, ser, if we have anything to protect. For all you've been willing to demonstrate to us, it is another Bok clone."

"I'll show you records."

"Bok's clone was quite good as a child. It was later the problems manifested. Wasn't it? And unless you're willing to go public with the child and give me a reason to clamp down on the records—I can't extend that protection any further than I have."

"Dammit, you leave us vulnerable and they'll find us the door that leads to your own territory."

"Through yours, I think. You were very active in Reseune administration in those years. Can it be—those records you defend—lay the blame to you, ser?"

"That's your guess. It may shine light where a good many people don't want it."

"So we direct the strike, don't we? It's always useful to know what you've left open for attack. I'm sorry it has to be in your territory. But I certainly won't leave it in mine."

"If you'll apply a little patience—"

"I prefer the word progress, which, quite truthfully, I find lacking in Reseune lately. We can discuss this. I am prepared to discuss it. But I think you'll understand I am inflexible on certain points. Cooperation is very essential just now. If we do not have a reason to withhold those records, we must provide those records. You must understand—we have to provide something to the inquiry. And soon."

One did. One sat and one listened while the Defense proxy, damn him to hell, laid out Gorodin's program for, as he called it, damage control.

A proposal for scientific and cultural cooperation with Alliance. Coming from Defense via the Science Bureau.

An official expression of regret from the Council in joint resolution, made possible by the release of selected documents by the present administration of Reseune, indicating Bogdanovitch, Emory, and Azov of Defense, all safely deceased, collaborated in the planning of the Gehenna operation.

Damn him.

"We'll see to Warrick," Lu said. "Actually—allowing him conference with his son might have some benefit right now. Monitored, of course."

viii

"Justin?" The voice came from the other end, Jordan's voice, his father's voice, after eight years; and Justin, who had steeled himself not to break down, not to break down in front of Denys, on whose desk-phone the call came, bit his lip till it bled and watched the image come out of the break-up on the screen—a Jordan older, thinner. His hair was white. Justin stared in shock, in the consciousness of lost years, and mumbled: "Jordan—God, it's good to see you. We're fine, we're all fine. Grant's not here for this one, but they'll let him next time. . . ."

". . . You're looking fine," Jordan's voice overrode him, and there was pain in his eyes. "God, you've grown a bit, haven't you? It's good to see you, son.

Where's Grant?"

Time-delay. They were fifteen seconds lagged, by security at either end.

"You're looking good yourself." O God, tile banalities they had to use, when there was so little time. When there was everything in the world to say, and they could not, with security waiting to break the connection at the first hint of a breach of the rules. "How's Paul? Grant and I are living in your apartment, doing real well. I'm still in design—"

A lift from Denys' hand warned him. No work discussions. He stopped himself.

". . . A little grayer. I know. I'm not doing badly at all. Good health and all that. Paul too. Damn, it's good to see your face. . . ."

"You can do that in a mirror, can't you?" He forced a little laugh. "I hope I do look that good at the same age. Got a good chance, right? —I can't report much—" They won't let me. "—I've been keeping busy. I get your letters." Cut to hell. "I really look forward to them. So does—"

His father grinned as the joke got through. "You're my time machine. You've got a good chance. . . . I get your letters too. I keep all of them."

"So does Grant. He's grown too. Tall. You could figure. We're sort of left hand and right. We look out for each other. We're doing fine."

"You weren't going to catch him. Not the way he was growing. Paul's gone gray too. Rejuv, of course. I'm sorry. I was absolutely certain I'd told you in the letters. I forget about it. I'm too damn lazy to dye it."

Meaning the censors had cut the part it was in, damn them.

"I think it looks pretty good. Really. You know everything looks pretty much the same at home—" Not elsewhere. "Except I miss you. Both of you."

" I miss you too, son. I really do. They're signing me I've got to close down now. Damn, there's so much to say. Be good. Stay out of trouble."

"You be good. We're all right. I love you."

The image broke up and went to snow. The vid cut itself off. He bit his lips and tried to look at Denys with dignity. The way Jordan would have. "Thanks," he said.

Denys' mouth made a little tremor of its own. "That's all right. That went fine. You want a tape? I ran one."

"Yes, ser, I would like it. For Grant."

Denys ejected it from the desk recorder and gave it to him. And nodded to him. Emphatically. "I'll tell you: they're watching you very closely. It's this Gehenna thing."

"So they want a good grip on Jordan, is that it?"

"You understand very well. Yes. That's exactly what they want. That's exactly why Defense suddenly changed its mind about priorities. There's even a chance—a chance, understand—you may get an escorted trip to Planys. But they'll be watching you every time you breathe."

That shook him. Perhaps it was meant to. "Is that in the works?"

"I'm talking with them about it. I shouldn't tell you. But, God, son, don't make any mistakes. Don't do anything. You've done spectacularly well, since you—got your personal problem worked out. Your work's quite, quite fine. You're going to be taking on more responsible things—you know what I mean. More assignments. I want you and Grant to work together on some designs. Really, I want you to work into a staff position here. Both of you."

"Why? So you've got something to take away?"

"Son,—" Denys gave a deep sigh and looked worried. "No. Precisely the opposite. I want you to be necessary here. Very necessary. They're setting up the Fargone facility. And that's a hell of a long way from Planys."

A cold feeling crept about his heart, old and familiar.

"For God's sake," Denys said, "don't give them a chance. That's what I'm telling you. We're not totally in control of what's happening. Defense has gotten its hands on your father. It's not going to let go. You understand, it's Gehenna that got you what you've gotten this far: it's Gehenna and the fallout from that, that's made them think they have to give your father something to lose. But we haven't released you to them. We've kept you very quiet. The fact that you were a minor protected you and Grant from some things: but without their noticing—you've gotten old enough to mess with. And the RESEUNESPACE facility at Fargone has a military wing, where you'd make a hell of a hostage."

"Is that a threat?"

"Justin, —give me at least a little respite. Give me as much credit as I give you. And your father. I'm trying to warn you about a trap. Think about it, if nothing else. I truly don't trust this sudden beneficence on the part of Defense. You're right not to. And I'm trying to warn you of a possible problem. If you're essential personnel we have a hold on you, and whatever you think, you're a hell of a lot safer if we have that hold, now. Draw your own conclusions. You know damn well what an advantage it would be for them if they could have you under their hand out at Fargone and Jordan in their keeping at Planys. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Use that information any way you see fit. But I'll give you what chance I can."

He took the tape. He thought about it. "Yes, ser," he said finally. Because Denys was right. Fargone was not where he wanted to be sent, not now, not any longer. No matter what Jordan might have wanted.

ix

I thought this might handle some of your objections on MR-1959, Justin typed at the top of his explanation of the attachment to the EO-6823 work, –JW. And pulled the project files up and sent them over to Yanni Schwartz's office.

With trepidations.

He was working again. Working overtime and very hard, and earnestly trying, because he saw where he had gotten to. He took the tapes. He assimilated things. He tried the kind of designs he had been working on in his spare time eight years ago and tried to explain to Yanni that they were only experimental alternates to the regular assignments.

Which for some reason made Yanni madder than hell.

But then, a lot of things did.

"Look," Justin had said when Yanni blew up about the MR-1959 alternate, "Yanni, I'm doing this on my own time. I did the other thing. I just thought maybe you could give me a little help on this."

"No damn way you can do a thing like this," Yanni had said. "That's all there is to it."

"Explain."

"You can't link a skill tape into deep-sets. You'll turn out rats on a treadmill. That's what you're doing."

"Can we talk about this? Can we do this at lunch? I really want to talk about this, Yanni. I think I've got a way to avoid that. I think it's in there."

"I don't see any reason to waste my time on it. I'm busy, son, I'm busy! Go ask Strassen if you can find her. If anybody can find her. Let her play instructor. For that matter, ask Peterson. He's got patience. I don't. Just do your job and turn in your work and don't give me problems, for God's sake, I don't need any more problems!"

Peterson handled the beginners.

That was what Yanni meant.

He did not object with the fact that Denys Nye had urged him to take up his active studies. He did not object with the fact Ariane Emory had had time to look at his prototype designs. He swallowed it and told himself that Yanni always hit below the belt when he was bothered, Yanni was a psych designer, Yanni was right up there with the best they had, and Yanni working with an azi was patience itself; but Yanni arguing with a CIT cut loose with every gun he had, including the psych-tactics. Of course it stung. That was because Yanni was damned good and he was firing away at a psychological cripple who was trapped and frustrated at every turn.

So he got out of there with a quiet Yes, ser, I understand. And ached all night before he got his mental balance again, gathered up his shattered nerves, and decided: All right, that's Yanni, isn't it? He's still the best I've got. I can wear him down. What can he do to me? What can words do?

A hell of a lot, from a psychmaster, but living in Reseune and aiming to be what Yanni was, meant taking it and gathering himself up and going on.

"Don't take him so seriously," was Grant's word on the fracas—Grant, who went totally business and very shielded when he was within ten feet of Yanni Schwartz, because Yanni scared him out of good sense.

"I don't," Justin said. "I won't. He's the only one who can teach me anything, except Jane Strassen and Giraud and Denys, and hell if I'll go to the Nyes. Let's don't even think about hanging around Strassen."

"No," Grant said fervently. "I don't think you'd better do that."

Considering what else hung around Strassen's office, to be sure.

He did not consciously set up war with Yanni. Only he hurt inside, he was unsure of himself, he tried to do his best work and Yanni wanted him to design with tabs so a surgeon could pull it out again, because, as Yanni had said on a quieter day, when pressed a second time to be specific on the MR-1959 problem: "You're not that good, dammit, and a skill tape isn't a master-tape. Quit putting feathers on a pig. Stay out of the deep-sets, or haven't you got brains enough to see where that link's going? I haven't got time for this damn messing around. You're wasting your time and you're wasting mine. You might be a damn fine designer if you got a handle on your own problems and quit fucking around with things they learned eighty years ago wouldn't fucking work! You haven't invented the wheel, son, you've just gone down an old dead end."

"Ari never said that," he offered finally, which was like pulling his guts up. It came out in a half-breath and much too emotional.

"What did she say about it?"

"She just critiqued the design and said there were sociological ramifications I didn't have—"

"Damn right."

"She said she was going to think about it. Ari—was going to think about it. She didn't say she could answer me right then. She didn't say I should think about it. So I don't think you can toss me off like that. I can show you the one I was working on, if that makes a difference."

"Son, you'd better wake up to it, Ari was after one thing with you, and you damn well know what that was. Don't go off on some damn mental tangent and fuck yourself up six, eight years later because you're so damn sure you were better at seventeen than you are now. That's crap. Recognize it. You got fucked up in several senses, it's natural you want to try to pick up where you left off, but you'd do yourself a better service if you picked up where you are, son, and realized that it wasn't your ideas that made Ari invite you into her office and spend all that time with you. All right?"

For a moment he could hardly get his breath. They were private, in Yanni's office. No one could hear but them. But no one, no one, in all these years, had ever said to him as bluntly what Yanni said, not even Denys, not even Petros, and he got a fight-flight flash that shoved enough adrenaline into his system that he reacted, he knew he was reacting: he wanted to be anywhere else but trapped in this, with a man he dared not hit—God, they would have him on the table inside the hour, then—

"Fuck you, Yanni, what are you trying to do to me?"

"I'm trying to help you."

"Is that your best? Is that the way you deal with your patients? God help them."

He was close to breaking down. He clenched his jaw and held it. You know I've been in therapy, you unprincipled bastard. Get off me.

And Yanni took a long time about answering him, much more quietly. "I'm trying to tell you the truth, son. No one else is. Don't corner him, Petros says. What do you want? Petros to put a fresh coat of plaster on it? He can't lay a hand on you. Denys won't let him do an intervention. And that's what you fucking need, son, you need somebody to cut deep and grab hold of what's eating at you and show it to you in the daylight, I don't care how you hate it. I'm not your enemy. They're all so damn scared how it'll look if they bring you in for major psych. They don't want that for fear it'll leak and Jordan will blow. But I care about you, son, I care so damn much I'll rip your guts out and give them to you on a plate, and trust the old adage doesn't hold and that you can put yourself back together. Ari's in the news right now and it's not good; and there's too damn much media attention hovering around the edges of our security. We can't arrest you and haul you in for the treatment you need. You listen to me. You listen. Everybody else is saving their ass. And you're bleeding, while Petros does half-hearted patches on a situation all of us can see: Denys tried to talk to you. You won't cooperate. Thank God you are trying to wake up and get to work. If I did what I wanted, son, I'd have shot you full of juice before I had this little talk with you and maybe it'd sink in. But I want you to look real hard at what you're doing. You're trying to go back to where you were. You're wasting time. I want you to accept what happened, figure the past is the past, and turn me in the kind of work you're capable of. Fast work. You're slow. You're damned slow. You muddle along with checks and rechecks like you're scared shitless you're going to fuck up, and you don't need to do that. You're not the final checker, you don't have to work like you are, because I'm sure as hell not going to let you do that for a long while yet. So just relax, put the work out, and do the best you can on your own level. Not—" He made a careless flip at the pages. "Not this stuff."

He sat there in silence a while. Bleeding, like Yanni said. And because he was stubborn, because there was only one thing he wanted, he said: "Prove to me I'm wrong. Do me a critique. Run it past Sociology. Show me what the second and third generation would do. Show me how it integrates. Or doesn't."

"Have you looked around you? Have you seen the kind of schedules we've been running? Where do you think I've got the time to mess with this? Where do you think I'm going to budget Sociology to solve a problem that's been solved for eighty years?"

"I'm saying it's solved here. I'm saying I've got it. You critique my designs, then. You want to tell me I'm crazy, show me where I'm wrong."

"Dammit, I won't help you wallow in the very thing that's the matter with you!"

"I'm Jordan's son. I was good enough—"

"Was, was, was, dammit! Stop looking at the past! Six years ago wasn't worth shit, son!"

"Prove it to me. Prove it, Yanni, or admit you can't."

"Go to Peterson!"

"Peterson can't prove anything to me. I'm better than he is. I started that way."

"You arrogant little bastard! You're not better than Peterson. Peterson pays his way around here. If you weren't Jordan's son, you'd be living in a one-bedroom efficiency with an allotment your work entitles you to, which won't pay for your fancy tastes, son. Grant and you together don't earn that place you're living in."

"What does my father's work pay for, and what does he get? Send my designs to him. He'd find the time."

Yanni took in a breath. Let it out again. "Damn. What do I do with you?"

"Whatever you want. Everyone else does. Fire me. You're going to get these designs about once a week. And if you don't answer me I'll ask. Once a week. I want my education, Yanni. I'm due that. And you're the instructor I want. Do whatever you like. Say whatever you like. I won't give up."

"Dammit—"

He stared at Yanni, not even putting it beyond Yanni to get up, come around the desk and hit him. "I'd ask Strassen," he said, "but I don't think they want me near her. And I don't think she's got the time. So that leaves you, Yanni. You can fire me or you can prove I'm wrong and teach me why. But do it with logic. Psyching me doesn't do it."

"I haven't got the time!"

"No one does. So make it. It doesn't take much, if you can see so clearly where I'm wrong. Two sentences are all I need. Tell me where it'll impact the next generation."

"Get the hell out of here."

"Am I fired?"

"No," Yanni snarled. Which was the friendliest thing staff had said to him in years.

So he did two tapes. One for Yanni. One the one he wished they would let him use. Because it taught him things. Because it let him see the whole set. Because, as Grant said, a skill was damned important to an azi. And he still could not work out the ethics of it—whether it was right to make a Theta get real pleasure out of the work instead of the approval. There was something moral involved. And there were basic structural problems in linking that way into an azi psychset, that was the trouble with it, and Yanni was right. An artificial psychset needed simple foundations, not complicated ones, or it got into very dangerous complexities. Deep-set linkages could become neuroses and obsessive behavior that could destroy an azi and be far more cruel than any simple boredom.

But he kept turning in the study designs for Yanni to see, when Yanni was in a mellow mood; and Yanni had been, now and again.

"You're a fool," was the best he got. And sometimes a paragraph on paper, outlining repercussions. Suggesting a study-tape out of Sociology.

He cherished those notes. He got the tapes. He ran them. He found mistakes. He built around them.

"You're still a fool," Yanni said. "What you're doing, son, is making your damage slower and probably deeper. But keep working. If you've got all this spare time I can suggest some useful things to do with it. We've got a glitch-up in a Beta set. We've got everything we can handle. The set is ten years old and it's glitching off one of three manual skills tapes. We think. The instructor thinks. You've got the case histories in this fiche. Apply your talents to that and see if you and Grant can come up with some answers." He went away with the fiche and the folder, with a trouble-shoot to run, which was hell and away more real work than Yanni had yet trusted him with. Which was, when he got it on the screen, a real bitch. The three azi had had enough tape run on them over the years to fill a page, and each one had been in a different application. But the glitch was a bad one. The azi were all under patch-tape, a generic calm-down-it's-not-your-fault, meaning three azi were waiting real-time in some anguish for some designer to come up with something to take their nameless distress and deal with it in a sensible way. God, it was months old. They were not on Cyteen. Local Master Supervisors had all had a hand in the analysis, run two fixes on one, and they had gone badly sour.

Which meant it was beyond ordinary distress. It was not a theoretical problem.

He made two calls, one to Grant. "I need an opinion."

One to Yanni. "Tell me someone else is working on this. Yanni, this is a probable wipe, for God's sake, give it to someone who knows what he's doing."

"You claim you do," Yanni said, and hung up on him.

"Damn you!" he yelled at Yanni after the fact.

And when Grant got there, they threw out everything they were both working on and got on it.

For three damnable sleep-deprived weeks before they comped a deep-set intersect in a skills tape. In all three.

"Dammit," he yelled at Yanni when he turned it in, "this is a mess, Yanni! You could have found this thing in a week. These are human beings, for God's sake, one of them's running with a botch-up on top of the other damage—"

"Well, you manage, don't you? I thought you'd empathize. Go do a fix."

"What do you mean, 'do a fix'? Run me a check!"

"This one's all yours. Do me a fix. You don't need a check."

He drew a long, a desperate breath. And stared at Yanni with the thought of breaking his neck. "Is this a real-time problem? Or is this some damn trick? Some damn exercise you've cooked up?"

"Yes, it's real-time. And while you're standing here arguing, they're still waiting. So get on it. You did that fairly fast. Let's see what else you can do."

"I know what you're doing to me, dammit! Don't take it out on the azi!"

"Don't you," Yanni said. And walked off into his inner office and shut the door.

He stood there. He looked desperately at Marge, Yanni's aide.

Marge gave him a sympathetic look and shook her head.

So he went back and broke the news to Grant.

And turned in the fix in three days.

"Fine," Yanni said. "I hope it works. I've got another case for you."

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