Cyteen

i

An announcement came through the public address in Wing One corridors—storm alert, Justin thought, ticking away at his keyboard on a problem while Grant got up to lean out the door and see what it was.

Then: "Justin," Grant said urgently. "Justin"

He shoved back and got up.

Everything in the hall had stopped, standing and listening.

". . . in Novgorod" the PA said, "came in the form of briefs filed this morn-ing by Reseune lawyers on behalf of Ariane Emory, a minor child, seeking a Writ of Succession and an injunction against any Discovery proceedings of the Council against Reseune. The brief argues that the child, who will be nine in five days, is the legal person of Ariane Emory by the right of Parental Identity, that no disposition of Ariane Emory's property can be taken in any cause without suit brought against the child and her guardians. The second brief seeks an injunction against the activities of the Investigatory Commission on the grounds that their inquiries invade the privacy and compromise the welfare and property rights of a minor child.

"The news hit the capital as the Commission was preparing to file a bill requiring the surrender of records from Reseune Archives pertinent to the former Councillor, on the grounds that the records may contain information on other Gehenna-style projects either planned or executed.

"Mikhail Corain, leader of the Centrist party and Councillor of Citizens, declared: 'Its an obvious maneuver. Reseune has sunk to its lowest.'

"James Morley, chief counsel for Reseune, when told of the comment, stated: 'We had no wish to bring this suit. The child's privacy and well-being have been our primary considerations, from her conception. We cannot allow her to become a victim of partisan politics. She has rights, and we believe the court will uphold the point. There's no question about her identity. A simple lab test can prove that.'

"Reseune Administration has refused comment. ..."

ii

Ari thought she was crazy sometimes, because twice an hour she thought everyone was lying, and sometimes she thought they were not, that there really had been an Ari Emory before she was born.

But the evening when she could get out of bed and come in her robe to the living room with her arm still in a sling, uncle Denys said he had something to show her and Florian and Catlin; and he had a book filled with paste-in pictures and old faxes.

He had them sit at the table, himself on her left and Florian and then Catlin on her right, and he opened the book on the table, putting it mostly in front of her, a book of photos and holos, and there were papers, dim and showing their age. He showed her a picture of her, standing in the front portico of the House with a woman she had never seen.

"That's Ari when she was little," Uncle Denys said. "That's her maman. Her name was Olga Emory." There was another picture uncle Denys turned to. "This is James Carnath. That was your papa." She knew that. It was the picture maman had once showed her.

The girl in the picture looked just exactly like her, but it was not her maman; but it was the right name for her papa. It was all wrong. It was her standing there. It was. But the front doors were not like that. Not quite. Not now.

She felt her stomach more and more upset. Uncle Denys turned the page and showed her pictures of old Reseune, Reseune before the House was as big, before the Town was anything but old barracks, and the fields were real small. There were big buildings missing, like the AG barn, and like a lot of the mills and half the town, and that Ari was walking with her maman down a Town Road that was the same road, toward a Town that was very different.

There was that Ari, sitting in her same classroom, with a different teacher, with a kind of screwed-up frown on her face while she looked at a jar that was like her saying Ugh, she could feel it right in her stomach and feel her own face the way it would be.

But she never had a blouse like that, and she never wore a pin like that in her hair.

She felt herself all sick inside, because it was like it was all real, maman had tricked her, and she was stupid like she had been afraid she was, in front of Catlin and Florian, in front of everybody. But she couldn't not look at these things, she couldn't do anything but sit there with her arm aching in the dumb cast and herself feeling light-headed and silly being out here in the dining room in her robe and her slippers, looking at herself in a place that was Reseune a long, long time ago.

A long time ago.

That Ari had been born—that long ago. Her maman's friend, uncle Denys had called her; and she had not thought when he said that, just how old maman was.

A hundred thirty-four years. No. A hundred forty-one, no, two, she was real close to her ninth birthday and maman was that old now.

A hundred forty-two. . . .

She was close to her ninth birthday and maman's letter had to come, any day now, and maybe maman would explain some of these things, maybe maman would send her all the letters maman must have written too, all at once, like hers. . . .

"There's your maman," uncle Denys said, and showed her a picture of her and a bunch of other kids all playing, and there was this pretty woman with black hair, with her maman's mouth and her maman's eyes, only young, with her, but she was about five or six. A baby. Maman had had another Ari, first, a long, long time ago.

It hurt to see maman so pretty and not with her at all, not really, but with that other baby. It had stopped hurting until then. And it made her throat ache.

Uncle Denys stopped and hugged her head against his shoulder gently. "I know. I know, Ari. I'm sorry."

She shoved away. She pulled the book over so it was in front of her and she looked at that picture till she could see everything about it, what her maman was wearing, what that Ari was wearing, that proved it was not something she had forgotten, it was really not her, because everything about it was old-fashioned and long-ago.

"That's your uncle Giraud," uncle Denys said, pointing to a gangly boy.

He looked like anybody. He didn't look like he was going to grow up to be nasty as Giraud was. He looked just like any kid.

She turned the page. There was that Ari with her maman, and a lot of other grown-ups.

Then there was her with Florian and Catlin, but it was not them, they were all in the middle of old-time Reseune.

She felt another deep chill, like when she flew off Horse and hit the ground. She felt scared, and looked at Florian and Catlin for how they saw it.

They didn't ask. They wouldn't ask. They were being proper with uncle Denys and not interrupting, but she knew they were confused and they were upset, because they had both gone completely azi, paying real close attention.

She couldn't even reach to Florian to squeeze his hand, it was the side with the cast.

"Do you recognize them?" uncle Denys asked.

"Who are they?" Ari asked, angry, terribly angry of a sudden, because it was not making sense, and she was scared, she knew Florian and Catlin were scared, everything was inside out.

"You're not the only one who's come back," Denys said very softly. "There was one other Catlin and one other Florian: they belonged to that other Ari Emory. They protected her all their lives. Do you understand me, Florian? Do you, Catlin?"

"No, ser," Florian said; and: "No, ser," Catlin said. "But it makes sense."

"Why does it make sense?" uncle Denys asked.

"We're azi," Catlin said, the most obvious thing in the world. "There could be a lot of us."

But I'm a CIT, Ari thought, upset all the way through. Aren't I?

"You're Alphas," uncle Denys said, "and, no, it's not ordinary with Alphas. You're too difficult to keep track of. You change so fast. But you're still a lot easier to duplicate than a CIT, you're right, because azi start with very specific tape. Teaching Ari has been—ever so much harder."

Teaching me. Teaching me—what? Why?

But she knew that. She understood all across the far and wide of it, that uncle Denys was saying what she was, and not saying it to her, but to Florian and Catlin, because it was something she could not understand as easily as her azi could.

Do you know, maman had asked her, the day she saw the babies, the difference between a CIT and an azi?

I only thought I did.

Denys left that page open a long time. "Ari," he said. "Do you understand me?"

She said nothing. When you were confused, it was better to let somebody else be a fool, unless you were the only one who knew the question.

And uncle Denys knew. Uncle Denys was trying to tell her what he knew, in this book, in these pictures that weren't her.

''Your maman taught you," uncle Denys said, "and now I do. You're definitely a CIT. Don't mistake that. You're you, Ari, you're very exactly you, exactly the way Florian is Florian and Catlin is Catlin, and that's hard to do. It was ever so hard to get this far. Ari was a very, very special little girl, and you're taking up everything she had, everything she could do, everything she held and owned, which is a very great deal, Ari. That you hold Florian and Catlin's contracts is all part of that, because you all belong together, you always have, and it wouldn't be right to leave them out. You own a major share of Reseune itself, you own property enough to make you very, very rich, and you've already proved to us who you are, we haven't any doubt at all. But remember that I told you Reseune has enemies. Now some of those enemies want to come in here and take things that belong to you—they don't even know there is an Ari, you understand. They think she died, and that was all of her, and they can just move in and take everything that belonged to her—that belongs to you, Ari. Do you know what a lawsuit is? Do you know what it means to sue somebody in court?"

She shook her head, muddled and scared by what uncle Denys said, getting too much, far too much from every direction.

"You know what judges are?"

"Like in a court. They get all the records and stuff. They can send you to hospital." ,

"A civil suit, Ari: that's different than a criminal case. They don't send you to hospital, but they can say what's so and who owns what. We've lodged a suit in the Supreme Court, in Novgorod, to keep these people from taking everything you own. They can't, you understand, if somebody owns it, really owns it. The only thing is, people don't know you exist. You have to show up in that court and prove you're really Ari and that you have a right to Ari's CIT-number."

"That's stupid!"

"How do they know you're not just some little girl all made up and telling a lie?"

"I know who I am!"

"How do you prove it to people who've never seen you?"

She sat there trying to think. She had the shivers. "You tell them."

"Then they'll say we're lying. We can send the genetic records, that can prove it, beyond any doubt. But they could say we just got that out of the lab, because of course the Ari geneset is there, isn't it, because you were born out of the lab. They could say there isn't any little girl alive, and she hasn't got any right to anything. That's what could happen. That's why you have to go, and stand in that court, and tell the judges that's your genetic record, and you're you, Ariane Emory, and you own all that stuff these people in the Council want to take."

She looked at her right, at Florian and Catlin, at two pale, very azi faces. And back at uncle Denys. "Could they take Florian and Catlin?"

"If you don't exist, you can't hold a contract, can you?"

"That's stupid, uncle Denys! They're stupid!"

"You just have to prove that, don't you? Dear, I wish to hell I could have saved this till you felt better. But there isn't any time. These people are moving fast, and there's going to be a law passed in Council to take everything, everything that belongs to you, because they don't know about you. You've got to go to Novgorod and tell the judges it does belong to you and they can't do that."

"When?"

"In a few days. A very few days. There's more to it, Ari. Because you've been a secret, your enemies haven't known about you either. If you go to Novgorod they will know. And you'll be in very real danger from then on. Most of them would sue you in court and try to take what you've got, that kind of enemy; but some of them would kill you if they could. Even if you're a little girl. They're that kind."

"Ser," Catlin said, "who?"

"A man named Rocher, for one. And a few random crazy people we don't know the names of. We wish we did. If Ari goes to Novgorod she'll have a lot of Security with her. Armed Security. They can stop that kind of thing. But you have to watch out for it, you have to watch very closely, and for God's sake, leave any maneuvering to the senior Security people, you two. Just cover Ari."

"Do we have weapons, ser?"

"I don't think Novgorod would understand that. No. Just cover Ari. Watch around you. Keep her safe. That's all."

Ari drew a deep breath. "What am I supposed to do?"

"You talk to the judges. You go in front of the court, you answer their questions about when you were born, and where, and what your name and number are. Uncle Giraud will be there. Giraud knows how to argue with them."

She went cold and clammy all over. "I don't want Giraud! I want you to come."

"Dear, uncle Giraud is especially good at this. He'll show them all the records, and they won't have any trouble believing you. They may take a little cell sample. That'll sting a little if they do that, but you're a brave girl, you won't mind that. You know what that's for. It proves you're not lying. Everyone in the world has seen pictures of Ari Emory—you won't have any trouble with that. But there will be other people to deal with. People not in the court. Newspeople. Reporters. There'll be a lot of that. But you're a little girl, and they can't be nasty, they'd better not be, or your uncle Giraud will know exactly what to do with them."

She had never thought it could be a good thing to have uncle Giraud. But uncle Denys was right, uncle Giraud would be a lot better at that.

If he wasn't with the Enemy in the first place. Things were getting more and more complicated.

"Florian and Catlin are going for sure?"

"Yes."

"The judges can't just take them, can they?"

"Dear, the law can do anything; but the law won't take what belongs to you. You have to prove you're you, that's the whole problem. That's what you're going there for, and if you don't, nothing is safe here either."

So Ari sat in a leather seat in RESEUNE ONE, a seat so big her feet hardly reached the floor; and Florian and Catlin sat in the two seats opposite her, taking turns looking out the windows, only she had one right beside her, with the real outback under them for as far as you could see.

They would land at Novgorod, they would land at the airport there, but before they landed they were going to see the city from the air; they would see the spaceport, and the Hall of State and the docks where all the barges went, that chugged past Reseune on the Novaya Volga. They were going to see Swigert Bay and the Ocean. The pilot kept telling them where they were and what they were looking at, which right now was the Great West Sink, which was a brown spot on the maps and a brown place from the air with a lake in the middle. She could talk back to the pilot if she pushed a button by her seat.

"We're coming up on the Kaukash Range on the right side," the pilot said.

They had let her go up front for a little while. She got to see out past the pilot and the co-pilot, when they were following the Novaya Volga.

The pilot asked if she liked flying. She said yes, and the pilot told her what a lot of the controls were, and showed her how the plane steered, and what the computers did.

That was the best thing in days. She had him show Florian and Catlin, until uncle Giraud said she had better sit down and study her papers and let the pilot fly the plane. The pilot had winked at her and said she ought to, they were spilling uncle Giraud's drinks.

She wished she had her arm out of the cast, because that was a nuisance; and gave uncle Giraud an excuse to tell her she ought to stay belted-in in her seat. .

Most of all she wished they were all through the court business and the reporters, and they could get to the things uncle Denys told her they were going to get to see while they were in Novgorod. That would be fun. She was going to have her birthday in Novgorod. She wanted to prove everything and then get to that part of it.

Most of all she was worried what would happen if uncle Denys was wrong.

Or if uncle Giraud couldn't prove who she was.

The court couldn't make a mistake, uncle Denys said, over and over. Not with the tests they had, and the law was the law: they couldn't take what belonged to somebody without suing, and then it was going to be real hard for them to sue a little girl. Especially because Giraud had a lot of friends in the Defense Bureau, who would classify everything.

That meant Secret.

The reporters are going to be a bigger problem than the court, uncle Denys had said. The reporters will pull up a lot of the old pictures of the first Ari. You have to expect that. They'll talk about a little girl Reseune birthed a long time ago, a PR off Estelle Bok. It didn't work right. You've beaten all that little girl's problems. If they say you're like that other little girl they're being nasty, and you answer them that you're you, and if they doubt that they can wait and see how you grow up. I've no doubt at all that you can handle that sort of thing. You don't have to be polite if reporters start being nasty, but you can get a lot more out of them if you act like a nice little kid.

It sounded like a fight. That was what it sounded like. She figured that. It was one of the only times uncle Denys had ever talked to her about Working people, but uncle Denys was good at it, and she was sure he knew what was what.

The Enemy cheats, Catlin always said.

It worried her, about whether the Court ever did.

"Sera," Catlin had come to whisper in her ear that night when they were all going to bed, Florian and Catlin on their pallets, and herself in her own bed with her arm propped up again, "sera, who's our side in this?"

Florian was usually the one who asked all the questions. That was one of Catlin's best ever.

And Catlin waited while she thought about it, and motioned Catlin up close and whispered back: "I am. I'm your side. That's all. You never mind what anybody says, that's still the Rule. They can't say I'm anybody else, no matter what."

So Catlin and Florian relaxed.

She looked at the papers uncle Giraud had given her to study about what the reporters and the judges could ask, and wished she could.

iii

There was very little work getting done in Wing One, or likely anywhere else in Reseune on this morning, and if there was a portable vid no matter how old not checked out or rented anywhere in the House and the Labs, it was well hidden.

Justin and Grant had theirs, the office door shut—some of the junior designers were clustered together in the lounge downstairs, but the ones in some way involved with the Project sealed themselves in offices alone or with closest associates, and nothing stirred, not even for phone calls.

The cameras were the official ones in the Supreme Court, no theatrics, just the plain, uncommentaried coverage the Supreme Court allowed.

Lawyers handed papers to clerks, and the Court proceeded to ask the clerk if there were any absences or faults in the case.

Negative.

There was a very young girl sitting with her back to the cameras, at the table beside Giraud, not fidgeting, not acting at all restless through the tedium of the opening.

Listening, Justin reckoned. Probably with that very memorable frown.

The news-services had been right on it when the plane landed, and a single news-feed from the official camera set-up at the airport reception lounge had given the news-services their first look at Ari Emory, no questions allowed, until after the ruling.

Ari had stood there with her good hand in uncle Giraud's, the other arm in a cast, wearing a pale blue and very little-girl suit, with black-uniformed Florian and Catlin very stiff and looking like kids in dress-up, overkill in mimicking elder Ari—until a piece of equipment clanked, and eyes went that way and bodies stiffened like the same muscle moved them.

"That'll send chills down backs," Justin had muttered to Grant. "Damn. That is them, no way anyone can doubt it. No matter what size they are."

The news-services had done archive filler after, brought up split-screen comparisons between the first and second Ari and Catlin and Florian, from old news photos; and showed a trio so much like them it was like two takes in slightly different lighting, Ari in a different suit, standing beside Geoffrey Carnath instead of Giraud Nye.

"My God, it's right down to mannerisms," he had murmured, meaning the frown on Ari's face. On both Ari-faces. The way of holding the head. "Have they taught her that?"

"They could have," Grant had said, unperturbed. "All those skill tapes. They could do more than penmanship, couldn't they? —But a lot of us develop like mannerisms."

Not in a CIT, had been his internal objection. Damn, they've got to have done that. Skill tapes. Muscle-learning. You could get that off a damn good actress.

Or Ari herself. No telling what kind of things Olga recorded. —Are they going that far with the Rubin kid?

He watched that still, attentive little girl at the table, in front of the panel of judges. They had not let Florian and Catlin sit with her. Just Giraud and the team of lawyers.

"Reseune declines to turn genetic records over to the court," the Chief Justice observed. "Is that the case?"

"I need not remind the Court," Giraud said, rising, "that we're dealing with a Special's geneset. ..."

The Justices and uncle Giraud talked back and forth and Ari listened, listened very hard, and remembered not to fidget, uncle Giraud had told her not.

They were talking about genetics, about phenotype and handprints and retinal scan. They had done all the tests but the skin sample already, when she checked in with the court ID office.

"Ariane Emory," the Chief Justice said, "would you come stand with your uncle, please?"

She got up. She didn't have to follow protocols, uncle Giraud said, the Court didn't expect her to be a lawyer. She only had to be very polite with them, because they were lawyers themselves, the ones who solved all the most difficult cases in Union, and you had to be respectful.

"Yes, ser," she said, and she gave a little bow like Giraud's, and walked up to the railing, having to look up at them. There were nine of them. Like Councillors. She had heard about the Court in her tapes. Now she was here. It was interesting.

But she wished it weren't her case.

"Do they call you Ari?" the Chief Justice asked.

"Yes, ser."

"How old are you, Ari?"

"I'm four days from nine."

"What's your CIT number, Ari?"

"CIT 201 08 0089, but it's not PR." Uncle Giraud told her that in the paper she had studied.

The Justice looked at his papers, and flipped through things, and looked up again. "Ari, you grew up at Reseune."

"Yes, ser. That's where I live."

"How did you get that cast on your arm?"

Just answer that, Giraud had said, about any question on her accident. So she said: "I fell off Horse."

"How did that happen?"

"Florian and Catlin and I sneaked out of the House and went down to the Town; and I climbed up on Horse, and he threw me over the fence."

"Is Horse a real horse?"

"He's real The labs birthed him. He's my favorite." She felt good, just remembering that little bit before she went over the fence, and the Justice was interested, so she said: "It wasn't his fault. He's not mean. I just surprised him and he jumped. So I went off."

"Who was supposed to be watching you?"

"Security."

The Justice looked funny at that, like she had let out more than she intended; and all the Justices thought so, and some thought it was terribly funny. But that could get out of control and make somebody mad, so she decided she had better be careful.

"Do you go to school?"

"Yes, ser."

"Do you like your teachers?"

He was trying to Work her, she decided. Absolutely. She put on her nicest face. "Oh, they're fine."

"Do you do well on tests?"

"Yes," she said. "I do all right."

"Do you understand what it means to be a PR?"

There was the trap question. She wanted to look at uncle Giraud, but she figured that would tell them too much. So she looked straight up at the Justice. "That means I'm legally the same person."

"Do you know what legally means?"

"That means if I get certified nobody can say I'm not me and take the things that belong to me without going through the court; and I'm a minor. I'm not old enough to know what I'm going to need out of that stuff, or what I want, so it's not fair to sue me in court, either."

That got him. "Did somebody tell you to say that?"

"Would you like it if somebody called you a liar about who you are? Or if they were going to come in and take your stuff? They can tell too much about you by going through all that stuff, and that's not right to do to somebody, especially if she's a kid. They can psych you if they know all that stuff."

Got him again.

"God," Justin said, and lifted his eyes above his hand, watching while Giraud got Ari back to her seat.

"She certainly answered that one," Grant said.

Mikhail Corain glared at the vid in his office and gnawed his lip till it bled.

"Damn, damn, damn," he said to his aide. "How do we deal with that? They've got that kid primed—"

"A kid," Dellarosa said, "can't take priority over national security."

"You say it, I say it, the question is what's the Court going to hold? Those damn fossils all came in under Emory's spoils system—the head of Justice is Emory's old friend. Call Lu in Defense."

"Again?"

"Again, dammit, tell him it's an emergency. He knows damn well what I want—you go over there. No, never mind, I will. Get a car."

". . . watch the hearing," the note from Giraud Nye had read, simply. And Secretary Lu watched, fist under chin, his pulse elevated, his elbows on an open folio replete with pictures and test scores.

A bright-eyed little girl with a cast on her arm and a scab on her chin. That part was good for the public opinion polls.

The test scores were not as good as the first Ari's. But they were impressive enough.

Corain had had his calls in from the instant he had known about the girl. And Lu was not about to return them—not until he had seen the press conference scheduled for after the hearing, the outcome of which was, as far as he was concerned, a sure thing.

Of paramount interest were the ratings on the newsservices this evening.

Damned good bet that Giraud Nye had leaned on Catherine Lao of Information, damned good bet that Lao was leaning on the newsservices—Lao was an old and personal friend of Ari Emory.

Dammit, the old coalition seemed strangely alive, of a sudden. Old acquaintances reasserted themselves. Emory had not been a friend—entirely. But an old and cynical military man, trying to assure Union's simple survival, found himself staring at a vid-screen and thinking thoughts which had seemed, a while ago, impossible.

Fool, he told himself.

But he pulled out a piece of paper and initiated a memo for the Defense Bureau lawyers:

Military implications of the Emory files outweigh other considerations; draft an upgrading of Emory Archives from Secret to Utmost Secret and prepare to invoke the Military Secrets Act to forestall further legal action.

And to his aide: I need a meeting with Harad. Utmost urgency.

Barring, of course, calamity in the press conference.

iv

"Ari," the Chief Justice said. "Would you come up to the bar?"

It was after lunch, and the Justice called her right after he had called uncle Giraud.

So she walked up very quiet and very dignified, at least as much as she could with the cast and the sling, and the Justice gave a paper to the bailiff.

"Ari," the Justice said, "the Court is going to certify you. There's no doubt who your genemother was, and that's the only thing that's at issue in this Court today. You have title to your genemother's CIT number.

"As to the PR designation, which is a separate question, we're going to issue a temporary certification—that means your card won't have it, because Reseune is an Administrative Territory, and has the right to determine whether you're a sibling or a parental replicate—which in this case falls within Reseune's special grants of authority. This court doesn't feel there's cause to abrogate those rights on an internal matter, where there is no challenge from other relatives.

"You have title to all property and records registered and accrued to your citizen number: all contracts and liabilities, requirements of performance and other legal instruments not legally lapsed at the moment of death of your predecessor are deemed to continue, all contracts entered upon by your legal guardian in your name thereafter and until now are deemed effective, all titles held in trust in the name of Ariane Emory under that number are deemed valid and the individuals within this Writ are deemed legally identical, excepting present status as a minor under guardianship.

"Vote so registered, none dissenting. Determination made and entered effective as of this hour and date."

The gavel came down. The bailiff brought her the paper, and it was signed and sealed by the whole lot of judges. Writ of Certification, it said at the top. With her name: Ariane Emory.

She gave a deep breath and gave it to uncle Giraud when he asked for it.

"It's still stupid," she whispered to him.

But she was awfully glad to have it, and wished she could keep it herself, so uncle Giraud wouldn't get careless and lose it.

The reporters were not mean. She was real glad about that, too. She figured out in a hurry that there weren't any Enemies with them, just a lot of people with notebooks, and people with cameras; so she told Catlin and Florian: "You can relax, they're all right," and sat on the chair they let her have because she said she was tired and her arm hurt.

She could swing her feet, too. Act natural, Giraud had said. Be friendly. Don't be nasty with them: they'll put you on the news and then everybody across Union will know you're a nice little girl and nobody should file lawsuits and bring Bills of Discovery against you.

That made perfect sense.

So she sat there and they wrote down questions and passed them to the oldest reporter, questions like: "How did you break your arm?" all over again.

"Ser Nye, can you tell us what a horse is?" somebody asked next, out loud, and she thought that was funny, of course people knew what a horse was if they listened to tapes. But she was nice about it:

"I can do that," she said. "Horse is his name, besides what he is. He's about—" She reached up with her hand, and decided that wasn't high enough. "Twice that tall. And brown and black, and he kind of dances. Florian knows. Florian used to take care of him. On Earth you used to ride them, but you had a saddle and bridle. I tried it without. That's how I fell off. Bang. Right over the fence."

"That must have hurt."

She swung her feet and felt better and better: she Had them. She liked it better when they didn't write the questions. It was easier to Work them. "Just a bit. It hurts worse now, sometimes. But I get my cast off in a few weeks."

But they went back to the written ones. "Do you have a lot of friends at Reseune? Do you play with other girls and boys?"

"Oh, sometimes." Don't be nasty, Giraud had said. "Mostly with Florian and Catlin, though. They're my best friends."

"Follow-up," somebody said. "Ser Giraud, can you tell us a little more about that?"

"Ari," Giraud said. "Do you want to answer? What do you do to amuse yourself?"

"Oh, lots of things. Finding things and Starchase and building things." She swung her feet again and looked around at Florian and Catlin. "Don't we?"

"Yes," Florian said.

"Who takes care of you?" the next question said.

"Nelly. My maman left her with me. And uncle Denys. I stay with him."

"Follow-up," a woman said.

Giraud read the next question. "What's your best subject?"

"Biology. My maman taught me." Back to that. News got to Fargone. "I sent her letters. Can I say hello to my maman? Will it go to Fargone?"

Giraud didn't like that. He frowned at her. No.

She smiled, real nice, while all the reporters talked together.

"Can it?" she asked.

"It sure can," someone called out to her. "Who is your maman, sweet?"

"My maman is Jane Strassen. It's nearly my birthday. I'm almost nine. Hello, maman!"

Because nasty uncle Giraud couldn't stop her, because Giraud had told her everybody clear across Union would be on her side if she was a nice little girl.

"Follow-up!"

"Let's save that for the next news conference," uncle Giraud said. "We have questions already submitted, in their own order. Let's keep to the format. Please. We've granted this news conference after a very stressful day for Ari, and she's not up to free-for-all questions, please. Not today."

"Is that the Jane Strassen who's director of RESEUNESPACE?"

"Yes, it is, the Jane Strassen who's reputed in the field for work in her own right, I shouldn't neglect to mention that, in Dr. Strassen's service. We can provide you whatever material you want on her career and her credentials. But let's keep to format, now. Let's give the child a little chance to catch her breath, please. Her family life is not a matter of public record, nor should it be. Ask her that in a few years. Right now she's a very over-tired little girl who's got a lot of questions to get through, and I'm afraid we're not going to get to all of them if we start taking them out of order. —Ari, the next question: what do you do for hobbies?"

Uncle Giraud was Working them, of course, and they knew it. She could stop him, but that would be trouble with uncle Giraud, and she didn't want that. She had done everything she wanted. She was safe now, she knew she was, because Giraud didn't dare do a thing in front of all these people who could tell things all the way to her maman, and who could find out things.

She knew about Freedom of the Press. It was in her Civics tapes.

"What for hobbies? I study about astronomy. And I have an aquarium. Uncle Denys got me some guppies. They come all the way from Earth. You're supposed to get rid of the bad ones, and you can breed ones with pretty tails. The pond fish would eat them. But I don't do that. I just put them in another tank, because I don't like to get them eaten. They're kind of interesting. My teacher says they're throw-backs to the old kind. My uncle Denys is going to get me some more tanks and he says I can put them in the den."

"Guppies are small fish," uncle Giraud explained.

People outside Reseune didn't get to see a lot of things, she decided.

"Guppies are easy," she said. "Anybody could raise them. They're pretty, too, and they don't eat much." She shifted in her chair. "Not like Horse."

v

There was a certain strange atmosphere in the restaurant in the North corridor—in the attitude of staff and patrons, in the fact that the modest-price eatery was jammed and taking reservations by mid-afternoon—and only the quick-witted and lucky had realized, making the afternoon calls for supper accommodations, that thoroughly extravagant Changes was the only restaurant that might have slots left. Five minutes more, Grant had said, smug with success, and they would have had cheese sandwiches at home.

As it was, it was cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, spiced pork roast with imported fruit, in a restaurant jammed with Wing One staff spending credit and drinking a little too much and huddling together in furtive speculations that were not quite celebration, not quite confidence, but a sense of Occasion, a sense after hanging all day on every syllable that fell from the mouth of a little girl in more danger than she possibly understood—that something had resulted, the Project that had monopolized their lives for years had unfolded unexpected wings and demonstrated—God knew what: something alchemical; or something utterly, simply human.

Strange, Justin thought, that he had felt so proprietary, so anxious—and so damned personally affected when the Project perched on a chair in front of all of Union, swung her feet like any little girl, and switched from bright chatter to pensive intelligence and back again—

Unscathed and still afloat.

The rest of the clientele in Changes might be startled to find the Warrick faction out to dinner, a case of the skeleton at the feast; there were looks and he was sure there was comment at Suli Schwartz's table.

"Maybe they think we're making a point," he said to Grant over the soup.

"Maybe," Grant said. "Do you care? I don't." Justin gave a humorless laugh. "I kept thinking—"

"What?"

"I kept thinking all through that interview, God, what if she blurts out something about: 'My friend Justin Warrick.'"

"Mmmn, the child has much too much finesse for that. She knew what she was doing. Every word of it."

"You think so."

"I truly think so."

"They say those test scores aren't equal to Ari's."

"What do you think?"

Justin gazed at the vase on the table, the single red geranium cluster that shed a pleasant if strong green-plant scent. Definite, bright, alien to a gray-blue world. "I think—she's a fighter. If she weren't, they'd have driven her crazy. I don't know what she is, but, God, I think sometimes, —God, why in hell can't they declare it a success and let the kid just grow up, that's all. And then I think about the Bok-clone thing, and I think—what happens if they did that? Or what if they drive her over the edge with their damn hormones and their damn tapes—? Or what if they stop now—and she can't—"

"—Integrate the sets?" Grant asked. Azi-psych term. The point of collation, the coming-of-age in an ascending pyramid of logic structures.

It fit, in its bizarre way. It fit the concept floating in his mind. But not that. Not for a CIT, whose value-structures were, if Emory was right and Hauptmann and Poley were wrong, flux-learned and locked in matrices.

"—master the flux," he said. Straight Emory theory, contrary to the Hauptmann-Poley thesis. "Control the hormones. Instead of the other way around."

Grant picked up his wine-glass, held it up and looked at it. "One glass of this. God. Revelation. The man accepts flux-theory." And then a glance in Justin's direction, sober and straight and concerned. "You think it's working—for Emory's reasons?"

"I don't know anymore. I really don't know." The soup changed taste on him, went coppery and for a moment unpleasant; but he took another spoonful and the feeling passed. Sanity reasserted itself, a profound regret for a little girl in a hell of a situation. "I keep thinking—if they pull the program from under her now– Where's her compass, then? When you spend your life in a whirlwind—and then the wind dies down—there's all this quiet—this terrible quiet—"

He was not talking about Ari, suddenly, and realized he was not. Grant was staring at him, worriedly, and he was caught in a cold clear moment, lamplight, Grant, the smell of geranium, in a dark void where other faces hung in separate, lamplit existence.

"When the flux stops," he said, "when it goes null—you feel like you've lost all contact with things. That nothing makes sense. Like all values going equal, none more valid than any other. And you can't move. So you devise your own pressure to make yourself move. You invent a flux-state. Even panic helps. Otherwise you go like the Bok clone, you just diffuse in all directions, and get no more input than before."

"Flow-through," Grant said. "Without a supervisor to pull you out. I've been there. Are we talking about An? Or are you telling me something?"

"CITs," Justin said. "CITs. We can flux-think our flux-states too, endless subdivisions. We tunnel between realities." He finished his soup and took a sip of wine. "Anything can throw you there—like a broken hologram, any piece of it the matrix evokes the flux. The taste of orange juice. After today—the smell of geraniums. You start booting up memories to recollect the hormone-shifts, because when the wind stops, and nothing is moving, you start retrieving old states to run in—am I making sense? Because when the wind stops, you haven't got anything else. Bok's clone became a musician. A fair one. Not great. But music is emotion. Emotional flux through a math system of tones and ratios. Flux and flow-through state for a brain that might have dealt with hyperspace."

"Except they never took the pressure off Bok's clone," Grant said. "She was always news, to the day she died."

"Or it was skewed, chaotic pressure, piling up confusions. You're brilliant. You're a failure. You're failing us. Can you tell us why you're such a disappointment? I wonder if anyone ever put any enjoyment loop into the Bok clone's deep-sets."

"How do you do that," Grant asked, "when putting it in our eminently sensible sets—flirts with psychosis? I think you teach the subject to enjoy the adrenaline rushes. Or to produce pleasure out of the flux itself instead of retrieving it out of the data-banks."

The waiter came and deftly removed the empty soup-bowls, added more wine to the glasses.

"I think," Justin said uncomfortably, "you've defined a masochist. Or said something." His mind kept jumping between his own situation, Jordan, the kid in the courtroom, the cold, green lines of his programs on the vid display, the protected, carefully stressed and de-stressed society of the Town, where the loads were calculated and a logical, humane, human-run system of operations forbade overload.

Pleasure and pain, sweet.

He reached for the wine-glass, and kept his hand steady as he sipped it, set it down again as the waiters brought the main course.

He was still thinking while he was chewing his first bite, and Grant held a long, long silence.

God, he thought, do I need a state of panic to think straight?

Am I going off down a tangent to lunacy, or am I onto something?

"I'm damn tempted," he said to Grant finally, "to make them a suggestion about Ari."

"God," Grant said, and swallowed a bite in haste. "They'd hyperventilate. —You're serious. What would you suggest to them?"

"That they get Ari a different teacher. At least one more teacher, someone less patient than John Edwards. She isn't going to push her own limits if she has Edwards figured out, is she? She's got a whole lot of approval and damned little affection in her life. Which would you be more interested in, in the Edwards set-up? Edwards is a damned nice fellow—damned fine teacher, does wonders getting the students interested; but if you're Ari Emory, what are you going to work for—Edwards' full attention—or a test score?"

Grant quirked a brow, genuine bemusement. "You could be right."

"Damn, I know I'm right. What in hell was she looking for in the office?" He remembered then what he had thought of when they made the reservations, that Security could find them, Security could bug the damned geranium for all he knew. The thought came with its own little adrenaline flux. A reminder he was alive. "The kid wants attention, that's all. And they've just given her the biggest adrenaline high she's had in years. Sailing through the interview. Everyone pouring attention on her. She's happier than she's been in her poor manipulated life. How can Edwards fight that when she gets back? What's he got to offer, to keep her interested in her studies, against that kind of rush? They need somebody who can get her attention, not somebody who lets her get his." He shook his head and applied his knife to the roast. "Damn. It's not my problem, is it?"

"I'd strongly suggest you not get into it," Grant said. "I'd suggest you not mention it to Yanni."

"The problem is, no one wants to be the focus of her displeasure," Justin said. "No one wants to stand in that hot spot, no more than you or I do. Ari always did have a temper—the cold sort. The sort that knew how to wait. I'm not sure how far it went, I never knew her that well. But senior staff did. Didn't they?"

vi

They got out of the car with Security pouring out of the other cars, and Ari stepped up on the walk leading to the glass doors, with uncle Giraud behind her and Florian and Catlin closing in tight to protect her from the crush of their Security people and the reporters.

The doors opened. She could see that, but she could not see over the shoulders around her. Sometimes they frightened her, even if it was her they had come to see and even if it was her they were trying to protect.

She was afraid they were going to step on her, that was how close it was; and she was still bruised and sore.

They had driven around and seen the docks and the Volga where it met Swigert Bay, and they had seen the spaceport and places that Ari would have given a great deal to have gotten out to see, but uncle Giraud had said no, there were too many people and it was too hard.

Like at the hotel, where they had spent the night in a huge suite, a whole floor all to themselves; and where people had jammed up in the lobby and around their car. That had scared her. It scared her in the Hall of State when they were stopped in the doors and they started to close while she was in them; but Catlin shot out a hand and stopped them and they got through, all of them.

The Hall of State was the first thing they had really gotten to see at all, because there were all these people following them around, and all the reporters.

It was the way it looked in the tapes, it was huge and it echoed till it made you dizzy when you were looking around at it, with all the people up on the balconies looking down at them: it was real, the way the Court had been just a place in a tape, and now she knew what the room at the top of the steps was going to look like the moment uncle Giraud told her that was where the Nine met.

The noise died down. People were all talking, but they were not shouting at each other, and the Security people had put the reporters back, so they could walk and look at things.

Uncle Giraud took her and Florian and Catlin upstairs where she shook hands with Nasir Harad, the Chairman of the Nine: he was white-haired and thin and there was a lot of him that he didn't give away, she could tell that the way she could tell that there was something odd about him, the way he kept holding her hand after she had shaken his, and the way he looked at her like he wanted something.

"Uncle Giraud," she whispered when they were going through the doors into the Council Chamber, "he was funny, back there."

"Shush," he said, and pointed to the big half-circle desk where all the Councillors would sit if they were here.

It was funny, anyway, to be asking Giraud whether anybody was a friendly or not. She looked at what he was telling her, which seat was which, and where Giraud sat when he was on Council—that was Science, she knew that: they had driven past the Science Building, and Giraud said he had an office there, and one in the Hall of State, but he wasn't there a lot of the time, he had secretaries and managers to run things.

He had Security push a button that opened the wall back, and she stood there staring while the Council Chamber opened right into the big Council Hall, becoming a room to the side of the seats, with the Rostrum in front of the huge wall uncle Giraud said was made out of stone from the Volga banks, all rough and red sandstone, just like it was a riverside.

The seats all looked tiny in front of that.

"This is where the laws are made," uncle Giraud said, and his voice echoed, like every footstep. "That's where the Council President and the Chairman sit, up there on the Rostrum."

She knew that. She could tape-remember the room full, with people walking up and down the aisles. Her heart beat fast.

"This is the center of Union," uncle Giraud said. "This is where people work out their differences. This is what makes everything work."

She had never heard uncle Giraud talk like that, never heard uncle Giraud talk in that quiet voice that said these things were important. He sounded like Dr. Edwards, somehow, doing lessons for her.

He took her back outside then, where it was noisy and Security made room for them. Down the stairs then. She could see cameras set up down below.

"We're going to do a short interview," uncle Giraud told her, "and then we're going to have lunch with Chairman Harad. Is that all right?"

"What's going to be for lunch?" she asked. Food sounded good. She was not so sure about Chairman Harad.

"Councillor," an older woman said, coming up to them, and put her hand on uncle Giraud's sleeve and said: "Private. Quickly. Please."

It was some kind of trouble. Ari knew it, the woman was giving it off like she was about to explode with worry, and Giraud froze up just a second and then said: "Ari. Stand here."

They talked together, and the woman's back was to them. The noise blurred everything out.

But uncle Giraud came back very fast, and he was upset. His face was all pale.

"Sera," Florian said, very fast, very soft, like he wanted her to say what to do. But she didn't know where the trouble was coming from, or what it was.

"Ari," uncle Giraud said, and took her aside, along by the wall, the huge fountain, and down to the other end where there were some offices. Security moved very fast, Florian and Catlin went with her, and nobody was following them. There was just that voice-sound, everywhere, murmuring like the water.

Security opened the doors. Security told the people inside to go into a back office and they looked confused and upset.

But: "Wait out here," uncle Giraud said to Florian and Catlin, and she looked at them, scared, uncle Giraud hurrying her into an empty office with a desk and a chair. They were going to follow her, not certain what to do, but he said: "Out!" and she said: "It's all right."

He shut the door on them. They were scared. Uncle Giraud was scared. And she didn't know what was going on with everyone, except he took her by the shoulders and looked at her and said:

"Ari, —Ari, there's news on the net. It's from Fargone. I want you to listen to me. It's about your maman. She's died, Ari."

She just stood there. She felt his hands on her shoulders. He hurt her right one. He was telling her something crazy, something that couldn't be about maman, it didn't make sense.

"She died some six months ago, Ari. The news is just breaking over the station net. It just got here. They're picking it up out there, on their comlinks. That woman—heard it; and told me, and I didn't want you to hear it out there, Ari. Take a breath, sweet. Ari."

He shook her. It hurt. And she couldn't breathe for a moment, couldn't, till she got a breath all at once and uncle Giraud hugged her against him and patted her back and called her sweet. Like maman.

She hit him. He hugged her so she couldn't, and just went on holding her while she cried.

"It's a damn lie!" she yelled when she got enough breath.

"No." He hugged her hard. "Sweet, your maman was very old, very old, that's all. And people die. Listen to me. I'm going to take you home. Home, understand? But you've got to walk out of here. You've got to walk out of here past all those people and get to the car, you understand me? Security's going to get the car, we're going to go straight to the airport, we're going to fly home. But the first thing you have to do is get to the car. Can you do that?"

She listened. She listened to everything. Things went past her. But she stopped crying, and he set her back by the shoulders and wiped her face with his fingers, and smoothed her hair and got her to sit down in the chair.

"Are you all right?" he asked her, very, very quiet. "Ari?"

She got another gulp of air. And stared through him. She felt him pat her shoulder, and heard him go to the door and call Catlin and Florian.

"Ari's maman has died," she heard him say. "We just found it out."

More and more people. Florian and Catlin. If all of them believed it, then it was truer and truer. All the people out there. Maman was on the news. The whole of Union knew her maman had died.

Uncle Giraud came back and got down on one knee and got his comb and very carefully began to comb her hair. She messed it up and turned her face away. Go away.

But he combed it again, very gentle, very patient, and patted her on the shoulder when he finished. Florian brought her a drink and she took it in her good hand. Catlin just stood there with a worried look.

Dead is dead, that was what Catlin said. Catlin didn't know what to do with a CIT who thought it was something else.

"Ari," uncle Giraud said, "let's get out of here. Let's get you to the car. All right? Take my hand. There's no one going to ask you any questions. Let's just walk to the car."

She took his hand. She got up and she walked with her hand in Giraud's out into the office and outside again, where all the people were standing, far across the hall; and the voice-sound died away into the distance. She could hear the fountain-noise for the first time. Giraud shifted hands on her, and put his right one on her shoulder, and she walked with him, with Catlin in front of her and Florian on her other side, and all the Security people. But they didn't need them. Nobody asked any questions.

They were sorry, she thought. They were sorry for her.

And she hated that. She hated the way they looked at her.

It was a terribly long walk, until they were going through the doors and getting into the car, and Florian and Catlin piling in on the other side, while uncle Giraud got her into the back seat and sat down with her and held her.

Security closed the back doors, one of them got in and closed the doors and the car started up, fast and hard, the tunnel lights flashing past them.

"Ari," Giraud said to her on the plane, moving Florian out of his seat to sit down across the little table from her, once they were in the air. "I've got the whole story now. Your maman died in her office. She was at work. She had a heart attack. It was very fast. They couldn't even get her to hospital."

"Where are my letters?" she asked, looking straight at him, looking him right in the face.

Giraud looked at her straight too. "At Fargone. I'm sure she read them."

"Why didn't she answer me?"

Giraud took a moment. Then: "I don't know, Ari. I truly don't know. I don't know if I can ever answer that. I'll try to find out. But it takes time. Everything between here and Fargone—takes a long time."

She turned her face away from him, to the window where the outback showed hazy reds.

She had not had her maman for six months. And she had never felt it. She had gone on as if nothing had happened, as if everything was still the same. It made her ashamed. It made her mad. Terrible things could have happened besides that, and it would take that long to know about them.

"I want Ollie to come home," she said to Giraud.

"I'll see about it," Giraud said.

"Do it!"

"Ollie has a choice too," Giraud said. "Doesn't he? He's your maman's partner. He'll have taken care of your maman's business. He'll have seen that things went right. He's not a servant, sweet, he's a very good manager, and he'll be handling your maman's office and handling her affairs for her. He'd want to do that. But I'll send and ask him what he wants to do."

She swallowed at the lump in her throat. She wished Giraud would go away. She didn't know what she thought yet. She was still putting it together.

She thought of that long walk and everybody in the Hall staring at her. And she had to do that again at Reseune—everybody staring at her, everybody knowing what was going on.

It made her mad. It made her so mad it was hard to think.

But she needed to. She needed to know where people were lying to her.

And who would want to take things from her. And whether that was what had happened to maman.

Who are they, where are they, what have they got?

She looked at Giraud when he was not looking, just looked, a long time.

vii

The news played the clip over and over, the solemn, shaken girl in the blue suit, walking with Giraud and Florian and Catlin past the silent lines of newspeople and government workers, just the cameras running, and the quick, grim movement of Security flanking them as they passed through the hall.

Mikhail Corain watched it with his jaw clamped, watched the subsequent clips, some provided by Reseune, of Ari's childhood, of Jane Strassen's career, all interposed with the Court sequences, the interview after, and then back through the whole thing again, with interviews with the Reseune Information Bureau, with Denys Nye, with child psychologists—with solemn music and supered images and reportorial garbage making photo comparisons between the original Ariane standing solemnly at her mother's funeral, and the replicate's decorously pale, shock-stricken face in a still from the clip they played and played and played, dammit.

The whole of Cyteen was wallowing in the best damn theater Reseune could have asked for. That bitch Catherine Lao hardly had to bend any effort to key up the news-services, which had already been covering the Discovery bill—then the bombshell revelation that there was an Emory replicate filing for the right of Succession, no Bok clone, brilliant – then the court appearance, the interview—all points on the Expansionist side; Defense's invocation of the Military Secrets Act against the bill, a little coverage of Centrist objections, a possible gain against the tide—

Then Strassen's death, and the child getting the news, virtually on live cameras—

God, it was a circus.

A freighter docked at Cyteen Station and shot the content of its Fargone-acquired informational packet into the Cyteen data-sorters, the news-packet hit the Cyteen news-comp, the news-comp upgraded its information and scrolled it past the human watcher, and what might have been a passing-interest kind of story, the death of a Reseune administrator who was not even a known name to the average citizen, became the biggest media event since—

Since the murder at Reseune and the Warrick hearing.

The news had to be real: the data-storage of a starship—the whole system that carried news, electronic mail, publications, stockmarket data, financial records and statistics, ballots and civil records—was the entire data-flow of the last station visited, shot out of a starship's Black Box when it came to dock, as the current station's data spooled in. It was the system that kept the markets going and the whole of Union functioning: tampering with a Black Box was physically unlikely and morally unthinkable, and Fargone was six Cyteen months away, so there was no way in hell the information could have been timed for the impact it had—

God, he found himself sorting through every move he had made and every contact with Giraud Nye and Reseune he had had, wondering if there was any remotest chance he had been maneuvered into the Discovery bill at a time when Reseune was ready.

A lifetime of dealing with Emory, that was what made him have thoughts like that.

Like Strassen being murdered. Like the kind of ruthlessness that would use a kid the way they created and used this one—killing off one of their own, who was, God knew, a hundred forty-odd and already on the brink—

What was a life, to people who created and destroyed it as a matter of routine?

It was a question worth following up, quietly, by his own investigatory channels; but by everything he knew of RESEUNESPACE, existing in the same separate station as the Defense Bureau installation at Fargone with absolutely nothing to link them with Fargone Station except a twice-daily shuttle run, it was difficult to get at anything or anyone on the inside.

And the Centrist party could lose, considerably, by making the wrong move right now—by making charges that might not prove out, by going ahead with the bill that had to result in lengthy hearings and a court case involving the little girl who had turned seasoned reporters to emotional jelly and generated such a flood of inquiries the Bureau of Information had set aside special numbers for the case.

That was only the beginning. The ships that undocked from Cyteen Station this week were the start of a wave front that would go clear to Earth before it ran out of audience.

No way in hell to continue with the bill. Anything that involved drawn-out procedures could intersect with future events in very unpredictable ways.

While I consider the investigation ultimately necessary in the public interest, it seems inappropriate to proceed at this time. That was the sentence his speechwriters were still hammering out.

He was damned to look bad no matter what he did. He had thought of demanding an investigation into the child's welfare, and raising the issue of Reseune's creating the child precisely to shield those records.

The whole Centrist party suddenly found itself saddled with a serious position problem.

viii

Nelly helped her take the blouse off—it fastened on the bad shoulder, and the sleeve was cut and fastened back together, so it would come on and off over the cast. She had several of the same kind, and she wore things with jackets, that she could wear draped over the shoulder on the right side.

She felt better then. She had to take a shower with a plastic bag taped and sealed around her arm, and when she came out again, Nelly helped her take the tape off and get into her pajamas.

Nelly was upset, Ari could feel it, and she knew she shouldn't let her mad get loose with Nelly, she shouldn't let it get loose with anybody.

"I'm not going to bed yet," she said when Nelly wanted to put her there, and Nelly said:

"You're supposed to."

Which made her want to hit Nelly, or to cry, both of which were stupid. So she said, very patiently: "Nelly, let me alone and go to bed. Right now."

She had been to maman's memorial service today. She had gotten through it and not cried, at least she had not made a scene like Victoria Strassen, who had sniffed and hiccuped and finally Security had walked over and talked to her. She had never met aunt Victoria. She was already mad at her. Maman would have been mad at her, even if she was maman's half sister. Herself, she had sores on the inside of her mouth where she had bitten down to keep from crying, and she didn't mind, that was all right, it was better than aunt Victoria.

I want you to think about going, uncle Denys had said. You don't have to, understand. I'm sure your maman wouldn't mind one way or the other: you know how she felt about formal stuff– She's gone to the sun at Fargone: that's a spacer funeral, and your maman was a spacer before she lived at Reseune. But here in the House we do things a little differently: we go out in the East Garden, where all the memorials are, if the weather's such we can, or somewhere—and your maman's friends will tell a few stories about your maman, that's the way we do. I don't want you to go if it's going to upset you; but I thought you might want to hear those things, and it might help you learn about your maman, who she was when she was young, and all the things she did. If you don't want to, don't go. If you want to go and then change your mind, all you have to do is pull at my sleeve and you and I will just walk out the gate and no one will think anything about it: children don't always go to these things. Not even all the friends do. It just depends on the person, whether they feel they need to, you understand?

Florian and Catlin had not gone. They were too young and they were azi, uncle Denys said, and they didn't understand CIT funerals.

You don't want them to have to take tape for it, uncle Denys had said.

She was terribly, terribly glad it was over. She felt bruised inside the way she was outside, and uncle Denys kept giving her aspirin, and Dr. Ivanov had given her a shot he said would make her feel a little wobbly, but it would help her get through the services.

She wished he hadn't. She had wanted to hear some of it clearer, and it all rolled around in her head and echoed.

It still did, but she put Nelly out the door and told Nelly send Catlin and Florian and go to bed and take the tape Dr. Ivanov wanted her to have.

"Yes," Nelly said, looking miserable.

Ari bit her lip again. She wanted that badly to yell at her. Instead she went and fed her fish, and watched them chase after the food and dodge in and out of the weeds. There were a lot of babies. One of the big ones had had hers. And there was her prettiest male who was in the tank with all the ugly females, to see if the babies would be prettier. Florian could net him out for her and put him back in his regular tank: she was afraid of hurting him with the net, working with her left hand.

Tomorrow. She was not in the mood to do anything with them tonight.

Catlin and Florian came in, still in their uniforms, and looking worried, the way they had been constantly since they found out about maman. They didn't understand half how it felt, she knew that, but they were hurting all the same, because she hurt.

Florian had told her he felt terribly guilty about her arm and then her maman, and asked her if there was anything they could do.

She wished there were. But he couldn't be guilty, he just felt bad: she told him that, and asked him if he needed tape, the way she was supposed to if her azi came to her.

Uncle Denys had told her that.

"No," Florian had said, very quick, very definite. "We don't want to. What if you needed us, and we'd be in hospital? No. We don't want that."

Now:

"I want you to stay here tonight," she said when they came in.

"Yes, sera," Florian said; and: "We'll get our stuff," Catlin said, as if both of them were happy then.

She felt better when they were with her, when no one else was. It was hard to go out where there were people, like going out with no clothes on, like she was made out of glass and people would know everything inside her and find out everything she didn't want everyone to know. But she never felt that way with Florian and Catlin. They were her real friends, and they could sleep in the same room and sit around in just their pajamas together, even if Florian was a boy.

And with the door shut and with just them, she could stop having that knotted-up feeling that made her broken arm ache and made her feel sick at her stomach and tired, so tired of hurting.

"They said a lot of nice things about maman," she said when they had gotten their pallets made in the corner and gotten into their pajamas and settled down on the end of her bed.

A lot of the staff had really been maman's friends. A lot of them were really sorry and really missed her. Aunt Victoria was sorry and scared, when Security came and probably told her to stop crying or asked her to leave; then aunt Victoria had been really, really mad: so aunt Victoria had left the garden right after that, on her own, while Dr. Ivanov was telling how maman had run Wing One.

There were a lot of things she wished she could talk about out loud with Florian and Catlin. But she was going to tell them, that was no problem. It just took longer.

There had been a lot of upset people there, at the services, and it was strange how they Felt different than the reporters. The reporters had been sorry. Reseune was sorry too; but a lot of them Felt mad like her mad, which was maybe because it wasn't fair people had to die at all; but there had been so many different flavors of mad there, so many different flavors of being sorry, not at all like the reporters, but very strong, very complicated, all the way down past what she could pick up on their faces.

Justin and Grant had been there. Grant was one of the only azi.

A lot of grown people had said how maman had been their teacher, and they really loved her.

Dr. Schwartz had said maman and he used to fight a lot so loud that everybody in the halls could hear it, but that was because she never would take second best about anything; and he said whatever she set up at RESEUNESPACE was going to be all right, because that was the way maman always did things.

That made her remember her maman's voice echoing out of the bedroom, right through the walls: Dammit, Ollie— And made her feel warm all over, like maman was yelling at her: Dammit, straighten up, Ari, don't give me any of that nonsense. That doesn't get anywhere with me.

Like maman was back for a second. Like she was there, inside, just then. Or anytime she wanted to think about her. She wasn't at Fargone anymore.

Ollie was. And a lot of the Disappeareds might be.

She had thought on the plane coming home—who in the House just might know a lot of things.

And who she could scare into telling her.

ix

"You're a damn fool," Yanni said, and Justin looked him in the eye and said:

"That's no news. It's all there in the memo. Probably you think I have ulterior motives—which isn't the case. Nothing against John Edwards. Nothing against anyone. I don't even know I'm right. Just—" He shrugged. It was easy to go too far with Yanni, and he had probably gone there, high and wide. Time to stage a retreat, he reckoned. Fast. "I'll go get back to my business," he said. "I'll have the GY project in tomorrow morning."

"Stay put."

He sank back into the chair, under Yanni's scowl.

"You think the kid doesn't have enough stress," Yanni said.

"I don't mean that. You know I don't mean that."

"Son, Administration is just a little wrought up just now. So am I. I appreciate the fact you don't hate the kid, you really think you see something—but you know, we're all tired, we're all frayed around the edges, and I really hope you haven't gone anywhere else with this."

"No. I haven't."

"You know what I think you're doing?"

Not a rhetorical question. Yanni left a long, deathly silence for his answer.

"What, ser?"

"Sounds like your own damn craziness, to me, the same damn sink you come back to like a stone falls down, that's what it sounds like to me. Motivations and reward structures."

"I think I have a point."

"And you put it in writing." Yanni picked up the three-page memo and slid it into a slot at the edge of his desk. A red telltale flashed, and a soft hum meant even the ash had been scrambled. "That's a favor, son. I'm not supposed to wipe documents that bear on the Project. I just broke a regulation. As it happens—there are those of us who think you're right on the mark with this. And I like one of your arguments. . . if you don't mind my borrowing it for the upcoming staff meeting."

"Whatever you like. I'd just as soon you didn't mention the source."

Yanni gave him a long slow look. "Sometimes you worry me."

"I haven't got any ulterior motives. I don't want my name on it."

Another long look. "Motivational psych. —You haven't had the Rubin data. Just the structures. I told you I'd keep you off real-time. But I'd like you to do something for me, son. A favor. A real favor. I'm going to dump all Rubin's data on you. The whole pile."

"He's, what, two?"

"Not the replicate. The original."

"Why?"

"I'm not going to tell you that."

"What do you want out of it?"

"I'm not going to tell you that either."

"I get the idea."

"All right." Yanni leaned on his elbows, hands locked in front of him. "You run the problem. I'll tell you what I think about it."

"Is this an exercise?"

"I'm not going to tell you that."

"Dammit, Yanni—"

"You're right about the kid. She's smarter than those scores. You leave that in my lap. You take care of your work. I'll take care of the Project. All right?"

x

Uncle Denys took another helping of eggs. Ari picked at hers, mostly just moved them around, because breakfast upset her stomach.

"We could go out to eat tonight," uncle Denys said. "Would you like that?"

"No," she said. "I'm not hungry."

It was her ninth birthday. She just wanted to forget it was her birthday at all. She didn't want to complain about her stomach, because then uncle Denys would call Dr. Ivanov, and that would mean another shot, and her head being all fuzzy.

"Is there anything you do want?" uncle Denys said.

I want maman, she thought, mad, mad until she felt like she could throw the dishes off the table and break everything.

But she didn't.

"Ari, I know it's a terrible time for you. There's nothing I can do. I wish there were. Is there anything you'd like to do? Is there anything you want that I can get you?"

She thought. There was no good throwing an offer like that away. If you could get something, you got it, and you might be glad later. She had figured that out a long time ago.

"There is something I want for my birthday."

"What's that, dear?"

She looked uncle Denys right in his eyes, her best wishing-look. "Horse."

Uncle Denys took in his breath, real quick. "Ari, sweet, —"

"You asked."

"I'd think a broken arm is enough. No. Absolutely not."

"I want Horse."

"Horse belongs to Reseune, Ari. You can't just own him."

"That's what I want, anyway."

"No."

That hurt. She shoved her plate away, and got up from the table.

"Ari, I think a broken arm ought to do, don't you?"

She felt like crying, and when she did that she went to her room. So she went that way.

"Ari," uncle Denys said, "I want to talk with you."

She looked back at him. "I don't feel good. I'm going to bed."

"Come here."

She didn't. She went to her hall and shut the door.

And went and cried like a baby, lying on her bed, till she got mad and threw Poo-thing across the room.

Then she felt like something had broken, because Poo-thing came from maman.

But he wasn't real, anyway.

She heard somebody open the hall door, and then they opened hers. She figured it was uncle Denys, and she turned over and scowled; but it was Catlin and Florian, come to see what was the matter with her.

"Ser Denys wants you," Florian said in a hushed voice.

"Tell him go to hell."

Florian looked distressed. But he would go do that and he would get in a lot of trouble for her, she knew he would.

"Yes, sera."

"No," she said, and wiped her eyes and got up. "I will." She wiped her eyes again and walked past him and Catlin, and went out to the living room.

It was a mistake to walk out on uncle Denys. When she did that, she let him Work her, and now she was having to walk back into the living room he owned and be nice.

Stupid, stupid, she told herself, and unraveled her mad and got a nicer expression on her face when she went to uncle Denys. Denys was in the dining room having his coffee and he pretended not to notice her for a second.

That was Working, too.

"I'm sorry, uncle Denys."

He looked at her then, took a quick sip of coffee, and said: "I did have a surprise planned for you today," he said. "Do you want some more orange juice?"

She moped over to the chair and climbed into it, hugging her cast with her good hand. "Florian and Catlin too," she said.

"Seely," uncle Denys said. And Seely came and got two more glasses and poured orange juice as Florian and Catlin quietly settled down across the table.

"Nelly's in hospital again," uncle Denys said. "Ari, you know it hurts her when you put her out and call somebody else."

"Well, I can't help it. Nelly fusses."

"Nelly doesn't know what to do with you anymore. I think it might be a good idea to let Nelly go work down in the Town, in the nursery. You think about that. But that's for you to decide."

She could not lose maman and Nelly in one week. Even if Nelly drove her crazy. She looked at the table and tried not to think about that.

"You think about it," uncle Denys said. "Nelly's the happiest when she has a baby to take care of. And you're not a baby. So you're making her unhappy—especially when you give her orders. But you just think about it. It's not like you couldn't see Nelly again. Otherwise she's going to have to take tape to re-train her and she'll have to do house management or something."

"What does Nelly want?"

"She wants you to be three years old. But that won't work. So Nelly's got to move or Nelly's got to change."

"Can Nelly have a job down in the baby lab? And live here?"

"Yes, she could do that. It's not really a bad idea." Uncle Denys set his cup down for Seely to pour more coffee, then stirred it. "If that's what you want."

"I want Horse."

Uncle Denys' brows came together. "Ari, you can't have what'll hurt you."

"Florian says there's a baby."

"Ari, horses are big animals. Nobody knows anything about riding them, not on Cyteen. We have them for research, not to play with."

"You could give me the baby one."

"God," uncle Denys said.

"Florian knows all about horses."

Uncle Denys looked at Florian and Florian went azi, all blank.

"No," uncle Denys said flatly. Then: "Let me talk to AG about it, Ari, all right? I don't know about horses. When you grow a bit, maybe. When you show me you're grown up enough not to sneak down there and break your neck."

"That's nasty."

"It's true, isn't it? You could have broken your neck. Or your back. Or your head. I don't mind if you do things: you'll fly a plane someday. You'll do a lot of things. But for God's sake, Ari, you don't sneak off and try to fly one of the jets, do you? You have to study. There's no second chance when the ground's coming at you. You have to know what can go wrong and how to deal with it, and you have to be big enough; and if you want to deal with a horse, you'd better be big enough to hold on to it, and you'd better show me you're grown up enough to be smarter than the horse is."

That was nasty too. But it was probably true.

"He surprised you," uncle Denys said, "because you didn't know what you were doing. So I suggest you study about animals. They're not machines. They think. And he thought: there's some fool on my back. And he was bigger and he got rid of her. Figure that one out."

She frowned harder. It sounded too much like what had happened. Only uncle Denys had gotten down to a Maybe about giving her Horse. That was something.

"I needed a saddle and a bridle."

"All right. So how do you make the horse wear it, hmmn? Maybe you'd better do some advance study. Maybe you'd better look some things up in library. Maybe you'd better talk to some people who might know. Anyway, you prove to me you know what you're doing and you prove to me you're responsible. Then we'll see about seeing about it."

That was halfway, anyway. For about two seconds she had forgotten how much she hurt, which threw her off for a moment when it all came back again, and she thought how she had been when maman went away to Fargone, and how she got over that.

It was awful to get over maman dying. But that was starting to happen. She felt it start. Like things were trying to go back the way they were, and uncle Denys was getting short with her and she was going to have to go back to classes and everything was going to be the way it was again.

She felt sad about feeling better, which was stupid.

She wished she could have told maman about Horse.

And then she still wasn't sure if maman had ever gotten her letters at all, no matter what they said, or if Ollie had. Thinking that made her throat swell up and the tears start, and she scrambled down from the table, ran for her hall and shut the door.

Then she stood there by Florian and Catlin's room and cried and pounded her fist on the wall and kicked it, and went in their room and got some tissue to wipe her eyes and blow her nose.

They came in. And just stood there.

"I'm all right," she said. Which probably confused hell out of them, maman would say.

"Ari," she heard uncle Denys calling her from the other room. The door was open. "Ari?"

She had given uncle Denys a hard morning. But that was all right, uncle Denys said; it was like getting well from something, sometimes you had aches and pains, and they got better, eventually. He wasn't mad at her.

"I've talked to AG," uncle Denys said at lunch. "As soon as they can schedule a tank, they're going to do a run for you."

"You mean a horse?"

"Don't talk with your mouth full. Manners."

She swallowed. Fast.

"Here's the work part. You have to go over all the data and write up a report just the way the techs do. You have to do it on comp, and the computer will compare your work against the real techs' input. And where you're wrong you have to find out why and write up a report on it. You have to do that from start to birth and then keep up with all the other stuff and all your other studies. If you want something born, you have to work for it."

That was a lot of work. "Do I get him, then?"

"Her, actually. We need another female anyway. Two males tend to fight. Some animals are like that. We're going to do another just like the one we have, instead of a new type, so we won't risk losing her. But if you don't keep up the work, you don't get the horse at all, because you won't have earned her. Understood?"

"Yes, ser," she said. Not with her mouth full. Horses grew up fast. She remembered that. Real fast. Like all herd animals. A year, maybe?

"They're real delicate," uncle Denys said. "They're a bitch to manage, frankly, but your predecessor had this notion that it was important for people to have them. Human beings grew up with other lifeforms on the motherworld, she used to say, and those other lifeforms were part of humans learning about non-humans, and learning patience and the value of life. She didn't want people on Cyteen to grow up without that. Her maman Olga was interested in pigs and goats because they were useful and they were tough and adaptable for a new planet. Ari wanted horses because they're a high-strung herd ungulate with a lot of accessible data on their handling: we can learn something from them for some of the other, more exotic preservation projects. But the other important reason, the reason of all reasons for having horses, she said, is that working with them does something to people. They're exciting to something in our own psych-sets,' those are her exact words: 'I don't want humans in the Beyond to grow up without them. Our ancient partners are a part of what's human: horses, cattle, oxen, buffalo, dolphins, whatever. Dogs and cats, except we can't support carnivores yet, or tolerate a predator on Cyteen—yet. Earth's ecology is an interlocking system,' she used to say, 'and maybe humans aren't human without input from their old partners.' She wasn't sure about that. But she tried a lot of things. So it's not surprising you want a horse. She certainly did, although she was too old to try riding it—thank God. —Does it bother you for me to talk about her?"

"No." She gave a twitch of her shoulders. "It's just—funny. That's all."

"I imagine it is. But she was a remarkable woman. Are you through? We can walk back now."

xi

Florian did the best he could. He and Catlin both.

He had even asked ser Denys if they were letting sera down somehow, or if there was something they ought to be doing to help her get well, and ser Denys had patted him on the shoulder and said no, they were doing very well, that when a CIT had trouble there were no tapes to help, just people. That if they were strong enough to take the stress of sera's upset without needing sera's help that was the best thing, because that was what CITs would do for her. "But don't let yourselves take damage," ser Denys had said. "That's even worse for sera, if something bad happened to you, too. You protect yourselves as well as her. Understand?"

Florian understood. He told Catlin, because they had agreed he would ask, she just wasn't good with CIT questions.

"We're doing right," he had said to her. "Sera's doing all right. We're doing what we're supposed to be doing. Ser Denys is happy with us."

"I'm not," Catlin said, which summed it up. Catlin was hurting worse than he was, he thought, because Catlin was mad about sera being hurt, and Catlin couldn't figure out who was responsible, or whether people were doing enough to help sera.

They were both relieved when sera had said she had an idea and a job for them to do. And when sera started back to classes and things started getting back to normal, they had classes then, down in the Town, ser Denys said they should and sera agreed. "Meet me after class," she said.

So they did.

And sera walked with them out to the fishpond and fed the fish and said: "We have to wait until a rainy day. That's next Thursday. I looked."

On the charts that showed when the weathermakers were going to try to make it rain, that meant. Usually the charts were good, when they were down to a few days. And sera told them what they had to do.

Catlin was happy then. It was an Operation and it was a real one.

Florian just hoped sera was not going to get herself into trouble.

Skipping study was easy: sera just sent a request down to Green Barracks and said they couldn't come.

Then they worked out a way to get to C-tunnel without going through the Main Residency Hall, which meant going down the maintenance corridors. That was easy, too.

So sera told them what she wanted, and they all set up the Operation, with a lot of variations; but the one that they were going to use, sera thought of herself, because she said it would work and it was simplest and she could handle the trouble if it went bad.

So Catlin got to be the rear guard and he got to be the point man because sera said nobody suspected an azi and Catlin said he was better at talking.

The storm happened, the students kept the schedule sera had gotten from Dr. Edwards' classbook, and sera whispered: "Last two, on the left," as the Regular Students came back from their classes over in the Ed Wing, right down the tunnel, right past them where they were waiting in the side tunnel that led to air systems maintenance. It was a good place for them: dark in the access, and noisy with the fans.

Florian let them get past just the way sera had said. They had talked about how to Work it. He let them string way out.

Then sera patted him on the back just as he was moving on his own: he went out in the middle of the hall just before the last few students could disappear around the corner.

"Sera Carnath!" he called out, and the last students all stopped. He held up his fist. "You dropped something." And just the way sera had said, several of the students walked on, disappearing at the turn. Then more did, and finally Amy Carnath walked back a little, looking through the things she had in her arms.

He jogged up to her. Just one girl was waiting with Amy Carnath. He did a fast check behind to make sure no one was coming.

No one was. Catlin was supposed to see to that, back at the other turn, having a cut hand and an emergency if she had to, if it was some Older coming and not a kid.

So he gave Amy Carnath the note sera had written.

Dear Amy, it said. That was how you wrote, sera said. Don't say a thing about this and don't tell anybody where you're going. Say you forgot something and have to go back, and don't let anybody go with you. I want to talk with you a minute. Florian will bring you. If you don't come, I'll see something terrible happens to you. Sincerely, Ari.

Amy Carnath's face went very frightened. She looked at Florian and looked back at her friend.

Florian waited. Sera had instructed him not to speak at all in front of any of the rest of them.

"I forgot something," Amy Carnath said in a faint voice, looking at her friend. "Go on, Maddy. I'll catch up."

The girl called Maddy wrinkled her nose, then walked on after the rest of them.

"Sera, please," Florian said, and indicated the way she should go.

"What does she want?" sera Carnath asked, angry.

"I'm sure I don't know, sera. Please?"

Amy Carnath walked with him. She had her library bag. She could swing that, he reckoned, but sera said sera Carnath didn't know how to fight.

"This way," he said, when they got to the service corridor, and sera Carnath balked when she looked the way he pointed, into the dark.

And when sera stepped out from behind the doorway.

"Hello, Amy," sera said; and grabbed Amy herself, by the front of the blouse, one-handed, and pulled her, so Florian opened the door to the service corridor.

As Catlin came jogging up and into their little dark space.

Amy Carnath looked at her. Terrified.

"Inside," sera said. And pushed sera Carnath, not letting her go. Sera Carnath tried to protect her blouse from being torn, but that was all.

"Let me go," sera Carnath said, upset. "Let go of me!"

Florian pulled the penlight from his pocket and turned it on; Catlin shut the door; sera pushed Amy Carnath against the wall.

"Let me go!" sera Carnath screamed. But the door was shut and the fans were noisy.

"I'm not going to hurt you," sera said very calmly. "But Catlin will break your arm if you don't stand still and talk to me."

There were tears on sera Carnath's face. Florian felt a little sick, she was so scared. Even if she was the Target.

"I want to know," sera said, "where Valery Schwartz is."

"I don't know where he is," sera Carnath cried, biting her lip and trying to calm down. "He's at Fargone, that's all I know."

"I want to know where Sam Whitely is."

"He's down at the mechanics school! Let me go, let me go—"

"Florian has a knife," sera said. "Do you want to see it? Shut up and answer me. What do you know about my maman?"

"I don't know anything about your maman! I swear I don't!"

"Stop sniveling. You tell me what I ask or I'll have Florian cut you up. Hear me?"

"I don't know anything, I don't know."

"Why am I poison?"

"I don't know!"

"You know, Amy Carnath, you know, and if you don't start talking we're going to go down deep in the tunnels and Catlin and Florian are going to ask you, you hear me? And you can scream and nobody's going to hear you."

"I don't know. Ari, I don't know, I swear I don't."

Sera Carnath was crying and hiccuping, and Ari said:

"Florian, —"

"I can't tell you!" sera Carnath screamed. "I can't, I can't, I can't!"

"Can't tell me what?"

Sera Carnath gulped for air, and sera pulled sera Carnath's blouse loose and started unbuttoning it, one-handed.

"They'll send us away!" sera Carnath cried, flinching away; but Catlin grabbed her from behind. "They'll send us away!"

Sera stopped and said: "Are you going to tell me everything?"

Sera Carnath nodded and gulped and hiccuped.

"All right. Let her go, Catlin. Amy's going to tell us."

Catlin let sera Carnath go, and sera Carnath backed up to a bundle of pipes and stood with her back against that. Florian kept the light on her.

"Well?" sera asked.

"They send you away," sera Carnath said. Her teeth were chattering. "If anybody gets in trouble with you, they can send them to Fargone."

"Who does?"

"Your uncles."

"Giraud," sera said.

Sera Carnath nodded. There was sweat on her face, even if it was cold in the tunnels. She was crying, tears pouring down her cheeks, and her nose was running.

"All the kids?" sera asked.

Sera Carnath nodded again.

Sera came closer and took sera Carnath by the shoulder, not rough. Sera Carnath thought sera was going to hit her, but sera patted her shoulder then and had her sit down on the steps. Sera got down on one knee and put her hand on sera Carnath's knee.

"Amy, I'm not going to hit you now. I'm not going to tell you told. I want to know if you know anything about why my maman got sent away."

Sera Carnath shook her head.

"Who sent her?"

"Ser Nye. I guess it was ser Nye."

"Giraud?"

Sera Carnath nodded, and bit her lips.

"Amy, I'm not mad at you. I'm not going to be mad. Tell me what the other kids say about me."

"They just say—" Sera Carnath gulped. "—They just say let you have your way, because everybody knows what happens if you fight back and we don't want to get sent to Fargone and never come back—"

Sera just sat there a moment. Then: "Like Valery Schwartz?"

"Sometimes you just get moved to another wing. Sometimes they take you and put you on a plane and you just have to go, that's all, like Valery and his mama." Sera Carnath's teeth started chattering again, and she hugged her arms around her. "I don't want to get sent away. Don't tell I told."

"I won't. Dammit, Amy! Who said that?"

"My mama said. My mama said—no matter what, don't hit you, don't talk back to you." Sera Carnath started sobbing again, and covered her face with her hand. "I don't want to get my mama shipped to Fargone—"

Sera stood up, out of the light. Maman and Fargone were touchy words with her. Florian felt them too, but he kept the light steady.

"Amy," sera said after a little while, "I won't tell on you. I'll keep it secret if you will. I'll be your friend."

Sera Carnath wiped her face and looked up at her.

"I will," sera said. "So will Florian and Catlin. And they're good friends to have. All you have to do is be friends with us."

Sera Carnath wiped her nose and buttoned her blouse.

"It's the truth, isn't it, Catlin?"

"Whatever sera says," Catlin said, "that's the Rule."

Sera got down beside sera Carnath on the steps, her casted arm in her lap. "If I was your friend," sera said, "I'd stand up for you. We'd be real smart and not tell people we were friends. We'd just be zero. Not good, not bad. So you'd be safe. Same with the other kids. I didn't know what they were doing. I don't want them to do that. I can get a lot out of my uncle Denys, and Denys can get things out of uncle Giraud. So I'm a pretty good friend to have."

"I don't want to be enemies," sera Carnath said.

"Can you be my friend?"

Sera Carnath bit her lip and nodded, and took sera's left hand when sera reached it over.

They shook, like CITs when they agreed.

Florian stood easier then, and was terribly glad they didn't have to hurt sera Carnath. She didn't seem like an Enemy.

When sera Carnath got herself back together and stopped hiccuping, she talked to sera very calm, very quiet, and didn't sound at all stupid. Catlin stopped being disgusted with her and hunkered down when sera said, and rested her arms on her knees. So did Florian.

"We shouldn't be friends right off," sera Carnath said. "The other kids wouldn't trust me. They're scared."

As if sera Carnath hadn't been.

"We get them one at a time," sera said.

xii

"Shut the door," Yanni said; Justin shut it, and came and took the chair in front of Yanni's desk.

Not his problem this time. Yanni's. The Project's. It was in those papers on Yanni's desk, the reports and tests that he had not scanned and run on the office computer, but on a portable with retent-storage.

He had not signed his write-up. Yanni knew whose it was. That was enough.

"I've read it," Yanni said. "What does Grant say, by the by?"

Justin bit his lip and considered a shrug and no comment: Yanni still made his nerves twitch; but it was foolish, he told himself. Old business, raw nerves. "We talked about it. Grant protests it's a CIT question—but he says the man doesn't sound like he's handling it well at all."

"We're six months down on this data," Yanni said. "We don't have a ship-call from that direction for another month and a half, we don't have anything going out their way till the 29th. Jane was worried about Rubin. If our CIT staff kept off Ollie he'll have tried to work on it, I'm sure of that, but he's azi, and he's going through hell, damn my daughter's meddling—she's a damn expert, she has to know CIT psych better than Ollie does, right?"

"No comment."

"No comment. Dammit, I can tell you what they've been doing these last few months. My daughter and Julia Strassen. I never wanted those two on staff. So they get a harmless job ... on the Residency side, of course. With Rubin. Jane gets out there and gets a look at the Residency data and Jane and my daughter go fusion in the first staff meeting. I think it contributed to Jane's heart attack, if you want my guess."

Justin felt his stomach unsettled—Yanni's pig-stubborn daughter, thrown out to Fargone on an appointment she never wanted. . . and probably thought she would get promotion from, setting up RESEUNESPACE labs and administration along with Johanna Morley; then Yanni's old adversary-sometime-lover Strassen the Immovable suddenly put in as Administrator over her head the same as over her father's; his stomach was upset, and he figured what was going on in Yanni.

Dammit, Administration is crazy.

Crazy.

"I'd trust Strassen," he said quietly, since Yanni left it for him to say something.

"Oh, yes, damn right I'd trust Strassen. Jenna might be a good Wing supervisor, but hell if she's got her own life sorted out, and she's Alpha-bitch when she's challenged. So Jane dies. That means someone has to run things. Jenna listens to her staff, all right. But Rubin's mother is a complicated problem. A real power-high when Rubin got his Special status, a real resentment when Rubin got the lab facilities and a little power of his own. Rubin's psychological problems—well, you've got the list: depressions over his health, his relationship with his mother—all of that. Rubin acts like he's doing fine. Happy as a fish in water. While his mother wants to give network interviews till Jenna hauls her in. Stella Rubin didn't like that. Not a bit. That woman and the Defense Bureau go fusion from the start ... and Rubin's situation has been an ongoing case of can't live with her or without her. Rubin plays the psych tests we give him, Rubin's happy so he can keep peace, that's what Jane estimated—not an honest reaction out of him since the Defense Bureau put the lid on mama. Six months ago, spacetime. That's why I wanted you to look at the series. And the bloodwork—"

"Considering what's going to arrive out there in another six months or so."

"Ari's interviews, you mean."

"He's a biochemist. He's aware they're running some genetic experiments on him. What if someone picks up on it?"

"Especially—" Yanni tapped the report on his desk. "This shows a man a hell of a lot more politically sophisticated than he started. Same with his mother."

"Reseune can do that, can't it?"

"Let me give you the profile I've got: Rubin isn't the young kid they made a Special out of. Rubin's grown up. Rubin's realized there's something going on outside the walls of his lab, Rubin's realized he's got a sexual dimension, he's frustrated as hell with his health problems, RESEUNESPACE goes into a power crisis at the top and Rubin's hitherto quiet, hypochondriac mother, who used to focus his health anxieties and his dependencies on herself, is carrying on a feud with Administration and the Defense Bureau and reaching for the old control mechanisms with her son, who's reacting to those button-pushes with lies on his psych tests and stress in the bloodwork, while Jenna, damn her, has torn up Jane's reassignments list and declared herself autonomous in that Wing on the grounds Ollie Strassen can't make CIT-psych judgments."

"Damn," Justin murmured, gut reaction, and wished he hadn't. But Yanni was being very quiet. Deadly quiet.

"I'm firing her, needless to say," Yanni said. "I'm firing her right out of Reseune projects and recalling her under Security Silence. Six months from now. When the order gets there. I'm telling you, son, so you'll understand I'm a little . . . personally bothered . . . about this."

What in hell am I in here for? He knew this. It didn't take me to see it. What's he doing?

"You have some insights," Yanni said, "that are a little different. That come out of your own peculiar slant on designs, crazed that it is. I talked your suggestions over with committee, and things being what they were—I told Denys what my source was."

"Dammit, Yanni, —"

"You happened to agree with him, son, and Denys has the say where it concerns Ari's programs. Giraud was his usual argumentative self, but I had a long quiet talk with Denys, about you, about your projects, about the whole ongoing situation. I'll tell you what you're seeing here at Reseune. You're seeing a system that's stressed to its limits and putting second-tier administrative personnel like my daughter in positions of considerable responsibility, because they don't have anyone more qualified, because, God help us, the next choice down is worse. Reseune is stretched too thin, and Defense has their project blowing up in their faces. If Jane had lived six months longer, even two weeks longer, if Ollie could have leaned on Jenna and told her go to hell—but he can't, because the damn regulations don't let him have unquestioned power over a CIT program and he can't fire Jenna. He's got a Final tape, he can get CIT status, but Jenna's reinstated herself over his head with the help of other staff, and Julia Strassen declaring she's Jane's executor—so Jenna and Julia are the ones who have to sign Ollie's CIT papers, isn't that brilliant on our part? Jenna's going to pay for it. Now Ollie's got his status, from this end. But that won't get there for some few months either, and he doesn't know it." Yanni waved his hand, shook his head. "Hell. It's a mess. It's a mess out there. And I'm going to ask you something, son."

"What?"

"I want you to keep running checks on the Rubin data as it comes in, in whatever timeframe. Our surrogate with the Rubin clone is Ally Morley. But I want you to work some of your reward loops into CIT psych."

"You mean you're thinking of intervention? On which one of them?"

"It's the structures we want to look at. It's the feedback between job and reward. Gustav Morley's working on the problem. You don't know CIT psych that well, that's always been one of your problems. No. If we have to make course changes, you won't design it. We just want to compare his notes against yours. And we want to compare the situation against Ari's, frankly."

He was very calm on the surface. "I really want to think you're telling the truth, Yanni. Is this a real-time problem?"

"It's no longer real-time. I'll tell you the truth, Justin. I'll tell you the absolute truth. A military courier came in hard after the freighter that got us this data, cutting—a classified amount of time—off the freighter run. Benjamin Rubin committed suicide."

"Oh, God."

Yanni just stared at him. A Yanni looking older, tired, emotionally wrung out. "If we didn't have the public success with Ari right now," Yanni said, "we'd lose Reseune. We'd lose it. We're income-negative right now. We're using Defense Bureau funds and we're understaffed as hell. You understand now, I think—we were getting those stress indicators on Rubin before the Discovery bill came up, before Ari's little prank in the Town. We knew then that there was trouble on the Project. We'd sent out instructions which turned out to be—too late. We had pressure on the Discovery bill; we knew that was coming before it was brought out in public. We knew Ari was going to have to go public—and we had all of that going on. You may not forgive Giraud's reaction, but you might find it useful to know what was happening off in the shadows. Right now, Administration is looking at you—in a whole new light."

"I haven't got any animosity toward a nine-year-old kid, for God's sake, I've proved that, I've answered it under probe—"

"Calm down. That's not what I'm saying. We've got a kid out at Fargone who's the psychological replicate of a suicide. We've got decisions to make—one possibility is handing him to Stella Rubin, in the theory she's the ultimate surrogate for the clone. But Stella Rubin has problems, problems of the first order. Leave him with Morley. But where's the glitch-up that led to this? With Jenna? Or earlier, with the basic mindset of a mother-smothered baby with a health problem? We need some answers. There's time. It's not even your problem. It's Gustav Morley's and Ally's. There's just—content—in your work that interests Denys, frankly, and interests me. I think you see how."

"Motivational psych."

"Relating to Emory's work. There's a reason she wanted you, I'm prepared to believe that. Jordan's being handed the Rubin data too. When you say you've got some clear thought on it—I'm sending you out to Planys for a week or so."

"Grant—"

"You. Grant will be all right here, my word on it. Absolutely no one is going to lay a hand on him. We just don't need complications. Defense is going to be damned nervous about Reseune. We've got some careful navigation to do. I'm telling you, son, Administration is watching you very, very closely. You've been immaculate. If you—and Jordan—can get through the next few years—there's some chance of getting a much, much better situation. But if this situation blows up, if anything—if anything goes wrong with Ari—I don't make any bets. For any of us."

"Dammit, doesn't anybody care about the kid?"

"We care. You can answer this one for yourself. Right now, Reseune is in a major financial mess and Defense is keeping us alive. What happens to her—if Defense moves in on this, if this project ends up—under that Bureau instead of Science? What happens to any of us? What happens to the direction all of Union will take after that? Changes, that much is certain. Imbalance—in the whole system of priorities we've run on. I'm no politician. I hate politics. But, damn, son, I can see the pit ahead of us."

"I see it quite clearly. But it's not ahead of us, Yanni. I live in it. So does Jordan."

Yanni said nothing for a moment. Then: "Stay alive, son. You, and Grant, —be damn careful."

"Are you telling me something? Make it plain."

"I'm just saying we've lost something we couldn't afford to lose. We. Everybody, dammit. So much is so damn fragile. I feel like I've lost a kid."

Yanni's chin shook. For a moment everything was wide open and Justin felt it all the way to his gut. Then:

"Get," Yanni said, in his ordinary voice. "I've got work to do."

xiii