Regenesis

“Investigate Svetlansk Mining and the rest of the Svetlansk operations that handle explosives,” Ari said. “How many companies are working up there?”

“Four,” Catlin said.

“Probably we won’t find anything blinking on and off with colored lights,” Ari said. “But if we continue asking questions, individual by individual, something may turn up.”

“Have we got any investigative people up on scene?” Mischa asked. “I know Sam is, but–”

“That’s the other thing,” Amy said. “Sam is up there and he’s at risk if this gets more serious than it is.”

“ReseuneSec’s going to be investigating,” Ari said, “already is, but that all lands on Hicks’s desk, and it’s clumsy, and it’s slow, and it’s damned useless if we need three layers of authorizations to stop a boat on the river. We do have Sam’s bodyguard. This is what doesn’t get out. He’s got non‑uniformed security with him. The two I sent with him aren’t trained as engineers. They’re taking tape on construction, but that’s not what they really do. So, yes, we do have our own investigation onsite. The problem is–they aren’t to leave Sam to go chase anything; and I don’t want Sam anywhere near a problem.”

“I’m glad they’re with him, though,” Maddy said.

“I have a question,” Tommy said. “Are we sending ReseuneSec all this info we’re gathering?”

“Not,” Ari said, “until they give us better results than they have in the last two weeks.”

“You don’t have confidence in Hicks,” Amy said.

Ari shook her head. “I don’t know if it’s malfeasance,” she said, “but it’s not total competence. This is what bothers me. Uncle Giraud was a demanding sort. Hicks is making mistakes, jumping on Justin was one. We’re not getting things he promised us. We know we’re not. So, no, I’m not trusting him.”

“But Yanni’s all right,” Maddy said.

“I think Yanni’s all right,” Ari said. “But, so you know, yes, we’re running down all the civil police reports and university police reports on the Patil case. We’re having a little trouble getting at Planys. Thieu’s had a lot of tendrils that go under Defense doors, and we can’t get everything we’d like from there.”

“Same trouble in Novgorod?” Amy asked.

“To a certain extent,” Ari said. “Patil’s ties to Citizens and Defense are a problem, where it comes to access. The fact Patil was actually registered in Science opens up a lot of files to us that we otherwise couldn’t get. But most of her scientific research is classified, and not just anybody can get at it. Yanni being Proxy Councillor, he technically can. He’s got a lot; I’ve got that; I’ve asked for more–and if he gets it, I can get it. But what we’ve gotten so far is a complete disappointment. I hoped I’d find keywords and names that might be useful, but there’s nothing. A lot of correspondence with Councillor Corain–we can get her side of it, and it’s nothing startling. She complained significantly about crazies at her lectures this last winter. One letter to the Dean of Science asked that enrollment in her courses not be available in virtuality–it already wasn’t–and that enrollment be interview‑only, with a background check, and no auditing her classes, which they did implement for the next session…that was before she agreed to take the job on Fargone. I tried to get the actual interview‑lists, of people she’d enrolled, but that wasn’t available. Corain could get it, and I might write to him, or get Yanni to, but I don’t think it’s too likely the people we’re after would be in any way up to her coursework.”

“Sounds as if she was worried, at least,” Will said.

“Well, she was being made an icon for the Paxers,” Maddy said. “I don’t blame her. But her restricting who got to her classes didn’t help her much, did it?”

“Anything on that name?” Mika asked.

“On Anton Clavery?” Ari said. “Almost a hundred percent it’s a pseudonym, maybe a shared identity. And here’s another place we don’t have all we want from Hicks. We know there’s undercover work going on, and Yanni’s dragging his feet about getting Hicks to divulge what’s out there.”

“Undercover?” Mischa asked.

“Infiltrating the Paxers,” Ari said, “but that’s a deep secret, supposedly. There’s no report I’ve been able to ferret out. Hicks has it stored somewhere, and I’m wondering if it’s in a disconnected computer. I’m going to corner Yanni on it and insist. What generally bothers me, since the big bang at Strassenberg, is that there’s nothing wrong in Novgorod. The Paxers have been uncharacteristically quiet for the last two weeks. Likewise the Rocher crowd. Just silent. When something that disorganized suddenly does–or doesn’t do something–all together, that’s worrisome. Somebody may have pushed a button. And we didn’t think anybody had that much control.”

“Anton Clavery,” Tommy said.

Mischa dug an elbow in his side, saying, “You’re making a bogeyman.”

“Maybe we’ve got one,” Ari said, and the little flurry of laughter died. “I just don’t like any signs of coordination in that lot.”

“Who could get them all to face the same direction?” Amy asked. “ Howcould they do it?”

“Fear,” Catlin said. “A few might die. The rest would understand.”

The whole gathering got quiet for a breath or two. Catlin dealt in things like that, in a level of seriousness that had never quite gotten to the group, not even when they’d brought down Denys.

“There’s reason to think some have died,” Ari said. “People have accidents in Novgorod. That statistics always there. But the number of crazy letters on certain boards we monitor has fallen right off. It’s just a silence. That’s all we can finger. And I want information out of Yanni, and I’m hesitant to press for it, because I don’t want alarms to go off in any system watching me. So I’m not making a great fuss. And, no, I’m not easy about Sam being where he is, but I have a code arranged that will bring him back fast, if we have to.” She sighed and leaned back in her chair, ankles crossed. “I don’t want to move yet. I don’t want to until I have enough information. I don’t want to call Sam back on a just‑in‑case, because it’s important what he’s doing. It’s his job with Fitzpatrick that’s at issue here.”

“All the same, somebody killed the first Ari,” Amy said grimly, “and we’re not going to lose the second.”

“I appreciate that vote,” Ari said with a little laugh.

“Was it Denys that did it?” Amy asked, and that didn’t deserve a laugh. “Did we get them all? Or do we have to worry about Hicks and Yanni now?”

“I hope not,” she said, “but I think about it. I do think about it.”

“What matters,” Catlin said, “isn’t all who. It’s why. Does the whystill exist?”

There was another small silence.

“Power,” Amy said. “It was about power. The question is on what scale. Jordan wanting out. Or Denys wanting in.”

It was a little creepy, sitting and listening to your best friends figuring who’d want to kill you. “There’s a long list,” Ari said. “Power’s one. Revenge, in her case, maybe. But no, I don’t count it solved. I’m quite sure Jordan didn’t do it.”

“You moved him into Wing One.”

“Justin did, actually. And Jordan’s behaving himself pretty well. He wrote a tape‑set that’s driving me crazy, because I think there isn’ta bug in it. I’m sure he’s laughing. And if there is and I just fail to find it–” She let her voice trail off and gave a shrug. “Better in Wing One, which is watched, than over in Ed with all the traffic. Construction’s starting in Wing One. Remodeling all over the Wing. It’s not going to be very active for the next year. But by the time we’re through, it’ll be up to the standard we hope to set. So, for that matter, will Strassenberg. Every place we build, we do it right the first time.”

“Are we sure about that company?” Will asked.

“Fourstar, which is doing Wing One? They got a good contract and don’t have to live in bunkers. Soft job, comparatively. They shouldn’t be discontent. But we’ll just have a deeper look, as Catlin says.”

“So are you going to go after remodeling Ed, next?”

“It’s not as bad as Wing One,” Ari said, and shifted in her seat, thinking, I won’t have that much time, that much budget. “We’re going to have to earn our way into the next major project, though.”

“We cost a lot.” Mika said. “A whole lot. This place is incredible.”

“You earn it.” Ari said. “You’re important. Whatever you’re doing, you see things, you hear things, you say things. Just never, never forget you’re tied to me, more conspicuously than ever in your lives. Be careful. Just be very, very careful about getting into situations, going places alone…that’s the price you pay for this place. Don’t be alone down at the docks, down in the town, down where the security is just a little less. Let my staff know where you’ll be, when you’ll be, just a convenience for Florian and Catlin, Wes and Marco. They track you, in case you’ve never noticed.”

“Who’d care,” Yvgenia laughed, “if I went to my hairdresser?”

“We know you’re there, though,” Ari said soberly. “And if you didn’t show up, we’d know. You’d get a call. If you didn’t answer it, someone would come looking. I don’t say it’ll always be like this, but it will for a while. Expect it. Expect nerves to be pretty taut.”

“Is there a reason we should know?” Maddy asked.

“Just–politics,” Ari said. “The Council election’s about to come down to the wire…they’re going to read the results probably on the twenty‑fifth. We think Spurlin’s got it, but if Khalid should win, that’s a problem. Two different philosophies in the military. Khalid’s not that careful about observing registration when he goes after information–sees no reason he shouldn’t be able to inquire into Science, or Citizens, or just anybody he doesn’t like. Particularly Science. Don’t get me started on Khalid.”

“But Spurlin’s got it.”

“Safely so, we think. He’d have carried Fargone by a big majority, no question, afterthe new Reseune build at Fargone passed in Council, all those jobs going there, and Spurlin was supporting Jacques voting for it in Council while Khalid was up on the station and not really doing much of anything. Unfortunately the vote was already in progress on Fargone before much of that news had gotten there…unfortunate timing, but we’re hearing there was some favorable impact during the last two days of the balloting. Whether any large number of military was excited enough to go in and change their vote before the deadline, I don’t know, but we think the news did help Spurlin.”

“But is there that much military at Fargone?” Mischa asked, and Tommy dug an elbow back this time.

“The whole big hospital installation,” Tommy said. “Which I bet is big enough.”

“It’s a classified major lot of votes, say–partly because it’s supporting an operation out at Eversnow. Trust me, it is large.”

Eyes flickered, simultaneous registry of a tidbit of information on the existing universe.

“The whole military base out there,” Amy said. “Too covert to vote?”

“So far,” Ari said. “They can’t admit they exist. So they can’t vote.”

“You know, when Eversnow goes into official operation,” Amy said, “that’s going to take nearly two years to get a vote through.”

“Going to matter who’s Proxy Councillor‑designate when that happens,” Ari said. “It already does, but it’s going to matter a lot more. I like that argument. I’ll use it on Yanni the next time we have a fight about Eversnow. If humankind goes stringing off down Yanni’s route to new stars, we’re going to have elections that last a lifetime. God! That’s more entertainment than the universe needs.”

“Just cross our fingers about Khalid,” Amy said. “I certainly hope you’re right.”

“I hope I am, too,” she said. And meant it. Passionately.

BOOK THREE Section 4 Chapter iii

JULY 18, 2424

1829H

“The office all right?” Jordan had asked, for openers.

“Fine,” Justin had said guardedly.

And all through dinner they hadn’t talked politics, for once. Jordan talked about psychsets. They, Jordan, Grant, Paul and Justin, talked for two hours about design and sets and things that would bore the adjacent tables in Farrell’s to unconsciousness.

It was the best evening they’d had since Jordan had come home.

And it didn’t end in a fight. They walked back via the open air, in balmy night temperatures, walked into Wing One, which lately smelled of paint and plaster, and continued the conversation for a moment in front of the lift, which they hadn’t called.

“Last night you’ll be buying dinner,” Jordan said. “I’m applying to go on salary.”

“Seriously?” That wasn’t the right word. Justin tried to find one, and didn’t.

“I’d expect better than that.”

“Excellent news.” Grant supplied.

“I’m taking refresher tape,” Jordan said. “I’m trusting not to be mind‑bent. So far so good.”

“I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear it,” Justin said. “Dad, that’s great.”

“All I have to get,” Jordan said, “is your little dear’s approval.”

That wasn’t so great.

“You don’t think I can.”

“What have you sent her? Dad, this isn’t some game, is it?”

“Why in hell would you think it’s a game? I don’t think it’s a game.”

“Dad.” He stopped himself, held up a hand. “I’m glad. All right.”

“Good,” Jordan said, and punched the lift call button. “You can talk her into it.”

“Dad, either your designs will, or I can’t.”

“Oh, I’m sure of my design. I’m very sure of it. How sure are you?”

“Dammit. Just one evening–just one evening can we manage not to have a quarrel–”

The car arrived. Opened. Jordan stepped in. So did Paul. “Want to come upstairs and explain why you won’t back it?”

“I will, dammit. I have to read it first.”

“Those two statements are contradictory,” Jordan said. “Make up your mind, can’t you?”

Jordan had let the button go. The doors shut. The car left, upward bound, and their way was back to the U and the Alpha Wing gateway.

“Damn,” Justin said.

“He has improved, however,” Grant said. And they walked in silence.

Which lasted until they’d gone through security and ridden their lift up to their floor in Alpha Wing.

It lasted until they reached their own front door, across from hers, and reached their bedroom, and started getting ready for bed.

“Damn, damn, and damn,” Justin said. “ Whyis he like that?”

“You’re the closest to his psychset,” Grant said, “at foundational level, at least.”

“Not lately. Ari works the deep sets, doesn’t she?”

“Maybe he’s trying to find out what she did,” Grant said. “Sounds like a probe to me.”

“Meaning he’s redirected his plan, not his objectives, and he’s stilla bastard.”

“Meaning, perhaps, he wants to know if that indefinable born‑man flux still bends in the directions he understands in you. He knows you don’t like conflict. That’s verydifferent than he is. And, forgive me, he doesn’t believe the impulse doesn’t exist in you. He’s fishing for it.”

“Don’t like conflict. Hell, I hated it when I was ten!”

“True,” Grant said. “And yougrew up with a man who has to have it. What’s that going to do to an impressionable young mind?”

“Make my life hell.”

“Do you want my opinion?”

“Definitely.”

“Jordan had you born; he started out trying for psychogenesis. And when you got out of the cradle and onto two feet, he came face to face with his genes–his looks–his temper, which he doesn’t control well. You two used to scare hell out of me…when we were seven. You had his temper. He had his temper. And when we were seven he gave you me, and you had to hold it in, because I got upset, and he told you so. Nasty little trick, that was. As I faintly understand the rules of born‑man combat–that was fairly underhanded. It assured he could always win a fight. And we know he has one other quirk: he likes to fight, but he has to win all the fights, or he’s going to be very unhappy. I can just go null. I did, if you recall, at certain times.”

“I remember.”

“Impossible for his replicate, however.”

“I’d try to calm him down, to get you out of it.”

“So it wasn’t just Ari had a go at remodeling the Warrick psyche. He’d already blinked at creating his own double. He couldn’t take the arguments. You were seven. And he just had to win, didn’t he, or burst a blood vessel?”

It was certainly a point. He gazed at Grant, who had a momentarily earnest look, saw at least what made a certain grim sense.

“He ties you in knots,” Grant said. “And you remain the one that can return the favor…if you ever would, but you never let that shoe drop. In the meanwhile, he ran afoul of another man who didn’t like to lose.”

“Giraud.”

“Who hated him. And what the Nyes did to him was make him afraid for Paul.”

He stared off across the room, seeing–seeing Giraud, and one of those small nasty rooms. Terror, when he didn’t know where Grant was.

“You think he’s lying about starting work again?”

“He may try. He may be trying. Or he may be trying something else. You’re the great unanswered question to him. More than she is. He thinks he knows what sheis; and he’s likely wrong; and the fact he might actually see that is going to frustrate him more, because he can’t prove what he thinks is true, is actually true. You completely frustrate him. You’re supposed to behim, never mind he took the one step, reining in your very nicely adrenalized temper, that assured you neverwould be him. It’s always amazed me how intelligent born‑men, designers, can flux that far, that they can do something they know absolutely flies in the face of the result they want to get, and never expect it not to work out the way they want. If I designed an azi set like that, what would you tell me?”

“That it’s a conflict.”

“Beyond a simple conflict, born‑man. It’s a roaring great deep set/ psychset mismatch.”

He heaved a breath, found himself mentally shying away from the concept of going after Jordan with the same energy Jordan used on him–because, dammit, he knew that would be a blowup to end all blowups. “It’s beyond a simple conflict. It’s that two Jordans can’t occupy the same space. Neither could two Aris. Psychogenesis works if one of the participants is dead.”

“Please don’t go that far.”

“You’re saying it’s irresolvable.”

“That the temper is there. That you either defuse it so it doesn’t bother you at all, or you and he will continue to go at each other over the most minor of differences.”

“That’s grim.”

“I, however, have faith in you,” Grant said. “You’re betterthan he is and you have no need to prove it to him. Just don’t let him suspect it, is all. He’s competitive, if you’ve missed that.”

“But how can I livewith him?”

“That,” Grant said, “is going to be a lasting problem.”

He didn’t sleep well. He lay staring at the water‑rippled ceiling, trying to find some null point in the fractal patterns, but his mind was awake and racing.

He laid out mental patterns for a living. He cured azi problems, when something had gone wrong. He’d never cured his own, which was that gut‑deep knot that happened when he got into an argument. He’d always assumed, assumed, because that was the watershed point of his life, that the first Ari had set that into him, a flinch away from anger.

But Grant had handed him a key, a memory that hadn’t been that significant, until he recalled–past the towering dark of that night in Ari’s apartment–that Jordan hadtold him that, the day he gave him Grant for his own responsibility.

Responsibility.

Hostage. With the very proper advice that he couldn’t let his temper go again, not with Grant.

Possibly Jordan had given him that responsibility completely cold‑bloodedly, seeing it as a way to win the argument with a matching temper, which had been, admittedly, out of control. Jordan reined it in for Paul. He had to for Grant. It was symmetrical, wasn’t it?

God, he thought. There was a saying in Reseune, that a designer with himself for a patient was a damned fool. There was a reason there was a psych overseeing psych operators. There was another saying among designers, to the effect that CITs were a guaranteed bitch‑up. He’d had Jordan’s temper. He’d traded it for a gut‑deep knot; and Jordan didn’t get mad at Paul–Jordan just made Paul suffer the effects of Jordan’s getting mad at everybody else–of Jordan’s getting mad at himself, very possibly, but mostly just battering himself against anything that opposed him. No compromise with the universe. Jordan was a Special, a certified genius at what he did, but Jordan had reached a point with a seven‑year‑old where he’d couldn’t win the fight. So he’d just shut it down.

And Ari, with her own very active temper, had gotten hold of that situation and jerked it sideways…with much more cold calculation, and more accuracy, maybe, than Jordan had been capable of using. He’d had a brain. His ideas had been fairly well out‑there. Jordan had a habit of getting impatient with his what‑ifs and shutting them down, hard. Damned nonsense, was what Jordan called his ideas. Ari had called them interesting.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to control the immediate visuals. Trying to shut Ari down and get Jordan in some kind of perspective, as not a bad man–just a hard‑headed one who’d tried to steer him into a Jordan‑esque path.

And God knew what Jordan’s own upbringing had been–a father brusque, emotionally shut down, very much on facts as he interpreted them to be, he had gotten that impression, at least, of the man who was, in a sense, his real father, since he was Jordan’s, mother–there had been, obviously, since Jordan himself wasn’t a clone, but nobody that had stayed; maybe nobody who’d even been there, people who died in the early days–sometimes left legacies in lab. Ended up being the gene donors for the foundational azi lines Jordan’s mother could have been cells in a dish, for all the record he’d ever laid hands on.

Didn’t make him unhappy, in the sense that he’d always been just as content to be like Grant, who was fairly perfect, in his eyes, both motherless and fatherless. He’d always been content to be Jordan’s Parental Replicate. But it was a question, whether if there’d been another influence in Jordan’s growing up, if Jordan would have grown up with a little doubt that one truth covered everything in the universe.

Jordan got the flaw from his father; Jordan tried to replicate himself, that was the damned key. Jordan hadn’t started with the concept of a kid who’d have his own notions–Jordan had tried to trim off any bits that didn’t match him…had fixed him on Grant, the way he’d fixed on Paul, only in that household there’d been room for only one personality, and nobody could argue with it.

CIT. Designer. And thorough bitch‑up. No question. Ari could stand him off temper for temper. But she hadn’t been able to work with him.

She’d conned him, was what. She’d conned Jordan into the whole concept of a psychological replicate, then snatched the result and did a job on it.

He lay there, totally null for a moment, asking if it really hurt as much as it once had. Thinking that–if not for Ari–he’d have made Grant into Paul.

Which couldn’t happen, because Grant wasn’t Paul. And she’d gotten Jordan to accept Grant, because it was so damned hard to getan alpha companion, and the labs had had only one–that she’d created, knowing right then and there what should have been so, so clear to Jordan–that Grant wasn’t Paul. Grant wasn’t compliant. Grant was a fine, fine piece of work, who had taken his own path and already begun to drag a young born‑man sideways. Jordan might have laid down Grant’s early programs, but not his absolute earliest, preverbal ones; and beyond that–Grant had just–self‑directed. Psychologically, endocrine level and all, stable as they came, and an intellect that might well get beyond him.

Ari’s best. Ari’s near‑last project, right along with the design that would replicate herself. Thank God for Grant. Thank Ari.

He just had to think what to do about Jordan.

And maybe he had to be a damned fool, and do a bit of work on himself, try to unwire that clenched‑up anger, and figure out where to send the adrenaline rush Jordan provoked in him. Just thinking about it set him off. And set him to work.

Calm down, first. Take the energy out of it. Find a place to put it. Don’t shut it down. That makes the knot. Find a place to use it.

Create. Think. There’s energy in flux. There’s creative potential in things that don’t match.

Grant turned over. “Are you still awake?”

“Thinking,” he said.

“Thinking good things or bad things?”

“I’m working on that,” he said. “I’m not going to let Jordan bring himself down. How long has it been since Paul took tape, I wonder?”

“Probably not in a long while.” Grant set a hand on his shoulder. “Justin. Mess with Paul and you’re taking a very large chance. He’s not stable. And you’re not his Supervisor.”

He shook his head. “I’m not. And he won’t trust me. But Paul’s storing tension the way a battery stores power. Paul’s not right. So Jordan’s not right. Jordan’s Worked Paul. But the conditions Jordan imagines to exist, don’t, so the world he’s made Paul live in–doesn’t exist. And Paul sees it. I think Paul sees it, and doesn’t know how to fix it.”

Grant considered that a moment. “That could be.”

“You have a sense of him.”

“I have an azi’s sense of him, which I think is accurate. Storing tension, very much so. But the wrong Intervention could do damage. Might lead to shutdown.”

Grant had been there. Grant had been through that. It was Grant’s own watershed experience, more so even than the sojourn with the Abolitionists.

“It’s a plan, at least. Jordan’s wound tight, protecting Paul. But he’s only adding to the tension. There’s a hell of a lot wrong in that relationship. They’re wound up together. I don’t know where to take hold of it. I don’t know I should, until the chance happens, until I know what Paul’s mental state is.”

“I can’t read him well enough,” Grant said. “The other night, the first night they were in the black and white apartment, Paul was dipping in and out of shutdown, just skimming it. Creating his own calm‑down.”

He remembered it. He’d taken it for overload–max stress, even on an alpha. Listening. But Grant intimated Paul hadn’t been listening, hadn’t been processing, hadn’t been recording, at certain intervals.

“That’s information,” he said. “Watch him. Watch him. See what you can figure.”

“I will,” Grant said. “Just–be careful with him.”

“I will,” he said.

He didn’t know if he could do anything, that was the thing. Real‑time work froze him up. It was a problem that Jordan might have given him, right along with the genes. The stress of it might even be Jordan’s problem, which Paul had absorbed. It was a damn interlock.

But he had to try. And, God, if Jordan caught him at it–

Hell didn’t half describe it. He wasn’tas important to Jordan as Paul was. He’d accepted that fairly unemotionally, since, in point of fact, Jordan wasn’t as vital to him as Grant was, and he knew which he’d choose.

Maybe he ought to–choose, that was. Go to Ari, tell her it wasn’t working, couldn’t work. Put Jordan back in Planys, give him something to do there, let him and Paul live their lives.

But he couldn’t do it. That was the hell of it. He was like Jordan, stubborn on an issue, and he had to try.

BOOK THREE Section 4 Chapter iv

JULY 20, 2424

1722H

The item alert was blinking on the screen, and Ari clicked it.

Mail alert,it said…some sender she’d specifically tagged to trigger the alert flasher, and that was a very, very short list.

She clicked again.

And her breath quickened. Cyteen Station in the sender line, Fargone Station as home address, via the merchanter Candide, docking in the last two minutes–a ship’s black box had just dumped its contents to Cyteen Station in orbit over their heads, and a longed‑for letter, at least one letter, had flown down the datastream to Reseune. Via protocols established in Alpha Wing, a reply to herletter opened the gateway, straight to Base One.

Click. Threeletters. One from Oliver AOX Strassen. Ollie was still alive.

One from Valery Schwartz. Her heart danced.

One from Gloria Strassen. That wasn’t so welcome. But she’d had to write to Gloria and to Julia just to be fair.

Discipline. Ollie outranked everybody. She read his letter first.

Dearest Ari,it said. Nobody called her dearest, but Ollie could. I received your invitation and very sympathetically understand the frame of mind in which you sent it, I do think. I remember you as Jane’s daughter, and with the utmost affection. But I must decline your kindness on several accounts.

First and most of all, Fargone is home, now. It was Jane’s home and mine, my best memories are here, and I have responsibilities that fill my time very usefully–ultimately useful to you, I hope.

Second, if things are going well for you, your direction is no longer Jane Strassen’s, but Director Finery’s, and you will be more comfortable in that role if I am not close by to prompt you to be that little girl again. I know you will be as intelligent as the great Dr. Emory, I hope you will be at least as wise, and I hope you will be good, but the meeting cannot satisfy me, or you. If I were still azi, that statement of logic would cause me no pain; but since I have become CIT, it has to pain us both. Let us remember those days as happy as they were, and keep that happiness in our mutual past, unchanged.

I must add one other matter: I know you have invited the Schwartzes and the Strassens to Reseune. I hesitate to be so blunt, but use caution. Jane’s relatives have been outspokenly bitter about their forced residency on Fargone: Valery Schwartz has grown up in close association with the Strassens. His mother is deceased, eleven years ago: a drug overdose which is inexplicable as an accident. Young Schwartz may or may not elect to accept your invitation: he is known here in the art community and has a reputation in deeptape experientials–an art which I have only lightly sampled, given my own character and origins. I am advised there are psychological considerations to prolonged exposure to these arts. Please use caution. I enclose files, in hopes you are surrounded by competent security–you surely must be, and I hope I know by whom.

Ollie had never met Florian and Catlin. He couldn’t have. Except the originals.

I do hope you are well, dear Ari. I hope the very best for you. I knew about love before I ever had the final tape, and I have been a very lucky man, to have loved Jane and to have loved you, as still I do.

It hurt. It stung her eyes, that last. She did understand why he said no. She expected a refusal from him, for many of the reasons he’d just given. But not–not quite that she was, in one sense, just an episode of his life, and that he’d valued a life where she just hadn’t been.

And she wasn’t too surprised about Gloria, who had been a brat, and who was still probably a petulant brat. And Julia–Julia was the one who’d had real reason to hate her, for displacing her and her baby and getting them both exiled to Fargone. That Julia had hated her and talked against her was no surprise, and not even unfair, in the balance of things. Ollie was just worried about her, was all, because he still loved her. It wasn’t as if Julia Strassen was going to launch some interstellar conspiracy against Reseune.

But the business about Valery’s mother, and Valery growing up with Gloria, of all people–that was just upsetting. She’d never heard that Valery’s mother had died. And he’d become an artist, of all things. She’d never guessed that, either. She’d never searched him up on the web, not wanting to go down that path and go longing after someone she couldn’t get back, and she’d never imagined he was halfway famous. It was the first she’d ever heard of who he’d become…and you needed clearance and funds to do a Universal Search, which Florian and Catlin hadn’t had when she’d sent those letters. She hadn’t asked Yanni, who could have done it–Valery was Yanni’s nephew, sort of, but so far as she knew, Yanni hadn’t ever bothered searching his niece up. Yanni had never said, for that matter, how he felt about having his relatives sent off to Fargone, all to bring Ariane Emory up in a bubble free of Valery Schwartz.

Had Yanni resented it?

Had he–God!–even suggestedtheir exile, the way he probably had suggested sending Jordan to PlanysLabs?

That was a disturbing thought. She had no window into the time when Denys and Giraud had run Reseune along with Yanni Schwartz, and critical decisions had been made–first to put her with Jane Strassen, and then to take her Maman away; and to let her play with Valery; and then to send Valery away…

Had Yanni consented? Been participant? Instigator?

Yanni’d never said. Never, ever said. And he’d known she’d written to Valery.

Hadn’t he? She thought he’d known. She hadn’t taken any measures for secrecy from him.

It could have been a mistake, her visiting the past and sending for people who’d had separate lives for decades.

It could really have been a bad, bad mistake–that cold, clammy thought crept through her.

She’d intended to open Gloria’s letter next, saving the good news, from Valery, for last. Ollie’s return hadn’t worked out. But she stuck to the plan. She clicked Gloria’s letter.

Dear Ariane,it began, on a first name basis, when to her memory, Gloria had been a screaming, red‑faced hellion, three years younger than she was. That made Gloria around–fifteen, now. Which was too young for Valery. So there. Maman says if I want to visit I can. So I will. Maman has decided she’s coming with me to keep me out of trouble. I don’t remember Reseune, so this should be interesting, and Maman says…

Hellif Julia was Maman. That was Jane Strassens name. Herword. But that was the way Gloria put it.

…Maman says if we come it’s only because it’s round trip and we can get home again. So we hope you don’t mind if we just stay a few months.

Gloria was uncommonly direct. Ari‑like in her bluntness, not too diplomatic, but then she’d never been convinced either Julia or Gloria had anything like Jane Strassens intellect. Tact or graciousness just were not in her expectations of Gloria.

There was a thought…the first time it had ever dawned on her, though she’d had the notion that Julia just wasn’t that smart. And Jane had been. And Gloria had been a little squalling lump.

Maman hadn’t started out wanting her. Maman had had Julia, counted that enough. But they’d handed Jane Strassen a kid who wason her level, plus some, namely her…and Jane Strassen had accepted her for one reason, and been hooked into the most important study project in her long career. She’d taken her in, taken to her, shoved her own biological offspring and her own grandchild off–partly because she’d had to, because Julia kept being a fool and pushing the issue, and insisting on pushing it…which was how Julia had gotten a not‑roundtrip ticket for herself and Gloria to Fargone.

So it was true. Maman had loved her. Not Julia.

Then Maman–Jane Strassen–had gone out to Fargone to live, to spend her last days with Ollie, and Julia and Gloria. Maman had been very old, and knew she didn’t have that long: Julia was the child of her last good decades, tank‑born; and Maman had gone out there to live, and spent those few final years–how?

Had Maman ever warmed at all to Julia and Gloria?

How had Ollie fit in, and had Ollie protected Maman, the way he’d always protected Maman, from untoward incidents? Ollie would have done that; Ollie would have stood them off at the door.

And Ollie had ended up Director of ReseuneSpace, with all the power to handle anything Julia Strassen could ever think up, that was what. That was justice.

Oh, there were questions she should have asked.

Oh, there were questions she definitely should have.

So I suppose we owe you thank you for the tickets and we’ll see you as soon as we tie up a few things here. I’ve never been on a ship before. Maman said it’s nothing much, but I’m excited.

Best thing she’d ever heard about Gloria.

Deep breath. She punched the button on Valery’s letter.

It exploded on the screen; became white light, a black blot that ran everywhere and left an impression on the eyes, a red, lingering glow. It hurt.

The glow had the shape of a face when she shut her eyes. She thought it looked male, but she wasn’t sure. It was a furious, murderous face.

God, how had Base One let thatthrough?

On her damned e‑trail, that was how, her blanket permission for any letter answering her letter. Therewas a warning, a cold, chilling warning. Her sig had power to crack the electronic gates of Base One, on which the security of all Reseune, hell, all Unionrested. And she had to be more careful, hereafter.

A letter had turned up in the wake of the image, an ordinary letter. Dear Ari, it said. With that hellish face still blinking faintly red in her vision.

Dear Ari, hell! If that damned thing had brought anything pernicious in with it…

Base security search,she told Base One. Focus: Candide packet in Base One, all activity, all files.

Base One set about its business. The letter remained.

I wondered if you remembered. Clearly you do. Thanks for the offer. It presents me a mild dilemma. I have a reputation here in the art world, and your offer would both bring new opportunities and take me out of an area where I have considerable commercial value. I do have to consider, however, that your patronage is no small matter, and if I could be assured of creative freedom and your patronage during my establishment at Reseune, or in Novgorod, your support of my work would be invaluable.

Not a shred of soft sentiment. Creative freedom. Patronageduring his establishment…

She let a slow breath go. Temper had gotten up, since the fright. Adrenaline helped nothing.

So I will be arriving for an exploratory visit and hope to renew old acquaintances.

Oh, to be sure. Sit in the damned sandbox and I’ll lend you my shovel, Valery. Damn your presumption. My patronage!Bloody hellif I’ll be used!

At first blush, she was just mad, damned mad, as Justin would put it. And then just generally upset.

Was that thing, that grinning devil gone to black in her vision–was thatthe experiential artform? Was thatwhat Valery was now?

And connected to Gloria?

It wasn’twho she’d thought she was inviting back to Reseune, to do justice for, and about.

They’d had lives out there, at a place that wasn’t quite real to her. All these years of her life and theirs had gone by, and Ollie might be the same, and maybe Julia was, but they weren’t, not Gloria and not Valery, and in directions she hadn’t anticipated. She’d made a mistake.

But ships took months in passage–her letters to them had taken months in passage; their replies had taken months coming back, and by the time the reply got to her–her three invitees were already on a ship on the way here.

Damn!

BOOK THREE Section 4 Chapter v

JULY 22, 2424

0834H

It was a luxurious office. It had the view from the cliffs on a windowlike screen–Justin liked it; Grant liked it. They were glad it was a feature. There was a little guppy tank in the corner–they’d had to laugh about that. It made this move, the last move, they hoped, a little more thoughtful. And their wall had a seascape, a strange thing to contemplate, sunlight through a breaking wave, vastly different colors than the yellow froth and desolate sands of Novgorod’s shoreline–which nobody wanted to visit.

“It’s from Earth,” Grant had surmised.

It could even have been Novgorod’s shore, when they first landed. Getting back to that would take the native microlife eating all the terrestrial microlife–and native life had a chance of doing that, now. In their own lifetime, one really good thing Denys had done was join Moreyville and Novgorod in cleaning up the Novaya Volga, building the coffer‑dam and the treatment plant–probably it had taken the form of a deal, but Reseune stayed cleaner, and the river did, each in their own way. Some things did get better. He liked to think of the picture that way. Grant said he liked it.

So he could say yes, they loved it, when Ari asked the question. “Very nice.”

She wanted her lessons, as she called it, which consisted now of their working over sets. And she brought him things, her designs, her questions–good questions, that, if there were no Jordan anywhere on the horizon, would have kept him happily working for days.

As it was–

“Ari,” he said, when she arrived for her lesson today, and settled in with them, supplied with coffee and a morning cookie, and the tranquility of the room notwithstanding, his heart was beating overtime, doubt about what he wanted to do, doubt about how she’d take it–doubt about what sort of mess he was opening up to her.

But he couldn’t get what he wanted on his own. And he knew everything it could provoke, if it got back to Jordan, and everything it could provoke if Ari got too interested in it.

“Ari, I want a particular manual. Say it’s an actual current personal manual. It was once confiscated in security, in a computer. Can you get it?”

She held the coffee mug like a little kid with a cocoa, in both hands, and brought it down when he asked that question.

“We’re not talking about my getting Grant’s.”

“No,” he said. In point of fact, he was sure she had that.

“Paul’s?” she asked, straight to the mark, in a very limited range of likely manuals he’d be interested in, and he nodded.

“I can crack his storage,” she said. “No question. I haven’t, lately. I havethe manual.”

Chilling confession. Honest, absolutely honest with him. He hadn’texpected the last, and realized he should have expected it. Probably ReseuneSec had its own supposedly current copy. Yanni had. Hell, there must be half a dozen copies floating about various offices.

“It’s mostly done in hand‑notes,” he said carefully. “I’d be surprised if not.”

“Not surprisingly,” she said, “I’ve skimmed it. A lot of cryptic notes, a personal code.”

“Not surprisingly,” he agreed.

She didn’t ask the obvious question. She was being very good. HisAri…was being very good. And had several questions, likely, questions that would set her on her own quiet search.

“We’re worried about Paul,” he said. “Grant is worried about Paul.”

She looked from him to Grant. Grant said, “I’ll let Justin do the talking.”

“I want a copy of the manual,” Justin said, “and I want Jordan and Paul not to know it.”

“You’ll have it ten minutes after I get home. Now, if you really want it.”

“It’s possible I can read his notes,” he said, feeling ashamed of himself the whole way, going behind Jordan’s back, offering to open up a system that might reveal other things. “I used to be able to.” If he gave her the translation of the notes, and she might demand them–it would be a Rosetta stone for the rest, for anything he’d encoded. Total key, to anything ReseuneSec currently couldn’t read. And he didn’twant to know the rest, and he didn’t want to betray Jordan, and he wantedto ask the best mind of this age and the last one what he could do to fix what was the matter with Paul–but doing that would open up everything to her. Not just the manual. All the notes. All Jordan’s work.

And Jordan was hellishly protective of his ideas, his work–and her getting her hands on Paul–it was Jordan’s nightmare.

“I’m going to ask you for it,” he said to her, “and let me see if I can read it. And I’m going to ask you–not to ask me for the shorthand he uses.”

A little silence ensued. Ari thought about it, and had another sip of coffee, one‑handed, this time, the other hand idle, elbow on chair arm…an attitude so, so like the first Ari that it chilled.

Eyes flicked up to his, and broke contact, self‑protective, keeping thoughts private, as she nodded. “All right.”

“Ari, it’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s what I owe him.”

“I won’t ask you another question,” she said. “And you know that’s hard for me.”

“If I can’t make sense of it,” he said, “I may come back to you.”

“You’re good.” she said, and oh, those eyes flickered like the activity‑LEDs on a processor. She was. Processing. “If you do need me, ask. But it’s all yours.”

“You’re a–”

“Justin, if you say ‘good kid,’ all bets are off.”

“A good human being,” he amended that, unspoken. “You are.”

“I like that.” She smiled somberly. “I take that one. Grant, am I a good human being?”

“You’re a fine sample of the born‑man sort,” Grant said, not too somberly. “Or you seem so to me. It’s beyond me to critique, beyond that.”

She smiled. The moment passed. She finished off the cooling coffee, and rotated her chair and poured herself another cup. “It’s a two‑cup morning. I’ve been so damn busy with the move I haven’t got a thing done on the last set. I read the last of it this morning. But I’ve got one I want you to look at.”

“It wouldn’t be Jordan’s, would it?” Justin asked.

She had her sip. “Actually, it is. He told you about it?”

“He mentioned it. I was going to ask, actually.”

“So we’re doing a Jordan morning,” she said, and pulled out a convenient keyboard and touched the voice button, called the file, which was beta, and correspondingly large. “That’s it. Shall I store to Projects?”

“Do it,” Justin said. “Do you have some particular questions?”

“I don’t,” she said. “It’s a management tape, the type’s capable of an accurate memory and a strong work ethic. It’s just typical Jordan: I’ve looked at his work, at least skimmed through several, and it’s not old stuff–it’s using the modern interlinks, using them very appropriately. It’s a nice nested set of calls that play off secondary sets, don’t conflict with deep sets… I’m not finding a–”

Com went off. A worried look crossed her face.

“Not supposed to–” she began, which meant it was her Urgent list, the handful of people who could call her at any hour, and about that time there was a knock at the office door.

Grant started to get up. But Florian came on through.

“Sera,” Florian said, and the buzz from Ari’s com continued. “Sera.”

“Report,” she said, and Florian said,

“Spurlin is dead.”

Ari froze just a heartbeat, then located the phone, thumbed it on and said, “Ari.”

“Sera.” It was Catlin’s voice.

“Florian told me. Details?”

“Found by the maid this morning”Catlin’s voice came through. “Cause of death uncertain. Last contact yesterday night by the night staff at his residence. That’s all that’s known currently. Possible natural causes.”

“Possibly not,” Ari said. Her face was just a little pale. “I’m coming home,” she said.

Spurlin. Candidate in Defense. Khalid’s opposition. The one the polls said was in the lead by a wide margin. It wasn’t good news.

“Justin, I’m sorry,” Ari said, and set down a mostly full cup of coffee and snatched up her jacket.

She left with Florian, leaving Jordan’s file up on the computer. Justin shut it down, and looked at Grant.

“This is bad,” he said, and tried to think what the constitution said about a candidate dying after the vote was taken. “If he wins–does it go to his Proxy‑designate? Or what?”

“Don’t ask me, born‑man. It’s your system. I certainly hope it has an answer.”

“I don’t even know if he’s got a Proxy‑designate. God, I don’t want that bastard in. This is one time I wish the Nine were elected by general ballot.” He turned to the console, keyed Voice, said, “Search: Constitutional law: elections: Council of the Nine: candidate death.”

The computer didn’t take long. It flashed up a lengthy piece of legal language.

“Search in document: if an elected candidate dies; second condition: before official announcement of results of election: question: who succeeds?”

The computer took about a heartbeat. The answer flashed up:

1. ) Current office‑holder may hold office for entirety of vacated term.

2. ) Current office‑holder [a] may appoint Proxy Councillor [b]. service of [b] to run concurrent with [a]’s term of office.

3) Current office‑holder [a] may leave office at end of [a]’s previously elected term, in which case the runner‑up [b] in the election may succeed to office and serve for the two‑year term.

4) In the case of death of all candidates and the incumbent, the office settles on the Secretary of the Bureau, to run for the elected term.

5) Announcement of results irrelevant. Delivery of all precinct results to Cyteen Station data storage constitutes valid election. Exception: conditions of war or natural disaster preventing the transmission of or timely arrival of precinct results to Cyteen Station will, after one month, disallow those precincts from the result tally. The tally of results at Cyteen Station will proceed on that date and results will he official as of 0001h on the expiration of the deadline for receipt of ballots. Exception: a quorum of precincts [66%] must arrive by one month after the expected date. Failure of a quorum of precincts to report by one month after the expected date will invalidate the election, in which case current officeholders will continue in office as if re‑elected.

Precedents: no dates, no instances available.

“It says,” Justin began.

“I have it,” Grant said grimly. “A first in Union history, it seems.”

“Jacques is all prepared to resign,” Justin said. “But the proxy can only be valid if he stays in office.”

“Is that actually a problem?” Grant asked.

“I don’t know,” Justin said. “It’s certainly better than the alternative.”

A light flashed on the screen. Ari. He keyed it. It wasn’t a message. It was the arrival of the manual he’d requested. The universe was tottering, peace and war possibly at issue, and she remembered his document. He understood that mind. She probably didn’t even strongly register doing it–it was just on her agenda and it went, probably with three and four other things and the staff requests, because that mind was clearing chaff, fast, not for an emergency response, but for a policy consideration.

Call to Yanni was next. He’d bet on it.

BOOK THREE Section 4 Chapter vi

JULY 22, 2424

0911H

“Yanni?” Ari said.

“I have the report.” Yanni’s answer came back to her. Yanni was already in his office, ordinary day begun. It wasn’t an ordinary day.

“Natural causes?”

“Still in question.”

“I’m questioning it. This isn’t good.”

“Understatement,” Yanni said. “Listen, I’ve got a call in to Jacques. Hicks has people on the way to Jacques, who’s still at home.”

“Have we had contact with him?”

“He knows.”

“Thank God he’s alive. Keep him that way.”

“We’re working on that. I’m ordering up Reseune One.”

She drew a deep breath. “Yanni, what you need to do you can do from here.”

“Impossible.”

“Not impossible.”

“Appearances, Ari. I have to get to the capital. There’s no question of it.”

“I want agents with Lynch. Fast.”

“I’m ahead of you on that one. Hicks has got a team headed for his office, too. They’ll do all driving, all transport, all meals.”

“ Hicks. Yanni, I’m not that confident in Hicks. He makes mistakes.”

“It happens to all of us.”

“I’m saying I don’t trust him, Yanni! If we lose Lynch, you lose the proxy, and we revert, God, where dowe revert? The Secretary for Science?”

“That would be it,” Yanni said, “who would immediately reappoint me Proxy Councillor and I’d be back in. I’m damned hard to get rid of, so don’t worry too much.”

“Not if you’re not in Novgorod, I don’t need to worry too much, and I don’t want you to go.”

“The man could have had a heart attack.”

“And you know he didn’t. Yanni, I can’t lose you. I can’t. You want me trying to figure things out day to day and running everything into the ground. You’re risking too much. Easier to send me, for God’s sake. I’m duplicatable. Your knowledge isn’t in databanks.”

“Bad joke, young lady, and you’re not going. I need to talk directly to Jacques and to Corain andto Lynch: there’s no substitute in virtuality for a face‑to‑face. You know thator you don’t know anything.”

“Don’t read me lessons, Yanni Schwartz. And don’t be a damned fool. You know what I cando if you push me, and I’ll do it!”

“Don’t be a child. And that is being a child, Ari.”

“Fine. You’re not going.”

“Ari, do I have to come there and have this out?”

“Don’t bother. Reseune One isn’t going to budge off the strip, so you might as well release your call on it. How is it going to look if you go flying in there to consult with the election results not even read yet? We may have to deal with Khalid. Let’s not start it off with a media show and get caught in statements before we even know what the man died of. And let’s notbe caught negotiating with Corain before the man is buried. Or shot into the sun. Or whatever he wants done with him.”

“Fine. And when they read the results, and it’s Spurlin, then what do you think we’re going to do? I’ve got to talk to Jacques, and I can’t call him here to do it, because we can’t have him step down. The man has a lucrative job lined up, he wants it, we bent his arm and gothim that job to get him out of the post, and now he’s got the offer, he wants it. He wants to be rich and comfortable and safe, and the man who’s supposed to replace him just fucking died, pardon my language, but he died, he may have been murdered, and that’s not going to dispose an old man ready to retire to stand his ground.”

“This is Defense! He’s a Marine officer!”

“He did his fighting mostly behind a desk, if you recall.”

“Well, I don’tpersonally recall the whole War, and you do, and that’s just one of the reasons why I need you not‑dead at the moment, Yanni. Call Jacques: tell him hold pat. Get them to hold the job for him. If anybody killed Spurlin, it’d look really peculiar if Jacques drops dead next, so he’s safe. Tell him that. Maybe that will encourage him.”

A silence on the other end. “I’m not sure it’s quite illegal to bribe Jacques with a job, but it’s not the sort of thing we want on the news, Ari.”

“Well? We already have, haven’t we, to get him not to run again? So now we change our minds and we bribe him to keep it until somebody besides Khalid can organize another challenge. Send Frank to tell him so. Frank doesn’t get the attention you do.”

“I’m not sending Frank.”

“Why not? Because it’s dangerous?”

“Ari, you’re taking up my time and I’ve got business to do.”

“That plane’s not moving. Think of other ways to do it.” She hung up on him. And immediately used Base One to put an executive hold on Reseune One, and to forbid fueling.

Then she put in a call to Amy and Maddy, and told them individually, but they’d already gotten the news, Amy had called Maddy, Amy and Maddy were both taking the morning off and stood ready to come back home. So did Tommy Carnath, Maddy said, who’d told Mischa, and most everybody else must be getting it on the news by now. Sam–Sam was still out on site. “Come here,” she told Maddy. “Bring everybody.”

And she called Rafael, and briefed him, with orders to stand by. Florian and Catlin were more than briefed: they were in the security station with Wes and Marco, pulling up Novgorod data as fast as they could and monitoring police reports, which was all they could get out of Defense. Military Police were investigating, standing off the Novgorod authorities, Military Police currently under Councillor Jacques’ direction… thatwas a damned uneasy arrangement. But there was one other investigative authority, and that was the Council of the Nine itself, with its Office of Inquiry, which couldcross jurisdictional lines, and which reported straight to the Council.

She called Hicks. Personally. “We’ve heard the news,” she said straight off to Hicks. “We want every whisper out of that situation, as fast as you get it. Route it to my security office. No matter if it’s raw.”

“I understand you, sera,” Hicks said. “You’ll have it as fast as we can produce it. Councillor Jacques has requested a Council inquiry, seconded by Councillor Lynch.”

Lynch hadn’t made a move in months–notoriously didn’t act, deferring consistently to his Proxy, namely Yanni, who was Councillor in all but name: but Lynch had waked up this morning and made an actual motion to get at the facts, fast, and locally.

“Lynch is probably scared,” she said disingenuously. “I’ll imagine Yanni is moving to protect him.”

“He is, sera,” Hicks said.

“Yanni is in charge,” she said. “I’m holding Reseune One ready, but it’s staying grounded. Security concerns. Protect Yanni. He’s not looking at his own safety. I’m looking at it for him.”

“We’re in agreement,” Hicks said. “I’ll trust if you hear anything, I’ll get that advisement.”

“I trust I’ll hear it from you fastest,” she said, and let him figure out what thatmeant, whether it was a compliment or an order. “Thank you, ser. I’ll let you get on it.”

She broke the contact. Sat staring at the police report. The Novgorod Police had the body; the Bureau of Defense wanted it; the Office of Inquiry demanded it be sent to the University, its usual recourse for scientific questions, and it was going on two hours since a frightened housemaid had found the body. By the minute, evidence was being lost.

At least the Bureau of Defense wasn’t investigating it as an internal matter, and the Office of Inquiry was going to win. Nobody trumped them; and currently they’d sent a hearse to the District Coroner’s office to collect Spurlin’s remains. The COI had also put a lock on the potential crime scene, and taken steps to secure all computer records and recent communications. She drew part of that from the news and part from the Office of Inquiry itself, which she could get to by passive inquiry, just riding Yanni’s authority. She didn’t lodge any requests. She just read.

And frowned at the screen, and asked herself what in hell they were going to do about it if something happened to Lynch, or worse, Jacques.

“Sera,” Florian said from the doorway of her office. “The COI has taken physical custody of the body. They’ll be at the University inside half an hour. They’ve assembled a team of experts.”

“This is just bad,” she said. “This is bad, Florian.”

“Catlin would say there’s a solution for it, sera.”

“What? Go to the station and assassinate Khalid? And then somebody else comes after us?”

“We have no idea regarding that, sera.”

“Come here.” Her tone had been sharp. She regretted it. It was loss of control, but she felt less safe than she had felt a certain number of days ago. People died. Every time things reached a point of decision, people died, and everybody shifted places. Denys. That was her fault. His own fault. But Patil, and Thieu, upset Yanni’s plans for things, and now Spurlin? Everything Yanni had put together was getting hammered by successive events, and the Eversnow business wasn’t even underway yet.

Worse, much worse, it began to raise a specter of who‑benefitted, and that answer was beginning to shape up in a very ugly fashion.

Florian came close. She got up from her desk and hugged him, took his face between her hands and saw slight puzzlement. “I’m not criticizing,” she said. “Doing that is a possibility, a real one, if anything should happen to Yanni. If I take over, they’ll be after me, and I don’t trust that man.”

“We think they already are after you,” Florian said. “They surely plan for contingencies. And, more than a contingency, you’re a certainty, sera. You’re a hundred‑percent certainty unless someone stops you. And we won’t permit that. None of us will permit that.”

She certainly was a target. The first Ari had been. And it was the same thing she’d said to Yanni: she didn’t remember the War. She didn’t remember the Treaty of Pell. She just read about it. The fine textures of history just went away, the fabric lost its tensions and shredded until it didn’t make thorough sense any more, and nobody knew now what the deeper part of the issues had been, except what they’d recorded during the actual negotiations.

But how could anybody of her generation pull all those hours of recorded history up, and listen to all of it, and understand it? You’d have to live all the hours of all those negotiations, and all the simultaneous other hours of every other record, and you still wouldn’t get the gestalt of having grown up in it. You knew more, viewing it from the perspective of another generation, because the hidden things came out, but you knew less, too, because the context that made it all make sense had gone away. The first Ari had been somebody’s target, and she’d died, but how could you know why she’d died without being there, and only Yanni and Jordan, of the people still living, had been real close to the facts…

And if Abban had done it, how had Abban gotten the notion? Abban was Giraud’s shadow, not Denys’. And Giraud had mourned the first Ari. He’d loved her, she knewGiraud had loved the first Ari, so how had Abban possibly been the instrument of the other brother’s policy?

“Sera?” Florian said in a hushed voice, and touched her hair, and looked at her the way she looked at him, only with more awareness than she’d had in the last few seconds. She felt half paralyzed, the way she felt when the brain started working and working and working, pulling things together from one side of flux and the other, nothing matching…nothing making sense.

The first Ari died. Her Florian and Catlin died. Maman died. Giraud died. Denys died. Abban died. Seely died.

Thieu died. Patil died. Now Spurlin. Seven were killed by violence. Three had been old. And now there was Spurlin. The odds were definitely not with natural causes, when power passed from hand to hand.

“A lot of people have died,” she said to Florian. “A lot of people. You can’t count Denys and Abban and Seely. That was us pushing back when they pushed us. But your predecessors and mine… whywould Abban be taking Denys’ orders, if it was Abban that did it?”

“If Denys ran tape on him,” Florian said. “If somebody good set it up. Denys had a lot of opportunity.”

“Was he the only one who could?” she asked. Her hands had fallen to his shoulders. He was a safe haven, Florian was. “Who could get to him, else? Track that.”

Fabric of history, all decayed, all the evidence, evaporating with every stray gust from a vent. The rime ice melted. The body went to the sun. People went on dying around the hinge‑points of power. It had gone on a long, long time. Before any time she remembered, certainly.

“What priority?” Florian asked her. His hands were at her waist. He’d become a young man. He’d become what he was designed to be and he asked an important question: in the crisis of the moment, with Spurlin dead and Jacques’ decisions in doubt and Lynch possibly next on somebody’s list–what priority, the investigation of three twenty‑year‑old murders?

Absolute priority. It was the environment of her life. It was the reason she existed. Because she existed, all the others had died: her doing, or others’ doing, because of her.

Some few were still alive, still in power, in various places. Some of them she trusted. And that could be deadly.

“High,” she said. “See if it was investigated, that first. Then see how wellit was investigated.”

“We’ll do that,” Florian said.

She kissed him, not for any good reason, except it fuzzed the brain for a moment, and it felt good, and she wanted to feel good for a moment. She wanted to lie to her senses for a moment and say they were all safe.

But it wasn’t true. The kiss was over and she sent him off to Catlin and Wes and Marco, and knew he’d do both–keep up with what was going on and investigate old history, both, if he and Catlin had to give up sleep.

They weren’t safe. And the next few days were going to be hard ones. Dangerous. She wasn’t ready to take over. Yanni’d told her that. But events weren’t going to wait for her. People were pushing, already, to get places and do things before she could possibly interfere and change the rules. People might die, in that push.

She couldn’t prevent it. That was the point.

So far, she couldn’t prevent it.

BOOK THREE Section 5 Chapter i

JULY 24, 2424

0821H

Giraud and Seely and Abban all reached their twenty‑third week. They swallowed…their lungs developed more passageways, and blood vessels, which would one day soon be useful: the proximity of these structures to each other would ultimately make it possible to breathe. Right now they drew their oxygen through the bioplasm of the artificial womb itself. And it rocked, and moved, and occasionally received sounds, internally generated, which made muscles twitch. By now, the brains sent faint light stimuli to a particular center, and sound to another. Nothing was overload. Everything was even keel.

They each weighed about half a kilo, and looked human. Seely weighed a few grams more than Giraud, and was a few centimeters taller. Abban was larger, and weighed six grams more than Giraud. Proportionately, he always would be larger. But Giraud would overtake both in girth, and Seely in weight, before he was fifty.

They moved, they turned. They had their own agendas, based somewhat on what the womb was doing. But something different had happened. The two wombs that contained azi were active at scheduled times. The one that contained a CIT was completely random. Chaos was a part of Giraud’s life now. Order had begun to assert itself in the other two. And that would always be true.

BOOK THREE Section 5 Chapter ii

JULY 25, 2424

1931H

Probably every vid in Reseune that wasn’t in a child’s room was tuned to the Novgorod news channel. That was probably true up on Cyteen Station.

This election mattered–immensely. The balance of power between parties was at stake. And nobody knew the results yet. The computers were counting and recounting and running complex check routines.

Justin and Grant occupied themselves with a manual, at home, over pizza–the downstairs restaurant, named Seasons, had done mostly deliveries tonight, very likely. Ari was closeted with her staff across the hall. Justin had seen the deliveryman with a trolley full of other orders, mostly pizza, with one address designation on it, and that was Amy’s apartment…so he had the notion a lot of people were there.

Yanni–Yanni wasn’t home, or if he was, he was quiet about it. More likely he was in his office; and if Ari wasn’t with her young friends for something this important, it was because Ari was busy and planned to be busy, whatever happened.

Himself, he just read through a great deal of Jordan’s notes, exactly replicated: he’d already read the basic program. So had Grant. And he couldn’t concentrate worth a damn, with the clock now thirty‑three minutes past the anticipated hour of the announcement of results. So he skimmed ahead, looking for the last and next to last note Jordan had made on that manual. Sequence of note was determined by the outline of programming itself. But Jordan’s handwriting had changed over twenty years, and he knew the way it had changed. It wasn’t that hard to find the latest ones.

“Page 183.23,” he said to Grant, a little troubled by what he saw.

Grant flipped pages, settled.

A little line appeared between Grant’s brows.

The station had been playing old tape of Spurlin, discussing Gorodin’s term as Proxy, Gorodin’s death–natural causes, that; then commentators discussing Spurlin’s suspicious death and the fact the special team at the University Hospital hadn’t published a cause of death–discussing Khalid’s last administration, familiar stuff to anybody who hadn’t been living in the outback for the last ten years–including the famous argument with young Ari–over and over and over. They’d turned the audio way down.

But the breaking news flasher went on, and Justin said, “Minder, sound.”

Audio came up. “ The five minute alert has been given. We are five minutes away from hearing the results of…”

BOOK THREE Section 5 Chapter iii

JULY 25, 2424

1940H

“…the Bureau of Defense election,”the vid said, and the web didn’t get the results or relay them any faster–just the timelag between Cyteen Station, where the counting was done, and Novgorod, where the news station resided. Base One, directly receiving the satellite, was a fraction faster than the news station.

Microdifference, in the scheme of things. Ari forced herself to have a sip of water and waited as the minute counter ran. Florian and Catlin, Marco and Wes, and Theo and Jory all watched the big screen. Nobody said anything.

She had contingencies in mind. She hadn’t said what they were, because she didn’t want even her most intimate staff knowing what she’d do in certain instances, in case that what‑she’d‑do changed someday, putting staff at disadvantage.

Second sip of water.

The seconds ticked down. Two minutes and fewer.

She put a call through to Amy’s apartment, where all the gang was. “Amy? Ari here.”

Amy answered, nearly instantly. “ Ari?”

“Listening, I take it. If it’s Spurlin I’ll send champagne down there. If it’s Khalid–you’re on your own. In either case–I’m going to be busy for a bit. Hang on.”

“We’re with you,”Amy said.

Twenty‑one seconds. Fifteen. Ten. Five.

The flasher came up, computer‑generated, the actual tally of votes, and the result.

Spurlinby 65 percent.

“We elected the dead man,” she said, and let go a breath as her staff visibly relaxed and as cheers erupted in Amy’s apartment. “Just a second.” She punched in Yanni’s office while the gang celebrated. “Yanni.”

“Told you”Yanni said.

“I told you,” she said. “Go have a party. I have my own to go to.”

“Not a tear for poor old Spurlin.”

“What for? We got his revenge for him. Just carry on what we’re doing.”

The autopsy had come in. Delicate death. A scarcely detectible drug, administered in the morning coffee. Murder. Council hadn’t wanted to announce that before the election. Now it was going to break, and occupy the news.

“…incumbent Councillor Jacques,”the news channel was saying, introducing its next speaker, and the staff paid absolutely silent attention.

“Jacques is on,” she said to Yanni. “Let him finish. Then go get some sleep.”

“I’ll wait to hear all of it,”Yanni said, and was silent while Jacques said…

“The Bureau of Defense mourns the passing of elected Councillor Spurlin, in which sentiment I know I am joined by candidate Vladislaw Khalid. The constitution provides that if a candidate for a Council seat dies between the closing of the polls and the reading of results, the incumbent Councillor for that bureau may, at his discretion, remain in office for the next term. I am opting to remain as Councillor for Defense. I will at a future date name a Proxy Councillor…”

Ari frowned. “Yanni.”

“I heard.”

“…as I see fit. Let us all join in paying tribute to a man…”

And so on.

“Did he agree? Is he still going to name Bigelow?”

“I don’t know what game he’s playing,”Yanni said. “I’m going to find out, but, dammit, this isn’t something for phone calls. Release the damned plane.”

Jacques, if Spurlin won posthumously, was supposed to have immediately named Gorodin’s long‑time aide, Vice Admiral Tanya Bigelow, as Proxy Councillor for Defense. All Jacques had to do then was warm that chair until they could organize another election, and Khalid, defeated, had to wait two years. It had all been handled.

Jacques had just gone sideways.

“ Ari?”

“Khalid got to him,” she said. “Khalid got to him. God, this isn’t looking like Paxer business, Yanni. This isn’t.”

“I’ve got to get down there,”Yanni said. “I’m taking plenty of security, but I have to get there. I have to talk to Jacques directly. Dammit, Ari, either take over right now, or don’t. Don’t try to steer from the passenger seat.”

She didn’t want to agree. She saw the situation, however, just the same as Yanni. And he was right this time. Jacques was under threat, or he’d been paid off, and she’d guess the former.

“Yanni, I’ll clear the flight. Protect Lynch. Above all, take care of yourself.”

Florian and Catlin had come over to her, where she sat with the mini, linked into the minder. They had a much quieter manner than a few moments ago. Marco and Wes joined them, just stood and waited.

“Yanni’s going to Novgorod,” she said, “to talk to Jacques. Someone’s gotten to him. Maybe Yanni can supply enough security to give him a little backbone. Khalid’s people killed Spurlin, I’ll bet on it. All of a sudden I’m wondering about Patil and Thieu.”

“Khalid is still up on the station,” Catlin said.

“And out of reach. Out of our reach. But he has fingers down here. We need to know where, and into what. We need to know why Jacques changed his mind. Yanni’s going to ask that question personally. He’s relying on Hicks’smen to protect him. I’m not liking this. I’m not liking this at all.”

“We’ll keep informed,” Florian said.

“Inform me,” she said, “at any hour of the day or night. If anything happens to Yanni, under Hicks’s protection–” She thought about it, about the danger of a man with that many keys to the systems…when the source of the danger might lie well within the impenetrable heart of another Bureau. “Get ready to take Hicks down, dead or alive, I’m imposing no conditions. Just don’t risk yourselves. Remember I can axe his accesses. If I hear anything untoward out of Novgorod, Hicks is gone.”

“Understood,” Catlin said, and then: “Sera?”

She looked up at Catlin.

“We know Hicks used to accompany Director Giraud to Novgorod. There were many meetings with Defense in Gorodin’s administration and in Khalid’s. He went a few days ago. For Yanni.”

Bureau heads met. Their representatives met. Hicks had indeed gone there a few days ago, talking to Jacques, carrying Yanni’s offer to Jacques; it went on all the time.

“Sera?” Florian asked, in her long silence.

“Jacques is going to name Khalid as Proxy Councillor. He may be hoping we’ll raise the bet and bid him back. But we have to be able to guarantee his life. That executive position doesn’t help him at all if he’s dead. Or if his family is. Estranged daughter?”

Catlin whipped out her handheld. She said, memory refresher, “Solo. No minor dependents. No relationships since 2421. Uncontested division of household. Estranged daughter, grandchild, great‑grandchildren, affiliated with former partner, not genetically related to Jacques.”

Solo fit a pattern, of people who made it to directorships and Council seats. Including Yanni. “Whereabouts of next‑ofs and former partner: Novgorod.”

“Novgorod,” Catlin confirmed.

“Too available. Relay that info to Yanni, not to Hicks. TellYanni we’re not relaying it to Hicks.” Yanni would say to her, What do you expect me to do about it, without Hicks? “Tell him he’s got to get some meaningful security around Jacques’s family and friends. And Jacques. And damn it, it’ll look like hell if we pull ReseuneSec in to guard him. Tell Yanni that Spurlin was murdered. That’s proof enough. Let the OCI request Stateto get agents in to guard Jacques, and our bloc will back him in Council for doing it. Andtell Yanni I say keep Hicks in the dark on the whole move.”

“Yes, sera,” Florian said, and got on the phone. She heard him talking to Yanni’s office manager, Chloe. “Sera’s orders. Urgent message for Yanni.”

Yanni was going to spit if she kept interfering and nagging him step by step, but she was about two jumps short of voicing the code to override Base Two as it was, and blood was rushing through her veins, pushing her to do something, take action, go withYanni to Novgorod. She’d crippled Khalid politically before. Her appearance would remind audiences all over Cyteen and Union how that had played out.

But that wasn’t highly prudent to do. Something about all their eggs in one basket and notdeclaring war on Khalid until they’d gotten Jacques back in line.

Damn Jacques for not following the script. But Jacques sat in the middle of the Defense Tower, where there were abundant holdovers from the Khalid regime, people who could deliver a message. It didn’t matter that Khalid was on the station. His agents were clearly in Novgorod.

Tell Yanni I’ll be there if I have to, she almost added, but she bit her tongue on it. Yanni was the one who’d been dealing with Jacques, Yanni had made the deals with Jacques andCorain, and she hoped she hadn’t enabled this mess by refusing to let Yanni fly down there the day Spurlin died and start running from one to the other making sure the deals he’d made held. He hadn’t accused her in that regard. But there could be some connection.

There could equally well have been a bad outcome to her letting Yanni go there too soon and check into the hotel across the park from the hotel that had blown up and caught fire the month Denys died. There were crazy people in Novgorod. Worse, there was something very, very high‑level behind Spurlin’s death, and maybe behind the rest of it, and Eversnow–God knew what it had to do with anything, but it was a question.

She folded the mini and set it aside on the couch, knowing it would turn up again on her desk the minute she left the room. She decided she’d call the gang down. Tell them bring the pizza with them, her place was focused down on staff, on a minimal dinner and Cook’s service for all the staff she had staying up and taking care of business.

So she did that. Or she told Theo to do it, and told Jory leave the computer, she might need it.

What she needed at the moment Florian was too busy to provide. And she didn’t want anybody else. Not the way she was now. She found herself pacing, looked down at Sam’s river underneath her feet, glowing with light, the rest of Sam’s river reflecting the blue fish wall, reminding her of a tranquility that didn’t exist in the world.

So Jacques had the reins in his hands and wasn’t going to do what he’d promised Reseune he’d do–retreat quietly as Lynch had done and leave a Proxy in charge of Defense; draw his salary for two years and then go take his nice posh executive post. They’d had it all set up for Jacques, a do‑nothing Councillor, to do nothing another two years and still know his job was waiting for him. And Hicks had flown down there to get that agreement. Well, thathadn’t gone outstandingly well, had it?

Maybe Jacques just wanted Yanni to come down there in person and hold his hand through the process. Maybe he wanted face‑to‑face assurance. She doubted that was the game.

She paced. She walked up to the fish wall and watched the fish. She’d gotten rather fond of the little pearly jawfish–that was their real name: opistognathus aurifrons–golden‑brow–that made their home in the substrate, right by a rock. They came half‑out to see her, tails still in their burrow. They were white, with a blueish opal look to their fins, pale yellow head. Little jewels. Their world was on that side of the glass, hers on this one; and this evening their world was running much more smoothly than hers.

The big Achilles tang came sweeping past, black, orange‑detailed, and elegant, acanthurus achilles.The jawfish dived into their burrows, and the Achilles, ominous shadow, went on to terrify the rabbitfish, who dreaded everything.

Small wars. Small problems. Everlasting, between species that had been conducting their same business and having the same quarrels since the last ice flowed on Earth.

The more intelligent of old Earth’s species weren’t doing much better, locally.

A small commotion drew Theo and Jory to the front door, and they admitted Amy and Maddy, Tommy with a stack of pizza containers, and the rest of the gang.

“Are we doing anything yet?” Amy asked in the same cheerful tone she’d used on pranks and schemes against Denys, not so many years ago. It was incongruous. It filled her with an irrational sense of capability. Are we doing anything yet?

But they weren’t within striking distance of this problem. Just Yanni was. And it was a two‑way strike potential.

“Yanni’s going. I cleared Reseune One to fuel. He’ll probably go tonight.”

“He will, sera,” Florian said. “He’s called for a car. Ten of ReseuneSec’s higher officers are going with him.”

“Backgrounds,” she said. “Tell Rafael do it.”

“Yes, sera,” Florian said, and went off to the foyer to do it quietly.

Meanwhile Tommy was laying out the pizza containers on available tables, and Mischa opened them one after the other. The smell wafted through the living room.

“Catlin,” she said, “tell kitchen we’d like some wine.” She’d have one. She’d earned it. But no other, not tonight. “Call Justin. Tell him and Grant come across. We’re having an election party.”

“But Jacques didn’t name Bigelow,” Amy said.

“That’s why Yanni’s on his way to Novgorod,” she said, and shopped among pizzas, finding her favorite, bacon and basil. She took a slice in her fingers. “Jacques has weasled.”

“Is that a word?”

“An old word for a slinky little mammal. He’s weasled. We don’t know if somebody’s gotten to him, or if he’s just waiting for Yanni to show up in person and ask him nicely. If he does something like name Khalid–he’s been gotten to.”

“Somebody can file on him in two months,” Tommy said. Tommy had probably looked it up.

“They can,” Ari said, “and somebody’s bound to, Bigelow on one side, and Khalid on the other, and we go another seven months trying to get somebody elected who’s competent. Don’t talk to me about Khalid. I’m eating.”

Wine showed up from the hallway, at one end. And Justin and Grant showed up at the door, at the other.

“Pizza,” she said. “Drinks. Call for what you want.”

Justin didn’t ask a question, but he looked a little cautious. So did Grant.

“It wasn’t all good,” Amy said under her breath. “Jacques was supposed to name Admiral Bigelow Proxy, and didn’t, and Yanni’s going to Novgorod.”

Justin had looked Amy’s way.

“It’s not totally good,” Ari said. “But we’ve still got Jacques, and Yanni’s going there, with a guard we hope he can rely on, to call in a non‑military guard, I hope, to keep Jacques safe. Choose your pizza. It’s still warm. We’re not celebrating yet, but we’re not panicking. Spurlin was murdered.”

Justin had been picking up a piece of pizza, sausage and cheese. He let it lie.

“Have your pizza,” she said. “Just letting you know it’s dangerous out there.”

“Had that idea,” he said, and took the pizza anyway. Haze offered him a tray, white wine and red. He chose red, and had the pizza in one hand and the drink in the other. Grant had gone for cheese on cheese, and white, and settled on a settee near the fish wall, his long legs a little tucked, given the height of the seat.

“I called you here,” Ari said to Justin, “because you’re on the inside, same as everybody else. Because if I pull Hicks out of his job, and I may, I may put youin as head of ReseuneSec.”

“Don’t even joke about it,” he said, the wineglass in one hand, the pizza, frozen, in the other. “No. Lock me up, but keep me out of thatjob.”

“I think you’d actually be good at it.”

“Realtime work, remember?”

“You just arrest them. You don’t cure them.”

“I don’t want to arrest anybody,” Justin said. “Ari, you’re joking. Tell me you’re joking.”

“I’m joking,” she said, but she wasn’t–she had a short, short list of candidates she’d trust for the time it took to fill the job permanently. “Your other choice is Yanni’s job.”

“No,” he said, fast.

“If anything should happen,” she said. “But it won’t, if I can help it. That’s why you’re here. You’d do it, wouldn’t you, a week or two, if you really had to?”

He stood looking at her with the ridiculous pizza and the wineglass, and finally went and laid the pizza piece back with the nearest pizza.

“Ari, if you’re anywhere close to serious, I’m asking you, pick just about anybody else in Reseune. Amy, over there, damned near ranReseune for the duration of the last–”

“I trust you,” she said, “beyond most people over the age of eighteen. And if things go wrong, I’ll owe you and Grant a very, very big apology for all of it, because things will go to absolute hell and you’re going to get swept up in the fallout. Right now. Base One recognizes Yanni as my guardian if I should die. He’s responsible for getting me back. And Base One recognizes you as second in line to run Reseune and to do exactly that.”

“No,” he said earnestly. “Ari, no. I’m not remotely qualified.”

“Who is?” she asked. “Who has a thorough knowledge of the system when it’s going badly, and when it’s going right? I could appoint Wojkowski, or Peterson, or Edwards, but they’re none of them up to saying no to the right people.”

“I’m not outstandingly good at saying no, either. Look at how far it’s got me. I spent more time being arrested than anybody else in Reseune.”

“That’s not your sole qualification. You’re qualified to bring meup if you had to. You’d be qualified to bring up Giraudif anything happens to Yanni in the next few weeks–at least long enough to find somebody to be as non‑fit as the first Giraud’s mother. Tell me you will. Or tell me who’s going to do the job. You’d have Amy, you’d have Maddy–she does a lot more than look nice and run a dress shop: believe that. You’d have Sam. He’s hands‑on, but he’s brilliant at what he does. Florian, Catlin–you’d take care of them. You’d see they were safe…they’d see you were…”

He opened his left arm of a sudden, wrapped it around her gently and hugged her against his shoulder. He smelled good. He was warm, he was stronger than you’d ever think, and he held her the way nobody ever had who was older, nobody but Ollie, a long, long time ago. She didn’t cry, though if she weren’t so hyped to fight, she might have, and he didn’t make a scene of it, he just walked her aside from everybody else, over toward the garden‑glass of the dining room, and let her go, and said, facing her, “If I’m all, Ari. If I’m absolutely all there is, I’ll do it. I wouldn’t be near good at it. I’d be looking for advice, wherever it came from. But I’d keep your people safe, with everything I could put together, and I wouldn’t waste any time getting your next edition into the tank and going, fast as I could. My father–my father I know is a question. But he wouldn’t be, in this. If it came down to it–I’d be there, long as it took for your own people to get their feet on the ground.”

“We don’t knowthings about history, Justin. We don’t know how things happened. We just know where things are now.”

“That’s pretty well the condition of everybody born, isn’t it? Except you, being what you are–”

“And you’re Jordan’sreplicate, so you know things you wouldn’t, if you were Amy, or Sam, or Maddy. You know things. You were part of that world, the way it was.”

“I know things.”

“So you’re the best I could choose. And I’ll give you a verbal code, which will only work in your voiceprint, and only if my CIT number has gone inactive in the system. Just say my name three times. Just say AriAriAri. And Base One is yours. Even if Yanni’s Base Two is still active. I trust you, more than Yanni. And if anything happens to me, you take possession of this apartment, and all my staff, and every defense this place has. And you bring my friends in until it’s safe.”

“Don’t get killed. Pleasedon’t get killed.”

He did care. He did. And that mattered. She was in the mode she’d been in when they’d come after Uncle Denys–close to that. But she could be amused, just a little, and moved to put a hand on his shoulder. “So you don’t have to run Reseune? There’s a major difference between you and your father. You really love the work, the puzzles in it; you tolerate me because I bring you puzzles.”

His brows knit, just a little offense, not much. “You’re a little better than a puzzle, young sera. Just a little.”

“And you’re a little better than a puzzle‑solver. A lot better, in fact.” She pressed her fingers into his arm. “I’ve been in love with you since forever. So far I’ve been mostly good. And you know that, too.”

“Don’t even open that door.”

“My name is Ari. Not kid. Not young sera. I wish you’d use it.”

“And you know you areyoung sera, to most everybody.”

She tilted her head to look up at him, right in the eyes, pursed her lips slightly and shook her head, ever so slightly. “I’m Ariane,” she said. “That covers everything people say I am. You’re only half a replicate. Thank God. I’m pretty damned close to the original. Don’t worry about me. Just don’t let anybody get in a hit behind my back. I want you safe while I’m gone.”

“ You’renot going with Yanni.”

“Yanni will have already left by now–or be on the verge of it. I’m going to be busy. And I’d like to give you Amy, but she’s going to Novgorod. She’s real quiet. The media let her alone. She’ll find out things. She’ll have Quentin with her, and he’ll be out of uniform. All very quiet. Just a business trip. Give me a kiss. I’m collecting them, storage for the next few days.”

He did, just a kiss on the cheek. She’d wondered what he’d do if she asked.

That he could do that, that smoothly, that collectedly, said worlds about his mental state.

She left him, then, to go talk to Amy.

“Sure.” Amy said. “When?”

“See if Yanni caninfuse some backbone into Jacques and get Khalid shut out. I’m worried, all things considered, that that won’t be enough.”

“If Khalid’s involved in Spurlin’s murder…”

“Likely it won’t stop other things from happening. That’s what’s got me worried: if Yanni succeeds, Yanni’s in imminent danger.”

“Jacques is in trouble, in either case,” Amy said.

“He’s a dead man, either walking around for a while, or cold before nightfall. But we can only protect him if he agrees with us and puts Bigelow in the line of fire–if that’s what’s going on. This is dangerous, Amy. You should understand that. I’m not sure Patil and Thieu aren’t linked into this, and that means Yanni is a majortarget.”

“I’m in the fish breeding business. It’s about your tank. I’m staying in the Wilcox, third floor–fast to reach ground level: and Quentin’s my secretary. You want some blennies.”

“You’ve got it,” she said. “Bore anybody who asks. If you’re absolutely sure you’re overheard, you and Quentin start arguing about calcium supplements and temperature stability in the bar.”

Amy laughed. Then: “Understood,” Amy said, with a little pat on her arm, and went to talk to Quentin.

A plane took off. Ari caught the sound, above the water‑sound of the room. That would probably be Yanni.

Good luck, she wished him. Good luck.

Please stay alive, Yanni.

BOOK THREE Section 5 Chapter iv

JULY 26, 2424

0828H

“Ser.” Rafael met Florian in the foyer of the little office, opened the back hall door, and showed him right through.

An item had turned up. That was what Rafael’s message had said, and when Florian went into Rafael’s office a very anxious young woman leapt up and bowed that slight degree ReseuneSec protocol taught. She was no older than the rest of them, just old enough for assignment. Her uniform tag said CARLY BC‑18, and she was dark‑skinned, broad‑faced, wide‑shouldered. She clutched half a ream of physical printout to her chest as if it were state secrets.

Which, given that Rafael was investigating staff backgrounds, it might be.

“This is Carly BC, ser. Records.”

“Ser,” Carly said.

Florian took the available conference chair. Carly settled on the edge of her seat and held her printout on her knees.

“So what do you have, Carly BC?”

“Ser, Giraud Nye’s contacts, systematized; the azi in question. Also Giraud Nye’s aides and seconds, their whereabouts, their contacts. I have the computer file.” She touched her breast pocket.

“Tell me what you learned,” Florian said. He expected a little nervousness. Carly BC was new, straight from the barracks. First real assignment.

And Carly had, first off, a shorter document, within the cover of the first. She pulled it out and handed it over, a set of graphs and schematics. Trips to Novgorod. Time spent in Novgorod. Meetings with Defense. Persons involved. Giraud. Abban. Gorodin, deceased Councillor.

Regime change. Giraud, Abban, Hicks. Khalid. Jacques. Spurlin. Jacques, just recently.

He looked up at Rafael. “You’ve seen this?”

“I’ve skimmed it, yes, ser.”

“Specific data on Hicks. Carly BC.”

“Ser.”

“Can you pull that out?”

Carly opened the printout on her lap and frantically turned pages. “It’s here, ser.” Large, dark eyes fixed on his. “I broke out stats on each individual involved. Nye, Abban AB, Hicks, Gorodin, Khalid, Jacques, Spurlin…”

“Give me the data file,” Florian said, and held out his hand. Carly BC opened her pocket and handed it to him immediately, a finger marking her place in the printout.

Branches. Branch led to branch, led to branch. One person connected to another. It didn’t always produce valid theory, but the investigative AI tended to err on the side of the smallest connection, once it launched.

“Well done, Carly BC.”

“Thank you, ser.”

The threads all wove back and forth. That was the pattern. Never expect that it was going to connect up too tightly. Defense was massive.

“Visits by Abban to Hicks,” he said. “Do you have that stat?”

“A lot, ser. I can find it.” She started to resort to the printout again.

“That’s good, Carly BC. No, don’t bother. If it’s searchable, it’s in here, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ser.”

“I think we’re through with Carly BC’s report,” Florian said quietly. “Thank you, Carly BC.”

“Ser.” She looked uncertain. Then started to get up.

“I’ll take the report,” Florian said. And took it, and Carly received a nod from Rafael and left.

Florian looked at Rafael, at the azi who’d been primed to report to Hicks.

“How are you now, Rafael BR?” he asked. “Are you with us on this?”

“My Contract is to sera,” Rafael said firmly.

“No lingering troubles.”

“None, ser.”

Florian looked at him a long time, and Rafael gazed back, level and long.

“Take precautions,” Florian said. “The ferret she sent may have rung bells in certain offices. It shouldn’t. But sometimes we aren’t as clean as we hope to be. Assume we’re not. That’s safest.”

“Yes, ser,” Rafael said faintly.

“Assume nothing.” Florian said. “Expect anything. At any time.”

“Yes, ser.”

Florian pocketed the datastrip, took the printout in hand, and left what ought to be the securest office in the securest wing in Reseune.

He went upstairs to sera’s apartment, to the security station in the front hall, and laid the printout on the desk by Catlin’s elbow.

“Sera Amy is safely in the hotel,” Catlin said. “Third floor, as she wanted.”

“Hicks accompanied Giraud to Defense very many times,” he said, “and was Giraud’s go‑between there, as sera remembered. Sometimes Abban was with him. Yanni is, by comparison, a stranger in that tower.”

“The military have their own psychs,” Catlin said.

He nodded. “I think this has to go to sera,” he said. “I think we need her opinion on this.”

BOOK THREE Section 5 Chapter v

JULY 26, 2424

0929H

“Yanni’s not meeting with Jacques today,”was the gist of Amy’s report. It was Friday, Jacques ought to be available, Spurlin’s funeral was on the vid, and Jacques was notably absent.

Which wasn’t good. Ari didn’t acknowledge receipt of the message from Amy. There wasn’t anything to say. She did message Yanni, saying, “How are you doing, Uncle Yanni?”

And Yanni shot back, “As well as can he expected. Funerals depress me.”

“We’re all fine,” she wrote. “Don’t worry about things.”

That was about five minutes before Florian came through the door and told her they were not fine.

“Sera,” he said. “We have specific data. Abban and Hicks were both Giraud’s special envoys to Defense tower, during all recent administrations, including Khalid and Gorodin, and sometimes they were there over eight hours at a stretch. Two: Hicks is a provisional Alpha Supervisor. He has an alpha assistant, Kyle AK, and he’s provisionally certified for that azi; the certificate was obtained in the last year of Giraud’s tenure. He was in Giraud’s office as deputy director for fifteen years. He had a key. He could have accessed any manual. As an Alpha Supervisor, he could have used any manual in that office…”

“Oh, this is good, Florian.”

“You know born‑men, sera. But we know access. He had access.”

“He certainly did. Access to Abban. Probably to Seely. Access to Yanni’s office, right now, while he’s in Novgorod. Every timehe’s been in Novgorod. Damn it! Florian, do youthink Abban would have betrayed Giraud? Killed, contrary to Giraud’s wishes?”

That drew a rapid blink of Florian’s eyes. A rapid assessment. “Sera, no, I don’t.”

“Abban was upset as hell when Giraud died. Denys took him in. But Abban stayedupset. Denys didn’t do anything to help him. Or Denys couldn’t. That’s what I think. And maybe Abban continually supplied Denys with what somebody wanted Denys to know. Or think. Denys was only half paranoid–until Giraud died, and Abban moved in.”

“Were we mistaken to kill Denys, sera?”

“No,” she said definitively, and then amended that: “I don’t think so. I don’t think there was anything to save, once Giraud died. He’d have killed us.”

“I believe he would have, sera. I know Seely would have.”

“Seely was always Abban’s partner…out in green barracks. The way you and Catlin are partners.”

“He probably was that, yes, sera. It makes sense that he was.”

“But it’s not in his manual, nor is it in Seely’s. That’s just damned odd. A subsequent generation wouldn’t guess that relationship–based on that manual. A spy wouldn’t. It was just in their heads. And Giraud’s. And whoever really, really knew them. Bring me a cup of coffee, Florian. Call Catlin. We need to talk about this.”

“Yes, sera.”

She didn’t need the coffee, so much as the time. When they were there, Florian or Catlin, she had a range of possibilities that might be too wide, too drastic.

Call Yanni home, now, urgently? That might protect Yanni–assuming Yanni wasn’t aiding and abetting.

Hicks. With access to alpha‑level personal manuals in Giraud’s office. Giraud had been a real Alpha Supervisor. On the record Denys had an alpha license. But Seely and Abban both, once they’d been solely in Denys’ care, hadn’t had expert handling. They’d both given her cold chills, but it had always been true, Giraud was the one who’d have had those manuals, Giraud was the person that could make the world make sense to Abban, and to Seely…and when he’d died, Denys couldn’t handle them.

Giraud, dammit, should have found it out if somebody had gotten to Abban. He’d known Abban that well. He’d livedwith him that closely. How did anybody get to Abban and Giraud not know it?

But everybody’dbeen upset for weeks after the first Ari had died. Giraud more than most. Giraud hadn’t been at his best… Giraud had been emoting, leaning on Abban, not the other way around. And Abban had taken care of Giraud. An alpha could. An alpha could end up being the support for his CIT–even if it meant hiding a truth, and lying, and not getting caught at it. That was the hell of working with alphas. Given the collapse of the CIT they relied on, they so, so easily ended up doing all the navigation on a map they didn’t wholly understand, and satisfying their internal conditions by the nearest available substitute–the satisfaction of coping well, and rescuing their CIT, and keeping him going. You couldn’thave an emotional meltdown and stay in charge, not with an Abban type.

Abban might have killed the first Ari–but working with the security sets as she had, she knew–she knew in a way she hadn’t been able to accept–that scary as Abban was, Abban hadn’t been doing the steering. Abban hadn’t been to blame. And she’d gotten over it when she’d made up her mind that she wouldn’t abort Giraud, and more particularly wouldn’t abort the Abban and Seely Denys had made to keep him company.

Pyramids in the desert. The immortality of the ancients, the burial with worldly goods, with attendants, with all the panoply of kings. Offerings to the dead, for the rebirth. She’d had that thought, when she’d first known Denys had activated all three genesets.

All three. Even while Abban and Seely were still alive–they’d been reconceived. Were weeks along, when Denys and Abban and Seely had died.

The sarcophagus and the womb‑tank.

She gave a little shiver. Knew exactlythe same decision had attended her birth, and Florian’s, and Catlin’s, though they’d all been dead.

Who’d given the order to terminate Florian and Catlin? Not likely Denys. Giraud.

Full‑circle, now. Absolutely full‑circle.

Hicks betrayed you, Uncle. Betrayed all of you. Jordan had been conniving with Defense. He was going to break it all open and bring Reseune down–but that wouldn’t have served Defense. If there had been no Reseune in those years, Defense would have been desperate to have one. So Defense just wanted to control Reseune, not bring it down. They already had their man inside Reseune–and they wrote their own script, not Jordan’s. They knew about the psychogenesis project. They knew it, probably, from Jordan, who’d tried it with Justin, and Jordan would have warned them not to go along with it–warned anybody who’d listen, if they’d asked.

But the warnings wouldn’t mean a thing to Defense. They just saw a way to have a re‑start on Ari Emory, a quieter, merely potential Ari Emory, who wouldn’t bother them for years, while Reseune kept their contracts, Reseune did the work for Defense, gave them what they wanted…

But, damn! who just authorized Defense to move in on Planys? Who authorized that military base built right next to our labs?

She leaned over the computer and posed the question:

2404. The year the first Ari died. The year Jordan Warrick became the man in the iron mask, the prisoner at Planys.

The military moves in, to keep him quiet. Cooperates–aids and abets–in keeping Ari’s so‑called killer and their agreed ally in Reseune…away from any communication with the outside world.

Wasn’t that a window on their real set of priorities?

The first Ari safely dead. The second in planning.

Jordan…silenced.

Their installation set up at Planys, with Giraud’s consent.

And their own man, Hicks, or Abban, with easy, constant access to Giraud’s office.

But there was a problem with that line of reasoning.

Hicks himself had been a victim.

Somebody put a Rafael type in Hicks’s office–and Hicks–or somebody–put an identical into my security organization.

So whose were they to start with?

Hicks didn’t have the wherewithal–didn’t have the knowledge to create them. He had the authority to order it done. But how did he get it past Giraud?

And how old is that set? When was the first one setted?

2373. Fifty‑one years ago.

Fifty‑one years ago. On the first Ari’s staff. An azi named Regis. And who could have done that?

How to excavate that much history? Who’d been in a position to do that in those days?

Jordan? Not old enough. Giraud himself…when he first started Operating. He could have.She’d been down this track before, but mostly Not old enoughkept coming round and round and round, troubling any conclusion aiming at the people she’d liketo blame. Chi Prang, head of alpha azi–holding that position a long, long time…that was the best candidate to have created someone to infiltrate the first Ari’s staff.

But why? Whose? Chi Prang had never done a thing on record but do her job.

Shoot off a letter to Chi Prang and just ask; did you infiltrate the first Ari’s staff, and Hicks’ staff, and now mine? It just didn’t make sense. And it kept coming down to…

One who had been alive, and in office a hell of a long time. One who played his own side of the board, consistently, and generally not too quietly.

In between the outbursts, you tended to forget.

Yanni. Yanni was what he was, one of the best.

Not necessarily a bad set of motives. But worth questioning.

Maybe Hicks had somehow figured out there was a double agent in his office–one he daren’t touch. But he could bestow the same gift elsewhere. As Giraud had been doing. Spying on the station. Spying on the military.

Two games had been going simultaneously. The military moving in on Planys, and getting a hold on Hicks; and Hicks knowing his own Director, Giraud, was spying on him, but Hicks moving very carefully to get at manuals in that office, so Giraud hadn’t known.

Hell. There was one contrary possibility in that scenario.

“Sera.” Catlin came in. Florian was right there with the coffee–three coffees. Florian knew her.

“Sit down,” she said. “Wait. I’m thinking.”

She hit the keyboard again. Pulled up Hicks’s age as 102. Not that old. But old enoughfifty years ago. He’d taken his alpha certs when he’d acquired his assistant, who’d been from Giraud’s office–

–AK‑36, Kyle, alpha, for God’s sake…military alpha.

She stared at the history on the screen.

Could she be so blind? Contracted first at eighteen to the military, military intelligence, no information available, reverted to Reseune, assigned to ReseuneSec after restructuring. The law said–decommissioned alphas had to come home to Reseune. This one had come to the most natural home for his abilities. Straight from the War, year of the Treaty of Pell being 2353, to Reseune, with the decommissioning of his unit in 2358.

Put into labs at Reseune for retraining. The routine was supposed to require the axe code, partial wipe, re‑Contracting. She looked for that specific date, that specific session.

Didn’t turn up until 2362.

God.

Whohadn’t given the code early on? Why not?

Somebody wanting to debrief Kyle AK‑36, and learn what he’d been into, and what he’d done for the military? Somebody who thought they’d just ask questions and mine him for all kinds of information–somebody who was an expert interrogator–and who might have reason to suspect the military?

Somebody who wouldn’t leave traces and records in the system? Base One could do that. Up to a certain limit, Base Two or Three could do it.

The first Ari could do that. So could Yanni. So could Giraud. So could Jane Strassen and Wendy Peterson, in those days…when the relationship with Defense, in the last days of the War, with the whole Gehenna situation, had been going quietly unpleasant.

AK‑36 himself had specialized in security. And he was alpha. He was one of those the military had used to analyze azi behaviors, to actually serve as Supervisors, before Reseune had pitched a fit about the practice and demanded that mentally damaged azi be taken out of action and returned to Reseune, no matter the inconvenience to the military In 2350 Ari had gotten that measure through Council and snatched back azi who were routinely being mentally and physically patched together and sent back into combat. She’d had a famous row with Admiral Azov. But she’d won, which had outraged the military and set the stage for years of uneasy relations between Science and Defense…so long as Azov was in office.

And Kyle AK‑36 had been with the military for a number of years after the Treaty of Pell. Served in a classified function from which there were no records accessible. Then in 2358, by law, all remaining alpha and beta azi had come back to Reseune. Reseune, namely Giraud, must have tried to unravel him for four more years after that, learning things, maybe, maybe just trying to understand what his history really was. It was worth looking for those sessions, of which there was no readily available record. That period had ended in 2362.

After the axe‑code that ended his Contract to the military, Kyle AK‑36 had been with Giraud, a skilled psych operator, skilled interrogator, trusted aide until–around 2404, when Ari died, Giraud had passed the ReseuneSec office to Adam Hicks…and passed Kyle along with it, as the one, maybe, to keep the office on an even keel under a much weaker administrator…and who could keep on reporting to Giraud.

And who hadordered production on the Rafael types from the outset, in those years between 2358 and 2404? Search failed. But one of them had ended up in Ari’s household. And another in Hicks’s staff.

Who’d settedthe other B‑28’s? No signature. That could mean Ari herself. It could mean anybody down to Giraud…or somebody working for him. Once AK‑36 had finally had the axe code and become, allegedly, a Reseune azi, he’d been Giraud’s specialist assistant, between 2362 and 2404. The axe code, designed to revoke a Contract–could be a wide‑ranging wipe, but wasn’t, if the azi was well setted. Ideally it just reset the Contract to None and erased specific areas of knowledge and belief, an organized amnesia. You wanted an azi to know things he could later completely forget: you linked them to the axe code. But the military theoretically couldn’t do that on his level–because they theoretically didn’t have military Supervisors at his level.

An axe code was rough, emotionally rough, physiologically rough on an azi. And without operators like AK‑36 to manage it, the military couldn’t do that anymore, and when AK‑36 was sent home, he certainly couldn’t do it for himself, could he?

So he’d have held the last secrets the military hadn’t erased. And he’d have waited, waited four years for somebody to do it for him. Giraud didn’t even try to do it–for several years of a miserable limbo, and finally did, maybe with help from Prang.

Nice safe azi after that. So Giraud must have thought. An alpha, recovered from the military, and so helpful that Giraud had him doing things he’d used to do, skilled things. She’d bet on it.

Or maybe Prang hadn’t been in on the actual operation…because of Giraud’s own paranoia. She wouldn’t be allowed that much window into security psychsets.

Did the creation of the B‑28’s fit into Kyle AK’s term of service? One of them had arrived on the first Ari’s staff, young, good‑looking–the first Ari liked good‑looking young men, no fault, as her successor saw it.

And that one, Regis, had arrived, oh, some two decades on. So had the one in what was, at the time, Giraud’s office, in ReseuneSec. And others, elsewhere.

Not Giraud’s doing. Kyle’s. Reporting to him, just conceivably; or, in the case of those outside Reseune, reporting to anybody who had the key.

Oh, Uncle. You created me a hell of a mess. Was AK‑36 actually doing all the work with alphas that I forever was a little surprised you could really do?

And when the B‑28 went into your own staff and the other into Ari’s, was it AK‑36 who was running him? Or was it you, ordering all of it?

Spying on Ari. Spying on your own staff. On people outside Reseune, out at Beta, up on Alpha Station. That would be like you. And you left ReseuneSec, and left the B‑28, and AK‑36 was still running him. AK‑36 was probably still reporting to you–just to keep you happy.

Maybe for the same reason, you let AK‑36 go with Hicks every time he went to Novgorod, every time he visited. Defense, just the silent presence, your nice, trustable azi who remembered things like a human recorder.

And of course he was all yours, all the time, all yours.

Did you run the axe code without Prang’s help? Maybe you did. And it didn’t damned well work, Uncle, and you didn’t spot it–because you weren’t that good and you shouldn’t have been operating like that on an alpha. Terrible thing, vanity. Your mother wanted to make you a genius. Maybe it still stung–that you weren’t all that good, never mind the license.

Who killed my predecessor? You did. You didn’t ever plan it. Yon didn’t want it to happen. You really loved her. But it didn’t take Abban going to Novgorod to have his head restructured. You could have been as careful as you liked where Abban was when you were visiting Defense–but you weren’t so careful where AK‑36 was, or what he was doing at home, were you?

Defense planted Kyle on you. A Trojan horse. An axe code that didn’t work, possibly because they’d messed with it, or possibly because they’d just forged the personal manual…and everything in it was right except that code. Is it possible–is it remotely possible you didn’t crosscheck that manual with the original set, or look up that axe code in archive? That would have been unconscionably careless, Uncle. Maybe you did everything right, and somewhere in the military system they messed with that code and somehow kept him sane.

With you, he had total office access, access to Abban’s personal manual, probably Seely’s, too, since I’ll bet you were supervising Seely; definitely to as much kat as he needed, on any day of the week. Abban might have made one mistake in his life, just one mistake, and taken a cup of coffee in the lunchroom. Easy at certain hours to have a little seclusion–and if AK‑36 was really good, he wouldn’t have, conflicted Abban at all, would he, or taken too long to do the job? Nothing you could spot. Just one hell of a deep initial dose, reassurance, need to contact him again regarding a problem. Then verbal work. Everything couched in benefitting Giraud. Doing good. Giraud being secretly threatened by spies inside the office… Abban could help. Abban could protect him. Abban could get Seely’s manual. They could go on protecting Giraud if they just worked together.

Who else, besides you and Denys, could operate Base Two with authority? Abban. Abban could tiptoe through System with not a trace left. Azi could he created. Setted. Records forged without a trace. Any of those things. When Hicks took over, and when Hicks went with Giraud to Novgorod, AK‑36 went with Hicks–and ultimately got more specific instructions, didn’t he?

AK‑36’s still in Hicks’s office, the whole reason Hicks has a provisional alpha certificate. AK‑36 is 122 years old.

Kinder if we killed him. A hundred and twenty‑two is old to be given an axe code. Real old. And especially if the military messed with it and put a block in that we’ll have to break.

If we give it, he could die on the table. Then we lose all he might know.

It won’t be pretty, what needs to be done. We can try to be kind.

But we have to move on it, don’t we?

God, all that, all that, because the first Ari pissed off Defense…was that it? She’d gotten power enough to start calling the shots, not just with azi–with a lot of the things where Reseune cooperated with Defense. The terraforming of Cyteen she got voted down. The Eversnow business, that Yanni’s agreed to provided we get a base down there, which for some reason maybe they really, really don’t want…check that item at first convenience.

Ari was powerful in Council, and she d gotten Trade and Information on her side, and there was no real way Citizens was going to set up a Bloc with Defense: they’re not natural allies. So she was getting passed just about anything she wanted passed; she was creating the Arks; she was negotiating with Earth at times when State couldn’t even get a message through…

And Jordan… Jordan made a deal with them. He wanted to bring Reseune down, but it wasn’t Reseune they wanted to bring down at all: it was Ari. They’d found out she was dying. They’d found out about the psychogenesis project, and they weren’t appalled about Ari being reborn–they were interested. Her genius was an asset to Union. But her political power was hurting them. They made their deal with Jordan to get more information–they were using him all the way. And they got the notion they could have a tame Reseune, under a more amenable leadership, and still have an Ari, who could go on being born, and dying, unless the system really, really needed her brain again…while tamer people ran Reseune and didn’t have her power in the legislature, and Defense got its way again.

But here I am growing up, and I’m not easy to get at, and oh, they’d like to run me. They’d like to. But they can’t do that, where I am. I’ve fortified myself inside Alpha Wing. I’ve controlled all access. I’ve gotten my own azi staff, my own circle of CIT advisors. I trust very, very few people, and some people can’t get close to me anymore. Rafael was their best try, and I have him.

So who are “they”?

Who’s the Enemy?

It wasn’t Gorodin. I don’t think it ever was Gorodin. Maybe it wasn’t even Azov, though I never knew him–maybe it was some force inside Defense that we never even saw. Not Jacques, who’s just a chair‑warmer, and more a symptom of how Defense can’t come up with leaders, past its own internal politics.

And then there was Spurlin–he was clearly on somebody’s bad list. He put his head up: he nearly got into control of Defense. And now he’s dead.

Say there’s two factions in Defense, at least. And one of them is the side Spurlin was on, which is pro‑Reseune; and moderate; and then there’s Khalid and his backers.

Khalid didn’t like it when I took him on when I was a little kid. I nearly finished him in politics. The head of Intelligence wasn’t used to public appearances–and he looked the fool. But note he’s back. And he won’t be my friend. He’ll have the notion, I’m pretty sure, that Reseune won’t be his to manage if I take over, and I’m very, very close to doing that. It’s personal, for him. It’s emotional; and he is an emotional man–he showed that, back when I Got him. And he’s fast running out of time to stop me from growing up and taking over–it could be weeks, or a couple of years. It could be next week, and he and his know it. All of a sudden they’re thinking they’ve bargained with the devil, like the old story, and it’s not looking like such a good deal for them.

That’s where Khalid’s getting his support, isn’t it? He doesn’t have enough support on his own or he’d have won the election, but there are people inside Defense who see me coming up fast, and they’re worried all of a sudden. The rank and file of Defense, the electorate, they went for somebody who hadn’t gotten embarrassed by a fourteen‑year‑old on national vid–And Giraud warned me about that at the time, that I might be sorry. But I was right. I may have kept Khalid from being elected again. The electorate went for Spurlin; and another defeat would about do for Khalid permanently–so Khalid and everybody invested in him has no way to get back in without using some really unorthodox methods.

Like murder. They’d already done that, inside Reseune, to take out my predecessor. What’s one more? What’s two murders, and three more?

There’s this Anton Clavery business. Patil dying. Thieu dying. They both had Defense Bureau work, lots of contacts, so they were easy to get to–and then Patil was joining Reseune, and at the same time Yanni was demanding to set a Reseune base down on Eversnow, right down next to their military base. Somebody in Defense possibly didn’t like that.

We’ve been thinking about Anton Clavery as a Paxer. Paxers have been our noisiest problem. But did the Paxers blow up the tower at Strassenberg? There are those that could blow something up, a lot, lot easier.

Attacking Strassenberg doesn’t make sense as a political move, except to expose what I’m doing, except to divert our attention to what isn’t their real objective.

It’s me they really want dead. And they’ll take down Reseune’s power one piece at a time, anything to slow me down. You can only do so many murders without leaving evidence. So they have to ration those. Just peel away the really critical pieces.

But I’m not playing their game. And when I do move against Defense, I’ll have to move fast, and be ready for anything. They’re not going to let Jacques name the Proxy we want: they’ll kill him, or they’ll force him to name Khalid; and then Jacques will die, and Khalid, who couldn’t get in by a fair election, will he Councillor, just plain Councillor, in complete charge of the military.

A man named Machiavelli once said something like…commit all your atrocities early. Your enemies will lie low, knowing what you can do, and the rest of the people will forgive you when you turn out to do good things…

Florian had set a cup of coffee by her hand. The two of them sat, sipping theirs, waiting.

She picked up the cup, took a sip. Wondered where all of her people were at the moment. But she couldn’t move them. Someone would notice.

Just one. “Florian.”

“Sera?”

“Go down to Justin’s office. Tell him and Grant to go home. Tell him he’s in charge of Alpha Wing for the next while. Gerry and Mark will be under his orders. Then come back here. Catlin.”

“Sera.”

“Go down to Rafael’s office, and tell him I want him and his best twenty, no helmets, light body armor. Lethals in reserve. Non‑lethals up front. Wait for me there.” She had a last sip of the coffee and put the cup down. “Body armor for me, too. Lay out one of your outfits for me before we go, Catlin.”

A slight hesitation. Then: “Yes, sera.”

She opened a drawer, took out the mini, waked it up. Things went in a sequence. She wasn’t particularly scared, not even mad, at the moment. She just found her awareness stretched wide, trying to see everything, imagine everything, think of everything, and not to drop a single piece in the process.

BOOK THREE Section 5 Chapter vi

JULY 26, 2424

1102H

Knock at the office door. And it opened before either of them could acknowledge it. Justin shut the manual with some deliberation, saw Florian standing there–it could just as well have been Ari. Grant had the same manual under consideration, and quietly slipped it onto a neat stack of others.

“Ser.” Florian said. “Sera requests you go home immediately. Mark and Gerry will be in contact soon from AlphaSec.”

“Is something wrong?” Stupid question. Justin got up, picked up his coat. When Florian asked in that mode, it was urgent.

“You will be, officially, ser, in administrative control of Alpha Wing. Base One access. Mark and Gerry will be your links to AlphaSec. They will be reliable.”

“They’re damned young,” he said, feeling a rise of panic, the scatter of thoughts informing him, My God, it wasn’t academic. She’s doing it.

Florian, who was only months older than Mark and Gerry, andthe azi in charge of AlphaSec, said. “They’ll take their orders from you, ser. You may also draw on Marco and Wes, in sera’s apartment. Sera counts on you. Come with me.”

Grant came, he did. They both headed to the lift, under Florian’s protection. Down the hall, where AlphaSec had its offices, there was traffic, a few black‑uniformed officers entering as a group, more of them headed that direction.

Damn, he thought, asking himself what he would do, what he coulddo but lie low, himself and Grant.

Jordan, was the competing thought. He couldn’t protect Jordan.

“I’m concerned for my father,” he said to Florian.

“He has security in place, ser,” Florian said. “They areours.”

BOOK THREE Section 5 Chapter vii

JULY 26, 2424

1128H

Units of two and three went out–walked out of Alpha Wing, into Wing One. One such went to the end of the building and walked across the quadrangle to Admin’s curbside door. Another went via the storm tunnels. Another went to Admin via the as‑yet separate second‑level connection out of Alpha Wing.

That one met up with the unit from the storm tunnels and came up together. Other units were moving. One went to Yanni’s office, and into Chloe’s office, unasked. More showed up outside ReseuneSec, all with a businesslike manner.

Ari stopped, with Florian and Catlin, at the ReseuneSec door. Catlin’s regular winter coat was a little large on her, very heavy, and not with fabric: it impeded her fingers getting at the mini, in her pocket, but she pulled it out, flipped it open, keyed Voice, said, “CannaeCannaeCannae,” and “GoAlpha,” and toggled off.

“Now,” she said, and Catlin quietly opened the door.

Midmorning and the ReseuneSec office was full of people, security and otherwise, with business to conduct.

“The office is closed for an hour,” Ari said quietly, loudly enough to be heard, especially as voices died away. “Please leave and come back later. Please remember your places.” People didn’t like to feel pushed. The fact some clericals might know her, and some might know Florian and Catlin, started a few to their feet without a word, those anxious to reach the door.

She said to the receptionist, who had punched keys, “It won’t work, probably. I’m afraid not much will for a bit, so we’d like to minimize that time and get things running again. Let Catlin help.”

“I can’t,” the receptionist began, his face somewhat ashen, and by now the room was filling with AlphaSec personnel and emptying of people to see Director Hicks.

Hicks, in fact, would find his own door locked, as people would be locked in rooms all up and down the corridors. He might have found a weapon. But that was all right. They had non‑lethals to take care of that.

“You’re no longer working for Director Hicks. My name is Ariane Emory. These are AlphaSec personnel, and I’mnow the Director of ReseuneSec. Kindly get up and go have a seat over there. Catlin will handle your desk, thank you very much.”

The man moved, and AlphaSec moved him to a chair and put him into it as Catlin assumed the desk and appropriated the keyboard.

“Gas masks,” Rafael said, and Ari put her mask on, as everyone did, including Catlin, hardly missing a keystroke. The reception area door suffered, as AlphaSec didn’t even wait for the niceties of the keyboard, or the chance of a lethal guarding that access on a mechanical trigger. They got past that door and set down two bots, which raced back inside at ankle level, very fast.

The masks didn’t even hint of the smell of smoke, or gas, but they were stifling, all the same, both an inconvenience and a protective anonymity. Ari pressed hers close to her face, kept out of the way and let AlphaSec do what they knew how to do, with systems they knew far better, while Florian and Catlin, armed with lethals, stayed right by her. She could see a little ways down the inside hall, and saw two of her teams stopped at an intersection of halls, braced and ready to fire. Where the bots were, she couldn’t tell.

The general com stream was scary. Beta and gamma azi wouldn’t give up a fight, not by their nature. They needed to be taken down, and that went on. Occasionally there was a burst of fire, and the quieter hiss‑thump of non‑lethals. Wes was their best medic, but Wes wasn’t here. Jay was qualified, and Jay was up there in the halls somewhere, with two calls on his attention, two of their own down, how bad wasn’t apparent. None of the opposition needed Jay’s intervention, which meant her people were doing exactly what they were supposed to do, and taking people down, fast.

Director Hicks wasn’t the most essential target. She’d decided that. Kyle AK‑36 was; and Base One said Kyle was in the offices this morning, and so was Hicks. Kyle AK was smart, he was independent‑thinking, and as the attack came down he would probably take command back there, if he hadn’t delegated and scrambled for an exit. All these years. Hicks might have thought he was Kyle’s utmost priority. But he wasn’t. Right now, she’d bet, in contrast to the way she had Florian and Catlin with her, Hicks was sitting in his office with the door locked and immoveable, finding himself all alone, and nobody defending him. Base Two and Three, Yanni’s bases, were both completely down, and that meant ordinary doors didn’t work automatically anywhere in Admin. Base One was in charge of things Base Two had commanded, and if Base One said open a door, it opened, whether or not it then blew up because it was booby‑trapped. Base One had retreated behind the gateway of Alpha Wing, and possibly somebody clever in ReseuneSec had thought maybe they could barrier it in there and not let it out, but that wouldn’t work. Base One was always a moving target. And right now Base Two and Three weren’t awake, just flat weren’t awake.

They’d had schematics of ReseuneSec. Knew exactly where the emergency‑exits were, and whore they led. They knew where the switches were. If there was any doubt, Marco and Wes ran ops from Alpha Wing, with the schematic in front of them, and the eye‑screen Rafael had on a contact lens showed him where he was in a completely schematic view, a kind of split‑level awareness Florian likewise had, and Catlin, so they knew where their people were.

Standard. Florian had said, before they left the apartment, that ReseuneSec was supposed to have some stuff to try to scramble that, but it wasn’t going to work without Base Two.

“ Live capture, beta target,” came over the com stream, and Ari let go a long, long breath, but she didn’t let up watching and listening. They’d just arrested Hicks, meaning his office door was open by now. A second later they heard, “ Exit A! Coming your way!”

A mass of people flooded into the corridor she could see–Ari wasn’t ready for it. Florian flattened her to the carpet, made her hit her head so stars exploded in her eyes and things went black for a second; and fire banged out, and the hiss‑thump of non‑lethals simultaneous with it, right over their heads. Florian’s weight went off her as if he’d levitated, and she twisted around to see Catlin come over the desk and two others of her men hurl themselves at a man who was already through the door, but down and not fighting. One of hers was on the floor, trying to hold the man down, with blood pouring down his own arm.

“Easy!” Florian yelled, falling on the now inert target, and was after something in his sleeve‑pocket. Florian used something with a stab downward, ‘after which the man convulsed, twitching uncontrollably, and Catlin got a bracelet on him, nasty thing. He convulsed a second time. Tried to get up. Catlin flattened him with a second pulse from the bracelet.

Ari supposed it was safe then. She sat up where she was. Florian had gotten up off the man, then diverted himself to get their own wounded flat onto the floor, and to get at another item in his jacket pocket. “Get Jay,” she heard as Florian applied a tourniquet. “Bad one.”

Things were quieting elsewhere, however. Quiet prevailed in the hall. Jay came running down the hall toward them with his kit, and relieved Florian of his job of keeping blood in the wounded man. Jay’s moves were sure and involved things in a kit he had, quickly applied. And Florian sat against the wall with his knees drawn up, breathing through his mouth, and sweating a little, while Catlin, who hadn’t raised a sweat, slowly got up and let two others sit on their prisoner.

“Suicide by non‑lethals.”Catlin’s voice came simultaneously from her and from the com in Ari’s ear. “Rarely works. We got Kyle AK, Alpha Leader. We need a team to wrap him up and keep him from going null on us. We won’t leave sera. We need some help here.”

It was no time for her to be sitting on the floor watching, Ari decided. She ignored her headache and swung a knee around, got it under her and got up, using the reception desk for leverage.

She sucked in a breath, went around the desk to the console, and found the switch‑set for A, B, C, and Master. A maze of switches. Blinked. Her eyes were hazing, blurring and watering.

Hell with that. She took out her mini, keyed Voice, and said, “Base One, access: Admin One: access: public address. On. This is Ariane Emory.” She heard her voice echo through the halls beyond, as it would everywhere else in Reseune. “Alpha Leader, I confirm Catlin’s order, at your immediate convenience.” Damn, her head hurt. It wasn’t quite the way she’d planned to take over. But it was better than the alternative. “ReseuneSec personnel, wherever you are, Adam Hicks has been relieved of command. I am in charge of ReseuneSec and I am acting Director of Reseune. All ReseuneSec personnel, continue ordinary duties. Citizens and azi, wherever located, you are safe. Certain services have been temporarily disrupted. None of these disruptions jeopardizes environmental integrity. Services will be restored, I hope within the hour. Will an ambulance please come to the Admin Wing? We need ambulance service–”

Florian got eye contact and held up four fingers.

“We have four casualties in need of ambulance transport,” she said.

Catlin was talking on the com, and it made a jumble in her hearing. Catlin was requesting something of Marco and Wes, but it was coded and she didn’t follow it.

“All Wings except Admin, Wing One, and Alpha Wing may proceed about routine business,” she said. “ReseuneSec requests all persons currently in Admin, One, and Alpha remain where you are and do not make private calls. We estimate this condition will remain for about an hour. Wait for an all‑clear before venturing into the halls. Thank you.”

BOOK THREE Section 5 Chapter viii

JULY 26, 2424

1201H

“She’s done it,” Justin said to Grant. They’d gone to the dining room of their apartment to have a cup of coffee and do a little work on the manual…but they hadn’t gotten any work done. The minder had had the communication stream from Ari’s apartment, which carried the background of what was going on in Admin, and the last announcement had come over the minder loud and clear–probably in every minder and every PA outlet andthe vid channels. Thatgeneral warning system, intended for major storms or an environmental breach, hadn’t cut on since…

…Since Ari had taken Denys out.

“She’s done it,” Grant said quietly. “And four people are going to hospital. No word about the dead.”

“Not so bad a casualty list for a revolution, though, as revolutions go,” Justin said, feeling shaky. He was thinking about Jordan, hoping he was all right. But Ari had said not to use communications for a while. So he had another sip of coffee and a bite of buttered toast.

“Worried?” Grant asked him.

“Worried that it’s not just Reseune she’s taking. That it’s Yanni’s job at stake. That this takeover in ReseuneSec means trouble that goes under all sorts of doors, just–everywhere. Everything. Including questions as to how a candidate for a Council seat just happens to drop dead.”

“Not just happens,” Grant said. “It’s on the news, now. Definitely assassination. High tech assassination.”

“I’ll bet Khalid had rather it wasn’t on the news.” Justin said. So Ari that suddenly, after what she’d said on election night–good God, just lastnight–had risen up this morning, taken out Hicks, and taken over ReseuneSec.

And the sum total of everything set tottering sent a little cold chill wafting across his nerves. It wasn’t that he mourned the fall of the current administration of ReseuneSec, which had slammed him into more than one wall and shot him full of drugs…he didn’t exactly mourn for Hicks’ fate, whatever it was, since Hicks had been Giraud’s aide in those days, and Hicks’ orders had been at least at fault in the incident in recent memory. ReseuneSec had always had an uneasy feeling about its workings, and he wasn’t sorry.

He was, however, upset about Ari’s involvement in it…for one thing, he didn’t want hisAri involved in killing people. Denys–that had been a case of self‑defense, and her guard had done it. He wasn’t sure what this was, or how many cold‑blooded decisions would need to be made, how many extra‑legal ones, and he’d have wished, if it was going to be done, that Yanni had. He wasn’t sure whether the fact that Ari had moved in Yanni’s stead was cold‑blooded policy choice, or that Hicks was just too dangerous a man to Ari’s interests, and might oppose her takeover…and she hadn’t included Yanni in the action because, who knew? maybe she didn’t trust him.

If that was so, Yanni might not have too much time left to hold power.

He and Grant were nominally in charge of Alpha Wing, her base of operations. They were trusted. They were also a target, if young sera made a misstep. And trust could shift in a heartbeat.

She’d talked about going to Novgorod. About sending Amy ahead of her. Exposing herself to the same kind of hazard that had already taken out a newly elected Councillor of Defense. She’d be risking everything, and she hadn’t been able to trust ReseuneSec, who was currently protecting Yanni, and protecting everyone and everything else Reseune called secure, in the solar system, in distant star‑stations. Did she still intend to fly down to the capital?

And do what? Get Lynch, of Science, to appoint herProxy Councillor, when she was barely old enough to vote?

Get in front of the media and start another war of words with Vladislaw Khalid–who probably had just had his rival assassinated?

What did she have for assets? Her bodyguard, two of them eighteen and the other two, thank God, at least senior security, former instructors, but it was the eighteen‑year‑olds who ran things. Besides that she had a handful of teenagers, a household staff and thirty ReseuneSec agents, not one of whom was much over teen‑aged themselves.

What had she said at the party? That there was almost nobody to remember the history, nobody alive who knew how it had been, and why things had happened, and why choices had gone the way they had? Everybody else but Yanni and them–and Jordan–and a handful of the old hands–everybody else from high up in the old regime was dead, except a handful at the Wing Director level, who didn’t know the darker secrets. She’d reached the new age and the old structures weren’t there for her to lay hands on. Just Yanni, of all the old power‑holders, that she had to rely on.

Flaw in the first Ari’s plan. Or its brilliance. From his position, storing his own share of the old knowledge, he didn’t know which.

Damned sure her enemies in the wider world were going to notice that something had changed inside Reseune. Give them a few hours, and they’d notice. Orders were going to go out to ReseuneSec units around the world and in near and far orbit and outbound on starships.

New director. New voice. New policy.

God, he hoped she’d thought of the smaller details.

BOOK THREE Section 5 Chapter ix

JULY 26, 2424

1208H

Couldn’t get the daily reports out of Chloe. Couldn’t communicate. Yanni had even tried the airport, and Frank–at the moment Frankcouldn’t be found, because Frank had gone downstairs to check on a ReseuneSec glitchup and now theycouldn’t communicate. The com had lost its codes, or they weren’t working.

That was downright worrisome. It was so worrisome Yanni had taken out the briefcase that accompanied him everywhere, opened it up, and found itwas dead, not a single light showing.

That tore it. He’d tried the ordinary room phone, in the failure of every single high‑end piece of electronics he owned, equipment that should have been able to call in armed intervention, and now couldn’t. He was down to trying to remember his own office phone number.

And when he was sure he had, thatcall didn’t go through. There was just a stupid robot informing him, as if he couldn’t guess, that the call had failed.

There were several things that could explain it. One was that Reseune had fallen off the face of the planet.

The other was that an eighteen‑year‑old with the opinion she couldrun things had taken it into her head to try and just nuked everything that depended on Base Two and Three: the list of what specifically it would nuke was extensive.

He tried the general Reseune phone system, and when that failed, he tried the last useful number he remembered, from the fact he had a boat and occasionally, before the world had gone crazy, hadtaken a few days off and used it. The number got the general river port operator.

“This is Yanni Schwartz,” he said to the man on duty. “This is Director Yanni Schwartz calling from Novgorod. Is Reseune experiencing a communications problem?”

“ Admin’s all shut down, ser. Wing One, Admin, Alpha Wing. All shut down.”

Damn.

“Can you find anybody to run up the hill–physically, can somebody just take a ear up there and find out what’s going on?”

It was embarrassing. It was downright fucking embarrassing. He was exposed as hell: anycasual monitoring by the hotel staff, let alone Defense experts, could pick up the call he was making, and he had finally, just before things had gone to hell, tracked down Councillor Jacques. Jacques hadn’t been answering any of his calls, though at least his office had been answering the phone…and consistently saying Jacques was out of the office, and no, they had no word yet when he would return. Could they know the nature of the business so the Councillor might call back?

“Ser, I’m working a barge in at the moment.”Port ops was automated to the hilt. There were numbers for every craft on the river these days, and there weren’t an outstanding lot of personnel down there. The port operator just contacted barges on the river to tell them which channel to use, and relayed calls if they wanted to phone someone. It wasn’t likely any barge was going to ground itself on a bar in the next ten minutes.

“Just tell the barge to hold position or go round again, and you go get somebody to run up there. What’s your name?”

“Anthony GA‑219, ser.”

Azi. He hadn’t been sure; but he was instantly more comfortable, knowing exactly the way to communicate. “Anthony. This is the Director of Reseune speaking, and I willremember when I get back to Reseune. Do it. You’re perfectly within your duty to do this: go find someone to check up the hill and report back. Their phones are out. I’ll keep the line open.”

That took eleven agonizing minutes. Meanwhile Frank came in safe and sound with the astonishing news that no, he couldn’t fix the ReseuneSec glitch and that now, yes, indeed, their own communications weren’t working.

“I think we’re possibly out of a job,” Yanni told Frank calmly. “But I want to be sure she’s all right, the backstabbing little rat.”

“Are we angry about it?” Frank asked solemnly.

“About being hung out to dry publicly, yes, we’re angry. I really don’t want to have to explain this to the evening news.” He had the receiver in hand. He heard Anthony OA come back on. “Yes?”

“Patrick GP has gone up the hill on your errand, ser. But they’re saying he won’t get in. There’s been an announcement that everybody but Wing One and Alpha Wing and Admin should go about their business. Sera Ariane Emory says she’s the Director of Reseune Security, and she’s acting Director of Reseune. Is that right, ser?”

He drew a deep breath. “ Thankyou, Anthony GA. It’s locally right. Will you personally try to get a message to the Director of Reseune Security that Yanni Schwartz wants to talk to her on an urgent basis? Thank you. Thank you very much.” He hung up and muttered, “Could have lucking told me that in the first place. So why hasn’t she–”

Hisphone went off. He grabbed it.

“Uncle Yanni?”

“Well?” he snapped.

“Sorry about that,”Ari said. “I couldn’t warn you. I had a little trouble with Hicks. Is Frank with you right now?”

“Yes.”

“Hicks’s azi Kyle? Defense Bureau. He’s a Defense Bureau plant, is that the right word? It’s possible he messed with Abban and Seely, a long time ago. I’m kind of sure Frank’s all right. I think you have real reason to know he is. Are you sure of him?”

Damn the brat!

“I know. Yes, I’m damned sure! And I’m absolutely sure you’ve had your fingers into my computer, where I’d rather you stayed out of, young lady.”

“I checked just to be sure you were safe, inside. But there’s really good reason to think you could be in danger from outside, Uncle Yanni. I’d really like you to just come home. Fast. Defense is going to find out what I just did real soon, if they don’t already know. I’m sure they’re going to be monitoring as close as Moreyville, and they’ll know.”

“Well, that’s fine. I’ve finally gotten hold of Jacques and we’re just about scheduled to talk–I’m not about to come home.”

“Yanni–”

“No, I’m telling you. And don’t you contemplate coming down here. I know there’s a risk, I have that figured out for myself, young lady; just don’t pile another one on top of it by your coming down here.”

“Then don’t you go anywhere outside the hotel. You make Jacques come to you. I think your security’s all right. I ran a fast check on everybody you’ve got. You know about the B‑28’s.”

“I left Raul home, thank you.”

“Good. That’s good. You understand what I’m worried about.”

“I understand. I understand a lot of things, and I can be trusted with a little advance warning. Do you mind turning my access back on, voting lady?”

“I’m terribly sorry about that. It’s back on now. It’s how I’m talking to you. We just had to be sure we didn’t have anybody loose in the network that we couldn’t lay hands on.”

“All agents accounted for?”

“All accounted for. I have Hicks and Kyle AK both in custody. We’re just going to ask some questions. Particularly of Kyle.”

“I’ve got a question. Am I going back to lab work, am I going for a long vacation in your new township, or am I somehow supposed to finish my job down here without any further interruption?”

“I’m just acting Director, here in the labs. You’re still Director. Besides, you’re still Proxy Councillor. I can’t change that. Only Lynch can. But I’m just really worried that their blowing up the tower–”

“Yes?”

“Catlin thinks it could have been a signal to anybody inside Reseune to take certain measures. Maybe I just took care of that when I got Kyle. And I haven’t been easy to get at, where I’m living. Maybe I didn’t, though. Just take care of yourself.”

“Do me a favor. Go a little easy on Hicks.”

“Because he’s a friend of yours? Or because you think he’s innocent?”

“If he’s not innocent he’s not a friend of mine. You can tell him that. Tell him I said cooperate with you or I’ll break his neck.”

“I will. You’re recorded and I’ll use that. Take real good care of yourself. Your ReseuneSec guard is going to get the news in about five minutes because I’m going to tell them, since I’m their Director. Are any of them with you in the room?”

“No,” he said.

“Good,”she said. “Just in case. If any of them leave the hotel, just let them leave. You’re not safe to investigate and don’t risk the status quo trying to stop anything of that sort. I already know enough answers that I can deal with anybody who’s going to go over to the other side. Just whatever you do, don’t go into the Defense Bureau to meet anybody. Meet whoever you meet outside, or at best over in Science, but I don’t like you traveling through the streets, and be very, very careful who you let through. Make them all come to you. Be a complete bastard.”

“That’s not hard,” he said. “Just you watch yourself, young lady. Trust the old wolf to watch his own back.”

“Love you, Yanni.”

“Love you, too,” he said, and thumbed the connection dead.

“Is it all right?” Frank asked anxiously.

He looked over at Frank, very sure the girl had been into his files, very sure Base One could do it; and she now knew something only he and the first Ari had known for well over a century. Frank was AF‑997. Nearly an original, off the same genetic tree as her Florian, not at all far removed. And that wasn’tthe number Frank had in every other record in Reseune. Damned sure it would be hard for anybody to get to Frank without knowing his real name, and that said something about how detailed young Ari had gotten about her research. He felt a little exposed, knowing she knew that secret.

But at least he wasn’t scheduled for a long semi‑retirement out at Strassenberg, and she’d just made him an exception in the revision of Reseune authority.

Him, and Frank. When a whole lot else hadn’tbeen what it was supposed to be– he’dlet something major get past him, and he was beyond upset, and embarrassed about the fact: he felt sick at his stomach, felt the years reel back and saw a dozen scenes replay, with a certain different knowledge about a certain azi. He stared out the window at the sandstone and concrete towers of Novgorod, at the gray mirror of the polluted harbor, and the barges that connected Novgorod to the upriver–so, so much that had grown up since the War. So much that had changed.

Kyle? Kyle was oldhistory. Kyle had been there for nearly–God–he’d come on staff in ‘62 in the last century and lived twenty‑four more years this side of the century mark, most of it with Giraud. Six decades. Six decades with Giraud, and then Hicks, leaking God knew what to whoever was running him.

Military agent. Giraud had kept him answering questions on military operations for a few years after his return from service in Defense. He remembered a supper meeting in ‘62, Giraud saying he was finally going to run the axe code, reclaim Kyle to active service.

Giraud had done that. He remembered Giraud saying it had gone pretty much as he expected, that Kyle hadn’t lost any memory or didn’t think he had. No conflicts. No problems. Just like the thirty‑odd other alphas they’d recovered from Defense after the War ended…most of them specialists, technicals who didn’t mentally visit the here and now often enough to be a real problem to re‑Contract. Some had died.

But Kyle. Kyle had been a psych operator, a military interrogator. Kyle had been on Admiral Azov’s staff, first.

Azov. Damn him. The bastard chiefly responsible for the mess on Gehenna. Azov had, later on, conspired with Jordan–had worked against Reseune, in those days. The first Ari had stung him, stung him badly. Azov and Ari hadn’t been friendly once certain things started coming to light, particularly the handling of azi in the armed forces, and Azov hadn’t lived to find out what else Ari had done to him, at Gehenna.

Meanwhile Gorodin had come, friendly to Science, supposedly a whole new post‑War age in the relations of Science and Defense.

But Gorodin had never thrown the off‑switch on Kyle or let Ari in on their nasty little secret. Secretary Lu, who’d served as Proxy Councillor for Gorodin, had never told them. Friend of theirs. Close friend of Giraud’s, most of the time.

And the military had still been collecting information hand over fist–learning everything that crossed Giraud’s desk.

They must have known the first Ari’s business, as much of it as she’d trusted Giraud with–which would easily be the whole psychogenesis project, most likely everything involving the feud with Jordan: and, oh, Defense had been able to snag Jordan, hadn’t they, just at the right time? Nice piece of psychology, that. Offer Jordan the out he wanted, the transfer to Fargone, right when the relationship had gotten desperate–and then when Ari’d gone for Justin–

That had been a delicious piece of news. And they’d used it. Defense had been all eager to talk to Jordan. If Ari had everquestioned Kyle herself, ever gotten into Giraud’s records, everdone that–oh, but Ari had been fully occupied with Jordan as the center of her problems in that last year of her life. She didn’t regard Giraud’s psych abilities all that highly, but she knew he was loyal and good at what he did.

And then she’d died.

And after Gorodin? If Kyle had still belonged to Defense and still been reporting to them, he’d been, oh, likely highly active during Khalid’s short term.

His inside information hadn’t saved Khalid from walking right into it with young Ari. Maybe Khalid had ignored the intelligence he’d gotten, hadn’t believed the kid was what she was. He’d found it out–in public, on national vid networks.

Darker thought, still, had Khalid ever really turned loose of Kyle once he’d begun to receive information from him?

Intelligence, for God’s sake. Khalid had been chief of Intelligence before he ever ran for the Council seat.

He’d been managing Kyle’s sort–oh, from way back. Possibly–

Possibly Kyle hadn’t ever reported to Gorodin at all. Maybe not even to Azov. They might not have known what Khalid’s source was, except that Khalid had good information. Azov had died of old age. Lu had. Then Gorodin. Defense had been nominally the ally of Science, most of the time, except the brief stint under Khalid. Jacques–Science had urged Jacques into office to succeed Khalid, when Gorodin had gone into rejuv failure; they’d managed to sway Spurlin…now assassinated.

Along with two people connected to the Eversnow project; them, and the Defense candidate who’d agreed to support it and who’d urged Jacques to vote for it.

Watch out, Ari said, for his own life, at present, in Novgorod.

Khalid. Chief of Intelligence, from the darkest years of the War, a young and ambitious officer in those days, not so old now, when most of that generation were dead. And it was entirely conceivable that his sudden rise in Defense had been precisely because of the quality of the information he had on the inner workings of Science.

“Kyle’s not ours,” Yanni said quietly to Frank, and turned from that gray, misty vista. “He never has been. Kyle’s still Defense. Did you ever see that coming?”

Frank looked at him, just stared in shock. “He never gave a hint. He’d honestly paired with Hicks. It felt that way. It always did, from way back.”

“Could that part be real, even if he was Defense?”

“Could be,” Frank said.

“It’s going to hit Hicks in the gut,” Yanni said. “He said Kyle was like a brother. Relied on him. Trusted him for years.”

“I can’t imagine,” Frank said. “It’s got to have torn Kyle up, too. He was different, around Hicks. He cared. Cared about the people in his command. That’s bad, if that’s true. That’s real bad.”

“Defense must have kept getting reports from him. He can’t have liked it.” A thought occurred to him. Giraud’s office. Hicks’. Access to files. Dossiers. A lot of things. Ari had died, and Giraud had taken the Directorship and increasingly turned ReseuneSec over to Hicks.

That was where Kyle had transferred over, and Kyle had attached to Hicks in a way he never quite had to Giraud. Hicks relied on Kyle as a personal aide, in a way he’d never served with Giraud, who’d had Abban. Giraud had let Hicks handle Kyle, let him have Kyle’s Contract finally even finagled a provisional alpha certificate for Hicks explicitly to allow him to work with Kyle, because the pairing had seemed to work so well.

Ari’d died…and it wasn’t suicide. He’d never liked the suicide notion. Too much had been left unfinished.

If it hadn’t been Jordan, it had been Abban. Basic question of opportunity.

Giraud wouldn’t have ordered it. Without Giraud, Abban wouldn’t have done it–that part of the equation had never made sense to him. But it had never made sense, either, that Jordan had done it. Abban was the one with capability andopportunity.

Abban had been upset. Giraud had been upset. Upset had been contagious in the halls in those days after Ari had died. The whole universe had been in upheaval, and for several months after Ari had died, Giraud had been on a hair trigger and so had Abban. You didn’t question Giraud in those days. Secretaries had run scared and Denys himself had said, “Don’t talk to him. He doesn’t want to talk.”

In days when they’d had the vital job of getting the psychogenesis project going and they’d desperately neededto talk… Giraud hadn’t been outstandingly well‑composed.

Settling into the new job, he’d thought. And mourning a woman he’d greatly regarded. Giraud had been loyal to Ari, he’d stake his life on that.

So Abban couldn’t have done it–could he?

But if Abban had done something that hurt Giraud–there was a little reason for upset in that household, wasn’t there? Abban’s own origins were in green barracks, never shipped out, never left Reseune: hehad no questionable background. He’d been with Giraud from childhood. Giraud had changed offices; taken Abban with him into Admin; Hicks had already taken over Kyle.

Everything changed when Ari died. He saw it like a chessboard, all the pieces suddenly, massively, shifted on the board: white had castled‑up, and young Ari had been a mote in a womb‑tank for a whole, mostly peaceful nine months. Once that had happened, Giraud had settled–as if the universe was right again.

“What are you thinking?” Frank asked him finally.

“That Abban never could have killed Ari,” he said, “no more than Jordan could. Unless.”

“Unless,” Frank said.

“Unless he believed it was in Giraud’s interest.” he said. “Maybe somebody told him that. And then, in the aftermath, maybe he knew it wasn’t as true as he thought it was–at least in the immediate effects. Giraud’s upset would have been hard for him to take. A very, very upsetting thing.”

“He was an alpha,” Frank said. “He could put himself back together.”

“And he had a rationale. Giraud was walking wounded. But he’d protected Giraud from some unspecified danger. Now he had to take care of Giraud. So he did that, didn’t he? But nobody ever took care of Abban. Abban couldn’t tell Giraud what he’d done. And the week Giraud died he went into Denys’s care, and nobody ever took care of Abban.”

Frank looked upset. They’d known one another, Frank and Abban, worked together. They’d remarked, oh, more than once, how it was a damned lie that Denys was capable of handling Seely, let alone Abban, when Abban came over to him. They both knew about Denys’ alpha certificate, which was fake as they came. Abban had needed immediate help when Giraud died, and Denys–Denys had gotten notions in his head about staying in power and nobody touched Abban.

He’d sent Abban after Ari, and Abban was already messed up. “Killing the same woman twice,” he said to Frank, “and the first having been a mistake, that’s got to have rung clear to his deep sets. Nasty, nasty piece of business.”

“Nobody ever felt sorry for Abban,” Frank said. “But he wasn’t right, then. He really wasn’t right when he did that.” A moment later Frank said, “All those years with Denys–Seely wasn’t in that good shape, either.”

“More than that,” Yanni said, “if Giraud didn’t order Abban to kill Ari–Abban wouldn’t go out on his own. He had orders. And if they weren’t from Giraud, maybe they weren’t from Denys, either. That notion’s always bothered me. Denys wasn’t ableto order that, not while Giraud was alive. That order came from somewhere else…a decision that Ari had been around long enough. Knowledge that she was already dying. That it would only shorten her life a year…and notlet her finish arranging things herself. It would throw the decisions all to Giraud.”

“Kyle,” Frank said.

“Kyle, and the ones directing him,” Yanni said. “Defense. She’d yanked Jordan out of negotiations with them and brought him home, she was working just maybe too close to sensitive areas, on the verge of finding out just who’d been exacerbating Jordan’s discontent–setting him up, if you want my opinion, to land on the radical side of things. He’d been corresponding with the Paxers. With the Abolitionists, as it turned out, though I think it came as a shock to him when he found it out. And Ari took measures to be sure Justin didn’t go down his father’s route. I think she was on the track of something that could have become very uncomfortable for Kyle’s managers… I think they knew she was close to dealing with it. And Hicks went on meeting with Defense; and Kyle was right with him.”

“Kyle got his instructions there,” Frank said.

“Exactly. Tell me. Would youtake instruction from another azi?”

“I don’t know,” Frank said. “I can say I wouldn’t, but if the keys were there…who could say he wouldn’t.”

“And Abban was Giraud’s,” Yanni said. “And Kyle was, at the time. Totally inside the walls. Damn, that’s a nasty scenario.”

“In a way, Ari caught it,” Frank said. “It took the next Ari to do it. Suppose there was something in the first Ari’s notes–suppose the first Ari put her onto it? Or did she figure it out?”

Yanni thought about it, thought about the way things had been going, and slowly shook his head. “I think if the first Ari had known, she’d have moved on Kyle faster than you could blink and she’d have had Giraud’s help doing it. I think our little Ari has come up with this one on her own. Damned clever of her. There’s only one thing wrongwith her scenario.”

“That being?”

“She’s just told Defense she knows what their game is. She just stopped it.” Yanni looked toward the gray view again, the towers beside the sea, the towers that were Science, and Defense, Trade, and State. The other five–Citizens, Information, Industry, Internal Affairs and Finance–were just out of view. So was the tower that constituted the capitol itself, Cyteen’s Senate Building, and the tower that held the Council of Nine, the Senate, and if the dividing wall were folded back, the Council of Worlds.

He could call down the heavens. If he wanted to let havoc loose, he could gather all his evidence of assassination and espionage and take it to the Nine and lay it before the Council of Worlds–but Ari was right: it was getting dangerous. As things stood, it was a major risk for him just to take a car to the airport, and he wasn’t sure he’d survive to get there. It was a risk to go to Science, a risk for Jacques to come here. Damn the girl, she’d upset the whole government at a critical moment, maybe because it seemed to the kid like a good move–

Or maybe because she wasn’t the little girl any longer. She might be doing everything precisely to get a jump ahead of the opposition because she had reason to think there was diminishing time to do it. What had she said, that the explosion might have been a signal, to those who knew, that it was time to move?

Other things were moving, all right. And maybe he and Frank had just become two more pieces on the board, white bishop and white knight, say, out there to tempt the opponent into doing something. She’d tried to tell him get their asses home. He’d ignored her warning, confident in the moment he’d done it.

Maybe he shouldget himself and Frank to the airport, and go home, this evening, while they could, settle in and let the youngster run the place.

Or maybe the old bishop had a few moves in him. He and Frank had been at this a long, long time, and he wasn’t out of resources yet.

Khalid? He wouldn’t concede the board to that bastard, not while he had room to maneuver.

“If we don’t get Jacques out of there,” Frank said, “his lifespan is limited.”

“Jacques is due at Science in two hours and I think we should go there now, just in case anybody’s timing our departure. If we’re in the target, let’s not make it too easy for them.”

BOOK THREE Section 5 Chapter x

JULY 26, 2424

1620H

The security hold was officially off. The halls were totally quiet, except for Patrick Emory on his way home from work. A ghostly hush prevailed throughout Alpha Wing. They met him, Justin and Grant did, on the gray, blue‑wave carpet, and Patrick just looked nervous and tired after what had been, to anyone’s reckoning, a hell of a day.

“How’s Wing One?” Justin asked him, knowing Patrick would have come that way.

“Quiet.” Patrick said, “just normal. Except the construction hasn’t started back up.”

“Good,” Justin said, and they passed each other, on their individual business. They picked up Mark and Gerry downstairs. Mark and Gerry wanted to know when they left the Wing, and they played by the rules and didn’t make them have to scramble when exit security stalled them: Mark and Gerry met them at the lift, they were all pleasant to each other–

“Hope we didn’t mess up your supper,” Justin said.

“No, ser,” Gerry said, “we had a sandwich. Thanks for the warning.”

“Glad to oblige,” he said. “Sorry you have to tag us.”

“Our duty, ser,” Mark said, which it was.

They passed the exit desk, took the lift up to familiar territory: the two Ari had set to watch Jordan’s vicinity were on duty there–had a desk, today, for greater comfort, and disguised themselves as ordinary hall security. Mark and Gerry were going to have to stand, at least for a few moments.

“Our intent is to go out to supper,” Justin said to their two guards, “but that depends. We could send out; we could just eat in. Don’t worry about it. Just stay at ease.”

“Yes, ser,” the answer was. They clearly didn’t mind. Alter the rest of today, with, as they heard from Wes, some of their number in hospital and otherwise patched up, Mark and Gerry had had a quiet day.

Grant rang the minder. “Grant ALX,” he said, “and Justin Warrick. We’re looking to take you both to dinner.”

No answer, immediately. Then the door opened and let them in.

Jordan was on the couch, looking asleep, give or take the glass beside him. Paul had gotten up, and looked worried.

“Is everything all right?” Paul asked.

“Fine,” Justin said, and let the door shut. “Wake up, Dad. Dinner.”

No response.

“He’s had a few,” Paul said.

Well, it wasn’t dinner out, Justin thought, and went and shook Jordan, who didn’t respond, just moved away from him.

“I’m sorry,” Paul said.

“Not your problem,” Justin said. He walked over to the autobar, looked at the levels in the supply, leaned on his elbows on the counter and thought, Damn.

“If I can fix you something, ser,” Paul said.

Justin shot a look at Grant, and Grant stared back, then gave a nod.

“You sit down,” Justin said then, “and let Grant get you something.”

“I’ve had enough, ser, already.”

“When was lunch?”

Paul looked a little taken aback, looked at the clock on the minder, and failed to answer promptly.

“Breakfast?” Justin asked, while Grant proceeded about his business at the bar.

“We had breakfast,” Paul said.

“He knows what happened,” Justin said.

“He followed it, as much as we knew. The vid came on awhile ago, said it was the all‑clear. Do we trust that?”

“We trust that,” Justin said. “Young Ari’s fine. She’s running ReseuneSec, and between you and me, we’re a bit safer this afternoon than we were this morning.”

“I hope so, ser.”

“I know we are.” He watched Grant hand Paul a glass of something clear, water, or vodka, not immediately evident.

“Drink this,” Grant said. “Paul.”

Paul took it. Paul was the soul of politeness and quiet.

“Paul,” Justin said, “sit down. Please. We want to talk to you.”

“I don’t want to talk, ser. I’m sorry Jordan isn’t able to go to dinner. I think it would probably be a good idea if you went on without us. Please.”

“Sit down,” Justin said, and sat down, himself, on the end of the couch. “Sit down, Paul. I want to ask you something. It’s all right. Sit down.”

Paul had known them both since childhood. And he did, slowly, sit down.

“My father’s put a hell of a load on you,” Justin said. “I don’t want to. I want to ask you, honestly, how are you doing?”

“Perfectly well, ser.”

“I’m not ser. I’m Justin. Remember. It’s just Justin and Grant. The way we always were. You used to keep us in line. You’d tell us when we were just a little over the edge. Didn’t you?”

“I did,” Paul said.

“Well, you can tell us now if we are. I don’t want to push you. But I’m pretty good at what I do. So’s Grant. And we all know Jordan’s got a problem.”

Jordan moved. Not coherently. He settled again, and Paul looked back.

“He’s all right,” Paul said. “It was a hard day.”

“He didn’t take it well, what happened today.”

“I know you say it’s all right,” Paul said, “but we don’t think so.”

Justin nodded. “I understand that. I respect it. I’ll tell you, though, I don’t like what I see.”

“I’m sorry, ser.”

“Because you can’t stop him? It’s not your responsibility to stop him. Paul. I don’t know how you could. He’ll do what he wants to.”

“It was just a hard day.”

“Every day’s a hard day,” Grant said. “It’s not your responsibility to stop him. Who’s the Supervisor?”

Paul made a lame gesture in Jordan’s direction.

“So when did you last ask him for help?” Justin said.

A shrug.

“You don’t, do you? Or you do, but you don’t make it clear to him. When’s the last time you did?”

“I don’t know. This is private, Justin, I’m sorry. It’s between him and me.”

“It was December 21, 2405.”

Paul just looked at him, appalled.

“Wasn’t it?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” Paul started to get up. Grant reached out and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Listen to him, Paul.”

“The year after you got to Planys. What had you so upset, then?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

“Dad took care of it then. He handled it. He hasn’t handled damned much since. What changed?”

“I don’t–I don’t know. The isolation. The frustration. Things.”

“Paul,” Justin said, “you know I know what I’m doing. You know I’m family. I’d never do anything to hurt you, or Jordan.”

“I–”

“I wouldn’t, Paul. I swear I wouldn’t. But nineteen years, Paul. Nineteen years without any consideration of your own situation–that’s not fair, Paul.”

“I’m fine.”

“Prove it to me. I’ve got your manual. I’ve read it. Let me take the load off a while.”

Paul shook his head.

“You know better,” Grant said. “A Supervisor is telling you you’ve got a problem. And you know you’ve got a problem. And you know you can’t help him until you get help of your own, Paul. Listen to Justin. One pill. Just take a dose, and relax, and let go for a bit.”

“Jordan won’t trust me.”

“Jordan will cope with it,” Justin said. “At a certain point, Jordan is a born‑man problem, and I’m his son, and he’s my problem. Take the pill, Paul. Just take it, and let’s go back to the bedroom and you can take tape. Your proper tape, nothing wrong with it, nothing more than you’ve ever had. You haven’t had it in a long, long time. Please do it, Paul. Fifteen minutes. So you can help him. Grant needs you. I do. He does. Just take care of yourself this time. Quit self‑doctoring.”

Paul looked at him a long, long moment, muscles tight in his jaw, and on the verge of quivering.

“Just the original tape,” Paul said. “Nothing but that.”

“You’ll know it.” Justin said. “Have you got the dose here?”

Paul shook his head.

“Didn’t think so.” Justin said, and took out his own pill case, and offered Paul one. “Just take it down.”

Paul took it, and put it in his mouth, and started to chase it with the glass. “Not water.” he said.

“Won’t hurt you,” Justin said. “It’ll just hit faster.”

Paul took a large gulp, and set the glass down, got up and headed for the bedroom.

Justin shot a look at Grant. Grant didn’t flinch.

“Tape unit,” Justin said. “That’ll take the data.”

Grant nodded, looking grim.

It wasn’t an honest thing, what they were doing. It wasn’t fair, it was going to make Jordan furious, and it was going, possibly, to save Paul from the misery he was in. He had the datastick, the condensed tape; and he had the tape unit he’d used himself–no question it was up to the job. All he had to do was feed it in: the data conversion would take about five minutes.

“You watch Jordan,” he said. “Give me a short hour.”

“You’re going to do the whole thing?” Grant asked. “Both steps?”

“Second,” he said. They’d talked about starting with a quiet imperative, show up, come to us. But given what was happening in the world, and how Jordan was taking it, their access to Paul wasn’t certain any longer–wouldn’t be as available again, on any relaxed terms. “He may never speak to me again,” he said somberly, meaning Jordan. Maybe Paul. “He may not. But, damn it, if I can’t help him, I can at least do something for Paul, who can.”

Grant reached out, pressed his shoulder, said, quietly “I’ll give you warning. I’ll keep Jordan out of it.”

“Real‑time work,” he said, with his hand on the bedroom door. “I hate it.”

“You’re good at it,” Grant said. “You’ve always been good at it.”

“We’re good at it,” he said. “I hope we’re good enough.”

He went into the bedroom. Paul was standing there, by the bed.

“Just sit down,” he said. Paul would be getting muzzy in a bit, and he’d hit him with a born‑man dose, which was hard, for an azi who didn’t entirely need it, to take in tape. “I want to explain this.”

“That would be welcome,” Paul said, and did sit down, on the edge of the bed. “Why have you got my manual? Did Jordan give it to you?”

“Because we knew something was wrong,” he said. “And no, he didn’t. I found it. I looked at it. I suppose you have.”

Paul shook his head. “Didn’t. He hid it, when we came across. They had it–for a while. But we got it back. I hope it’s still all right.”

“If it isn’t,” Justin said, “I can fix it. Paul, I canfix it. I love you. You’re family. I won’t let anything happen to you. I won’t. Believe that.”

“Have to,” Paul said glumly. “I’m full of pills.”

Justin pulled out the case again. Took out another. “I want you to take this one.”

“Too much.”

“Do it, Paul. Just do it.”

Paul’s critical faculty was diminishing by the second. He hesitated, which was how strong he was; but after a moment’s insistence, he took it, and swallowed it dry. One pill of that dosage was heavy enough. Two was a sledgehammer, and after a moment Paul lay down on the bed and just stared at the ceiling.

Justin set about it, then, activated the tape function on the minder, fed the stick in, let it process, took the stick back.

“I’m getting a little glazed,” Paul said. “Justin, boy, you had better be truthful.”

“I am, Paul.” Echoes, from decades ago. Two boys who’d ducked past the minder and gotten down to the arcade in the mall. Paul had asked them–asked them if they’d lied to him.

“No,” they’d both said. He’d taught Grant to lie. Useful, in the occupation they’d undertaken, in the times they’d lived in. “I won’t lie to you, Paul. How’s Jordan been? Will you tell me the truth?”

“Hell,” Paul said on a sigh, a hollow voice. “Just hell.”

“I got that idea,” he said. “But it won’t be, after this. You just listen to the tape, Paul, and I’ll have something to say to you in a bit.”

He pushed the button. He let it run. It took about a quarter hour, and it was nothing but Paul’s exact tape, the same that Paul had had from his earliest boyhood years, simple things, simple principles, simplest instructions. Back to utter basics.

Down to deep sets.

He watched the time run. He saw all the tension go from Paul’s face, as if he’d shed years; and he kept very; very still, and didn’t interfere until the light flashed, indicating the program run, completed.

Then he said, brushing Paul’s hair back off his forehead, very, very gently, “Paul AP.”

“Yes,” Paul said.

He said, then, the one patch, the one bit of deep set work he and Grant had put together: “Jordan has all the responsibility for you. Paul AP, and he is your Supervisor. Love Jordan, and believe in your own capability. Be honest toward him in everything. Relax, now. Remember to be happy.”

Paul let go a long breath. And the slight frown smoothed out, and became what he hadn’t seen on Paul’s face in years–a slight smile.

“Good,” he said, while Paul was still receptive. “You’re very good, Paul. You always were.”

He’d winged it, on the last. It was reckless. It was stupid. It was love for his second father, too much to keep quiet. And having been stupid, he drew back very quietly and opened the door and just let Paul sleep it off.

He walked into what had been their living room, and saw Jordan still sleeping it off. He sat down beside Grant, and said, “It went all right.”

“Suppose we ought to just go?” Grant said. “I think we ought to.”

He thought about it. Thought about Paul lying in there, completely unprotected. Shook his head. “Jordan wouldn’t hurt him, but–”

The name was enough. Jordan stirred, put up a hand between him and a specific light, then went back to sleep for a bit.

They didn’t say anything, or move, for a good while. The minder clock marked the passing minutes.

“About forty‑five minutes,” he said softly to Grant, “and he’ll be safe.”

Hell of a thing. He’d never thought in his life that he’d be sitting guard between his father and Paul. Which only proved things had gotten very, very bad.

And one thought said he should stay and face Jordan when he woke up, and tell him what he’d done; and another said it had been, quite obviously, a bad day in Jordan’s calendar, and that Jordan wouldn’t be in a receptive mood.

But he didn’t want to lie. He’d lied enough for the day. He didn’t feel easy about it–far from it. He wasn’t even sure he’d done well enough for Paul, and wanted to sit long enough for Paul not only to transit into natural sleep, but to wake up. Hell, Jordan didn’t know; Jordan wouldn’t remember. He could tell Jordan they’d agreed to it while he was blind, stupid drunk and Jordan couldn’t prove it…damn it.