Regenesis

Once it was done–they could draw a breath, not be working twelve hours on and twelve off, as they were now, as they had done for months, while sera studied day and night, and ran background checks on everyone around her. They didn’t disagree with sera’s preoccupation with security. They weren’t quite sure that the threat to sera’s life was entirely past. They’d seen her through childhood. They’d gotten her this far alive.

But the day was coming when sera would need a staff far more complex than they had ever been, and in which they might not be as close to sera, as all‑in‑all, as they had once been. They saw that coming–though Florian was upset by the prospect. Sera seemed less happy because of the pressure on her, and that defined everything. She’d snapped at him. She’d never done that and not apologized. So they had to take special care of her.

“We should monitor Justin tonight,” Florian said abruptly, “or Hicks will. I don’t want that.”

Catlin said, “I can do it.”

“Set it up,” Florian said. “I have to make sure Gianni stays on track until dinnertime. Then we’ll trade assignments, and I’ll go.”

The storm passed overhead. On the monitor, a ray of sun hit the tower, in the gray, glistening world outside.

A private plane, glistening white, came in wheels‑down for a landing on a puddled runway. The tail emblem, the Infinite Man of ReseuneLaboratories, was distinctive. It was Reseune One.

Yanni was back.

BOOK ONE Section 1 Chapter ix

APRIL 25, 2424

1748H

“How was Novgorod?” Ari asked purposely, over the shrimp cocktail. “Quiet?”

“Agreeably so, actually,” Yanni said. He had never yet asked the reason for the dinner invitation.

Not uncommon for Yanni. Yanni Schwartz gave very little away, and he’d always accorded the same privilege of reticence to her, since she had been on his good list, or thought she was. He was on rejuv, of course, dyed his hair, was eightyish and looked forty, except that most people that looked forty weren’t forty. He wasn’t handsome, but he had a strong face. She liked that face. And it made her feel better that he showed up on time and didn’t act guilty at all–as if he was going to have a reason to give her. Oh, she so hoped he had a reason. Something in her unknotted just because he’d come in and met her cheerfully, without a flinch.

He’d brought her a trinket from the capital. Giraud used to do that, and this one, when she unwrapped it, looked even to be from the same company as some of Giraud’s gifts. It was a desk sitter, a little glass globe with a holo insect that crawled in a circle so long as you set it in the light. He had handed it to her before they sat down at table and she had it by her plate. It kept running, brilliant green armor and serrated jaws, round and round.

The gift‑giving urge in Yanni was new. She noted that.

One thing was sure: Yanni had thought about her when he was in Novgorod, and Yanni had never particularly curried favor: he’d always been fair, and expected it in return. Now that he was here, at her table, she could actually quit fluxing and remember Yanni, not the reports she’d found in System. Maybe he hadbrought her the thing just because it tickled his fancy, and made him think of her.

In her opinion, that was the way family ought to be. She’d almost begun to think of him that way. Until this last week.

“I love the bug,” she said.

“Beetle,” he said. “A Glorious Beetle.”

“Well, he is, but is that his name?”

“ Plusiotis gloriosa. Native to the western hemisphere of Earth.”

“He’s really that green?”

Yanni took a little advert card from his coat pocket and set it in the middle of the table, between them and facing her. “You can actually get a collection of insects. The butterflies were obviously the big item. But you have one of those, I remembered. I thought you’d rather have the beetle.”

She had Giraud’s butterfly. They lately had real butterflies in the Conservatory. All sorts of them. But they didn’t have a beetle.

“I absolutely love him,” she said. It had been ages since she’d spent time in the Conservatory. Reseune sprawled, from the high end, where Wing One sat, down to the town and the fields, and she hadn’t been to the Conservatory since–oh, long before the shooting that had brought Denys down, long before the world had come apart. She and Maman used to go there when she was small, to walk the garden paths and see the flowers.

The family that she had once had, had been broken by Denys’ order. Yanni’s family, too. Scattered by the same set of orders, sacrificed to the Project that was her, sent out to a distant star‑station, depriving Yanni of relatives, including stupid Jenna. She wouldn’t be surprised if Yanni did resent her. But she hoped he didn’t.

Lump‑lump‑lump, in its endless silent circle.

She dropped her napkin over it, to remove the distraction. Looked Yanni in the eyes–they were brown, direct, hard eyes.

“It doesn’t have an off switch,” Yanni said. “Except light.”

“So there’s nothing up I should know about,” she said, direct to the point, regarding Novgorod and the legislative session.

“Oh, the Paxers are kicking up the usual fuss, we didn’tget the remediation increase we wanted, and there’s talk about putting an embargo on Earth‑origin wood veneers.”

So he wasn’t going to get to the topic of secret meetings straight off. So neither did she. “It’ll only drive up the price. It won’t ever stop the demand, will it?”

“It might drive the price far beyond what the average citizen can afford. Take the mass out of mass market. Earth is claiming its woods are a sustainable resource. We’re saying they’re not, on an interstellar scale, and we’re talking about a hundred‑year embargo.”

“If Alliance doesn’t go with it–” she began. She hadn’t been interested at all in that, but a brain cell fired, and she couldn’t help it.

“Alliance is actually going with it.”

Thatrated a lift of the brows, for an item that hadn’t been to the forefront of the news at all. The Alliance kept their hands off their own forested world, at Pell, a planet called Downbelow, barred exploitation by vote of the station residents, if not the far‑flung ship‑communities that were the greatest majority of that government.

So the whole ecosystem of Downbelow was protected from intrusion–because practically speaking there was nobody but Pell Station that would mount an expedition down there. The ecological sensibilities of the Alliance capital, however, had not stopped the Alliance merchanters from buying up luxuries out of Sol System hand over fist, which they were selling, hand over fist, to Union. Since the Alliance sat halfway between Union and Sol, a ban on certain Earth products couldn’tbe meaningful without Alliance compliance, and she’d have bet Alliance, composed mostly of merchanter families, wouldn’t possibly go with it.

Uncommon that Alliance and Union both, former enemies, ended up banning something so prized by the rich. Never mind that they could easily synthesize the product. Never mind that there were very good synthetic veneers, down to the cell structure, if you wanted that. The fact a thing was realaroused a certain lust to possess, in certain moneyed circles. People would pay fortunes for what was realand Earth‑origin. Crazy, in her opinion.

“Well,” she said. “So no more wood from Earth?”

“I think it will pass in the Council of Worlds,” he said. “A lot of talk, a lot of fire and fury and discussion. The spotlight’s on the users of certain products, and no senator wants to be tagged as one of the conspicuously rich consumers. They’ve exempted historical pieces from the ban. I’ve objected that we’ll see an uncommon glut of relics coming out of Earth. And we get one other quiet little provision–the Hinder Stars Defense Treaty gets moved forward. Talks renewed.”

“That’s good.” It was.

“So,” he said, in a changing‑the‑subject tone, “how are things here?”

And still no mention of the private meetings. “Same as last week. Same as the week before.” There was some local news, not as dramatic as the ban on wood veneers. “The new wing has its foundations laid.”

“Saw that, as the plane came in. Looking quite impressive back there.”

“They’re mostly finished with the storm tunnels and accesses now–conduits are going in. Andthey finished the power plant up at the upriver site. Precip stations are about to go online.”

Not that much besides a twenty‑bed residential bunker and a machine shop stood on that remote site yet. The new building, well upriver, was in the early stages, a lot of raw earth and robots at the moment, superintended by a small azi technical crew and a supervisor, and soon to be occupied by the loneliest and craziest people on Cyteen, line‑runners on the automated precip stations.

“Fine,” he said. “And how are your studies going?”

“Oh, good enough.”

“So–” Archly. “–are we moving researchers in upriver?”

“We’re a few months from that.”

“I don’t think I’d like the climate.”

She didn’t like the implication of that, not at all. He’d sensed she was stalking him. He’d Got her. She was sure her face had reacted in some dismay. As of now, it had a frown, which she immediately purged.

“Oh? And what did you do” she asked, in her best Ari One mode, “in Novgorod?”

“You have to trust me.”

And nowwas he going to bring up those secret meetings? “Oh. I do, but I’d really like to know, and you know I’d like to know.”

“Well, I agreed with Corain on a compromise. Fargone’s hurting for jobs. His constituency atFargone is extremely important to him getting re‑elected if he’s challenged for the seat. So we put in a new lab wing. We get Centrist Party support on a rider tacked onto that bill, becauseit helps Corain’s constituency at Fargone, and, here’s the core of it: the Eversnow project gets underway.”

“Eversnow!” That hadn’t been part of the report.

“Eversnow.”

“It’s a dead project.”

“Not dead. We get a station at Eversnow, a full blown research station onEversnow, and a new lab at Fargone that’s very quietly aimed at terra‑forming, exactly as originally planned on Cyteen–the Centrists’ favorite dream–but out there, where it’s notgoing to cause us trouble.”

Her pulse rate was getting up. Her blink rate would be. And he’d read that in a second. “So we’re suddenly friends with the Centrists and we’re terraforming Eversnow, of all things. And producing alpha azi at Fargone.”

“A few.”

“We havea lab at Fargone. The Rubin Project was at Fargone.”

“Mostly terraforming research…a clearing house for what we learn on Eversnow. Ultimately–ultimately azi, yes.”

“Alpha production has never left the planet!”

“Our personnel, mind, no release of proprietary secrets. By the time we’re bringing any great number of azi into the Eversnow system, we’ll be on the planet. Azi production. Full scale by then. You’ll be putting together the sets for that population in your lifetime.”

The Eversnow deal had been dead as long as the first Ari. And Reseune had allowed a prerogative of exclusivity to lapse, enabling labs that high‑end, that capable, to run out at Fargone–with the possibility of somebody outside Reseune staff laying hands on the manuals? Bad enough they’d licensed out military thetas to BucherLabs and had thoseproblems to mop up for the next forty years of the first Ari’s career–they’d never done anything like this.

And terraforming? That was a dead issue.

“None of this is in the news,” she said calmly.

“None of it is going to be in the news. It’s under deep cover, disguised as that azi lab.”

“But, damn it, Yanni.” She kept her voice down, kept the whole situation under control, holding the lid on. “I assume you’ve got a very, very good reason. What happened to the remediation budget?”

“It’ll wait a year.”

“While we create a terraforming lab out at Fargone?”

“Yes,” Yanni said, head‑on, “It was the first Ari’s project. It got scrapped.”

“The first Ari isn’t alive now. I am. And I have an opinion. You didn’t ask me. Where are my budget items, Yanni?”

“Next year.”

“We have two labs full of scientists we’re going to have to fund till next year and I’m making a heavy hit on budget as it is!”

“I know that.”

“So you could have talked about this. Eversnow, for God’s sake! And an alpha lab! What else?”

“We manage the lab, top to bottom. Our personnel run it, no training of local techs to do anything: they’ll all be Reseune people, born here, trained here, retiring here, ultimately.”

Yanni’s voice was so quiet, so reasonable. He wasn’t that way with a lot of people. But he knew he’d sneaked this one past her, and he was presenting a case in which she was going to have the say. She’d be in charge when this thing came into full bloom, and Yanni–Yanni would be gone by then, at least gone from Admin, and back in the lab.

That thought settled her heart rate a tick or two. She didn’t want that, yet.

And she thought about what he was doing. He’d been meeting with Corain, of all people. Corain didn’t meet with Science.

“So.” she said, “and Citizens voted for it.”

“Jobs,” Yanni said. “A lot of jobs. Council knows what it’s for. We’re just not advertising it for the media yet.”

“They know, and they voted for this.”

“Everybody but Internal Affairs and State. Two nays. I’m sure you know.”

She knew. Corain had gone along. Jobs, Yanni said. Jobs at Far‑gone. Elder Ari had warned her about unrest in the population–the Citizens Bureau, which Corain represented. Ari had warned her about unhappiness–at Fargone, at Pan‑Paris, which wasn’t on the expansion routes; both flashpoints, fobs had been scarce, opportunities scant since the War. Fargone was supposed to be in for major expansion when the military had planned to go ahead with Eversnow; she knew that was the history of it at that star.

And then peace had happened, and the project had stalled–people elsewhere hadn’t thought terraforming anything was a good idea; and then the first Ari had died, and it had stayed a dead issue for twenty years.

But the Eversnow collapse hadhad an effect, politically. Fargone Station’s independence tilt, voting sometimes with the Expansionists, sometimes with the Centrists, and bargaining hard for its vote, had been a factor in the Defense election that had put Vladislaw Khalid in–her least favorite Bureau head in her own lifetime.

And that unrest, of people feeling trapped and dead‑ended, was still out there at Fargone and Pan‑Paris, in the electorate of Citizens, in Defense. It spread even through the Science Bureau, out there: the Expansionists had just squeaked through its traditional majority in the last election Science had had.

That was dangerous, even if it was just one star‑station.

She had an inkling all of a sudden where Yanni was leading with this little surprise, and it wasn’t stupid: it was an answer to the kind of problems Yanni had faced in histenure as Proxy Councillor for Science andhead of the Expansionist Party. Give Fargone a major project, jobs, prosperity–and mutate Fargone’s maverick electorate into one more in line with Reseune, who’d be running the project. Setting a whole new population‑burst of azi out there, who would, over time, migrate to freed‑man status at Fargone and then, supposedly, at Eversnow Station, azi who’d teach their own CIT children theiropinions–

And Corain was going along with it? She felt her week‑long Mad cool off just a degree. Defense still had a strong interest in Eversnow. It was going to be a problem to pry their fingers off it, and Yanni was trying to work with them…had Yanni thought of that?

“We set up an alpha‑capable lab at Fargone,” Yanni was saying quietly, and she began to track it, “but the locals are naturally immediately thinking of CIT‑use, ordinary CIT births, and that’s what they know. Corain hasn’t mentioned Eversnow in his own arguments, or at least it hadn’t leaked by this morning. But Council has something to gain from this bill. Fargone’s going to be the stepping‑off point for Eversnow, which will become more and more economically important to Fargone voters and to the Citizens Bureau. But most of all, to us. Not just a new city. A new planet. For us, a whole new genetic resource. A whole new population to birth and set up. Corain’s agreeing to cooperate with us on the Hinder Stars Defense Treaty, but we agreed to drop the remediation funding increase for this session, for this project. Seed money. Corain gains jobs and votes and he gets funding without a tax increase. But ultimately we gain everything.”

The damned thing was an appalling daisy chain of favors exchanged. She suddenly had a much wider window into the content of the mysterious meetings, and here was Yanni–stolid, just‑the‑facts Yanni, non‑activist through her whole life–advancing an outrageously ambitious Expansionist agenda the first Ari had contemplated and slowed down on, toward the end of her life, as too much, too far.

In Yanni’s plan, they acquired not just Eversnow as a base, but the string of stars beyond it; that was the thing. The strand that had been, without Eversnow, unattainable. Defense wanted that: she could see it.

And the Centrists, particularly numerous in the Citizens Bureau, whose whole platform had always been to have Union’s power to stay clustered tightly around Cyteen, were suddenly going along with Eversnow? The first Ari had started out supporting terraforming at Cyteen, her mother Olga’s project, and then pulled the rug from under that once rejuv manufacture became a vital industry. The Centrists, wanting to expand population, not territory, had been outraged. They’d seen it as a ploy to keep Cyteen mostly desert, carved up into Administrative Territories, notably Reseune’s protective reserves, where CITs couldn’t get a foothold. They’d been furious and called Eversnow a pie‑in‑the‑sky piece of politics that was going to give Reseune one more protectorate and never would benefit the average CIT.

And now the Centrists, who had been so fundamentally opposed to that project at the edge of space, were suddenly willing to give up their campaign to terraform Cyteen and concentrate on Eversnow.

The universe had changed in a week.

And she didn’t know enough. Eversnow had been a problem she’d planned to postpone for decades.

A world locked in a snowball effect. A world without a spring for millions of years–with, however, the strong likelihood that there was still life there, genetically unique, locked in rocks in the sub‑basement of a frozen ocean.

In the first Ari’s day, with all of humankind busy blowing each other up in the War, the Expansionists and the military had both been hot to seed Eversnow for their own reasons–their hedge on a bet, if the Alliance had hit Cyteen. But Centrists hadn’t wanted to spend money there at all, and a few Centrist‑leaning scientists had argued they needed to preserve and study that world for a few decades.

Too late, by then. An early Defense Bureau project had already broken the freeze, or begun to break it, artificially, with solar heat, and tipped the balance toward a melt…how that had ever turned out, she didn’t know in any detail. Earth‑origin phytoplankton reportedly bloomed in certain areas, thanks to Defense.

She would not have done that: she would have said a vehement no. It was a living world, and living worlds were precious in the cosmos. Even snowballs. That was what she’d thought in her slight reading of the project–good they gave it up.

But now came politics. And Yanni was getting friendly with Corain? Establishing a population burst out at Fargone and then at Eversnow, where the Centrists weren’t paying attention–

That actually could be smart, she had to admit it. Centrists attracted the violent fringe elements, people like the Paxers and the Abolitionists, whose major agenda had gone from a unilateral peace in the Company Wars on the one hand, and an abolition of all azi production on the other. The Paxers and the Abolitionists had, as a curious side agenda, the terraforming of Cyteen, which they thought would break the power of Reseune, and thatwas how those fringe groups had found an ideological home in the Centrist Party.

But let Corain of Citizen shift the political focus to “jobs for Fargone,” and snuggle up to Science, and watch the fringe elements scramble to cope with that.

The first Ari had created her, she’d said, to keep watch over her projects–among which was Gehenna, and maybe, yes, she supposed, that could include Eversnow, even if it wasn’t, like Gehenna, populated.

So, well, maybe Yanni didn’t deserve spacing.

A sudden expansion of Reseune interests out on the fringe of human space–a whole new strand of stars. New frontiers. A commitment to expansion–and to Expansionism, with all it stood for, and all the dangers in the deep unknown…

Was sheready to open that door to the universe and deal with whatever lay out there? Was she, for that matter, going to be as Expansionist in her own career as her predecessor had been? She didn’t know. Decisions were coming down on her too early…and she was about to be stuck with this one: there were ways for her to undo everything except the dispersal of the Earth genome into an alien, living world.

But Defense, by all reports, had already done that part, even including higher lifeforms.

“I’m not sure, Yanni. I’m still not sure. Tell me why.”

“A planet with only microbes to recommend it is interesting, but we have samples.”

“All right. Keep going. Why now?”

Yanni took a sip of wine. “Here’s the urgency in it. The War’s over; that used to be our cohesive factor, as a nation: we had to stop the Earth Company So now Union’s teetering somewhere between an amalgam of star‑stations and a fully formed state, and there’s power to be had, power Reseune holds virtually solo. Reseune keeps Union going in a specific direction, keeps a momentum, or God knows what it would do. The Council may govern, but Reseune still makes the rules that govern azi, and azi are still, and for a few centuries more, the source of the population base.”

“That’s supposed to end.”

“Not yet. And this is the reason. As long as we expand into new frontiers, CIT births won’t keep up with the need for population; azi go on being born, and Reseune goes on making the rules, the newest population goes on voting our way, and we’ll always outvote the Centrists and keep them from clustering all our assets around one vulnerable planet. Plus we retain our police power, where azi are concerned, and we remain a clearing‑house for information that most of the citizenry doesn’t even wantto know, but which could come back on their heads. We don’t know what the future holds, but it’s a sure bet the Centrists know less than we do. Earth is out of serious play in human politics for at least a century. It can’t even get a consensus together to manage its trade relations, and right now they see us as an endless source of funds and invention, so they don’t actually have to solve any of their problems. They sell us their antiquities, their artwork, their unique biologicals, and we make the worst of their politicians drunk with money and importance. The only thing they really badly want, we won’t sell them.”

That, of course, was rejuv. On a populous planet like Earth, it could be a disaster. And she saw Yanni’s point: left with nobodyto make a decision not to trade in it, it would have happened, and Earth would have collapsed.

“Earth won’t move until it’s uncomfortable,” she murmured, quoting. The rest of what Ari One had said was: It won’t make any decision until at least three of its factions combine.“So where do you see things going for us all? Another war?”

“Alliance has its own problems, transitioning from a collection of merchant captains to a government making law for two worlds. It’s set Pell off limits. It saw Gehenna as a potential resource, but now they know it’s a time bomb. So they came out of the War owning twoplanets they don’t want to touch–partly noble ethics. But this is the important part: partly it’s the paralysis of not havinga ReseuneLabs to make informed decisions, and they refuse to ask us what to do with Gehenna orPell. Their R&D was always driven by the likes of LucasCorp’s operation, all profit, no long‑range planning–ecological disaster in the making. Plus their two planets both have higher life to worry about. Our two worlds don’t. Right now they can’t do anything about what we do.”

“But,” she said, “Cyteen’s biosystem produces rejuv, and we can’t jeopardize that by terraforming here. Go over strictly to lab production and it drives up the cost of something everybody has to have for most of their life–so you create a class who can live for a century and a half being young, and separate them from the people who can’t afford it.”

Staff brought the next course, grilled fish, with citrus. It took a moment. And she was annoyed with staff, who should have waited for a signal. Probably the fish would have seriously overcooked. But she needed a stern talk with staff about interrupting. A very stern talk.

“So,” she said, after the obligatory compliments, and several bites further on.

“So,” Yanni said, perfectly composed.

“So I’m following everything you’re saying, and it makes sense. But why are you personally voting for terraforming Eversnow this fast? What if there’s something as important as rejuv down there? Something we can’tmake in a lab?”

“One reason: Reseune’s continued existence, its power to make decisions, aboveboard or in secret, is the core of all Union stability. Without us, Union falls apart. That’s not arrogance. That’s fact. Right now, Union isn’t populous enough to avoid fragmentation. Decisions are being taken. Some really stupid ideas are current in politics, and some damned selfish ones. Reseune is at a low ebb of power, during my interregnum, so it’s perceived–because I’m not an Emory, a Carnath, or a Nye–not even a Warrick. I’m an unknown, and it’s widely perceived I’m merely a footnote, filling time between Denys Nye’s control of Reseune–and your taking the office, for which all the Centrists are busy bracing themselves. They perceive me as weak, someone they can get concessions out of–before you come in. But on this one matter, on this, I am passionate. We need the expansion of human space to go on holding the power to make decisions; we need labs to extend our reach to other places, labs, incidentally, out of immediate view of Centrist leadership here on Cyteen…but I’m not advertising that feature of the plan. We may still find biologicals we can develop at Eversnow; and the experience will be invaluable; but right now, and in the immediate future, we need the expansion of our loyal voting base, before some short‑sighted, over‑content business interests on Cyteen Station and in Novgorod break up Reseune and let us fall behind the Alliance. Fatally so. In which case I guaranteeyou there’ll be another war. We need to hedge our bets by spreading outward. Concerns for microbes take second place. The way Earth is managing its affairs currently, we may be using your predecessor’s genetic Arks to recover what they lose.”

“And what if we lose something like rejuv because we rushed in and messed up a place we don’t wholly know?”

“We could lose something, yes. But we know what we gain. A power base. And whatever we mess up there, it won’t be us. The Centrists envision a planet they can live on in billions, like Earth, the great fantasy. They see this project as a foot in the door of that science. We get the Centrists involved faroutside the understanding of their comfortable power base on Cyteen, and we edge their children closer and closer to our point of view. The Long View…in this case, from a standpoint of distance from the center of Union. We get their kids involved in this project. We turn the Centrists into our asset. They go for the profit out there, being people with families they want to support–and we go on as we are, controlling colonization. There are other worlds beyond Eversnow. But we can’t reach them without stepping stones. Trade drivesexpansion. Trade drives us. And the Treaty of Pell meant our trade pays a price, it may have meant peace, but Alliance is getting fatter on a share of our trade. And some of those merchanters are using the profit to update armaments–the way some of our warships nowadays run a little cargo–of a medical and emergency nature. The Treaty may someday break down on that point. We have to get other options, we have to maintain our economic push that keepsus stronger than the Alliance, or see the consequences.”

It wasn’t a stupid idea. She could see that. And it was a vision. It might be stupid to think Expansionism could go on at the same pace forever, but there was something to it going on for a while: Earth was one planet, one star system, and fragile. Earth had antagonized all its colonies, who held the only safe direction for Earth to expand–Earth now knew it wasn’t going to grow without running into intelligence in the other directions, and they only hoped Earth didn’t provoke something out in the deep. Alliance was already committed in the direction of Gehenna, but that planet was a problem.

Eversnow would lead Union development further out on another tangent, away from Earth and farther out than the Alliance, down a strand of stars that worked like a river in space. Broaden Union’s population base, widen their territory, make them secure, and yes, make sure there were jobs. That had been a poser, but Yanni’s plan solved that at a stroke.

Going away from Alliance made them unassailable, militarily: Defense would like that. Folly for Alliance or Earth to attack something that much bigger; and a strong Union, with other resources, wouldn’t actually needEarth, or even Alliance…while a strong Union was a big market, for Earth, and for Alliance. So it could possibly preserve the peace better than standing still.

So was it worth ruining a planet? A snowball, the domain of microbes? It might be.

“So let me ask you one,” Yanni said. “This new research post up‑river. It seems your own plan’s gotten beyond that…while I’ve been in Novgorod. Now we’re talking about a major lab expansion–five hundred jobs on this budget request, my office tells me. Requests for extension on use of the excavators. There’s nothing there to mineup in the hills. No industry’ likely. But now you’re requesting residences. A river port, with coffer dam and shields. Whydo you need a river port for remediation research?”

“To move supply.”

“And? It’s seeming a little beyond a bare‑bones research post all of a sudden. I’m not complaining, understand. I just want to know what we’re suddenly funding up there. What are you up to, young lady?”

She really hadn’t been ready to talk about that. But maybe it was time. Secret for secret.

“Actually–a township.”

“An adjunct to Reseune? Or a rival?”

“A real township. Like here. Shops. People. Manufacture, eventually. I’m thinking of calling it Strassenberg.”

“Strassenberg,” Yanni said, sitting back a little. That had been Maman’s name, Strassen. “Well, now there’san ambitious design for an eighteen‑year‑old. You’re building a new wing on Reseune and in the last three weeks your research lab has mutated into a town. And why, pray, do you think we needanother township in the world?”

That, like her question about Yanni’s programs, was a deeper question. Fair question, considering the funds she’d counted on weren’t going to be plentiful, if they now had to fund the remediation. “Two reasons: first the isolation, what I said at the start: a place to put the rest of my uncle’s staff where I don’t have to deal with them. But I want a lab for mydecisions. The first Ari created me to carry on herwork. I’m setting up a place where absolutely all the decisions are mine and all the mindsets are what I choose to be up there, CIT and azi. Give or take my uncle’s people, that they’ll have to encapsulate, they’re myresearch question. I saidit was a lab. And it actually is. It’s my comparison to what the first Ari did in, say, Gehenna.”

Eyebrows lifted. Clearly a city wasn’t quite the answer Yanni had expected under the title of a research lab. But it was the truth. There might be a timebomb in the Gehenna mindset, but–a more closely‑held secret, and one she wasn’t sure the first Ari had ever directly discussed with Yanni–there was possibly one in the Cyteen population itself, simply because the mindsets were what they were, exactly the same mix of psychsets Yanni had been talking about continuing at Eversnow. All but the CITs who’d come down from orbit were Reseune‑designed mindsets–the same as Yanni planned to go on using out at Eversnow. The station over their heads had its founding families, a certain aristocracy of CITs, people with citizen‑numbers from the origin of the system: the Carnaths, the Nyes, the Emorys, and the Schwartzes, plus a couple of hundred other names that had proliferated through the station–and then a number had settled at Reseune and Novgorod, on the planetary surface, once they’d begun to colonize the planet.

But it had needed a succession of population bursts to build civilization and sustain an economy independent of Earth’s economy, independent of the Merchanters Alliance, from which theyhad seceded by force of arms. A planetary economy needed hands to work, minds to devise, and people to mine resources, consume products, and fill the vacant spots in the outback, dense enough population for viable commerce. In the early days Union had boosted its numbers by birthlabs, by cycling azi into freedmen at an extraordinary rate…azi who’d been given their ethics by tape that Reseune had created in the first Ari’s mother’s time.

And the first Ari had had a very heavy hand on that process, tweaking what her mother Olga Emory had done; and then those azi had become freedmen, and married and had CIT kids, and taught them their values. More, the first Ari had operated increasingly with deep sets, in a style that scared a lot of other psych designers, and theydidn’t read what she’d been doing.

Teaching the kids’ kids’ generation to carry on, that was what–just like Gehenna. A lab‑made ethic was threaded all through the stations in Union’s grasp–just exactly what Yanni intended continuing with another surge in azi population in the deep Beyond. The same ethic the first Ari‑generated population‑burst had installed was buried in the psyches of all those people who took the subways to work and voted in the massive Bureaus of Citizens and Technology. Educated votes counted multiple times, and there were devices in the way the vote happened to keep the decision‑making within a Bureau constantly in the hands of people expert in the fields in question, but the fact was, in Union’s system, the popular vote, moving in a unified direction, could swing a certain way no matter what the experts wanted.

Count on it: the azi‑born were never going to turn on Reseune: the sons and daughters of the azi‑born were never going to turn, no matter what the Centrists wanted, or the Expansionists wanted, or the Paxers wanted. Yanni’s maneuvers to divide and diminish the Centrists were, she suspected, all unnecessary, if the first Ari was right. There was a worm working in the programs, something that moved and reprogrammed itself to suit the times, and it was damned scary how it worked, and changed, while azi‑descended were now out‑populating CITs.

But it was not something she was going to discuss in depth with Yanni. The terrible danger of that ethics implant was what the first Ari had died knowing–she’d died haunted by the fact one human couldn’t live long enough to see what it was going to do. It was why an Ari Two had to exist–to watch out for glitches in the mindsets she’d installed, at Gehenna, on Cyteen, inside Reseune itself. It was necessarily an untried theory, in those population surges mandated by the War, decommissioned soldiers, workers, colonists in the Gehenna outback: the first Ari had had to adjust them fast, and do it wide, or see it undone and unraveling. A collective azi‑descended socio‑set could mutate under unforeseen circumstances, creating not just new attitudes, but a whole artificially‑setted human population, an integration with a capital I.

The first Ari had not just tweaked the helm of the ship of colonial ambitions, but rewritten the navigational charts. Gehenna was only a part of it.

And her predecessor had kept that secret to herself, until she passed it to her own image and set her onto a very specific course: to be sure the design didn’t blow up in the second and third generation of newly‑minted CITs…because to tell anyone was risking letting anotherworm loose in the population, one of knowing one’s fate and trying to second‑guess it.

And where wasthe end? What was going to happen to humanity as a whole, when half the human population in the universe was on a different, human‑devised program? Done was done. She had to steer it.

“All right,” she said to this man, her own caretaker. Her protector. The man likely empowered by her predecessor to remove her if she ran amok. And she forgave him his sins of secrecy and surrendered a planet to him, because this man, whose use was his independent thinking, thought it was a necessary move. “All right, Yanni, so I’ll study up on Eversnow. I should have done before now. The damage, you’re right, is already done. The military saw to that. And I’m sure there are benefits I haven’t looked at.”

“I have a paper for you on that matter,” he said. “Whalesong, on Earth.”

“Whalesong,” she said. The whim of a nostalgic preservationist: the oceans of Eversnow. “They sing.”

“I think you’ll find it interesting.”

A bite of fish.

“You give me my city, Yanni, and I’ll give you your planet.”

“Precocious child.”

“On a completely different topic–I’ve almost made up my mind this week. I’m pretty sure we’re going to clone Denys.”

“Are we? Now? Or some time in the next seven years?”

She frowned. That was a question. A big one: how close will we try to stick to program? “Giraud is the one we’re going to trust–a little. Without his brother Denys to protect–how do we make a Giraud? So we clone Denys, for him, so Giraud keeps on track. That’s my total reasoning in deciding. I was all set to tell you that this evening, when you dropped this Eversnow business in my lap. You said you were leaving the decision up to me. And I was thinking about it a lot while you were gone.”

“Denys has no essential value,” Yanni paraphrased her, “except to keep Giraud on track.”

“No. That’s what I changed my mind on. Denys helped create me. And if you have to create me again, you’d probably want a Denys to keep the new me in line, because Giraud is too soft.”

“You don’t think I could fill that position?”

“Uncle Yanni,” she said fondly, “you’re much too easy on me. You let me get away with everything.”

“Hell. Sounds as if you’re already making a lot of minor decisions, especially when I’m out of the house.”

“Except the Eversnow thing. I wouldn’t call that minor.”

“It’ll be your problem, young lady.”

“It’ll be your problem until it’s pretty well underway. You’re staying in office at least two more years. Maybe more.”

“Two more years in purgatory. God, I hate politics.”

“But pleasedon’t fall down the stairs, Uncle Yanni. You have to be Director. My alternative right now is Justin or Jordan.”

It was a joke. Yanni didn’t laugh. “Better to install Grant,” Yanni muttered.

Probably true. Justin Warrick would hate the job more than Yanni did.

Sacrifice was the situation Yanni was enduring. Never mind he was creating a planet–he wantedto be working with azi, which was what he really loved.

“Yanni. Could you do onething more for me?”

“What?” Yanni asked, and an eyebrow lifted. “When you take that tone, I’m on my guard.”

She thought: Ari wanted you to bring me up. She’d agree with me. But she wasn’t supposed to know that, so she said, “Giraud’s going to need a father in a few months. Would you?”

“Good God!”

“You’d be good at it.”

“Like hell. Giraud? Good loving God. He’d turn out a serial killer. I’m not good with kids. Especially that one.”

“You’re good at politics. People promise you things.”

“I’m not sure that compliments my intelligence.”

“So will you do it?”

A sigh. “I’m already loaded down with Council work and Admin. Where do I find the hours?”

“Who else am I going to get? Dr. Edwards? Giraud’s too devious for him.”

“You’re serious.”

“I’m completely serious.”

“Well, it’s myappointment to make,” Yanni said. “Unless you want to take over this week.”

“No.”

“So I’ll think about it.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“So tell me about the rest of the session,” she said. “I’m sure you were brilliant.”

“The rest.” he said, “was absolutely, deadly dull. Well, except the bomb scare. Paxers up to their old tricks. Nobody believed they could have gotten anything into the building, but I went back to the hotel and actually got my correspondence done.”

Dinner wended happily on to dessert, a chocolate mousse, just a little of it, with a lot less tension. She found herself happy–so happy from relief that her hands shook a little; and she was fluxed. She’d just lost a planet, for God’s sake, and she found herself being grateful it wasn’t anything that personally threatened her. As for Yanni, he didn’t look at all guilty of double‑dealing: he looked very tired by then, trying to be sharp, but considering the trip home, the wine, and the rich dessert, he was probably thinking of bed and really hoping she wouldn’t try any Working at the moment.

She didn’t. She had all of her dessert and said she was tired herself, and yawned. That was no pretense and no Working. “You’re the one who’s had the long trip,” she said, “and look. I’m the one yawning.”

“I’m done,” he said. “I’ve got a detailed report for you. I wrote down all the details. Session vids. Dull stuff.” He fished in his pocket and laid a capsule down. “All there.”

“You’re so good,” she said warmly. And meant it, this time in gratitude. Even if she was relatively sure the secret meetings wouldn’t be in there. She pushed back from the table and Yanni got up and moved her chair for her, gentlemanlike. “Uncle Yanni.”

“Don’t call me uncle.”

“Grump.” She’d found that word in a book recently. It fit Yanni. She put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him on the cheek. “Good night. Go get some rest.”

He returned the kiss, casual, but it made a warm feeling. There was no other CIT who had done that, not since Maman had gone away. Uncle Denys certainly hadn’t.

And she had lately to think–did he dare try to manipulate her, sweeten his Eversnow maneuver, which he had come here knowing wouldn’t be totally to her liking?

But she didn’t want to think that. And he hadbrought her a written report, and the session tapes. She just filed the feeling away…let it go for a while. There’d be changes. There’d be her administration, after his, but it didn’t have to be, yet. He was doing all right: she didn’t likethe Eversnow thing, didn’t likethe new labs, either, but he was being careful about it.

She saw him to the door, his companion Frank joining him there, and Catlin showed up, too.

Yanni left. The door closed. Systems went up again.

“I think he’s all right,” she announced to Catlin when that door shut.

There was no surprise there, just a nod of agreement. Her security had likely monitored the whole conversation. On the whole, the business with Yanni had gone amazingly well.

Tonight–maybe it was the sheer relief of getting Yanni back, even if she had to bargain a bit of her soul for him–she finally felt as if she could get some sleep.

BOOK ONE Section 1 Chapter x

APRIL 25, 2424

1901H

Fancy restaurant. Columns of light and coherent fog with a rhythmic sea sound in the background, and a holographic beach shimmering in mirrors that reflected, by some optical trick, the diners but not the columns.

It was a place called Jamaica, Justin hadn’t been here before. And whatever stipend his father was on, it didn’t, he was relatively sure, provide for a place like this. Jordan had called up, after a silence of several days–had asked him and Grant to dinner in the apartment; he’d balked, not wanting a renewal of the argument.

He’d suggested a quiet dinner out. Jordan had said he’d call back. And did, with a reservation.

Here.

Jamaica lay on the main level of Admin–that should have warned Jordan about the cost. It lay a short walk from both Education and Wing One, an outdoor walk across the quadrangle or a protected one through the tunnels. Probably his father had seen the convenience–hadn’t likely seen the menu.

And the late hour? Because, Jordan had said, it was booked to the hilt at prime hours, which must mean the food was good.

It meant other things, too: that it was one of those Admin watering holes and Jordan was two decades out of touch with the changes in Admin. It had gotten pricier, to say the least. Jordan likely had no idea what he’d booked them into.

“Nice place,” Grant observed. “Are you sure he said Jamaica?”

“He’s not going to pay for this,” Justin said. “Make sure the bill comes to us, will you? I’ll keep on the lookout.”

Grant immediately took charge and inquired with the maitre d’ near the desk. There was quiet conversation, a nod, a credit chit passed, a little bow. The maitre d’ moved a little closer to where Justin stood and offered them immediate seating–Jordan hadn’t arrived yet–or a seat at the bar if they wanted to wait for their party; but in that same moment Jordan showed up with Paul, and claimed both them and the reservation.

Jordan looked quite professorial tonight in a tweed coat, quiet brown, a little academic for the milieu. Justin wore green, mild sheen, fashionable among the youngish set–which did fit in here. The maitre d’ escorted them to their table, saw them seated, and promised them a waiter named Edward.

“Well, and how are you?” Jordan asked, as they settled in at their table, two and two, serving assistants deftly maneuvering china, filling water glasses.

“Oh, fine,” Justin said, and the drink waiter showed up extraordinarily quickly for a place like this, crammed as it was with diners. It might be that someone had recognized Grant, whose red hair and vid star looks made him easy to ID. In Grant’s company, people he had never met knew him, in every corridor in Reseune.

But it was Jordan Warrick’s name on the reservation. So it was very possible it wasn’t Grant that had gotten the fast attention. Very possibly it was Reseune Security that had picked their table for them, and bugged it. Thatmight get the maitre d’s quick attention, too, not to have a foul‑up with security reach the ears of the other patrons.

Menus were set in their hands, bound in leather, quite the extravagance, while they eyed each other intermittently’ like fencers and didn’t quite succeed at small talk. There were no prices on the menu. Not one. And Jordan by now knew what they were into, but he hadn’t said a thing.

“Did you come across the quadrangle?” Paul asked.

Grant nodded. “Nice evening.”

“So did we.”

Jordan played the host, scanned the menu, inquired about appetizers, signaling they were going to go the whole route–they settled on the pвtй–and didn’t say a thing about his line of credit. He was animated, pleasant, cheerful, Jordan’s public face, the face Justin had wanted to engage for this first phase of peacemaking. Jordan’s card was going to bounce if the maitre d’ failed them. And that wouldn’thelp the peace. Justin could foresee the moment, the embarrassment. God, the bill had better come to him. Quietly. Tactfully.

He and Jordan could patch things up. They’d not fought, since he’d grown. They didn’t know each other, that was the sad truth. Twenty years of separation from Jordan was a significant time, even in rejuved lives. Jordan had dealt with him in the interim, corresponded with him–not lived in reach of him, that was the problem, and they had to learn about each other all over again. They’d been through the tentative, polite period. A few days ago they’d finally gotten down to honest opinions and somehow, expert as he was in psych, it had just slid inexorably downward.

Which it wouldn’t do here. Jordan knew how to play to a crowd. He wasn’t going to embarrass himself, even if he was likely to try another tag‑you’re‑it attack. It would be subtle, if it came, reserved…unless something really, really jolted him; and they weren’t going to mention the name Ari tonight–if Jordan did, he’d stop it cold. He’d stayed away from the past with Jordan these last weeks. He’d broken the rule, pulled the scab off old wounds in their last alcohol‑fueled debate, and maybe he had to go on avoiding the topic until Jordan did get his license and his security clearance back and had a few months of behaving himself.

Or maybe they never would be able to discuss that particular subject–Ari, and the night that had changed him. Terrible as the experience had been, long before the argument with Jordan, he’d come to wonder if the first Ari’s action hadn’t been a rescue. Jordan’s path wasn’t really what he wanted. He’d been set on being Jordan until that night. That night he’d become somebody else. He wasn’t sure who. But he’d become different.

Thank God. Or he’d have agreed with Jordan four nights ago and they’d all lose their licenses. This way–

“Ever eaten here?” Jordan asked him, over the menu.

“No,” Justin said. “Never have.” And the real question: “You haven’t?”

“Random choice. A yen for something different.” And still, typical Jordan, not a mention of the absent prices. He’d heard the night’s specials and not asked. He maintained a pleasant expression on his face–also pure Jordan. “Planys was a lot of the same thing.”

Play along: change the subject: keep it light. “Not many choices there, I’ll imagine.”

“Five. It got boring in the first month. There were actually six choices when I got there. Two of the restaurants consolidated. One changed the menu, oh, about five years on. The other one never did. One Greek, one Italian, one French, one Colonial, and one you couldn’t depend on. That was the excitement. That was our suspense, that fifth restaurant.”

It might be humor. Every piece of humor he’d heard from Jordan lately‑had had a bitter edge. But he dutifully laughed, trying to take it lighter. “Remember Illusions? It’s been through most of those choices. Now it’s New Era.”

“I’m afraid I’ve missed that delight, so far.”

“A lot of expensive spices. The real thing, I understand, imported. Some of them are pretty good. Some of them I’m not so sure about. But the steaks are consistently good.”

“We’ll have to try it. Anything new.”

“We can do that.” Justin meanwhile looked through the menu. “Angry Shrimp and Pell Bordeaux,” he said. Pell Bordeaux wasn’t going to be cheap. “Sounds interesting. I think I’ll do that.”

“Adventurous.” Jordan said, and added, darkly. “You must be rich.”

“Well, I secretly thought I’d treat my father.”

“I didn’t ask you here to soak my son for the tab.”

“Let me do it. It’s my pleasure.”

“They pay you pretty well for what you do.”

“I’ve been where you are. It ends. You’ll get back. All the way back. You’ll be treating me.” Fast change of subject. A cheerier one. “How’s it coming with the sets you did? Your own ones, that you were looking at–how they’ve developed over two, three decades? That’s got to be interesting.”

“Getting back into it, at least. I need an office.”

“Yanni might be agreeable.”

“You’re rattling around in our old one.”

“We have staff,” Justin said. His guard was instantly up… God, he hated to be so paranoid. And he didn’t want to show it in his expression. But talking to Jordan lately was like walking through broken glass barefoot.

“Nice location. Convenient. And there’s room enough.”

Guard went way up.

“Not with staff. Sorry, Jordan, that won’t work.”

“Paul and I haven’t gotten all our Planys notes pried out of Security,” Jordan said glumly. “Our wardrobe’s barely made it through. You can see our splendor this evening. Pretty shabby stuff.”

“You’re fine.”

“Don’t suppose you can use your influence with the little darling to speed our stuff along.”

“I’ll ask, if you like.” He was glad the little darlingwas as far as the sarcasm about young Ari went in this venue. The walls had ears and even if they didn’t, he didn’t like Jordan dragging him into a proxy quarrel with Admin while half the Wing Directors and Agency heads in Reseune sat at the other tables. “Be genteel. Trust me. This time, trust me, and take my word for it. She’s not her genemother.”

“No?” Jordan feigned surprise. “After all they’ve done to be sure she is?”

The waiter arrived. Mercifully. The dinner wasn’t going well and they hadn’t even ordered yet.

Justin gave his order. Grant ordered smoked salmon, a likely match for cost, Paul ordered boeuf a la maison and Jordan ordered a modest, all‑local caesar salad with blackened chicken.

“Saving room for dessert,” Jordan said when Justin frowned at his economy. “I noticed a cheesecake.”

“Sounds good,” Justin said–not tempted to believe Jordan was through with gestures this evening, no. Not once he’d started. And the waiter departed.

“So I’m going to impose on you,” Jordan said. “We need desk space. I’m sure they watch me. I’m sure they watch you. We can consolidate their job. Make them happy.”

“I’m telling you we have staff. Five staffers and us in that office. And security won’t let you in there.”

“So who’s important? Your clericals or your father?”

“I’m saying we need the staff. They have work to do.”

“Fine. Ask the little dear for space for them. I’m sure she’d find it. After all, she’s not stingy like her predecessor.”

“Jordan, give it up. You haven’t got your clearance. You’ll get it. But it’s still no, on the office.”

“I’m saying I’m going eetee locked into that living room. I can’t work in there. Put your spare clericals into our living room if you have to. You’re not even there five days a week. Who’s using the desks?”

It wasn’t an outrageous request–except it was his convenient Integrations computer access, which his staff used, which heused, dammit, for Ari’s lessons, and his father didn’thave clearance, or a license. His safe was there. His manuals were there. His projects were there–he didn’t keep those in their cubbyhole of a Wing One office.

“You’re not happy,” Jordan said. “ Sorry.”

“Look, if you want your office back…” Yanni wasn’t likely to approve Jordan’s moving into general office space in the first place, there was that. But he could easier get another office in the Education wing, for them and their staff.

“I would like that. Yes. I mean when I get the license back, for God’s sake. We can share. What happened to us working together?”

And his and Grant’s work with the G‑27, while not under security seal, had some bits in it he felt fairly proprietary about, and, no, dammit, he didn’t want another round of security investigations going through his notebooks, or Grant’s because Jordan was in there. More to the point, he didn’t want his fathergoing through his notes and appropriating anything he was working on.

No way in hell.

“I just don’t see why it’s an issue,” Jordan said with a wistful little frown. “Apply to move your staff out. I’m sure they’ll find a space somewhere.”

“It’s a little matter of convenience.”

“You know there arevirtual connections–same as being there. Unless, of course, there’s some reason you’d rather not.”

“You know the reasons I’m a little reluctant. Last Sunday night was a case in point.”

“Many fewer drinks in the office.”

“Listen, Jordan. My life is going perfectly fine. So could yours be, if you’d just put the brakes on a bit and get along with Yanni. You’re home, for God’s sake. He knows you didn’t–whatever.”

“Yanni’s a prick.”

“Dad. Don’t.”

“Have you caved in that far?”

He lowered his voice way down and leaned across the table. “And do you have to agitate Admin just to get a reaction? I don’t particularly want a reaction, thank you.”

“So the little dear issomething like her predecessor.”

Not sotto voce. Just normal conversation level, and not cooperating worth a damn. Justin found his pulse rate had gotten up, old familiar sensation. And he didn’t like it. “Well, there you have it, don’t you? We’re arguing again and I don’t think it would work, sharing an office. Look, I’ve had enough of investigations. I don’t want to be in the middle of another one. And get off the notion it’s Ari. It’s Yanni, and you know you don’t want to be in his bad book, but you persist in picking fights.”

“Ah. So it’s fear for your reputation. But you should be golden. You were quite the hero, overthrowing the Nyes, saving her highness…”

“Neither.” Jordan was stalking some point, he saw that, and he didn’t know why or what. For a top‑flight psychset designer, it was downright embarrassing, not to know what was behind his own identical’s actions, and thathinted at a Working, either verbal or otherwise. Jordan knew him from way back, ownedmost of the buttons, knew his body from inside out, and that was a fact. Sitting here, across the table from Jordan, mirror into mirror with that damned infuriating smile on Jordan’s face that his own body knew gut‑deep was no smile at all, because it never reached the eyes– damn, he knew it. And there was nobody more dangerous to him, if Jordan decided to pull old strings.

Set psych‑switches in his own baby boy? Damned right Jordan would have done that, from the cradle up. Ari One had flipped them the other way. Jordan had had twenty years to figure how to get at him past Ari’s Working, or worse–and then those questions Sunday night. Had he been alone with Ari? Had Ari done anything further? It very much assumed the character not of an outraged father, but of a psych operator wanting a case history.

And much worse–

Jordan knew how to get at Grant. Grant hadbeen under Jordan’s supervision, too, in their collective childhood, and if Jordan could get his hands on Grant’s updated manual, which was in the computer system in that office, once Jordan got his license back…

That thought sent cold chills through him. The very thought, that Grant could be put into that situation–that sent his hand questing after the lately‑arrived drink.

Share an office with Jordan? No. Absolutely not. License or no license. And subtlety only wound his own gut in knots, it gave Jordan chance after chance to get to him.

“It’s just not going to work,” he said. “I’ll go to Yanni, if you can’t do it without flaring off. I’ll talk to him and see if I can get your stuff out of customs and your license hurried along.”

“I don’t want any damn charity.”

“But you damn sure want my office. And I don’t want you in there.”

“ Youroffice?”

“Let’s try honesty,” he said abruptly. “You want to start the war with Admin up again. I don’t. I don’t want to subject Grant to it, either. So make your own choices, but–”

“Are you making yourchoices these days?”

“My choice right now is to have my office to myself, to do my work, outside politics–”

“Oh, come now!”

“–to have Grant do his. To enjoy my life…”

“Will you? Enjoy it? And areyou outside politics?”

That did it. He smiled with his father’s own false warmth, right back at him, and something ticked over deep in his makeup that could be cold as ice–something he didn’t damn well trust, but right now it felt like an asset, not to have himself out of control with this man who had all the buttons. “I don’t know, Dad. I haven’t a clue who’s had a go at me or who’s reshaped my psyche during Denys Nye’s tenure–there are things I don’t actually remember. But I’m actually pretty happy these days, and I lately find I haven’t any stake in your game, whatever it is.”

“You think you haven’t.”

“I know I haven’t. I don’t give a damn for what happened twenty years ago and if you plan to live here in Reseune, I really hope you’ll just let it all go. So enjoy your dinner. I plan to.”

“Justin, Justin, Justin, you really believeyou’re not in it.”

“Won’t work, Pop. Really won’t work.” He took a sip of wine. The rich tastes were sharp, solid, complex. Where Jordan wanted to lead him was complicated, too, the wrong end of Jordan’s ambitions, whatever they currently were, and he discovered, since the last fight, he truly failed to give a damn, tonight, and decided not to subscribe to Jordan’s list of problems.

“You have your own agenda,” Jordan said. “You think it’s in your practical interests to keep your own counsel. And you don’t want to share. I can respect that.”

“Thanks for the analysis.”

“You’re waiting. You plan to have influence in the great someday. Yanni’s not any younger and she‘s not old enough, not as old as she needs to be. So you’re going to be the stopgap. What kind of position will that put you into? You know, you could parlay your connections into the Directorship, what time the little dear doesn’t hold that post herself. Maybe Councillor for Science. And are you ready for that?”

He took another drink of wine, a deliberately small one, thinking: God, no. And said, “ You’rescared of her. But not scared enough. Watch it about trying to read me. You could make a mistake. You’re locked in what was. And things just may not be the same after twenty years.”

“You think I can’t read you, down to the fine print? I do, believe me, I do, right down to the fact you’re running scared of the little dear, same as you did her predecessor. I know all the twitches.”

“I know you owned the geneset first. But genesets are only part of the story. Weboth know that, don’t we? But do we both actually believe it? I wonder.”

“Oh, programming can do wonders,” Jordan said. “And you’ve been Worked for all those years. How many sessions did you have with Giraud Nye’s people, before you had one with little Ari?”

“Arrests, you mean?” He kept his tone light. “Oh, a few. But you were in one long detention, yourself, over on Planys. Do you find that makes a psychological difference? I’d say so.”

That actually caught Jordan just a little by surprise. Or maybe it stung, for reasons he hadn’t, until now, guessed. “So you won’t like having me in your office,” Jordan said, flank attack and redirect. “You don’t trust me.”

“Living the life I’ve lived, I don’t trust anybody. You think they didWork you over when you were arrested? Or aren’t you sure of that?”

Jordan avoided his eyes. In a psychmaster, that was a devastating flinch. And that avoidance hit him right in the heart, reminding him of his own little sojourns with interrogators. Ricochet, he thought, feeling the pain. Damn. And he didn’t look at Paul. He hadn’t invoked Paul’s name, or queried him. Paul wasn’t looking at him. But the shots didn’t go just at Jordan.

Salads arrived. They ate while Jordan sat and had more wine. They managed small talk, catching up on who was sleeping with whom, who was married, who had procreated. One of the many Carnaths had given natural birth to a daughter, opting to skip the birthlabs. It was the talk of the offices. Crazy, no few said.

“There’s a certain merit in it,” Jordan said. “Think of all the thousands who don’t have access to a lab, or don’t have it government‑subsidized. Fargone. Pan‑Paris. All those poor women doing it the hard way…those poor childless men with no other recourse…”

Justin didn’t often imagine Fargone, or Pan‑Paris, waystations in the dark which touched his personal world very little. He was glad not to have to imagine them, steel worlds orbiting stars whose planets, if any to speak of, were good only for mining. “We’re spoiled, I suppose.”

“Spoiled as hell,” Jordan said, more cheerfully. “Though there’s Planys, if you ever want not to be spoiled.”

Right back to the bitter edge.

And it didn’t pay to go there. “Rather not. Hope never to.”

“So how’s your apartment? Nice, I’ll imagine, being where it is.”

“Nice. Yes.”

“Bugged. Naturally.”

“Naturally.”

Main course arrived. Gratefully. Another service of wine. Jordan took a refill. He didn’t. Nor did Grant, nor Paul.

“Ever think of moving back to Education?” Jordan asked.

“I think about it.”

“You could come and visit me. But I can’t get into your restricted little paradise.”

“I know. I’m sorry about that. I really am.”

“Can’t do anything about it, can you?”

“I know it’s not going to last.”

“Isn’t it? Got a date when they’re going to stop bugging my apartment? Got a date when I can go into my son’s extravagant palace?”

“You know I don’t. Maybe, to a large extent, Dad, that depends on you.”

“Right next door to the little princess. Convenient for sex. Is that what you do for your keep?”

He said nothing, speared a bite of his dinner, and ate it. The spiced shrimp was curiously tasteless, and he resisted the impulse to lay his fork down and leave. Or have another wine. His pulse rate was up. Jordan always did that to him. And another wine would be deadly. He decided on a redirect, and had another bite of shrimp. “Paul?”

“Ser?”

“Ser, hell. I’m Justin. Remember?”

Paul’s face was generally somber. It remained that way–with good cause, tonight. “I remember.”

“Grant,” Jordan said, and Justin felt his heart kick up another notch. He couldn’t help it. And he resented that, resented Jordan having anything to do with Grant these days. “Are you taking good care of my boy? In every respect?”

“No problems, ser.” Grant’s voice was perfectly light and smooth, not a twitch. “Thank you.”

“You came through all the troubles in good shape.”

“Absolutely, Ser.”

“Have you ever needed a supervisor, beyond what you have?”

“Damn it, Jordan, just enjoy your dinner.”

“I was just asking. Concerned.”

“The hell.” Grant’s welfare and their relationship and the number of times Grant had needed a supervisor wasn’t a topic he wanted opened up. The past wasn’t. He didn’t want to list the things that had changed his relationship with Grant into a sexual one. He didn’t want Jordan’s commentary on their existence. They all ate in prickly silence for a space, except that Paul asked how long they should have to wait for Library access, which seemed a fairly minor request.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Justin said patiently. “That’s something you might legitimately ask Yanni.” He couldn’t stop himself from charitable impulses. “Or I can. I will.”

“One often thousand little nuisances,” Jordan said. “I need my own past articles. I don’t think I’m going to blow up the laboratories with information I’d find in my own damned articles, would I?”

“We do have an inquiry going in Yanni Schwartz’s office,” Paul said, “but that’s had to wait for him to get back.”

“He’s back now. This evening. Give him a day to get his feet on the ground. I’m sure he’ll give you that access.”

“Well, I’m sure I’m not a priority,” Jordan said sourly, and shoved his plate back. He’d mostly picked the chicken out of his salad and eaten a little of the green. “In any respect.”

Justin decided he was through. Grant was hardly eating. “Shall we order dessert?”

“Out of the mood, thanks.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s sad,” Jordan said. “We were one mind, once and long ago. Remember that? We were happy, then.”

“I remember you and Ari Emory got into a fight and Grant and I ended up on the short end of it. I’m not looking for a replay, Dad. If you want to pick a fight with Admin, just excuse me out of it this time.”

“Why don’t you come over for drinks after dinner?” Jordan asked. “Just a quiet family evening.”

“Did that, thanks,” Justin said. “Had enough to drink tonight, as is, and so have we all. Late supper and I’m going to bed. I’ve got a meeting in the morning.”

“Oh?”

“We’re conferring on a psychset,” Justin said.

“What stem?”

“Oh, out of the old Reza GLX tree,” Justin said, which actually was the truth, and he watched Jordan drink it in and jog a doubtless rusty memory, eyes momentarily innocent, mind working on a problem– thatwas the father he wanted back. If the conversation was going to change direction he might change his mind on dessert.

“Worker set, isn’t it?”

“There’s a new lab upriver. Or will be. It’s quite a project. Research and light manufacture.”

“And you’re picking the sets that go there?”

“Can’t discuss that one. Sorry” He wasn’t sure he should have said as much as he had. But it was common knowledge, and the answer he’d given didanswer Jordan’s question.

“And how soon does this new enterprise arise from the wasteland?”

“Awhile yet. They’ve only built the bunker as is, for the first workers. Precips are mostly built, but not online.”

“The little darling’s precocious ambition? Or Yanni’s?”

“Hers, as far as I know.”

“And only eighteen. What are we calling this installation?”

“I don’t know.”

“But with azi all picked out for it. And what CIT population? Is this where she’s sending all the dissidents?”

It wasn’t far off the mark, and Jordan Warrick could easily turn up on that list, but he didn’t want it to happen and he didn’t let his expression change, knowing that was exactly what Jordan was implying.

“I haven’t a clue about that.”

“Oh, come, you’re consulting on the psychsets of the azi component, the things they’re supposed to counter. You know damned well what CIT profile the azi will fit around, clear as a footprint.”

“Well, if I guessed, I’d be a fool to say, and you didn’t sire a fool, Dad, so give it up.”

“And she thought of this all on her own.”

“You’re assuming things I’ve never said.”

The waiter came, offering dessert. “No, thanks,” Justin said. “Just the bill.”

“Yes, ser,” the waiter said, having gotten his instructions, it seemed: the waiter tapped his handheld and called up a bill.

Thank God it was fast. Justin swept his keycard through the offered handheld and keyed a reasonable tip on a monumental charge. He gave it to the waiter, kept a pleasant smile on his own face as he pushed his chair back, and maneuvered himself between Jordan and Grant as they all got up and walked out.

“So where is this place?” Jordan asked, as they passed between the columns on their way out. “The new construction?”

“Not that far upriver.”

“Light manufacture? I just wonder what they’ll be making up there that we don’t have here. Or mining there that we can’t get elsewhere.” Jordan’s face was grim. “Oh, I have the picture, believe me. It’s no more manufacture than it is a recreation spot.”

“Assumptions are a bitch. They just don’t get you to any good outcome.”

“Lectures from my son?”

Dead stop. He faced Jordan. “I passed my majority some years ago, Dad. And you know it’s damned likely we’re bugged. So what in hell are you doing? Trying to piss off Yanni? I tell you, I really don’t appreciate being dragged into your quarrel with a kid you never met.”

“Are you afraid? Have they made you afraid?”

“The answer is no. No. I’m not afraid. I’m comfortable. I support Yanni. I support Ari, for that matter. I hope she has a long and happy career. And if you’ll take myadvice and just live here, I’m sure you’ll get along. If you want a fight for a fight’s sake, I’m sure you’ll get it from someone. I just don’t see the point in it.” He walked on, with Grant.

Jordan stayed beside him, Paul just behind. “Too beaten‑down. Too little fire. I missed your growing‑up.”

“Oh, plenty you missed, I assure you. You didn’t miss anything good. But that’s what we dealt with while you had your own troubles. It’s finished. Done is done. If you didn’t kill Ari–”

“I didn’t. You know it was a frame.”

He stopped, beyond the columns, in the public corridor, and faced Jordan. “I reserve judgement. You might have killed her–to protect your investment in me. Or Denys Nye thought she was going to die anyway, and a clone would be manageable, especially in his hands; and you weren’t connected to the right people to protect you. Whatever happened, it didn’t work for you. For good or for ill, you missed my growing‑up. You missed my times in detention. You missed my being Worked over by security, and you missed Grant’s troubles, too, but, you know, we just can’t recover those happy days, can we? So let’s not try. I’ll take your word you were innocent. You’ll take mine that I believe you. We’ll both get along.”

“We’ll talk about this tomorrow. In the office.”

“Damn it, Dad, you can’t come in there. It’s a security clearance area and you haven’t got one. So keep out!”

Jordan reached into his pocket and held out a card. Justin started to take it, automatically, and when he stalled in sudden apprehension that it had nothing to do with the office or the security clearance issue, Jordan reached out and dropped it into his coat pocket.

He wasn’t a kid, to skip out of the way. It was ludicrous. It was also an attack.

“Damn it, Jordan.”

“Damn what?”

He’d had earnest hopes when he’d heard Jordan was released and when Jordan made it home to a changed Reseune, that he’d have the father he’d been deprived of during all the Nye years. Everything would be healed and clean and new.

Neither Paul nor Grant said a word to what had just happened. He wanted to take the card out of his pocket, fling it away to be trampled by passers‑by, swept up by the cleaning‑bots–pounced on by security. He didn’t even reach into his pocket to look at it. “I really don’t appreciate this. Dad.”

“Tomorrow,” Jordan said. “See you tomorrow. That’s still one of your non‑teaching days, isn’t it?”

“No,” he said. “You’re notmoving in with us.”

“Tomorrow,” Jordan said again–the way he’d just held his ground in arguments two decades ago. No argument. Just a position from which he wouldn’t budge. “That was myoffice.”

“Damn it, Jordan.”

“My office, I say. Sure you won’t come over for an after‑dinner drink?”

“Good night,” Justin said, and started off in his own direction, toward the doors. Grant walked beside him, not saying a word until they’d exited the corridor for the outside, and started across the darkened quadrangle.

“You told him no,” Grant said. “But he will come ahead tomorrow anyway, won’t he?”

“My bet is on it,” he said. “And we’ve got to advise the staff Lock up the office if we have to. Damn him, Grant, damnhim. All he has to do to fit in is just do nothing. That’s the only requirement, just settle in, don’t push any buttons, and let things be.” Grant said nothing in reply, and Justin remembered that face, set and angry: Jordan, his elder twin–biologically speaking. Twin psychologically speaking, so far as being raised by his father went. Next best thing to psychogenesis.

Ari’s face, too. Elder Ari’s face. A glass in his hand. The feeling of being drugged. Sex. And a voice saying–

He couldn’t remember what she’d said. To this day, it blacked out at that point. He’d tried not to let his father know what had happened. He’d tried so hard.

But too many had known.

And he’d spent his next years being arrested for the suspicion of thinking. He’d given up his father’s head‑on attack on life and adopted a stubbornness that laid low, laid modest plans, and just survived into the next Ari’s growing up, to become a general annoyance to Denys Nye.

Mirror into mirror, physically, himself with Jordan. But the psychology Jordan knew in his son had been Worked on and Worked over every time they’d arrested him and hauled him in…

He suspected they’d tried to bend him, at least.

But cracking any Working the first Ari had done–that wasn’t easy. He’d been set on a course. He’d even begun to cling to it, mentally, telling himself from the start that the Nyes could have done the murder themselves, and that they might someday kill him, but they weren’t going to crack him, because he was Ari’spiece of work. What kept him alive, he greatly suspected, was the fact they couldn’t tell whether he was somehow essential in the plans Ari had laid down–essential in the construction of her own psychological and physiological clone. The genius that had made Reseune what it was had to be reborn to keep the power Reseune had, which was currently in their hands: and if Justin Warrick was somehow part of it–the Nyes had to keep him alive.

They’d gone into convulsions of policy when their precious clone had found her way to him.

They hadn’t known what to do with him after that, except try to make sure he didn’t come up with any Working of his own, where it regarded the little girl, who’d become a bigger girl, who’d become a young woman and developed notions her guardians finally couldn’t control.

Sex, prominent among them. He’d gotten away from her. He’d known that was worth his life, but the Nyes weren’t what scared hell out of him in that regard. What scared him was young Ari herself, the fact that there was no predicting what psychological trigger could go off in that interface, as if whatever the first Ari had done had set a mark on him that wouldn’t stay quiet if he ever got involved with child‑Ari. It wasn’t where he wanted to go. It wasn’t who he was supposed to be. His whole being shrieked no and he backed away.

And Jordan came back into his life, now that the Nyes were done, and now that Yanni Schwartz was in charge.

Yanni sat sphinxlike behind his desk, watching all the pieces shift on the board, doubtless wondering whether the piece that was Justin Warrick would gravitate to the troublesome piece that was Jordan, and whether Jordan would gravitate back to his old intention of getting out of Reseune and attacking its policies from the outside. Jordan had had contacts–contacts that had had contacts with the Paxers, the Abolitionists; and he’d had friends at the opposite end of the spectrum, the Defense Bureau, who’d been the first Ari’s allies, but who simultaneously wanted to get the upper hand over Reseune. And Jordan had dealt with them…back then, dealt with every contact on the planet he could use to break Reseune’s power and overthrow the system

They were all watched, constantly, had been for years, and Yanni reported regularly to an eighteen‑year‑old girl who would own absolute power over ReseuneLabs whenever she wanted to take it up. Within a decade, the corporation that was creating population and civilization in the farthest reaches of human exploration would come back under the control of a second Ariane Emory.

And a third Ariane, someday. That event was already in the planning stages. Every detail of young Ari’s life was being stored up, the way the first Ari’s life had been stored.

And come the day, the inevitable day–the question would be…which of the two Aris ought to be born again.

And how many of the people who’d been part and parcel of the second Ari’s life had to be recreated, and whichAri were those replicates going to have to deal with?

He had a horrid suspicion a storage somewhere now had hisdata, and Grant’s programming, and maybe Yanni’s. Giraud Nye, who had probably never looked to face such an event, was already less than a year from rebirth. Denys Nye, the shadowy eminence who’d run the labs in the interim years, was still a question mark…but he’d bet a year’s pay which way that decision was going to go. Ari’s teenaged emotions were still in the ascendant; but the cold, keen intellect was rising fast.

He didn’t know how much of that situation Jordan knew. How did you tell your father you–and therefore he, through you–were destined for immortality, right along with the original Ari, Jordan’s onetime partner and lifelong rival, all to help her exist again and go on shaping humankind for all eternity?

It wasn’t going to make for family tranquility once Jordan got that picture, that was for very damned certain.

And that city young Ari was founding, upriver from ReseuneLabs? Who wasgoing to live there, but people that Ari didn’t want living under Reseune’s roof, or downriver in Novgorod, either, where the government and other troubles resided?

“It should have been a pleasant evening,” he remarked, in the chill, deep silence of the deserted quadrangle, the absence, usually, of electronic bugs…unless somebody was aiming ears specifically at them. And he wouldn’t say absolutely that that wasn’t the case, given the red flag of Jordan’s invitation. “I’d tried to look forward to it.” He felt the card in his pocket, a little paper card.

“Tried?” Grant asked.

“He’s bitter,” Justin said. “I can’t blame him for that part of his attitude. Twenty years in exile…”

“Against whom should he be bitter?” Grant asked. Judging CIT emotions was not what he was born to do. “You? Does he blame you because you work with young Ari? Is it Yanni he dislikes? Or did I miss the entire point of that discussion?”

“No. You didn’t miss it. He blames me for coming out of it on her side. That’s one thing.”

“They’re all dead, all the ones actually responsible for his situation. Yanni’s alive. But Yanni didn’t send your father away, did he?”

“He didn’t, exactly. Or he actually may have, but the deal probably saved Jordan’s life. But the fact those responsible are dead now is only one more frustration for him. A slice of his life is gone in those two decades. He could live a hundred years more, on rejuv. But all he sees is the twenty years he lost. And the fact he’s been robbed of a fight about it. And what he really wants–what he really wants, between you and me, is no Reseune.”

Several more paces in silence. “What would take its place?” Grant asked. “Does he know that?”

“I didn’t say it was a reasonable attitude.”

“He’s as intelligent as either of us.”

“That’s no guarantee of rationality.”

“I’ve observed that occasionally,” Grant said dryly. It was worth a dry laugh, even under the circumstances.

“What I’ve said still holds,” Justin said. “You’re not to go anywhere near him without me, and you’re not to occupy a room with him or Paul without me, and you’re not to take seriously anything he tells you privately, not even if he tells you I’m dying. Just–no matter how finely you dice it–stay away from him.”

“He Created me. Reseune forever holds my Contract and you’re my Supervisor. I know what’s right.”

“Contract, hell. Protect yourself.”

“Protecting myself, I protect you. That’s logical, isn’t it?”

“Very. I’m glad you see it that way.”

“Someone is by the pond,” Grant remarked. And it was true. A shadow stood near the small fishpond ahead of them, where quadrangle walks crossed. Four benches offered seating there, to anybody who wanted to contemplate the water–a pleasant place to sit and think, on a sunny summer day. It was still April, it was long after dark, and the wind was up. Their ordinary coats were barely enough to make a walk to the other wing bearable. And somebody was standing there in the dark, somebody in dark, close‑fitting clothing.

The shadow watched the water. It might be a despondent lover, someone wanting solitude. It might have nothing to do with them.

But fear had been a constant, in the Nye years. Fear of arrest. Fear of being tampered with, of having Grant tampered with–Ari was their only protection. And Ari wasn’t going out of her Wing lately.

The figure had been intent on the water. Now the head turned. The whole body turned to stand confronting them.

“Ser,” the shadow said politely as they met, and recognition revised the shadowed vision into familiar detail, the black elite Security uniform, dark curly hair, light build.

Florian. Ari’s personal bodyguard. A youth no older than Ari herself, with absolute power–to arrest. To kill, without a second’s warning. And he had that damned card in his pocket.

“Jordan proposes to share your office,” Florian said.

“I told him no.” Surely Ari’s security knew he had. He’d bet his life they’d heard every word of it. And it was better than other alternatives.

“Let him have it. Your materials will go to another office.” Florian held out a keycard, offering it.

He took it. He had no choice but take it, in a hand growing chill through. “But our personnel–”

“Sorry, ser, they’ll have to find other employment. They aren’t cleared for Wing One.”

“They’re our people.”

“No longer.”

“And the computers, our files…we have notes, handwritten notes–the order they’re in–in delicate position. Stacks that can’t be disrupted without losing information–we’re not that neat. Things we can’t have just anybody rifling through, for God’s sake. It’s a mess, but we know where things are. Things in the safe. Look, if we have to do this, we can go over there tonight. We need to do this ourselves…we’re willingto do it ourselves.”

“We’re aware of the state of your office,” Florian said–dark humor at his expense, he had no idea. “And qualified personnel will perform the transfer.”

“We need to go over there.”

“Best you don’t, ser, so the persons moving it can do so with the greatest attention to detail. All the items will be there in the morning, in their original order, and new equipment will be in place in your former office by 0500.”

“For him. Buggedequipment.”

“Absolutely.”

“He’ll think I arranged this. No matter how you explain it, he’ll think I had something to do with this.”

“Unfortunate if so, ser, but your notes will be safe, and your staff will be safe, in other employ, at a priority. They’ll be given employment, no problem. Just not Wing One.”

At least they wouldn’t miss a paycheck, Em, and the others. They’d be all right. But they were the ones that knew his work. They’d been his people.

“No wipe.”

“No wipe, ser. Nothing of the sort.” This with a slight shift of the shadowed gaze toward Grant, and back. “We ask you to accept this arrangement and not attempt to circumvent it in any fashion. Grant, you’re not to go there, either.”

“My father won’t take this well at all,” Justin said. “I’m afraid he’ll be in Yanni’s office in the morning.”

“We’ll advise the Director. It’s not your problem, ser.”

“I appreciate your concern.” The cold of the night had penetrated his dinner jacket. He felt a shiver coming on. “I’m freezing, at the moment. Can you tell me–I take it, it was Ari ordered this?”

“Sera has retired for the evening. We’re operating on our own discretion, on sera’s general instruction. We’ll inform sera in the morning. You won’t need to.”

“And where is this new office?”

“Downstairs, ground level, and a right turn from your apartment. More convenient, and a better office, I believe. There’s room for staff. But it will be Wing One‑approved staff.”

Yanni Schwartzdidn’t maintain an office in that high‑security territory. He had one, already, a cubbyhole he used for Ari’s lessons. Downstairs–those rooms–they had a historic connection with the old Wing One lab, where the first Ari had died. That lab had been decommissioned now. And he didn’t know how up to date the offices in that area were, these days, whether they were still tied into System. But Florian said their computers were coming over. They must be.

“Do go on, ser,” Florian said. “You’re chilled. Good night to you.”

“Thank you,” he said, and started on his way, Grant attending without a word.

Then he thought of Jordan’s card in his pocket, wondered, all in a rush, what sort of trouble he could bring down on Jordan’s head; and considered the fact that Florian hadn’t asked him for it.

Florian didn’t know? Something had slipped past Ari’s staff? It had been a surreptitious handoff.

But Reseune Security surely knew. Florian might let him go his way. But someone inside Ari’s wing might confront him yet.

Maybe Catlin. Maybe, worse thought, someone he didn’t know, out of ReseuneSec, and that was more trouble than he wanted. He’d been fluxed by the office matter. He had an excuse for having forgotten.

But an azi of Florian’s bent didn’t flux. Not for two seconds running. Florian damned well hadn’t forgotten it.

He stopped, turned, reached into his pocket. Pulled out the thin card. “Florian.”

Florian had walked the other direction–was a diminished figure in the dark. But he heard, and stopped.

“I’ll take it to him,” Grant said.

He surrendered it without a word. Grant knew. Grant had seen Jordan’s action. Grant knew his reasoning the way Grant knew their situation from the inside out.

Grant crossed the dark distance between them, delivered the card, and walked back again. Florian stood there a moment, until Grant reached him, took the card, then turned and pursued his way back to Admin, where they had come from, and maybe on to the Education Wing beyond it, where their office was–or had been.

“Damn,” he said when Grant joined him. “Damn it. Grant.”

“Do you know what was on the card?” Grant asked.

“I haven’t the faintest, It may be a joke, for all I know. I don’t want to know. Damn him!”

“I intend to evade Jordan’s company, in private,” Grant said. “I’m relatively confident I could, even if we shared an office. But it seems the question is settled for now.”

“Settled,” Justin found himself saying, and realized it was impossible the second the word came out of his mouth. “It isn’t settled–not with him. Whatever quarrel he had with his Ari isn’t mine. It wasn’t mychoice to support young Ari against him. But–”

“But?”

“He’ll keep it going. And maybe he’s justified. Maybe he’s pure and right and just my living here put me on the other side. I’ve missed him all these years. But here I am, living on the other side, in herwing, working in herwing…”

“A different Ari. A very different Ari.”

“We don’t know how different she’ll become, as time passes.”

“Even azi,” Grant said, “aren’t identical.”

“But her interests are the same as the first Ari’s.”

“The people who pursued us are dead.”

“And all being reincarnated.” He reached the door. And stopped there, in the wind and the dark, in the last haven before they went into heavily monitored Wing One. “Maybe that concept ought to bother me more than it does.”

“You think that constitutes Jordan’s motive in this? That he believes she’ll eventually become his enemy?”

“I think it’s personal. I think it’s him against Ari. All the traits that make her and him. My immortality–if they do that to us–won’t be his. I don’t know if he’ll see it that way, but we’re not, thank God, psychological twins. I’m myself. I’m the first of myself. The only.”

“I understand that,” Grant said, who was also the first and only of his kind…so far.

“Thinking about it makes me a little crazy.”

“You’re notcrazy. Your actions have been completely logical, given the flux.”

“Including giving her security that card? Jordan’s going to land in trouble for it, and I set him up for it.”

“No. He set youup for it. You simply returned the favor.”

Cool, clear, utterly reasonable. He shivered in the cold wind. “Sometimes I don’t understand him. I just don’t understand him. Or I don’t want to.”

“Your father is intelligent. He iscapable of staying out of trouble. He simply declines to do that.”

“And it’s what you always said. CITs have their logic sets installed late. Emotions on the bottom, logic on the top. Sometimes it’s a complete bitch‑up.”

“Apparently.”

“I wish I could talk to him. Damn, I wish I could talk to him. Sensibly. Logically. You see how it goes. You saw how it went Sunday night.”

A moment passed. “I have a question.”

“Ask.”

“Should we be physically afraid of him?”

He had to think about that. There was one fair answer, one answer that would protect both of them. “Yes,” he said, and slid his apartment key‑card into the outside door lock. The door opened, letting them into the foyer for a dozen other id programs to work over. “Maybe we should be.”

BOOK ONE Section 1 Chapter xi

APRIL 25, 2424

2039H

Justin and Grant had reached their apartment. The door shut and locked. The light on the console showed green, safe. They were in, and their conversation on the way had been scant, and worried. Tracking had flicked from one station to the next, and surveillance had been hard pressed to keep up with the two parties, homeward bound in opposite directions.

Justin and Grant weren’t the problem. Jordan was. And he, with Paul, had gone home, too, talking about Library access and his intention of calling Yanni Schwartz in the morning.

Catlin flicked a switch, passing the watch back to the senior Reseune‑Sec team that watched over Wing One, entry by entry, movement by movement. Florian was on his way back. So was Marco, from Education, having ascertained that Jordan had made no detours.

She and Florian had one paramount interest in their action tonight: protecting Ari, which was to say, keeping certain individuals away from An, tracking the activities and interactions of absolutely everyone who even casually crossed into her security zone.

Secondary was protecting Justin. That was sera’s explicit and standing order. And third priority was a general and constant surveillance: keeping abreast of a list of individuals outside Reseune whose whereabouts and safety could impact Reseune’s operations. ReseuneSec, under Security Director Hicks, had numerous agents solely dedicated to that purpose, and that office informed them of what Hicks deemed necessary to tell them.

But, occasionally crossing Hicks’s office–they had their own watch‑list of troublesome individuals insideReseune. It wasn’t the first time they’d mounted their own surveillance, no matter what Hicks did or didn’t do–as tonight, when Hicks had wanted to bug the restaurant; but they had done it themselves, told Hicks to stay out, and fed the information to Hicks as it came available…promising that, for Hicks’s promise to stand back.

Yanni’s coming for dinner in Wing One, for instance, aroused no particular alarms. The Director’s contacts, the ones he himself chose, were either clean, or they were obligations he dealt with for ascertainable reasons, even if sera had been angry with him for matters she’d declined to mention to them. Yanni came into Wing One with no large security contingent, and sent no orders to Hicks. But she and Wes had been in position. If sera had indicated Yanni should be detained or otherwise dealt with, it would have happened, and a very specific code would have flashed to Florian, triggering yet other actions, as best they could manage, as fast as they could manage.

But there had been no such outcome. Yanni’s companion azi, Frank AF, shadowed Yanni everywhere, as closely and as obsessively as they followed Ari. Frank was out of green barracks, like themselves, and while Frank was, like Yanni, a little reticent on Yanni’s personal business, he was certainly a solid type, and absolutely loyal, not only to Yanni, but to the entity Yanni served–which was Reseune itself. So Frank was a watch‑it, but no great worry.

What clustered around Justin Warrick, however, was a different matter, and dealing with him was not simple. Justin and Grant had not a single close contact except Yanni that they didtrust on that level. It was a constant worry that those two personally had sera’s clearance, residing right next door. But sera maintained they were important to her and insisted that they were securely hers–so they took measures, sera being unavailable for consultation. They had had to improvise tonight and move fast, and in such a way that what they did could be amended, if sera ordered.

That move was underway, via their access to specialized housekeeping over in Admin, which was intended, perhaps, for Ari’s own use. They used it. And it had made Justin Warrick a special problem, Justin and Grant constituting a pair that were supposed to be free to come and go as they chose, but who also had to be protected against certain decidedly unsafe contacts…notably, henceforward, Jordan Warrick. Jordan Warrick was number one on the watch‑it list, until sera countermanded that, and by what they heard tonight, they were right. Right now Jordan Warrick was in the same category with a handful of azi who had worked closely with Denys and Giraud Nye, and who ought notto be admitted to the administrative wings.

Jordan Warrick did come and go as he pleased, inside Admin and Education, and was only restricted in Library and completely barred from Wing One–a situation which greatly offended him. Justin thought he’d go straight over to Yanni in the morning, complaining, and that would be a disturbance, perhaps provoking an Intervention from Yanni. So things that had happened tonight might grow more complicated in the morning.

They would have to brief sera, once she waked–about the late supper, the meeting, and their preemptive action, and it seemed at least likely she would approve. Sera had previously discussed moving Justin out of convenient range of Jordan. The office Justin and Grant used, previously Jordan’s, had never been outstandingly secure: the staff lacked adequate clearance for reasons of inadequate security training–that situation, exposing Justin to hazard, had never been to their liking, and now they had found an excuse to solve the problem. Catlin personally hoped they had solved it in some lasting fashion. And personally hoped, too, that they could manage something to be rid of Jordan Warrick, even if sera had brought him here.

Florian arrived back in the wing: Catlin noted the flash of ID on the readout as the outer door opened and shut. She sat and waited, checking the monitors. So was a ReseuneSec squad down in Main Security watching, on nightshirt. Hicks’s eyes were technically on the job, but Hicks himself would be abed, his second‑in‑command Kyle AK probably on duty–and, being azi, Kyle AK would theoretically be accounting for his decisions to Hicks in the morning. Which would give them time, if sera slept late, to inform sera before their actions began to racket through several systems.

Second flash from the console. Florian had deactivated and reactivated the alarm within System as he entered the apartment.

Soft footsteps outside. Florian arrived in the security office doorway, came in, and disposed himself in a chair, booted feet propped luxuriantly in the neighboring seat. He held up a small card between two fingers.

“What is it?” Catlin had seen the handoff–both handoffs.

“A business card. A contact number in Novgorod.” He spun around in the chair, touched a few buttons, put the card in the visual scanner…not the reader, sensible caution, for a card with a reader strip. He looked at the screen, punched more buttons, and retrieved the card. “A professor in Novgorod University. And the card wasn’t printed on any Reseune printer.”

“An educator. Jordan works education tape.”

“We’ll investigate the number on the card–I’m sure Jordan wants us to. Or wants Hicks to. Maybe Jordan’s trying to lead the investigation astray or get someone else in trouble.”

A Novgorod address, from the hand of a man who had no recent contacts outside Planys and Reseune.

Justin, too, had not quite promptly turned it over to sera’s security. But there was that connection to Jordan, a born‑man connection, emotional, and difficult to parse. Catlin afforded him a little latitude for that, but not too much.

“We aren’t likely to understand this,” Catlin said. “It seems unreasonable on Jordan’s part. It seems unlikely for him to have such a thing, unless he received it from someone in Reseune.”

“It seems we’ve moved Justin none too soon. Jordan’s action toward Justin seems to be an aggression.”

“Justin knew he was watched. But so did Jordan. Did Justin forget the card when he met you, do you think, or did it take him a moment to make up his mind?”

“Surrendering it would betray Jordan,” Florian said. “That may have taken a moment for him to decide.”

“But Justin knew he was watched. He knew in advance he would be stopped.”

“He could guess he would be stopped, and the end would be the same, whether he turned it over to me, or whether ReseuneSec asked for it. Perhaps he wasn’t thinking of that yet. He’d just argued with Jordan.”

“Perhaps Jordan wanted him to be stopped, to make him angry with Admin.”

“Possible.”

“Neither of them is stupid,” Catlin said.

“The same geneset. One won’t easily get the better of the other. But Jordan has lost something tonight. Justin won’t be in his reach. He won’t like that. I wonder if this card is worth it.”

“How did Justin seem?”

“You heard the exchange.”

“I didn’t see Justin’s face.”

“He expressed distress at disturbance to his work–which I’m sure he knows is being copied. He showed no particular reluctance to be separated from Jordan. He had warned Grant to avoid being alone with Jordan.”

“I heard that part. He thought there was a physical danger. To Grant, did he mean, or to him?”

“To Grant, likely. But anything that would harm Grant would harm him. They’re partners.”

“No choice but get them out tonight,” she said with a shake of her head. “Well that we did it. Can Section Three handle the transfer top to bottom? Will they bring it over in time, or do we have to go through Hicks’s office?”

“They indicate yes, they will. I put it through as an emergency. I think that’s accurate. They’ll tell Hicks in the morning, likely. Hicks will get the copies they make in Justin’s office. I’m not happy about Hicks’s access, but the alternative is much worse. Meanwhile we need to put through Justin’s address change. Inside sera’s wing he won’t be having his files copied again.”

“Easily done.” She spun her chair about, her fingers flew for a moment, and she sent, registering Justin Warrick’s new office address with Yanni’s office and incidentally with ReseuneSec.

That handled details that might have inconvenienced Justin in the morning–just to keep him calm in the transfer. For Jordan Warrick’s imminent inconvenience, or state of mind in the morning, she had no great concern at all.

One thing did worn her. “Sera’s papers are in that safe.”

“Not now.” Florian said. “Marco took them before Section Three could arrive. They’ll be in the office sera uses.”

They trusted no one completely, she and Florian…and that, on certain levels, meant they didn’ttrust Hicks’s office, or Yanni’s, to run things, or to hold information that might bear on Ari’s security. Their predecessors had failed, by all outside accounts, and died–deservedly so, because they had let their Ari die, and let Denys Nye take over Reseune. They took that event as a personal failure, a fault committed by their genesets, and they were absolutely determined to better the record in their tenure. They were not about to lose theirAri to Jordan Warrick–if it had been Jordan that murdered Ari One, as the public records officially said had happened…though that certainly wasn’t the whole story, and sera agreed they had had every reason to blame Denys Nye’s staff for the crime.

It didn’t matter. Denys Nye and his personal guard were dead and past. They guarded against Jordan, knowing he couldhave killed the first Ari–that he had wanted to kill her, that was the salient point. They didn’t altogether understand Jordan Warrick: his actions sat deep in a very complex CIT psychology, a man so brilliant he was a Special, all but immune to the law. Sera said the long exile had made him angry, and the focus of that anger might be her existence, which had defined the term of his exile.

For their part, not understanding the man simply meant being on their guard against him. And they constantly were.

They didn’t understand Justin Warrick, either, though they knew him better–knew, for instance, that Justin Warrick had initially welcomed his father back to Reseune, and had disagreements with him. Justin himself had not been the one to apply for Jordan’s release from detention. It had been, in fact, sera herself who had brought Jordan back from exile, which brought a very dangerous man back into a place where he could be more dangerous, in their estimation. But sera had moved fast to get Jordan out of military reach, and out of the reach of any dissident attempt to contact him. There was a leak in Planys: they knew that. A leak could turn into an access for all sorts of mischief, from assassination to rescue: sera had been right.

But letting Jordan stay in Reseune now that things were tranquil had taken turns into CIT politics: a decision on sera’s part, possibly to avoid upsetting Justin.

Just wait, Ari had said, in discussing the matter. He’s not Justin. It’s the same geneset, but the first Ari changed Justin’s psychset. Jordan hated her for that.

Jordan had hated the first Ari well before she’d taken Justin. That was true, too. Jordan had briefly been the first Ari’s working partner, sharing ideas, sharing power.

Except, sera had said further, that neither of those two was of a nature to share anything. So the partnership had dissolved into a feud–more bitter on Jordan’s side than on Ari’s, in terms of overt anger, sera said; but not in terms of who had gotten in the first strike. The first Ari had converted Justin to her own design, appropriated Grant along with him.

Jordan wanted Justin and Grant back–two assets their own Ari very much wanted for herself.

That implied that there would inevitably be trouble in that quarter. And their Ari had chosen to live right beside Justin–kept him in her wing, all except his office staff, which he had clung to, and that was the reason Justin maintained his office over in Education.

Well, as of now, sera’s wing had Justin’s office, too, and the staff was gone. Now there was no actual reason for Justin ever to leave her highly secure perimeter and cross Jordan’s path…unless Justin chose to do that, which would be many fewer opportunities, and ones they could watch.

First on the list, they had to be sure Justin was comfortable in his new office, to keep him and sera happy.

And they could expect that Jordan was going to be furious when he found out in the morning that that office was shut and empty–and it could be all his, for what they cared. They had even left a request for Hicks to officially allow Jordan possession of that office, with staff, if he asked, a request it was likely for several reasons might go through. They smoothed things over, not willing to provoke the man by their own action: sera might not approve that.

Catlin keyed a screen up, saw Jordan and Paul standing in the living room of their apartment, Jordan with a drink in hand. There would be a record of that conversation. She could scan it visually faster than she could listen to it.

“ They’ve gotten to him,” was the only thing that truly leapt out of the current transcript. She took the reference as applying to Justin, and understood “they” to mean sera and her whole apparatus.

It was true. There was also nothing Jordan could do about it.

There was no reference to the card with the Novgorod number. Florian had set the card on the console and looked at the screen.

“Patil,” he said. “Dr. Sandur Patil, University at Novgorod.”

Catlin focused in on that. Sharply. “One of Yanni’s meetings in Novgorod‑was with that person. Sera has a list. I have Patil’s CIT number. I asked System for a bio.”

“Call it.”

She located the file.

Professor of Science, but under the Defense Bureau’s Secrecy Act. Lecturer in the Franklin Series, whatever that was. Expert in nanistics, and Catlin did know about that. It meant micro tags, stable and self‑mutating nanostructures. It meant a whole class of contraband for customs, and it was a bioweapon, besides its commercial uses in medicine and manufacture, which she had never looked up, but she sent out a search.

“Nanistics. I’m calling up references.”

Florian copied her screen to his console.

Nanistics, the information came back, was a course of study not banned from theoretical research or commercial use on Cyteen’s surface and on Cyteen Alpha Station, but all actual experimental work was done out at Beta Station, at the deep end of the solar system. There was a lab at Beta serving both Defense and Science. The science was used on Cyteen, in Reseune, mostly in medical or agricultural research, or in the manufacture of carefully selected exotics, particularly in replication of Earth or Pell goods.

And a cross‑search with Patil involved university offerings, lectures, Paxer and Abolitionist attendance. Nanistics and Patil had been a major part of the terraforming project, now canceled: the Preservation Act had excluded certain types of bionanistics from Cyteen surface. Bionanistics and Patil wound through the list.

The inquiry rapidly developed side branches. A lot of them.

Right now the words of interest were clearly nanistics, Patil, Planys, and Warrick, any two of those words in association, and that search had produced one other warning flag:

More information is available from 1381 sources requiring higher base. 142382 sources are in Library behind gateway access. Proceed? Y/N…

Base One, sera’s base, could cross that threshold. It warned when it was about to go somewhere securitied, and it didn’t leave footprints in System. But it would draw a lot of securitied information into their office, and that was worth a little hesitation.

No, Catlin decided. But: “Interesting,” Catlin said. “Patil is someone Yanni was talking to. He told sera they were going to terraform a world called Eversnow, and it’s not public knowledge. He was talking to Dr. Patil.”

And Florian asked: “How did Jordanknow Yanni was meeting with her?”

BOOK ONE Section 2 Chapter i

APRIL 26, 2424

0500H

Giraud and his two companions grew fast this week.

The organs were present–just barely starting to function inside the body cavity, largely visible through transparent skin. Fingers had discernable nails. The yolk sac had gone. Blood functioned to feed the cells.

The babies were mostly head at this point, because brains–very high order brains–were developing fast. Nerves were growing out from the spine. Arms had wrists and elbows. Underdeveloped legs kicked, a function of those newly active nerves. Giraud and his two companions weighed only a quarter of an ounce apiece, but they had some distinction as human.

They were becoming, was what. They were becoming what they could be.

BOOK ONE Section 2 Chapter ii

APRIL 26, 2424

0744H

Damn. Staff had been busy last night.

Florian had taken direct action, the morning’s messages informed Ari while she dressed: Florian had gotten Justin and Grant out of range of Jordan’s machinations–well, that was good. She’d been trying to accomplish that for six weeks. There’d been the chance, the very real chance, that Jordan might resort to snatching one or the other–likely Grant–for a few hours of therapy. Her staff had been watching nonstop for just such a move. Now they could all relax a bit.

But the next line of Florian’s report suggested otherwise.

A contact number? Yanni’s Dr. Patil. Yanni’s transcript had included that interview. She’d initially ignored that part of the schedule as probably just one of Yanni’s frequent meetings with ranking scientists, and university professors were thick on his usual list. But Patil was clearly a significant name, and Ari didknow the content of Yanni’s talk with her.

And it wasn’t the first time she’d heard the name. Dr. Patil had had a set‑to with Uncle Denys about a paper last year. Denys had gotten mad. He’d threatened to send Patil to Planys, except Yanni had talked him out of it.

And Jordan handed Justin a card with that name on it?

Damn! was her immediate reaction.

Florian suggested Jordan might want to signal Yanni he knew something about Yanni’s business in Novgorod. Or maybe there was some connection with the fight Jordan and Yanni had had before Yanni left…which made a certain sense.

Jordan wasn’t in official communication with anybody but Yanni, had no social contact but Justin, and he had no security clearance beyond Library, not all of that, and not even the most basic access to System.

That posed a question.

A possibly scary question.

She keyed a message back to her security, whoever was at the desk: “Find out how Jordan got that card. Do anything that furthers that investigation.”

Then she pushed back from the desk and got up.

It was probably safest not to talk to Justin until the immediate irritation of the disarrangement had gone away–he was bound to be adrenaline‑high, and that never improved communication, did it?

Yanni, Florian’s message had said, was already notified–about the move, at least. Yanni wouldn’t object to whatever she did regarding Justin Warrick.

But Yanni hadn’theard about this Dr. Patil being linked to a mysterious card Jordan knew they were going to question.

Thatwas a matter worth telling Yanni, and getting his reaction. And since she’d officially read the transcript and it jibed with what she’d gotten from Base One, she could at least take that caution out of her thinking and ask some questions.

If Jordan had found out that Yanni was talking to Patil, how had he known that? He didn’t get mail. He had no way to get a business card. Maybe Yanni himself had dropped information, making the move to rattle Jordan out of his cover. In that case she had better find out about it. And the worst thing she could do would be to start giving blind orders to put Florian and Catlin in the middle of it.

She put on her sweater, searched her closet for a pair of pants, herself–she managed her own wardrobe lately.

There was a leak somewhere. Maybe Yanni had arranged it, just to see where information flowed. She didn’t like to be caught by surprise.

And she didn’t want Justin involved in any investigation of his father. He wasn’t involved in Jordan’s business: she’d stake everything on that. And did.

But she still didn’t want to trip up anything Yanni was doing.

Meanwhile Justin was probably mad as hell about being moved, and upset about the business with the card, and probably under‑informed, over all. Justin without enough information was going to wonder about it, and wonder, and build his own hypotheses in private, and just stew for hours.

Maybe it was better to send a simple friendly message to Justin, just a deliberately naive welcome‑in. Justin wouldn’t believe she was innocent of ordering this disruption of his life.

Or he might: this time he had Jordan to blame. She might be able to turn the frustration in that direction.

She lapped her hair into three quarters of a braid and let it go–it would be hanging loose in ten minutes; but she put on makeup, at least, and took care about it.

Grant had to be considerably relieved, this morning, to know they weren’t going to be working up close with Jordan daily, where it was oh, so easy for Jordan to get at him. Justin had to be relieved, at least, that Grant wasn’t involved. Justin would certainly focus his irritation on Jordan, unless she stepped in the line of fire and created an issue and a target. So any message she sent into that ferment of vexation had to be cautious.

She sat down at the keyboard and tapped into the secure, local net. It wasn’t my order, she typed, which was the truth. But I think it’s a good idea. He can have the office all to himself. It was bugged anyway. –Ari.

Justin might think that was funny.

Or maybe he wouldn’t.

She sighed.

And typed a postscript: Justin, don’t be upset with me. Phone, if you have a problem with this.

Not that she was going to back down from what Florian had done. It was only moving the schedule up, regarding the move to her wing for both residency andoffice space. Justin didn’t know that, but it was the truth.

She went back to the console and keyed one more message. Yanni didn’t do it either.

Then she put on her boots and went to gather up Florian and Catlin.

Straight to Yanni’s office, over in Admin, before she did anything else, and she did that, with Florian–Catlin was busy with some research. By the time she got there it was 0840h, and Yanni’s foyer was already full of problems.

She didn’t go through the foyer. She took the side entry, the one Yanni himself used, and Yanni’s secretary, Chloe, looked up in startlement.

“Sera?”

“Tell Yanni take a restroom break. I need to talk to him.”

“Sera,” Chloe said respectfully, and pushed a button on the console. Chloe didn’t even talk to Yanni. Yanni came through the door fairly promptly.

And stopped cold.

“I need to talk,” Ari said. “Now.”

So Yanni immediately opened the door behind Chloe, and went in. Florian walked in, to stand behind her, while she sat down at one end of the conference table–it was a big one–and Yanni did, at the other end.

“A problem?” Yanni asked. “I had a report this morning–that there was some goings‑on involving Justin. That you moved him out of the Education Wing altogether, fired his staff, and gave Jordan an office. Is thisthe sudden problem?”

“Jordan is the problem. Jordan wants an office of his own.”

“And you apparently gave him one.”

“I did, ser,” Florian said, behind her. “It was done at my level.”

“I stand by it,” Ari said, “if it doesn’t actually hurt anything. It didn’t seem to me it does.”

Yanni remained as he was, just looking at her, and thinking–clearly thinking. “Jordan asked me for an office before I left. Evidently he thought he could get away with going around me.”

“He didn’t ask me. He said he was going to move in on Justin. So Florian moved Justin to my wing.”

“Except his staff, ser,” Florian said.

“Are you going to talk at me from two different levels?” Yanni asked, looking from her, seated, to Florian, standing.

“Sorry, ser,” Florian said.

“If you want Jordan out of that office,” Ari said, “you can tell him that. Meanwhile Florian says he had no place to put Justin’s staff, but they’re good people and Florian promised they’d be taken care of. Admin should hire them.”

Yanni was silent a moment. Then nodded. “All right. It can happen. I’ll make a note for Chloe.”

“Good. Justin will feel a lot better about it.”

“Oh, I’m sure he will. And Jordan’s got what he wanted…this week. Hell if that’ll content him for two days. Damn the man!”

“That’s not all he did,” Ari said. “He dropped a business card into Justin’s pocket. Justin didn’t like it. He gave it to Florian. I have it in my apartment. It was from a Dr. Sandur Patil.”

“Patil.”

He didn’t say anything but that. Not after a long wait.

So she said, “I brought Jordan here from Planys. It seemed a good idea at the time. I hoped he’d do better than this.”

“He’s a damn maniac.”

“I thought you were his friend.”

“With Jordan? Being Jordan’s friend requires fireproof gloves.”

“So did this Patil figure somehow with why you’re mad at him? I’ve read your transcript. I know who she is. Is Jordan somehow connected with this?”

“Not exactly.”

“So what doesit mean?”

“Let me drop another name,” Yanni said. “Thieu. Dr. Raymond Thieu.”

It didn’t ring any bell. She was genuinely puzzled, and shook her head. “I don’t know him.”

“Nanotech,” Yanni said. “Biologicals. Former head of the Planys remediation project.”

So. There. Biological nanisms, living nanomachines, anathema on Cyteen, except under strictest conditions. Patil’s expertise. Beta Station was where they worked on that, where you had to have all sorts of clearance to get in, and where nothing could escape. Nanobiology applied in the remediation areas out in the Planys death zones, where Cyteen microbes met Terran ones. But when they loosed something into the biosphere they did it with great, great caution–not the wholesale dumping the terraforming plan had involved; not the extent of what they were likely to do at Eversnow.

“So he’s no longer head of that program? Why?”

“Retired. He’s lived at Planys since the War was at its height. He’s elderly, came from Beta labs, was head of Research in that discipline, taught at the University in Novgorod for two years, moved to Planys when the terraforming project got canceled, managed the remediation program there until he retired, five years ago. Distinguished career, bit of a prick.”

“He knows Jordan, I take it.”

“They were socially acquainted at Planys. Understand, the Planys lab doesn’t have the facilities to have done anything of an anagenetic nature, not in the most esoteric sense.” That was the ten‑cred word for terraforming, where there was already life. “Let’s just say terraforming has been a hot topic behind certain closed doors, including Denys’, including the military’s, and it’s been hot for months. ReseuneSec is currently taking the whole Planys lab apart, and using Jordan’s departure as a plausible excuse to look into every nook and cranny of Planys operations–which has made Thieu madder than hell. Thieu and Jordan socialized–only twenty‑three primary researchers in the place, off and on, so everybody socializes, you can figure that. But Thieu has retained very close ties to the military at Planys and to the University in Novgorod. Terraforming Cyteen was going to be his big program. He spent decades laying out all the details for his project, right along with Patil–and Council vetoed it just before it launched, then shifted him out to Planys, threw him the sop of an applied project out there, because he was madder than hell and not keeping his mouth shut, frankly. When the nanolabs shifted their focus to remediation, it was mostly to maintain the careers of people who specialized in that field–Defense didn’t want to lose them: but it also gave us the chance to get Thieu away from the media.”

“Because we stopped terraforming in its tracks,” she said, shaken out of any sort of complacency. “But the military kept the research going. And the crazier Centrists still want it applied here.”

“We’re giving them Eversnow. But a lot of old business exists out there at Planys. Part of the black projects in the military wing we can’t get at, and we don’t like, are nanistics of a nature I don’t like. Officially the nanistics program slowed to a stop when he retired, no other personnel was brought in out there, and what remediation uses is very carefully regulated, but lately, with the Eversnow matter–it’s back, this time in Novgorod. There’s an inherent problem with research labs, you know. They contain knowledge you’d like to have just in case your enemies have it, but that you’d just as soon not have on the public market. And when people who know military things retire, they still know things and they have opinions–unless you want to mindwipe a Special, which wouldn’t attract too many people into the program.”

“So you think he’s been talking to people? Including Jordan? It’s not Jordan’s field.”

“Politics is. Jordan’s always been a political animal. And we know there’s been a leak to Corain.”

“One we found,” she said. “You think there’s more?”

“Oh, I think we brought a major item of it here, with Jordan.”

“My fault, you’re saying.”

“Having him sucked up by the military wouldn’t have helped at all.”

It wouldn’t. She’d prevented that. That was true.

“Thieu arrived at Planys during the War,” Yanni said, “quietest retreat he could have. We’d moved a major part of the lab there, in point of fact, because we didn’t want to risk a raid on Beta, and that research falling into Alliance hands. The staff moved back to Beta when the War ended–but he’d already gotten on the wrong side of your predecessor in an absolute fury over the cancellation of his programs. So there he was, just quietly aging, still within the Planys labs, not the man he had been, but still–still within the structure, still doing some work on biologicals for Defense, supposedly doing some side work on the rejuv sensitivity issue–he either wasn’t allowed to work on the remediation as of two years ago, or he refused to work on it any further: it’s not totally clear how that happened, and we’re quietly asking at this moment. The man has a temper that doesn’t always serve him.”

“But he still has his security clearances.”

“He still has some clearance–though he carried on correspondence with a few people in the University in Novgorod, not all of whom we were quite comfortable with: people who’d gotten burned in the program cancellation; people who leaned just a little to the Centrist fringes–ReseuneSec found it useful to let it continue, to see where the lines of communication led, granted nothing classified got out. Meanwhile he met Jordan Warrick…when Jordanmoved out there, not, of course, voluntarily. They weren’t close for the first ten years, didn’t even speak; but in the last few, as Thieu tended toward retirement, they started up a friendship. We can’t prove a damned thing, except our quiet in‑house inquiry about resurrecting a nanistics project–the Eversnow project, which we didn’t say at the time, nor mentioned Patil’s name–got Thieu very exercised. Hebreached security, at least within that close community of academics, and contacted a student of his currently teaching in Novgorod, qualified in the field, security clearance, to be sure, but not a contact he was authorized to make.”

“Patil.”

“Patil. He’d corresponded with her for years, but all those letters were innocuous, two scientists talking about programs, and definitely subject to censors who actually can read in that field. Recall there’s a strong Centrist bent in Novgorod University, through the social studies department and into some very shady nooks of the rebel chic. Patil’s work has a cult following. She doesn’t encourage the radicals. But they get excited when she publishes. When she lectures, they show up at her lecture series. If we revive the old studies for use at Eversnow, I want to be sure it doesn’tget used here on Cyteen by some lunatic with a lab vial. Let me tell you, with Thieu retired and Patil’s whole operation off at Eversnow we’re actually safer–barring something coming back by ship. All of which I mention to you just in the case I shouldfall down the stairs and break my neck–”

“Please don’t!”

“–in case, I say, I’m telling you verbally. There is that one very untidy and roundabout link to Jordan Warrick that we don’t like, the elderly and sometimes erratic Dr. Thieu, who connects with Patil, who’s the person we want to use at Eversnow, partly for very political reasons. But while we’re going ahead with the Patil nomination, we’re also going through the establishment on Planys with a microscope right now on the excuse of investigating Jordan, and it’s why we shouldn’t roundtrip Jordan right back to Planys at first excuse. If fire and fuel canmeet, we just want to be very sure the bottles are secure. Once we ship Patil out to Fargone, we’ll feel a lot safer.”

“But you’re saying it’s possibly all innocent.”

“Patil’s a natural candidate for the Eversnow post. But hauling her from the Centrist party to the Expansionist side of the slate is going to mightily annoy some people. It’s possible certain factions will be more interested in the politics of it than in the actual science, which is years off. Short‑term, it’s very likely to be political.”

“ ‘Rethinking the Theory of Long‑Period Nanistic Self‑direction.’ ”

“God, where did you run across that?”

“It was going to run in Scientialast year. It was pretty thick going, but I read it.”

“I should think it was. You and the censors. How did you get it?”

“The Centrists had made a fuss about it, pre‑publication, said it proved they could do what they wanted to do on Cyteen without killing the rejuv ecology. Uncle Denys was mad about it. He was threatening to have the editor fired if it ran, so they pulled it. I figured I should give it a look. So she was writing up what she shouldn’t have written about?”

“It was an agitation on her part. But a quiet one, the presentation of a theory, not a how‑to. The War’s over. We could enlist any nanistics expert we want out of Beta, and will–but for various reasons–including the fact she’s the darling of the Paxers, the Centrists, and the military, and could get us the votes–she’s our pick for the lab going out to Eversnow. It’s a dream assignment for her. She may be the Centrist intellectuals’ darling, not that they understand half of what she’s about, but she does want to see her theories put into the field, and she’show we got the two Councillors to shift their vote to support mine, notable Defense and Citizens. And just to draw a line under the fact of who’s in bed with whom, our Jordan’s spent the last eight years having lunch with the professor who taught Patil.”

“He doesn’t havea Base in System any more. So how did he know about it? How did he get the card? Maybe he wanted us to have it. Maybe he’s trying to ask a question…in his unique way.”

“That would be an interesting position,” Yanni said. “Or maybe he just wanted Justin to take exception to the ensuing investigation.”

“To drag Justin into it on his side,” Ari said, “but I don’t think he did what Jordan would want him to do.”

“Oh, it probably was within his guesswork,” Yanni said. “I assume Jordan expected the card to be confiscated, and Justin to be involved, and upset, and maybe more amenable to Jordan’s arguments. He’s psych, not nanistics, educational psych, at that. I don’tlike the notion he could have gotten this card from Thieu, and gotten it through our screening. Security’s got to take a look at that. But it’s not much more comfortable a thought that someone here gave it to him…probably with information.”

“It has a reader‑strip, ser,” Florian said. “We didn’t put it into a System‑connected reader.”

“Probably a very good notion,” Yanni said. “Damn it! Damn Jordan to bloody hell.”

“I’d rather not if I can avoid it,” Ari said. “But Justin is staying in Wing One.”

“Granted,” Yanni said. “No question. Good call.”

“ Youdidn’t bring Patil’s name up with Jordan, did you?”

“Hell, no.”

“Just asking,” she said easily. It remained a possibility, all the same. But less likely, perhaps.

So Justin was safe. But Jordan definitely wasn’t.

BOOK ONE Section 2 Chapter iii

APRIL 26, 2424

0855H

Late to bed, late to rise, and not that early to the office.

The morning was definitely off routine, when you had to rack your memory to recall what your own office address was, and it was entirely surreal to walk in and find the set‑up pretty much what you remembered–and you hadn’t put it there.

Justin had expected boxes. The office was–just moved. Things were on shelves in exactly the same order…apparently so, at least. Florian hadn’t exaggerated.

“Well,” Grant said, at his shoulder, “they were neat.”

“Certainly better than some invasions we’ve had,” Justin muttered, and let go a long, long breath. He hadn’t known he was that wound up about the move, but he had been. He didn’t see a safe. Opening several desk drawers didn’t turn up Ari’s material. It had gone somewhere, and that bothered him.

“Her stuff isn’t here,” he said.

“Security will have it,” Grant said. “Five against ten, Florian will have gotten it, personally.”

“Well, it’s not a bad office,” Justin said, looking around. It wasn’t bad. It was even good, given there was room for the two of them–ample room, but nothing for staff. God knew what Em thought, this morning, arriving to find he had no office and no job.

There was a window. The view from the purported window was fake, but it was a very expensive fake: a screen showed the Novaya Volga from, one supposed, the top of the cliffs, more likely the top of one of the precip towers–he’d never been up there: nobody went there, except the repair and maintenance crews working on the weather system, and most of those were robots.

It was a dizzying image, if one thought about it. It gave an illusion the whole building was forty stories tall, when the brain knew for a fact they were on the ground floor.

“Nice view,” Grant said.

“You’re such an optimist.” Justin ran his hand over the spines of the physical books on the shelf, finding no flaw in the order of them–printout of this and that psychset. He likedprintout, when it came to review. He marked‑up with abandon, and liked things in order, hisorder. The stacks on the desk looked like his stacks. He thumbed through them. They were in a reasonable order. Likely the stacks on Grant’s desk were the same.

But he wanted to find something they’d messed up. He checked the drawers. Exact order, exact contents. “I hate it when I don’t know what they’ve done wrong. I’m sure there’s something.”

“The movers were ReseuneSec, weren’t they?” Grant asked. “They’re used to not having things look disturbed.”

That was worth half a laugh at least.

There was an in‑office coffee dispenser sitting on a sideboard. That was new, and good. The machine was loaded and it turned on and functioned at the touch of a button. That was even better.

And the movers had improved on one other thing: the move had organized the supply cabinet contents in a logical, eye‑pleasing way, with little colored bins for the various styli and clips and pointer‑tags. He surveyed it top to bottom, looking for flaws.

“Color‑coded.” Justin remarked, giving up his search. “I suppose our mess was too much for them to get here intact. We have all shiny new paper clips.”

“Have a cup of coffee.” Grant handed him one, an implicit calm‑down.

“You know Jordan’s going to be beside himself this morning.”

“Likely he is,” Grant said. “Just about now.”

He took a sip. It was better coffee than what they’d had available down the hall in the old office. Much better. It was probably real. “Pricey.”

“Free,” Grant said.

“Meaning we’re entirely on her tab.” That didn’t improve the taste.

“Do we ever actually run through our wages?” Grant asked.

“We never get a chance to find out, do we? And what about our regular work?” He turned full circle, looked at the walls, the river view, and something beyond vertigo bothered him, something indefinably bothered him and made his shoulders twitch. He walked across the office and back before it dawned on him. “It’s backward. It’s damned backward! The back wall is south. The old office wall faced north.”

“Is that going to bother you?”

“It’s already bothering me.” He was still frustrated. The office had always had its carefully designed clutter–even his every‑other‑layer stacking was preserved, in the pile on the corner of his desk. The room was white‑walled, had a view that cost a month’s pay. The desks were new black lacquer, not brown lake wood, scarred from years of use. Their use. It was like that damned black and white bedroom they lived in, that was what. “I want some flowers in here. Some pictures that don’tmove.”

“I can order the flowers,” Grant said, and added wickedly. “Red?”

“No. Blue. Green. Purple. Anything but red.” There was one red pillow, one red flower, in their professionally decorated black, gray, and white quarters.

“Maybe you’d like to pick out the pictures yourself.”

That nettled him, too. “Ordering flowers is not your job to do. You’re not my–”

“I’m not as afflicted by the decor as you are,” Grant said. “It’s a born‑man problem. You’re fluxed. I’m sure I could order flowers in a sane, logical way. Possibly I’d be calm enough to pick out complementary pictures. Clearly–”

“The hell.” He found his mood improving, unwanted improvement, even toward laughter. “Oh, hell, blue. Blue would be good. Blues and purples, that sort of thing.” The single screen pretending to be a window drew the eye and suggested blue‑greens and grays. “Cancel the purple. Blues and quiet greens. That might do it. I’d like that. If you wouldn’t mind doing it. I’m not that logical, at the moment.”

“I’m sure there’s something that’ll work,” Grant said nicely. “I’ll look.”

By computer. You could do anything by computer. It would be there in an hour, if they opted for messenger service, and flowers and paintings could get through security, oh, by tomorrow, if security was in a good mood.

It certainly wasn’t the way he’d done things in the days when he’d been free, on his own salary and Grant’s.

Before the first Ari had gotten her hands on him. Before Jordan had gotten himself in trouble and gotten shipped to the far side of the world.

So Jordan came back, and Ari protected him from his own father…meaning she’d finally gotten her way and gotten him all the way into her wing–to do nothingin his career, but teach her.

Standing, he flipped on the computer. The screen blinked up.

Threemessages from Ari, in the upper righthand corner.

Calamity?

He dropped into the chair, keyed the messages up.

And had to laugh, however ruefully.

“What is it?”

“Ari’s postscripts. The first Ari didn’t do postscripts. Wouldn’t have done a postscript when she was six. Our girl’s done two in the same letter. She’s worried I’ll hit the ceiling. I think she’s really worried.”

“What does she say?”

“That they’re giving the other office to Jordan. That were better off here. That the old office was bugged, anyway.”

That got a laugh from Grant.

Justin keyed off and got up. “Let’s go out for lunch.”

“Out for lunch? We haven’t gotten any work done yet. I’m just into the flowers.”

“Lunch. Relaxation. Out of the Wing. Prove we can. But somewhere lesslikely to run into Jordan.”

“Jordan is going to be heading for Yanni’s office about now. If we stay off that track, we’ll miss him.”

This time helaughed. It made fair sense. Jordan was going to take about five minutes to realize he’d been given the office solo, and bet on it, Jordan wasn’t going to be working today, either.

Straight line course for Yanni’s office, no question.

Not that Yanni would do anything to make Jordan happier. Yanni didn’t do it, Ari’s final note had said. And she claimed she hadn’t done it.

So who had? What other authority was there, ruling his life?

Justin walked over to the desk, picked out the printout he’d been working over. Laid the project‑book, open, on his desk, where he would work on it when he got back. “There. We’re officially moved in and my desk is officially cluttered, so it’s home. God knows what the fallout was from that card Jordan handed me. Opening barrage, in what’s going to be some kind of war, I’m afraid. A war for possession of us, for starters. For possession of Reseune, I’m very much afraid. Jordan’s not going to win anything and I don’t think he’ll stop until someone stops him. And I don’t want that, Grant, damn, I really don’t want it.” His mood crashed. He leaned on his chair back. “He’s headed for a fall.”

“You think she’ll send him back to Planys?”

Deep down, he actually wished she would, this morning once and for all. And that was so startlingly dark and traitorous a thought that he felt deeply ashamed of himself. Jordan had spent twenty years in comparative privation, shut out of the modern world for a crime his accuser had likely committed; and his own son at least owed him some sympathy for the resultant bitterness, didn’t he?

But not when Grant was in danger from that sympathy: Ari had created Grant, Jordan had written some of his first tapes, knew at least his initial keywords and triggers, and if Jordan decided there might be flaws in Grant’s loyalty, and wanted to revise things, he could do major damage.

And hellif he’d let that happen, not if it meant Jordan going straight back into exile. He shoved back from the chair and picked up his coat.

“Jordan’s not making it easy for anybody,” he said grimly. “Not for me, not for you, not for two hours running since he’s been back.”

“Why does he do it?” Grant asked, reaching for his own coat. “What does an intelligent CIT want out of this situation?”

“Intelligent as he is, I’m afraid intelligence is nowhere in this situation.”

“You’re angry with him.” Halfway into the coat.

Justin settled his own onto his shoulders. “You noticed that.”

“Angry enough to take action against him as you did. That seems justified, from my own view.”

“I’m angry about being uprooted into an office that’s just damned backwardto what I’ve been used to for most of my life. I’m angry at being co‑opted deeper into Ari’s wing. I’m angry because I’m going to miss Abrizio’s…”

“We can walk over there. Nothing’s stopping us.”

“We could run into him!”

“So you want to avoid him permanently?”

“ Damnit.”

“But not damn him?”

“I don’t know!”

Grant frowned. “So all across the horizon, very intelligent CITs aren’t acting rationally. Young Ari didn’t do a thing, Yanni didn’t, the elder Warrick makes a stupid move, and the younger doesn’t know what he damns, but he doesn’t want to talk to his genefather at all. What was the card you asked me to give Florian?”

It bordered on funny, it was so stupid. The idiocy of the situation afflicted his already raw sensibilities. At very least, his universe was not on the same track this morning, and he no longer knew where it was going, not an unusual condition in his life, but not one he liked.

“Jordan’s likely to be at our favorite lunch haunt on any given day if he’s using that office, and I don’t want the confrontation. So, for starters, I think we’ll walk to the north corridor of Admin for a late breakfast. That won’t be on his route.” He stared disconsolately at the cabinets, finding everything out of sorts. “They’ve color‑coded the damn supply cabinets. It looks great. But are we going to remember to put the clips back in the red box? Should we have to remember? Does anyone care?”

“At least your father won’t be into your notebooks.”

“Definitely a point in favor of this place.”

“And it wasoriginally his office.”

It was. It had been. “Let’s just get out of here before–”

The desk phone went off. He shot a look at Grant. It rang again. It was Jordan’s ID. He hesitated toward the door, then looked back.

It went on ringing. He swore, and punched in Speaker.

“Dad?”

“ Where in hell are you?” came from the other end. “ What’s going on?”

“They moved us. I think we were bugged.”

“ Youthink we were bugged! Bloody hell!” So much for that piece of deliberate naivete. And more quietly, even gently, Jordan added: “ Are you all right?”

He hadn’texpected parental concern. That ploy hadn’t even been on the radar. It set him back about a beat or two and almost hurt. Not quite. “We’re fine. Dad. We are.”

“ Where are you?”

“Wing One.” Where Jordan couldn’t come. Not a hope in hell he’d ever get through her security to have a look around this office. “They moved my office.”

And Jordan had to know that the move was for good.

“ Are you going to protest this?”

Tell the truth or temporize? Truth was simpler. Kinder, if that mattered. “No, actually.”

“ No?”

Outrage. Truth, again? Or was it a lie?

Both wrapped together, both truth andlie, likely. Jordan wanted his son to rise up and challenge Admin, and challenge Ari’s existence. But he didn’t really expect it to happen–for reasons Jordan thought he understood better than the rest of the universe. “It won’t do a damn bit of good if I do. It’s not a bad office here. More room. Certainly more room than four of us and staff jammed into the other one.”

“ Come to breakfast.”

Now a lie was necessary. Absolutely the polite thing. “Things are in a mess here. I’ve got some unpacking to do. I’ve got to find some things.”

“ Supper, then. We’ll cook.”

It wasn’t an invitation. It was a challenge to trust. Maybe to come talk about that card he no longer had. And he didn’t trust Jordan, not at all. He wasn’t bringing Grant and himself through Jordan’s doors, subject to whatever they were handed to eat and drink, which might have God‑knew‑what in it. “I can’t.”

“ Arrested?”

“Just detained. I don’t know for how long. It’ll ease up. It always does.”

“ Damn it, I’m going to Yanni with this.”

So they both went through the motions. The pretense of familial affection. The reality of outrage. “Don’t use up your credit with him. This was bound to happen. They’re not going to like us working together. You knew that when you pushed it.”

“ You mean she’s not going to like it.”

“Look, you’ve got to settle in, start producing again, start your work up…let them see you haven’t lost a beat. That’s what’s important. Get current with things… I understand they’re going to give you that office.”

“ Current!”

“All right, yes, I’m sure that’s an issue among the younger researchers.” It was, and a painful one, which he used with only the faintest twinge of shame. “Get a new project going. And since you’re in that office alone with Paul, there won’t be any question what’s my work and what’s yours.”

There was just a little silence on the other side. As if his son’s work was going to overshadow his, as if, if it was any good, no one would believe he did it. That was going to sting. And he did it deliberately, knowing how instinctively jealous and competitive his father was. Jealousy had been the core issue with Jordan and the first Ari, that Jordan wouldn’t be second to her…he’d tried to be her equal partner in research, and that hadn’t worked, because the first Ari hadbeen smarter than Jordan, just like the second. Heaccepted that fact of life, with his Ari. Jordan hadn’t ever been able to. He didn’t know what he felt at the moment, but it was perilously close to unreasoning anger–which didn’t damned well help in a fencing match with his father.

“ That’s the way it is, is it?” Jordan asked. “ That’s the concern she has, just so solicitous to have me look good? Pardon me if I don’t buy it.”

“I don’t either, Jordan, but there’s a certain assumption around the labs that you’re so many years behind the times, that you can’t possibly overcome–”

“ The hell! The hell I am! And the hell I can’t!”

“It’s the next generation, dad. They don’t know you. Just produce. They’ll learn who you are.”

“ Who I am? Damned right they will!”

Jordan broke the connection, right there.

Grant lifted a well‑controlled eyebrow. “Breakfast?”

BOOK ONE Section 2 Chapter iv

APRIL 26, 2424

1302H

Message from Hicks, director of Reseune Security, to sera’s security: Consultation urgently needed.

It might involve the card–if Hicks was running an operation at Yanni’s direction, they’d gotten in the middle of it last night, and Hicks was probably quietly furious at their having swept it up.

They could say no. They could hold onto the card and force Yanni to request sera to order them to release it; but a feud with Hicks wasn’t profitable. Hicks had agreed when they’d outright insisted on their monitoring the business with Justin and his father, and relaying what they found to him; and the interview seemed, overall, a reasonable request.

“I’ll likely be a while,” Florian said, while leaving the security station.

“All secure here,” Catlin said. “I’ll hold things down. It wouldn’t be good to annoy ReseuneSec if we don’t need to.”

“No,” he agreed. “It wouldn’t.”

He took the card with him, carefully protected in an envelope–its disposition dependent on what he heard from Hicks: maybe he would turn it over, maybe not, and Hicks would not lay hands on him, not if Hicks wanted his career. He headed out, downstairs, out of the wing and over to Admin, to an office that supervised his kind, but not him, not Catlin, and no one else inside sera’s apartment.

ReseuneSec was operationally directly responsible to Yanni Schwartz these days. Hicks had succeeded Giraud Nye in the post, and hadn’tbeen implicated in Denys’ attempt on sera’s life–in fact Hicks had stood down, done his best to keep things calm and safe for most of Reseune, and taken neither side, while sera’s people and Denys’ people shot at each other in the halls of Wing One. So Hicks had kept his job. Yanni said he was a good man, and since they trusted Yanni–so far–they trusted Hicks–so far.

Over to Admin, upstairs to the executive level, down the corridor from Yanni’s office. The ReseuneSec offices were a busy place, even at this early hour. The anteroom was full of people in suits, people in uniform. If he had to wait, he had things he could do in the interim.

He went to the desk. “Florian AF, Sera Ariane Emory’s bodyguard. The director called.”

The receptionist immediately lost the preoccupied look. “Ser. You’re expected.” He stood up and personally escorted Florian down a carpeted hall straight to the director’s office, past cameras and other devices–no matter all the waiting CITs back there.

That was gratifying, on sera’s behalf. It made a good impression–so far.

“Florian AF.”

A man with dark hair, dark good looks, and a gold bar indicating a colonel’s rank, intercepted him and the receptionist both.

Kyle AK. Alpha azi. Hicks’ aide.

“Ser.” Kyle AK outranked him. And might prevent him, but he would notdo business with a substitute. He eyed Kyle AK with a certain reserve, just stared at him, at a dead stop, and the receptionist retreated.

“The message was from the Director,” Florian said. “I’ll seethe Director.”

“To be sure,” Kyle AK said smoothly, and opened the door that said Adam Hicks, Director, Reseune Securityin gold letters.

He walked in with Kyle AK, facing a silver‑haired, square‑faced man at a desk.

Suit, not uniform. That was Hicks, CIT, and never trained in green barracks, not an expert in actual practice, only in administration. He’d gotten the services of Kyle AK, a very highly trained alpha, former Fleet service. And it was widely suspected that Kyle AK was and had been the source of no little policy and no few orders in ReseuneSec…but it was the born‑man who held the office and signed the papers.

“Ser,” Florian said. “Florian AF. You called sera’s office.”

Hicks got up from his chair and offered his hand across the desk, again, proper behavior. “Florian AF. A pleasure. Have a seat.”

“Ser,” Florian said, placing hands in the back of his belt and continuing to stand, post‑handshake, as Hicks sat down: he had reached a decision. “Jordan Warrick surreptitiously passed a calling card with a contact number to Justin Warrick. The younger Warrick volunteered the card to me when I intercepted him on the quadrangle, and made no further comment. I think you’ll know that from my report.”

“Do you have the card with you?” Hicks asked him.

“Yes. May I have your word, ser, we’ll have the benefit of your investigation? This regards a person under sera’s authority.”

“Agreed. Absolutely agreed.”

Florian reached into his jacket front and pulled out the envelope. Hicks took it and laid it on the desk in front of him.

“What do you know about the card?” Hicks asked.

“The number, ser, belongs to a Dr. Sandur Patil, University of Novgorod.”

Hicks’s face betrayed very little. He was good, in that regard. “Researcher and professor. Did the Director brief you who she is?”

“Scheduled for promotion to a directorship at Fargone. Yes, ser. Director Schwartz said so, in conversation with my principal.”

Hicks nodded slowly. “How far did he brief her?”

“Perhaps farther than he briefed you, ser, so I shouldn’t go into specifics.”

Momentary silence. A perusal by very cold, very opaque eyes. “You know about Eversnow.”

“Yes, ser. We do.”

“You got this card from the younger Warrick.”

“It was given, Ser. Volunteered by him.”

“He got it from Warrick Senior.”

“We observed that he did, ser, unless cards were switched. We didn’t search him. Justin Warrick has been honest with us.”

“Your personal recommendation on the matter. Florian AF?”

He drew a breath. “We’ve pulled Justin Warrick into sera’s wing, to prevent further contact. That was our immediate action.”

“Is he aware of what’s on the card?”

“The card was given him without explanation. He wasn’t observed reading it. He volunteered it to me, and we ran the address on it. We didn’t, however, run the data strip. It seems to us that needs to be done in lab.”

“We’ll do that,” Hicks said, “with precautions.”

“Sera will appreciate notification of the contents, whether or not it immediately concerns her security.”

Hicks’ jaw clamped. He was a man not in the habit of letting go of information without knowing parameters in advance. But slowly he nodded. “We appreciate your turning this over, Florian AF.”

“Sera will take action based on the contents, ser. We will keep your office apprised.”

“Sit down,” Hicks said. “For God’s sake, sit down.”

It seemed Hicks had something specific to discuss. Florian moved over to the chair and did sit down, leaned back, and looked at the man on the level. It was a worried look on the other side of the desk. A CIT with what seemed to be a problem.

“What’s your opinion on what you’ve found?” Hicks asked.

“First, that Jordan Warrick may or may not have known what was on the card. Second, Justin had no idea, and was uncomfortable with the possession of it in the circumstances. Third, Dr. Patil may or may not know that her information was traded.”

“What, in your opinion, was Warrick’s motive?”

“We have no current theory, except to say he wants his son closer to him and we want him farther away. Closer in the metaphysical sense as well as the physical.”

“His loyalty, you mean.”

“The younger Warrick isn’t amenable to his father’s past politics. He avoids that topic. He has no political leanings of his own.”

“Everyone born a CIT has a political leaning.”

“His is definitely not toward the Centrists, then, ser. His beliefs run counter to theirs.”

“So you don’t think his gift of the card to you was simply because he knew he was watched. Do you think he would have turned it in under other circumstances?”

“ JordanWarrick knew they were watched, ser. He’s always watched.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“In response to your question, ser, if he hadn’t handed it to us last night, he would have likely handed it over sometime today, because he isn’t in agreement with his father’s gesture. He doesn’t favor involvement with clandestine matters. And while he regards his father highly he will equally well wish to avoid any involvement in his father’s actions, where they may cross ReseuneSec. He has had extensive experience with your office, ser, and has no wish to cross your path again.”

“What do you think is going on with the elder Warrick?”

“Resentment of past confinement and present limitations. A desire to agitate, possibly to inject new energy into a quiet status quo with Admin. Possibly a third motive. My information is insufficient.”

“But your information is current in the case of the younger Warrick. You’re quite satisfied that he poses no risk to your principal.”

“I am very confident of my estimate of Justin Warrick. We wouldn’t allow him in the same room with sera if we were in the least doubtful about his intentions.”

“What is your estimate of the Patil situation?”

“I can’t possibly estimate, ser, except to ask if it’s possible Director Schwartz himself provoked Jordan Warrick to do this. The coincidence is extreme, if there is no causality. Both know Patil, ser Warrick secondhand, as best I know, and Dr. Schwartz has met with her–intended to meet with her at the time he last spoke with Warrick Senior. We know there was an intense argument between ser Warrick and Dr. Schwartz on that occasion, before Dr. Schwartz left for Novgorod. We don’t know the content.”

“It was an unrecorded conversation,” Hicks said. “In that, Florian AF, you and I are in the same situation.”

Interesting. And there was one, perhaps one, window to ask into that matter. “Ser. This touches sera’s security, considering Justin Warrick was involved, and Justin Warrick and his companion are under her protection. Eversnow was the topic of dinner conversation between Director Schwartz and sera that same evening. An hour later, with no direct contact with anyone we’ve monitored, Jordan Warrick chose to produce a card with a name on it involving Eversnow, in a way he knew would come to the attention of ReseuneSec and sera’s security. Sera went to Director Schwartz regarding the card. Director Schwartz revealed a connection between Eversnow and Patil, and between Warrick and Patil, via a third party. We find this card assumes a threatening character, regarding supposedly secure conversations involving Director Schwartz’s activities, and sera’s security officially calls your attention to that fact.”

A moment of silence. “Meaning, ser?”

“Meaning we will act, ser, if we see a problem to sera’s wing or sera’s interests, including the safety of present Reseune Administration.”

“You’re bright. Tell me, Florian AF, what would youadvise we do about Dr. Patil?”

“Investigate. There’s no information yet. The action doesn’t seem friendly to her interests. But we don’t know with any surety what her interests are.”

“Facts: the Director met with Dr. Patil in Novgorod. They discussed her promotion to a division leadership in ReseuneLabs at Fargone, involving a covert Reseune development at Eversnow. Jordan Warrick signals us that he knows Patil. Which he does…possibly more than secondhand, for all we can discover. You know what she works on.”

“Nanistics. Bionanistics of a secret and restricted nature.”

“Then you understand the difficulty of turning up information. The military has classified much of her work, classified much of what goes on at Planys. Wecan’t get over that wall. And the nature of what she works on–makes a physical search of her premises problematic and dangerous. If she’s doing something she oughtn’t, or communicating with people she oughtn’t, yes, there is a danger.”

“I would put forward a suggestion, ser.”

“What would that be?”

“Let her leave for the assignment. Then detain her and her baggage once she reaches orbit. That narrows the problem. She’ll either attempt to destroy things before she leaves, or take certain things with her.”

Hicks’ face was habitually unexpressive, lined with years of grim business. An actual smile flickered in the corners of the mouth. “Good. Not, actually, surprising. What other suggestions, Florian AF?”

“Sera’s personal security doesn’t have the scope or the equipment to take certain steps. You do. We would also be extremely interested to know about any leak of information out of Planys, or into it.”

“We’ve consistently taken steps to find out.”

Over a period of time, then, a long‑term watch. “From before Jordan Warrick came here?”

A grudging dip of the head.

“Planys staff?” Florian asked. “Operatives inside the University?”

“Not all the specialist agents are as far removed as the stations in orbit. We can deal with a nanistics situation. Clearly we have mutual concerns. And we’ve come to a point of mutual interest. You’re very much what I expected. Alpha. No question.”

“Ser?”

“Is your partner outside?”

“She remained with sera. Internal policy.”

Hicks nodded slowly. “You insisted on monitoring that dinner at the restaurant. You consider young Warrick yours and you protect his privacy. Understandable. We agreed to that. But we’d like to have allthe records from that encounter, including anything you know from young Warrick, anything he or his companion may have said in handing you the item.”

Hicks had protested their handling it solo. Clearly he’d had his own observers.

“The younger Warrick is in our wing, ser. His safety is at issue as well as sera’s. We remain extremely concerned about Warrick senior being here. We remain concerned about any leak of the younger Warrick’s activities to Warrick Senior. And might I point out–I doubt Justin Warrick would have been as ready to offer the card to one of your agents.” An interesting thought, a troubling scenario. “You’d have had to search him if you’d wanted it. And I’m very sure he wouldn’t have liked that. Maybe that was part of Jordan’s intention, that Justin get arrested. Jordan didn’t know it wasn’t ReseuneSec doing the monitoring that night. He expected you. And that would have bounced it to Yanni’s office, and then to sera.”

“Interesting notion. But he didn’t give that card to you when you met. He sent his companion back with it.”

“Clearly you don’t need my answers.”

“Actually we don’t, on that one.” He tapped the envelope with the card. “This, however, is not in the form of a petty annoyance from Ser Warrick. It’s very troublesome.”

“You’re certain Director Schwartz didn’t set it up.”

A flat, impenetrable stare. “Not to my knowledge,” Hicks said, which Florian took for a warning. It could mean, Don’t ask. It could mean, No, Yanni Schwartz didn’t inform me of any trap he was setting, and I don’t at all like not being informed. And it could simply mean, There’s a leak somewhere, and I don’t like not having clues.

“Are you sure of your own staff, in Sera Emory’s apartment?”

“We’re all azi, ser. We’re Contracted. A leak there isn’t highly likely. Certain of the staff came from general security.” That was Wes and Marco. “A few elsewhere, from sources that passed clearances. Infiltration is possible, but not likely.”

“My point is, we can’t work at cross‑purposes. You’re eighteen. And there are the two other security agents besides your partner on your staff, am I right?”

“Yes, ser. I am. And there are.”

Hicks made a vee of his hands. Looked at him a moment. “Your predecessor was very good. I knew him… I knew him tolerably well, when I was an assistant to Giraud Nye. We cooperated.”

“Yes, ser.” Time before he had existed was not emotionally attractive to him. There was no resonance for him with his predecessor, such as born‑men expected to exist. And this was a Supervisor, who should know that trait. Florian remained engaged, wary of verbal traps.

“Your predecessor set precedents,” Hicks said, “set up frameworks of cooperation with my predecessor’s predecessor, that lasted into Giraud Nye’s administration of this agency, until the first Ariane’s death and the birth of her successor. And I’m about to invoke one of those arrangements. I can place three squads of my people directly under your authority, as Wing One security, establishing the same sort of arrangement my predecessor had with yourprincipal’s office–two‑way information. A very discreet two‑way flow. It’s not safe for you to keep us in the dark–or–it’s not assafe to have our operations crossing one another at critical moments, and I’d rather prevent that.”

Interesting offer. He did know about the prior arrangement. He’d expected to ask for it himself, once sera took control of Admin. He’d expected to get it without question at that point, whether or not Hicks was still running ReseuneSec. It was a little surprising to have it offered to them without asking.

“You’re worried about Patil and Warrick,” he said to Hicks, but only the dilation of the eyes betrayed Hicks’ reaction. “There’s a leak and you don’t know where it is.”

“Yes. Frankly, yes. And I’m concerned about Warrick and Warrick, the latter being inside your perimeters in themost sensitive area of Reseune.”

“I’m aware of the protocol that existed before my time. But name its details, ser, if you would.”

“Thirty beta‑ and gamma‑class agents, all dedicated to maintaining your security envelope, at your orders, full access to ReseuneSec information, exactly what the first Ari had…with an appropriate clerical staff, and an administrative office sited in Wing One. We could assign supervisory protocols to the Director himself. Or to me, personally, if you’re satisfied with that arrangement.”

“I am aware what specific arrangement the first Ari had with Giraud Nye, ser, and your offer is acceptable if sera is their Supervisor of record.”

“Her youth–”

“My partner and I are alphas, ser, and she’s ourSupervisor.”

“Technically–”

“In actuality, Ser. She has been capable of directing us for a classified length of time, but you may at least conclude it wasn’t yesterday”

Hicks regarded him at some length. “You’re still eighteen.”

“I’m very good at what I do, Ser.”

That got a smile. The best Supervisors could be like that, able to appreciate an azi’s humor. And one had to be wary, not to get sucked in and set too much at ease.

“No buttons available, Ser. She has all mine well‑catalogued.”

The smile persisted. “I’d expect that.”

“I add one more qualification: these agents: their Contracts go to her. Specifically.”

Not outright refusal, but wariness. “That’s notwhat was.”

“That chain‑of‑command may have killed her predecessor. Certainly it was a weakness. My partner and I have studied that arrangement very closely. Their Contracts will be solely to her, ser, or we can’t accept. Also, should we find a problem in any mindset, that agent will be directly dismissed and sent to retraining.”

Hesitation. “I can understand your reasoning. But you weren’t ready to ask for it. You have a lot of responsibilities inside the walls. Yet you don’t feel ready to deal with this increase in scope?”

Supervisor’s question.

“I personally find no great advantage in declining your offer, ser, under the terms I name. You see a need: you made the offer. Should we decline it, we run risks we both foresee, regarding sera’s safety. Should the offer turn out to involve less cooperation than we know we need, we will have to decline it, also for security reasons.”

“You think this office has problems?”

“I have some reservations, knowing a leak of information happened somewhere. We know our own staff. We don’t know yours, Ser. Does the offer stand?”

“It stands.”

“She’ll require their Contracts and their manuals.”

“Pending her approval of this arrangement.”

“If I approve here and now, and I do, the deal is done. Sera will agree.”

A frown. “Irregular transfer of Contracts.”

“My predecessor had similar power. You knew him, you say.”

“Your predecessor was very much older when I knew him.”

“He’s dead now,” Florian said. “My partner and I intend to do better than that.”

A moment of silence. “Quite,” Hicks said. “Quite. Done, then.” He turned to the console, entered a program, and a stick popped up. He passed it across the table. “Valid for every individual in the file. You can reach their Contracts and their personal manuals with this clearance. They’re yours.”

“They’re Sera’s,” he amended that. For a born‑man, Hicks was very easy to work with–plain, direct, and saying what he meant, at least on the surface. Hicks would have the job fairly securely for the next twenty‑odd years–until the next Giraud came of age–if he succeeded in the next few. His office might have problems; so might any office in Reseune, at this point. Sera wasn’t in charge. Other, lesser people made decisions.

And within those twenty years of Hicks’ office, they were going to face the same threats their predecessors had consistently faced, namely a fair number of people wanting power, or having power and intending to hold onto it. Yanni was intent on holding power on sera’s behalf: there was less likely an indication of treachery there, but there were questions, and minds could change, over a decade. The security breach at Planys and Yanni’s dealings with Patil were very likely a case of Yanni trying to ferret out the known problems of a prior generation before Ari had to inherit them, rather than a born‑man trying for power of his own.

But that was an inquiry he planned to make, via the resources which this expanded staff would give him.

At very least Hicks and Yanni and the rest were on their guard–and motivated. If anything adverse did happen in Reseune in the next twenty years, life expectancy for the chief of ReseuneSec would be commensurately short–likewise, the Director’s.

Sera’s life was at issue. Primarily sera’s, most clearly. Any enemy getting power would immediately want a new Ari‑clone to work with, or see all Union space thrown into a power struggle. Certain enemies might think they would like that event. But only the most fringe elements–or Alliance agents from outside Union space–could benefit from losing Ari altogether. Domestic enemies, sensibly bent on unified power, would need to have people on‑staff at Reseune to make sure there was a third Ariane Emory.

Those were the ones to worry about most acutely: their ambitions were far more local. Some individuals with those well‑targeted motives might be inside their perimeters, and Jordan was only the visible problem, the most likely focus of trouble.

“A pleasure to cooperate with you, ser,” Florian said, and took the datastick, got up and gave a little bow. “If I have the requisite materials in this. I’ll handle the other details.”

“Done,” Hicks said. “And that stick is clean, by the way.”

“Of course, ser,” Florian said pleasantly, with every intention of passing it through protocols, even considering it came directly from the man who saw to the safety of all Reseune. “We can’t say that about the card’s data‑strip. But we’ll look forward to the information.”

“Pleasure,” Hicks said, and looked as if he meant it.

So that was that. Kyle AK was waiting to show him out. Florian walked out of that hall, out through a reception area where the number of waiting CITs had nearly doubled.

Elsewhere in the system, in other offices, a number of security‑trained azi were about to hear a keyword to disturb them to the depths. They’d be notified of reassignment to new specific operations, with special training.

They’d be excited, anxious at the same time, vulnerable as their professions never let them be for any other reason.

It was his job and Catlin’s, and Wes’ and Marco’s, to settle the new security staff in their duty and handle the logistics. They’d have residency in Wing One: they needed to have it. But, unlike their own hand‑picked domestic staff, they’d never come into direct contact with sera, not until he knew them specifically and by experience, and until sera had had a close look at their files.

Patil was a useful first question for them to try their new ReseuneSec access on. The quality of the information that query produced would tell them more about Hicks than about Patil.

Hicks himself might be the more vital question. When people gave things gratis, looking into the origin of the impulse was a good idea.

And when rumor said there was more than one authority inside the office, and that Hicks wasn’t the strongest administrator ReseuneSec had ever had–that fact was worth noting.

In the meanwhile, Florian thought, passing the outside door…in the meanwhile, and with their own careful examination of what Hicks handed them, ReseuneSec’s close cooperation with sera’s staff might prove useful.

BOOK ONE Section 2 Chapter v

APRIL 26, 2424

1538H

After brunch was an extended but less than productive day trying to arrange the backwards‑feeling office–in which they waited, continually on edge, for another call from Jordan.

Damn it.

But at least their current cases had arrived in the paperwork ported over from the Education Wing.

Justin doggedly slogged away at a routine check of a psych record, a fifteen‑year‑old azi up at Big Blue who’d had extraordinary scores in work‑study, a cheerful looking girl with freckles on her nose and a quite amazing ability to troubleshoot problems in a handful of aging bots. It was a mechanical aptitude that had never manifested in the ThT‑382s–possibly because no ThT‑382 had been faced with a broken bot and a looming production deadline. Strong ethic to succeed, strong bond with her CIT Supervisor, who was about as old as the bots, and a deadline.

It was a good combination. Create those desires and skills in the ThT‑382 path and they had a new training route with a fairly complex technical slant. Reseune liked to keep a strong theta presence in a given genepool, good practical sense, good hand‑eye, ability to fix the plumbing before the water rose, as the first Ari used to put it–but more than that, it was a diverse, adaptable geneset. All sorts of things cropped up in the ThT‑382s that were good traits in a population. The mechanical ability was a revelation.

Alpha types–mentally top‑end and having more delicate psychological needs, in order to function at maximum–found employment mostly inside Reseune, very few outside, until a settlement reached a need for higher‑end management, and then only a few, specialized in admin, usually, very few in science, went to that assignment. An alpha closely paired with a born‑man Special–the CIT equivalent of an Alpha–those sets were all at Reseune, or at Planys, or at installations like Reseune Space. His pairing with Grant, Jordan’s with Paul–

God, there was one mortal waste in his father’s situation. Paul and Jordan hadn’t done a damned thing useful in twenty years, and the stagnation had to be killing both of them.

There wasn’t a thing he could do about it. Jordan and Paul were sitting over in his office by now, stewing, not getting anything done not only because they were so far behind it was going to take years to catch up, but because Jordan wasn’t ready to get started catching up. And Paul, who was totally innocent of anything but loyalty to Jordan, was suffering right along with him.

Maybe, if he couldfind a way to work with Jordan, he could fix the situation, get Jordan moving again on something creative.

And maybe that was at the core of what Jordan wanted–come bring me up to speed, give the old man a hand, put us back where we were…before Denys Nye framed me for murder…

The revenge part of it…that wasn’t going to go away so readily. That, he didn’t know how to cure.

Jordan had tried working with Ari Emory. That didn’t work. Jordan could work with Paul, but Paul didn’t work at all while Jordan was emoting, and if Paul was currently trying to deepstudy his own way back to what he himself had been, it was under impossible conditions: Jordan was scattershot at the moment and mad as hell, and Paul was suffering.

Paul was still functioning tolerably well in the crisis–socially speaking. Jordan, being a born‑man and a Special, was not that well‑organized. Jordan was damned pissed, and intent on everyone around him knowing it, intent on everyone acknowledging he’d been wronged, whatever it was that would satisfy him…and by all evidence, nothing ever would satisfy Jordan. His enemies were dead–and reborn–and twenty years of his life were gone. Meanwhile his son, his personal rebirth, had gotten entirely pragmatic about those missing years, and hadstayed current with his work, and was living under the current Ari Emory’s thumb.

That was what was eating Jordan alive.

Well, he couldn’t help it. Couldn’t change it. He wasn’t going to change it at Grant’s expense, no matter what kind of pseudo‑filial impulses surged in his gut whenever Jordan pulled one of his pity‑fests, damn him. No, no, and no, he wasn’t going to divert himself and Grant from a comfortable career doing useful work to go join his father in self‑destruction. Selfish, maybe. But this version of Ari had a certain hold on him, too, and it wasn’t hate.

Memory of the first Ari–even that had had its good spots. One really bad one, but some good ones, too.

Memory of the second–a kid with a gift of guppies, a teenager upset as hell because her first attempt at seduction hadn’t at all worked–

The two weren’t the same. Opposite ends of the age spectrum, for sure, but they weren’t the same.

Isn’t that what the whole program is about? Jordan had asked him.

Yes and no. If and maybe. The kid was brilliant. The kid was sopping up deepteach on science at a phenomenal rate. He didn’t know precisely at what rate: he supposed Yanni knew, but he didn’t, just–her questions were getting scarily top‑level. Her integrations challenged him, taughthim things in a field he’d not had contact with in years. A little love of guppies hadn’t blunted the great genius into uselessness. It might even have unwound some knots and let that phenomenal mind work at full capacity. But you couldn’t tell that to Jordan, who was still dealing with his own devil, his own Ari, and couldn’t see that anything had changed.

Stop everything he personally was doing, detour for a year or so to rescue Jordan from his twenty‑year‑gap?

Maybe he wasa selfish ingrate. Maybe he should spare a couple of years, out of a long life.

And every time he thought about doing it his stomach knotted up.

A couple of years couldn’t make Jordan happy. He could take Jordan off to the wilds up by the new lab they were building and do dedicated deepstudy until he could get Jordan factually up to date, and Grant could meanwhile work on Paul in that isolation–he’d actually thought about it–but what would they have at the end of it? An up‑to‑date Jordan who was never going to accept Reseune the way it was–who’d given him that card, damn him, knowing they were being watched.

Jordan had done it deliberately, knowing he was going to run his son and Grant straight into an inquiry, if–hell, if!–he’d done it becausesomeone in security would have spotted that card–Jordan would have been disappointed if they hadn’t.

It was bait, was what. It was Jordan stirring the pot, seeing what would happen–maybe hoping his son would be stopped, harassed, that the card would be confiscated and gone over by security–and so would his son be, which would throw him into a funk where Jordan could psychologically get at him; or maybe bring Grant running, in distress, right into Jordan’s hands, or maybe get him severed from Ari’s company and put under equal suspicion.

And what was the number? What in hell was Jordan doing? The thing was radioactive. You didn’t want to touch it. The room they were in was bugged beyond a doubt.

He couldn’t stand it.

He couldn’t stand it a moment longer.

“Grant.”

Keystrokes stopped. “Mmm?”

“Did you chance to look at that card?”

“It wasn’t chance.”

Heartbeat bumped. Leave it to Grant. “What was on it?” he asked.

“A number.”

“What number?”

“It had the form of a personal number. I recall it. Do you want me to find out?” Grant asked.

“No,” he said, and made a sudden decision: he didn’t want Grant involved, didn’t want to be on record doing anything furtive. “No, Iwill.”

He windowed up the message function and shot a query out straight to Ari’s security office address. WHAT WAS ON THE CARD JORDAN GAVE ME? DO YOU KNOW?

The answer came back fairly quickly. A CONTACT NUMBER AT THE UNIVERSITY IN NOVGOROD. A WOMAN NAMED SANDI PATIL. DO YOU KNOW THAT PERSON?