Regenesis

“I’ve been a little busy. Never mind how. Just–I will.”

“You really don’t get the picture, do you? They won’t let me write sets. They’re paranoid. And, no, I’m not going to get any work.”

“Jordan, don’t explode.She’d check them over. If she passed them, ultimately, they’ll be passed.”

“That’s not even worth a comment.”

“Because you’re too fucking proud.”

“Because I’m not going to deal with her. I’m not going to her begging.”

“Then I will,”Justin said. “She’ll get you through this. Nobody’s going to pin anything on you. No more frame‑ups.”

“Forget it.”Rattle of ice in a glass, and a thump, a glass set down. Hard. “They’ll do what they want to anyway.”

“I’ll find a way,”Justin said.

“Stubbornness,”Jordan said, “runs in the family.”

“So Justin offered sera’s help,” Catlin said.

It was curious, considering where Justin’s loyalties lay. It was worth bringing to sera, who understood born‑men infinitely better.

“Sera should definitely hear this,” Florian said.

Reaching to her own keyboard, Catlin said, “I’ll send the transcript to her queue. She may not like that part.”

BOOK THREE Section 2 Chapter v

JUNE 12, 2424

0602H

Sleep hadn’t come early, but Ari was up and dressed before Joyesse had a chance to show up…she’d fallen asleep before she’d heard how things had gone, and trusted Catlin to wake her if they’d gone spectacularly badly.

There wasa note in System from Catlin. And files for her. Interesting, Catlin’s note said. There was a flag on a section of note, but she started skimming the file from the top, choosing rapid‑audio over script–she wanted the nuances.

And it was interesting, right from the start. Jordan tended to be that.

“…So my own appeal couldn’t get you through my door, but you don’t mind bringing the little dears guards to burgle my apartment.”

A little odd to hear oneself snarled at in absentia. She had a pet name. How sweet.

“I was concerned for your safety.”That was Justin, a little further from the pickup, talking about Patil, and she slowed the audio down. “She was talking about somebody inside, Dad. Who would that be?”

Then, “How was Patil involved? Why were you carrying her card around? And why in hell did you dump it on me?”

There was a nice list of questions. She didn’t expect answers from Jordan, but it was a good fight, very much the same as at her dining table.

“…the fact I got close to Ari,”Justin fired back at one point. “Who, outside of being the incarnation you deplore, is a pretty good little kid in her spare time.”

The audio went on. And on. Her heart had begun picking up its beats. Gotten harder and harder. And she got Mad. As Mad as she’d ever been. And that was all she could hear. A pretty good little kid. A pretty good little kid.That wasn’t Justin putting on an act. That was Justin defending her. A pretty good little kid.

Damnhim! Damn him!

She shook, she was suddenly so mad. And her breath came short, and her eyes stung, suddenly swimming with tears.

Well, thatwas interesting. She’d just had a heavy hit of adrenaline, and a rush of hormones, and she kept hearing those same five words, over and over, and she wanted to cry. She wanted to cry so badly she burst into sobs and buried her face in her hands. Which was just damned stupid. She wiped her eyes, and kept wiping, smearing tears all over her face, and hiccuping, which just finished it–she hadn’t had a tantrum like that since she was three.

God!

The audio had just gone on, far past, and the worst part was, she had to run it back to find her place and hear it again.

Little kid.

Dammit all. She wondered what else she’d hear that would send her over the edge. Or break her heart. She really, really didn’t want to go on listening.

But it was what one got for eavesdropping on somebody else’s conversation, and he probably hadn’t even thought twice about saying it. That was the problem. He was, face it, older. A lot older. And that was exactly how he saw her. And that was where he was, her Justin, forever out of reach.

She had to hear it to the end. She had to know, about Justin, of all people, what he was thinking and saying. It was her job to know, if she was going to take over Reseune, if she was going to go on trusting him as a major asset.

And it was an interesting reaction. Her heart was still beating hard. She wasn’t thinking straight. Jordan was saying important things about where the card could actually have come from and how he’d reacted, and she couldn’t analyze anything. They used to shoot her full of hormones so she’d react in certain ways. This was like that. She was still shaken, and still feeling sorry for herself, and actually jealousof the first Ari, for having had, just once, a physical chance at Justin. And simultaneously, she was ashamed of that thought; and knew, still, that the first Ari hadn’t won Justin’s heart. Or she had, but not in the way anybody would want to–she’d taken him, shaken him, and then died, leaving him to suffer the consequences of being under Denys Nye’s regime and tangled somewhere in the first Ari’s involvement with Jordan. So it had kept him safe, but it had made him a target. Not mentioning what Ari had done to him, deliberately, as an act of policy.

That hadto be part of Justin’s reaction to her…as long as she was a pretty good little kid, he had her in a safe place in his mind. Sex, in Justin, wasn’t going to go her way and she had to face it, was all. No other woman ever seemed to interest him; and she seemed to be thefemale he reacted to, but it wasn’t the reaction she wanted–or that at least part of her wanted. When she thought about it logically–or as logically as she could manage–she knew it was one thing to imagine having sex with Justin; but it was a damned scary prospect to contemplate really doing it. It scared him; it scared her. And–the real stinger–it inevitably had a morning after, which just wouldn’t be good for either of them.

So maybe she was the little kidfor now. As they aged, the difference in their ages would get less. He’d be more like Jordan was now, she’d be more like Ari was then–

And it just wouldn’t get any better, would it? Forget the thought.

She just had to prevent it all going nova, was all. She couldn’t lose him, the way Ari had lost Jordan. That was the important thing.

She wondered what sort of answer she’d get from Jordan, if she asked him if he and the first Ari had ever had sex. She hadn’t found it in the records, and she wondered about it. He’d be shocked at the question, she thought, probably disturbed, given that the relationship had gone the way it did–and then he’d twist it around and ask her if she aimed at Justin. Only he’d probably put it more bluntly–to shock her.

If she took the old war with Jordan into the realm of sexual innuendo, it could divert it away from the real issues–sex being, even with people who weren’t kids, a short‑circuit in the logic process.

So she didn’t want to ask him, or get into that dialogue, because he wouldn’t answer. He didn’t have to answer anything, ever, and he used that fact like a weapon, challenging them, outright challengingthem to break their own law and go after him, because then they’d be what he’d always said they were.

Maybe that was what went on in his head–just a spaghetti code of a thought process that hoped someday he could break them before they broke him…

And, dammit, she’d let the recording get away from her again. She remembered the place, sent it back to the precise number, and ran it the third time–this time hearing that little kidremark with a lot more logic functioning. It was sad, it was hurtful, but her pulse rate had settled and she had her brain working again.

The recording ran on. There wasn’t anything else…down to the bit Catlin had flagged.

“Answer them, dammit! Leave it for security. Live your life. Ask Yanni for a few cases, and get busy, high‑level, low‑level, it doesn’t matter. I’ll go to him…”

“But you haven’t done it, have you? I seem to remember you were going to do that.”

“I’ve been a little busy. Never mind how. Just–I will.”

“You really don’t get the picture, do you? They won’t let me write sets. They’re paranoid. And, no, I’m not going to get any work.”

“Jordan, don’t explode. She’d check them over. If she passed them, ultimately, they’ll be passed.”

“That’s not even worth a comment.”

“Because you’re too fucking proud.”

“Because I’m not going to deal with her. I’m not going to her begging.”

“Then I will. She’ll get you through this. Nobody’s going to pin anything on you. No more frame‑ups.”

Wouldhe ask her? She wasn’t sure how she was going to answer that if Justin did. It would be interesting to critique one of Jordan’s current designs. But if she said one word to him, Jordan would blow, and that wouldn’t help anything. If he really did, it might poison the atmosphere between her and Justin, and Jordan was perfectly capable of writing something she’d have to criticize, just to get that result.

So maybe that wasn’t a good idea. Endlessly, Jordan played the martyr and Justin tried to do something to help him. Catlin didn’t like it, from the viewpoint of her own profession, and she’d flagged that particular exchange as worrisome, but that was how those two were, just being Jordan and Justin, to the hilt. That she’d be upset about something else in the file–Catlin, dear, loyal Catlin, hadn’t picked that up, didn’t feel the least upset herself by Justin’s statement, or remotely think shewould be upset, or Catlin would have warned her. It was downright funny–Catlin just hadn’t seen it.

She loved Catlin. And Catlin helped her, finally, get it all in perspective. Her own reaction was all gauzy wisp, pure emotion, evaporative on a breeze, and nothing to do with rationality–unless you started taking your own rattled assessment for solid and factual, and that was a mistake that launched your whole universe into mythology, especiallywhen it was a love‑hate reaction. Catlin dealt purely in substance, and found real substance in that latter bit that she herself didn’t see as alarming, or at least didn’t see as at all surprising–so she wasn’t fluxed by it, just analytical, and that was that, and she could tell herself calmly, yes, she’d hear the request and she’d think about it and she’d probably say no. When Justin actually asked her.

It was interesting, however, to hear that first scene as Catlin, and realize that, if she were Catlin, she just couldn’t be fazed by any assessment of her age–Catlin was just Catlin, and knew what she could do, any other judgement was, in Catlin’s view, just mistaken.

Catlin did, however, worry about Justin’s mental engagement with Jordan’s frustration, and possibly the vector it would take, entangling her and trying for sympathy.

And it would involve Justin going right to Yanni’s door, at a sensitive time in her own relations with Yanni. There was that little question.

That wasworth a slow rethinking, in Catlin’s way of looking at born‑man behavior. In Catlin’s view, a born‑man following his emotions was apt to do any damned thing, not necessarily prudent, or successful, or even in his own self‑interest.

This request certainly wouldn’t be in Justin’s interest. That was the thing about realself‑sacrifice, unlike Jordan’s martyrdom: it knowingly gave away bits of itself, trying to make the environment saner, and better.

On the other hand, another inquiry about Jordan could, coming from her, constitute a very interesting probe into Yanni Schwartz’s motives.

She thought about it a moment. And she was surer and surer about her course of action.

She wrote a note to Justin, and sent it. It said:

Don’t go to Yanni with your fathers situation. The Patil investigation is going to have Yanni’s office in an uproar, ReseuneSec is conducting the investigation, and I don’t want Hicks’ office to sweep you and Grant up for questioning. Then I’d have Hicks getting all upset and bothered because I’d have to go over his head to Yanni to get you out. I would do it, understand, but that would just complicate things and you still wouldn’t get your answer out of Yanni and I’d have Hicks mad at me, which would just make matters worse. I have to talk to Yanni anyway. Let me approach Yanni about Jordan’s getting some work to do. I’d be happy to. I want things to work out, the same as I know you do. You and Grant just be careful about going out of the wing, even to restaurants, and don’t send Grant by himself. I don’t want trouble with ReseuneSec.

Justin had a strong tic, where it concerned ReseuneSec. And it wasn’t altogether the most honest thing she’d ever written, but its purpose was. And there was stillthe question of who had put Jordan on to Eversnow, and who had dropped that card into his pocket–if they could believe a word of what he’d said.

I won’t critique his work,she said at the end of that note. I won’t say a word. I know he’d like me to so he can have a fight. So I’ll just pass/fail it. Tell him he’ll have to write it well enough to get it past me and I’m going to be hypercritical. Bet he can’t do it. Tell him that.

BOOK THREE Section 2 Chapter vi

JUNE 13, 2424

0802H

“ God,” Justin said, and then laughed, outright laughed.

“That’s good,” Grant said.

“I hope she can convince Yanni,” Justin said, and Grant:

“I want to seethis one.”

BOOK THREE Section 2 Chapter vii

JUNE 13, 2424

2310H

Pajama conference. That was what they’d used to call it, back when the Enemy was Denys, and they did it now that they ruled the Wing and had a force of their own. Florian and Catlin sat on Ari’s big bed–Ari in her nightgown and Florian and Catlin in their gym sweats; and Ari tucked her knees up with her arms around her ankles and Florian and Catlin sat cross‑legged. They played the oldest Game, Who’s the Enemy?

“Paxers are easy,” Florian said. “They’re always out there.”

Ari asked: “But have they got a leader?”

“We have names,” Catlin said. “But there’s no one single leader that anybody knows.”

“Anton Clavery. Is that one?”

“A new name,” Catlin said. “Anton Clavery doesn’t show on any records. There is no CIT number.”

“An alias, then.”

“Or a nonperson,” Florian said. “Births happen off the record. Particularly Paxer children. And children from the outback don’t always get logged in.”

That was a small revelation–though not a huge surprise. She saw it could certainly happen, if parents opting for natural birth didn’t go to a hospital or register a birth for weeks–or months. Or never got around to it. “They’d have to intend to do this long‑term. Motive?”

“Secrecy from the authorities,” Florian said. “No registry of DNA, fingerprints, retinals, nothing of the sort. Hard to track a nonperson.”

“Hard to find a job, too,” Ari said. “How do they manage?”

Catlin hugged her knees up. “They borrow. Their job is being off the records and out of the system. They borrow cards, to ride public transport. People steal for them: they use a stolen card, then dump it before they get caught. They always have jobs. They’re employed by clandestine groups. They’re greatly prized for employment in some circles.”

“Do we have data on the parents of these individuals? Do we try to track pregnant people that don’t register a child?” She was instantly interested: a subset of the Paxers, likely of other dissident groups. And she’d about bet they were all CIT, not azi, in origin. Azi‑descended weren’t inclined to plots, and they’d prize that CIT registry for their children: but CITs were inclined to be argumentative. People who’d opted to leave where they were and emigrate to Cyteen hadn’t been the happiest where they were, or they’d have stayed. They’d either been hungry for something they didn’t have, or they’d been at odds with where they were. Maybe a certain segment was at odds with the status quo again.

“There are names and numbers,” Catlin said. “Some are known. It’s a felony to fail to register a child–crime against person.”

Mark a new element. Novgorod had existed at the outlet of the Novaya Volga since Reseune had existed near its headwaters. Her predecessor’s mother, Olga, had seen the first days. So they weren’t that many generations into Novgorod’s existence. The Paxers had organized around opposition to the War, which had pretty well been going on since before Cyteen existed, in its cold war phase. But malcontents had been there probably since the second batch of people got to Cyteen Station in its pioneer days and complained about some regulation the first batch of colonists had voted on.

It took something, to deny your offspring a number, a normal life–medical care, and schooling, and easy travel, and everything else you could do with a CIT number.

“People groomed just to get past surveillance,” she said. “I suppose they’re more used than users. I can’t see it would be a happy life. But if there was a nonperson who was really, really a black hole in the system, and he was really smart, he could get power, I suppose. If he was really determined, if he had a lot of arms and legs, he could do damage.”

“He could,” Florian said. “You’d only see the arms and legs. And Anton Clavery doesn’t exist. A nonperson is one possibility. A hollow man is the other thing you have to deal with. A dead person anybody can be, if he pays the rent on the identity. Back during the War, there were even a few instances of Alliance agents–stationers. Not spacers, that we never found. The stationers didn’t cope well, however.”

“There are a lot of schemes in Novgorod,” Catlin said. “Cons and schemes alike.”

“One thing Novgorod CITs are in my notes as being,” Ari said, “is really good at finding ways around rules. I’m betting CITs descended from azi aren’t much inclined to be nonpersons. Or use hollow men. I’m betting that’s not in their psychsets. They’ll go to birthlabs, mostly, to have their children. They’ll get them registered. A CIT number is important to them.”

“I certainly don’t want one,” Catlin said. “But then I don’t want to be a CIT.”

“You’re not setted for it,” Ari said, which threw her into thinking about what would in fact happen to them if she died, the way Maman had left Ollie, and she didn’t want to think about that. It was one real good reason for her to live a long, protected life, was what. Two people relied on her, absolutely, and this Anton Clavery, whoever he was, whatever he was–threatened more than the Eversnow project. He had brought her really unpleasant questions, like currents running in Novgorod, among the Paxers, and the Rocher Party, the Abolitionists, who absolutely wouldn’t understand Catlin’s rejection of being a CIT. They’d want to freeher, depend on it.

“I’m glad I’m not,” Catlin said. “Most of the troubles anywhere in the universe are CIT.”

“Well, We do have our uses,” Ari said, a little more cheerfully.

“So we don’t have to do things,” Florian said. “You do them.”

“Well, right now I wish I could figure how to find a man who doesn’t exist.”

“We’ve looked through lab results,” Catlin said, “and the rush from the blown window and the blast from the grenade messed up the sniffer, so we don’t even have the smell of this person, well, not much, at least, but we’re pretty sure it was male: we have a little bit of a scent. He was likely using a masker or a puffer to mess up the sniffers, to boot, but all we really have is Dr. Patil’s saying the name before she died. We don’t know if she recognized him as breaking in, or if she just thought of him when someone else was about to kill her. The way she said it–’the name is Clavery’–seems to indicate she wanted Justin to remember that name and report it.”

“And it was definitively a grenade?” Ari asked.

“Yes. Hand launcher,” Catlin said. “they aren’t big. They carry farther than a toss can do. Unskilled people can use them the same way they’d use a handgun. Setting it off in a room wasn’t really appropriate use for it. But it was probably on a few seconds’ delay: that’s one advantage of a grenade. That would let the perpetrator get the door shut so he wouldn’t get blown out, too.”

“Using the launcher in that small a space says this was a novice,” Florian said. “Someone that was likely to make a mistake with a grenade, maybe freeze. The launcher–you just preset the delay you want, and pull the trigger. It could have sent the grenade halfway to Admin from here. In that little room, it probably stuck in the wall and then blew up: if it had hit the window, it would actually have done less damage. The door was shut by then: there was blast impact on its inside. The perpetrator was on his way out of there–if he wasn’t blown out, too. They tried sniffers outside the room, but he was probably using a puffer, and he was probably moving fast. They went ahead and took sniffer readings in every room on that floor and above and below, but they never found the launcher or the puffer, so that part was clever. Somebody probably took it from him, maybe somebody else took over the puffer as they passed in the hall–that’s the lab’s theory. If he didn’t land on a rooftop somewhere as yet undetected. Possibly the assassin was on building staff. I don’t think they’re going to find too much that’s useful. A lot of things about this are very well‑organized.”

“That could even mean they meant to give the impression of a novice,” Catlin said, “and whoever was running it really wasn’t. A grenade like that–it could have taken out the apartment downstairs. It didn’t. The owner downstairs was very lucky, or the assassins knew the building design.”

“Not nice, all the same,” Ari said.

“No,” Florian agreed. “Not nice. And Paxers haven’t been at all careful about collaterals. No rules.”

“If it was Paxers,” Catlin said.

“Paxers had the motive,” Ari said, “if they thought Patil was betraying their interests or selling out to Reseune. Paxers really don’t like us. But you’re right: there could be others. And where do you getgrenades and launchers?”

“Mostly from Defense,” Catlin said, “but there’s pilferage, mostly at Novgorod docks, and things can be had.”

“That needs fixing,” she said.

“It’s not easy to fix,” Florian said, “from what I hear.”

“First is to make sure they’re not hiring any Paxers dockside,” Catlin said, “which has happened.”

“That would be top of the list, yes,” Ari agreed. It was a wide, confusing world–unlike Reseune. But there were slinks in both, and they hadn’t found the one in their own halls, not yet: that there wasone, potentially–the movement of the card indicated there was.

“Sera,” Catlin said, “you have on file a list of all her contacts.”

“Yes. Largely Defense, and academics. Academics don’t have access to grenade launchers. Unless they’re getting them from Paxers.”

“Defense is having elections,” Florian said. “That’s a period of instability.”

“Namely?” Catlin said.

“Jacques and Spurlin backed Eversnow, but there’s Khalid. I’d expect Defense professionals to be more careful,” Florian said, and a little line appeared between his brows. “But the charge didn’tpenetrate the floor. Just blew the pressure out. Does anyone live downstairs? Do we know‑that? And who are they?”

“I did check about downstairs,” Catlin said, “a single man, Shoji Korsa. He was out on emergency assignment with his company. This appears a coincidence. Coincidences have to be proven. He’s an executive with Geotech. That company called him to Moreyville. His apartment wasn’t damaged, except a mirror broke. The building is being investigated for structural problems.”

“Meanwhile we’re investigating via the ReseuneSec link,” Florian said. “We’ve kept our inquiry out of Hicks’ awareness, sera, except for that. We’ve done a little, just to keep up the appearance of using his system. Should we ask him directly?”

Ari shook her head. “Not until we talk to Yanni. I imagine he’s upset about Patil. But I’d like to know how upset he is. Have you sent Yanni and Hicks the transcripts?”

“Yes,” Florian said.

“Good.” She’d ordered that, a gesture of good will. She was tired. It had been a long day with the computers, and she’d missed her lesson with Justin. Again. Her eyes were scratchy. Jordan had found out about Eversnow from somebody. And when she thought about things really hard, she got sleepy when she was in this state: that was ideas trying to find their way out of the maze. Regarding Justin. Regarding Paxers. Regarding two murders, one delicate, one a blunt‑force mess that might have destabilized an apartment tower. “Let’s just go to bed.”

“Shall I leave, sera?” Catlin asked.

Leaving her and Florian alone, Catlin meant, which would be good if she had any energy left, but she didn’t. She just wanted comfort. And ideas wouldn’t happen if there was sex, so it wasn’t a good idea on that account, either.

“Stay,” she said. Her gown was thin, the room was chilled down for night, on the minder’s program, and they in their gym sweats were warm, longtime company. She made a place under the covers for all of them, and they got under, Florian in the middle, and tucked down together, the way they had before they’d ever discovered sex.

She could let her mind go, then, and just think, and she did.

If Patil had recognized Anton Clavery in the person who’d showed up with a grenade launcher, then she’d met him under that name. Novice, Florian and Catlin had said. And thatwould seem to rule out anyone important or anybody military. Unless, Florian and Catlin had said, it was someone trying to leave the scene looking like a novice.

If Patil called out that name in the face of an armed man and her imminent death, she’d tried to send Justin a message regarding someone she counted as a threat, or the source of threats. “They,” she’d said. A mysterious “they” had been watching her, scaring her, making her desperate enough to call Justin to try to get through to Jordan.

And why Jordan? Why not ask him to go to Yanni?

Jordan’s name had been popularly attached to the dissidents. They’d campaigned to get him released. Thieu had been in favor of terraforming and against the forces that had stopped it, namely the first Ari. Giraud, Yanni, all that generation: Jordan said Thieu had regarded him with sympathy, and courted him, believing he’d murdered Ari.

It wasn’t a sweet old man, was it?

Thieu would have wanted herdead, likely. Thieu had wanted the planet terraformed, all the ankyloderms and platytheres dead, everything in the oceans–all done; and the first Ari hadn’t. The first Ari had been a citizen of the planet, and Olga Emory hadn’t influenced her enough–the first Ari had changed her mind and begun to protect it.

Like Gehenna, wasn’t it? This is your world…

Had that had an emotional resonance for Ari One, herself? Take care of it? Defend it? Protect it?

It did with her. Shewasn’t for losing what Cyteen had grown up to have. She’d defend it. And that would put her on the outs with Dr. Raymond Thieu, who’d been sure Jordan Warrick would take his side and admire his work and his intentions.

Maybe that was over‑romanticizing it. Maybe that was giving too much credit to Jordan because, bastard that he was, he hadn’t liked the man’s insistence. Jordan wasn’t anybody’s follower, he was nobody’s disciple. Free‑thinker, yes, argumentative son of a bitch, definitely, but not the sort that would sit in the shadows with anybody and connive and scheme…just not in his makeup. Not in Justin’s. In a certain measure, they had something in common, and damned sure when the first Ari intervened with Justin, it wasn’t to make him capable of connivance and subterfuge–she couldn’t think of anyone actually worse at it than Justin.

And Justin wanted the world as it was. He wanted to save the native fauna. Jordan wasn’t for destroying them so much as he was just for getting off the planet and going away and having all mankind living in space–living a lot like the Alliance folk, in steel worlds, in ships. Maybe with a forest at the heart of Pell, but that was not–not something that was going to be Jordan’s first project. He’d be trying to educate kids to be rational beings. That was what he used to do, before he became so angry.

He wasn’t Clavery, that was sure. But the two people they could reach who probably knew who that was…were both dead.

Clavery could be a nonperson or he could even be a hollow man sort of a nonperson, someone who’d never really existed, only who various people opted to be when they wanted to be somebody else. He could be a construct, a composite.

Even a foreigner. Somebody from Alliance. Somebody bent on mischief that could start the whole War again, and she didn’t think that was the case. If Patil had recognized him in her doorway, she’d known who she attached that name to, and she’d wanted it known to Justin and Jordan, as her last living act.

She couldn’t get through to Jordan, so she’d called Justin…

Couldn’t get through to Jordan.

But that was the one she’d wanted. Couldn’t get Thieu. So she wanted Jordan, as if he should know, or as if he should be warned.

Tell him about Anton Clavery? Thieu was dead, and that name was at issue, and Patil was terrified for her life? She’d gotten her message out. Not all of it. If she’d done a little less arguing with Justin and a little more saying what she had to say, the world would be safer.

It had been a collected, sensible gesture, in extremity. That at least was admirable. The first Ari would have done that, if she’d had time.

But, damn it, why had the woman had to feel her way with Justin and not just say it out loud?

Whoever hadn’t scrupled to kill two Specials was a person they urgently needed to find and deal with.

And which Specials were gone?

Both in nanistics. EverySpecial in nanistics. There were researchers and experts, but the brilliant people, the theorists, were gone.

A bad trade for the universe, she could think: whether she supported the project or not, they’d lost two geniuses in the same field.

It slowed Eversnow waydown. Therewas a problem for Yanni’s program, wasn’t it? Yanni had to move fast, and sign some people, replacing Patil, or his project was going to fall through. Deals Yanni had made with Corain and Jacques were now subject to review.

She ought to be happy about that, but she’d promised Yanni not to oppose Yanni’s objective.

Maybe somebody thought they’d now gotten the better of Yanni, and reduced his political power.

Somebody might have second thoughts about that move if Yanni turned out not to be in charge, and if they suddenly saw they were dealing with someone who was going to be in authority for a hundred years.

But then–maybe it was the project itself that had stirred this kind of opposition. Maybe it was nudging somebody else’s territory. And if someone thought getting rid of Patil and Thieu would stop Reseune from a project Reseune needed–

Well, Yanni needed to talk to her about what was going on, and it had to be very, very soon.

BOOK THREE Section 2 Chapter viii

JUNE 14, 2424

1802H

Another dinner with Yanni…and Yanni had protested, this time. He’d claimed he was too busy, said he had far too many things to do, and she was impinging on the little relaxation he did get.

Dear Yanni,she’d written back, urgent. Be here at 1800h.

And he was.

He did look tired. She showed him right into the dining room, and Haze personally offered him a drink. “What are we eating?” he asked, sensibly, and Haze suggested an early start on the wine, a white, which Yanni agreed would be fine. So it was a Sauvignon Blanc for both of them.

The first sip went down with a deep sigh. Followed by a second. Yanni wasn’t reckless in that regard, not like Jordan in the least. She had one sip, just one, and waited.

“We have a new cook,” she said. “I don’t know what he’s put together, but it should be good.”

“Thanks for the transcripts on the Patil case,” he said, straight to business.

“No problem,” she said, and signaled Haze, who was doing the serving tonight, with Florian entertaining Frank in the conference room, and Catlin on hold for her dinner, just quietly standing in the corner, silent as a statue. Haze brought the appetizers, bacon‑wrapped shrimp, and Yanni’s disappeared fast, without a comment. She gave a second signal, and salads arrived, delicate greens, with a light vinaigrette.

That started going down, too, as if Yanni were half‑starved, and Yanni’s wine was at a quarter of the glass left.

“Yanni,” she said. “You’re worried about something.”

“I’ve got a lot of pieces trying to come unglued,” Yanni said, and swallowed a bite. “Sorry. I’m just elsewhere this evening, I’m afraid.”

“Who’s Anton Clavery?”

“Not a pleasant dinner conversation,” Yanni said.

“But this is our window to have this conversation, unless you want to stay for drinks, and I know you’re tired. Yanni, I need to know what’s going on.”

“We don’t know. Clavery’s nobody. Literally, nobody.”

“Nonperson?”

“Something like.”

“Did he kill Patil?”

“Behind it, we’re pretty sure. Not the hand on the trigger, necessarily, but–”

“Why did he kill Patil?”

“Because…” Another bite went down, chased by the rest of the wine. “Because Patil was coming over to Science, or because certain people know about Eversnow, and shouldn’t, and that blew up before it ever got to public knowledge.”

“Jordan?”

Last bite. She pressed a silent signal, and Haze came in and removed the plates, while Yanni had to think about that question.

Haze refilled Yanni’s wine glass. Yanni let it sit.

“Jordan knew about Eversnow,” she said. “He said he did. I gave you thattranscript, too Did you lie to me, Yanni? I thought you were honest. But maybe you’re just good.”

Yanni nodded. “When I have to be. Yes, I told him about it. He didn’t approve. He hit the ceiling, in fact.”

“In your office before you left. Thatwas what the fight was really about.”

“Young sera, you know quite a lot.”

“It was pretty famous, Uncle Yanni. You weren’t very quiet. And Jordan is news. So yes, I heard there was a fight. So did everybody in Admin and Ed. Why did you tell him?”

Long silence. And Haze wasn’t going to come back in until signaled.

“We’re the same generation,” Yanni said. “Old associates. I know the way he thinks. He was in on the project at the beginning. I didn’t want him to find out later and blow up or go behind my back. I wanted to control how he learned and what he thought and know what his movements were once he knew. And I pretty well got the reaction I thought I’d get, so Jordan didn’t surprise me in that respect. He doesn’t like it. He said he’d had enough of Thieu, and I was crazy, and terraforming anything was a good way to get biologicals loose we just won’t like. Old argument, with Jordan. I said he didn’t like planets on principle, and he said they were good for studying, but he’d rather not live there if he had any choice. And he asked me about his transfer to Fargone, old topic. Which I told him was dead. Totally dead. He’s not going anywhere in the foreseeable future. He shouted. I shouted. He called me a damned fool. We weren’t on record.”

“Somebody slipped that card into his pocket, and it turned up, he says, the night you got back from Novgorod, from all this dealing. You didn’t do that, did you?”

“No.”

“Can I believe that? Did anybody working for you do it? Do I have to pare it down until something finally fits?”

“I have no idea where that came from, or, more to the point, how whoever did it knew Jordan knew– ifthey knew Jordan knew. It’s a damned maze. And it wasn’t my doing.”

“He’s connected to Thieu. Thieu didn’t know about Eversnow, or did he?”

“Thieu did know something, because we made a request for his Eversnow notes back when we set this up.”

“Thieu hadnotes on Eversnow in his files?”

“He doesn’t, now. Didn’t. We borrowed them and didn’t return them. But yes, he was doing some work on that once upon a time. Defense had used his work, in their little version of the Eversnow project. We’d studied it. It’s foundational to what we propose to do next.”

“Hell, Yanni! That’s a little oversight in informing me!”

“It’s a worrisome piece of information to leave out, I agree. Doubly so, now.”

“I don’t suppose Patil phoned Thieu to advise him when she got the appointment. I don’t suppose she said the word Eversnow.”

“He didn’t get a phone call. He did get the advisement back in April that she’d taken a job at ReseuneSpace on Fargone: she sent him a message to that effect, He was not mentally what he had been. But possibly–possibly he did put two and two together. Possibly he knew very well what she was doing, a nanistics Special on the farthest station outward, next to Eversnow. Where he would have gone, if they’d gone ahead with his program.”

“And before that he was bedeviling Jordan to contact her. Contact her. As if Jordan could. But we have just a slight clue what he wanted Jordan to find out, don’t we? If you gave Patil his notes…don’t you think that explains just a little bit? He had no warning at all that Jordan was actually going to get out of Planys. But he knew Jordan had contacts inside Reseune, that he has a son here. And you just lifted his files and sent them where he couldn’t get them, so small wonder he was a little agitated. How long ago?”

“During Denys’ tenure. Late last year.”

“The man was a Special. It was his life’s work. His stuff was disappearing. They were never going to run his work on Cyteen. He knew that better than anybody, if he’d managed the remediation program. And there’s the military nanistics program–he worked on that during the War, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“And he workedon Eversnow, you snatched his files, and he knew the only planet we own where it’s remotely appropriate to use the terraforming data isEversnow. And Patil was moving to Fargone, right next door.”

“He was in rejuv failure. The notes were classified. It was perfectly logical we take them, in his retirement. We don’t know how much of all that he put together. The rejuv failure was progressing fast. We’re talking about a few months, here.”

“Does Patil have them in her possession? Were they possibly in her apartment?”

Yanni shook his head. “No. They were sent on to Fargone–copies were. She didn’t have them yet.”

She let go a short breath. “Thank God for that.”

“She didn’t have them, and they’re in a military courier’s black box en route. Nobody can get at them butsomeone with the keyword.”

It didn’t make her feel that much better. “So Defense has them.”

“Can’t access them. Not unless they’ve messed with the black boxes themselves. Don’t even talk about getting into those. Elections. The stock market. Public records. There’s deeper security on that system than anything else we’ve got. It’ll feed into Fargone Central, totally robotic, and it has a gate‑restriction on it. It won’t feed out again until someone arrives there with a password. That’s the way it works. Those notes will be sealed, until someone authorized shows up there.”

“What password? Do you know it? Or who does know it?”

“I won’t tell you here. I know it. I hadn’t even told Patil. I willtell you.”

“Do. Please. That’s too thin a thread, Yanni. There’s security, but that’s way too thin a thread. Catlin.”

“Sera.”

“Paper.”

Catlin went to a sideboard, got a single sheet of paper and a pen, and gave them to Yanni. He wrote, and Catlin carried it to her. Alphanumeric, long, and without mnemonics evident. GIIW20280082Y2.

Then 28912HW. And W/18.

She tucked that paper into her decolletage. “Ash before midnight,” she said. “Thank you, Yanni.”

A nod of his head. Catlin had resumed her place. Likely had already memorized it, in the one glance she’d gotten. Catlin was good at that.

“So do we have a copy here at Reseune?” she asked.

“It’s there,” he said. “Filed in your archive.”

She had to be amused. They hadn’t turned it up by accident. It wasn’t part of the ordinary Library archive, nor Security’s ordinary file, not out there. “What else have you stored in my files?”

“Just things your successor might need. Or you might. Someday.”

“Clever.”

Yanni gave a little nod, sipped his wine. “Thank you. You’re right: somebody might have assumed she had them–but they didn’t stay to search the apartment, so they didn’t think they were there. They might try to hack her access.”

“Or Thieu’s. Thieu’sis the place I’d expect them to go after.”

“And he was dying. It was a good idea to get those files entirely out of there. Beyond an erase. They’re gone from storage at Planys.”

“And they’re here. Under my name. And in that ship, outbound. The only copies in the universe.”

“The only copies.”

“Nothing at Beta.”

“Nothing at Beta–at least on our side of the wall. If Defense has a copy, we can’t find that.”

“So Thieu wants to know what’s going on with his files. The man may have been going downhill fast, but he wasn’t stupid. Jordan meanwhile didn’t want to get involved in his scheme–”

“Jordan was involved in another information flow,” Yanni said. “A man named McCabe–”

“Airport maintenance. Giraud told me. A middleman in a contact between Councillor Corain and Jordan.”

“A two‑way conduit of information. We detained him, of course we did. But we don’t know if he’s the only one. A leak to and from Novgorod? Absolutely there was. There may have been others. It’s possible Thieu didn’t need his mental faculties about him to know Patil was going to Eversnow…if Corain’s contact man wasn’t the only font of information in Planys. The fact that the news hasn’t broken in wider Paxer circles yet indicates if there is a flow of information we haven’t already stopped, it’s tightly controlled and it’s being careful. We’re watching that possibility carefully…feeding a little disinformation to see where it turns up. It was one reason I wanted to break that news to Jordan and watch his reaction. I was running truthers. The surprise seemed real…so he didn’t get the information from Corain’s man. But what goes on in Corain’s office…who knows where they have contacts? You don’t blow a good spy for some minor piece of news. You let him sit and wait until there’s something worth his being there. And so far nobody’s breached security in Corain’s office–until–possibly–now. Somebody took out our plans for Eversnow, in one day.”

Finally. Finally she had the notion Yanni was leveling with her.

“So,” she said, “Thieu wanted to get to Patil–who’s the logical recipient of those notes you took from him, one of the only people, maybe, who’ll really understand them.”

“Understand, there was absolutely nothing illegal in what we did: it’s classified material, the man was going downhill medically, we had to protect it. The military sits right there next to Planys, with the capability to ‘protect and defend’ military interests. They could be across that gap in fifteen minutes flat.”

“Eversnow is still their project. Thieu was working for them, but physically inside PlanysLabs. And they didn’t have those notes.”

“He’d been working with them, still corresponding with them quite extensively–we don’thave the content of many of those letters. They dropped into the great black hole of Defense Communications. We assumethey don’t have his last notes. If they have their own copy, we don’t know. Can’t know.”

“Didn’t his notes go to them, if he was working for them?”

“His work is proprietary to Reseune. They wanted something done, they got the result, not the research. We have hisside of the exchange with them, not their answers.”

“Will Jacques talk?” she asked.

“I may make headway with Spurlin on that front–assuming the election goes his way. Meanwhile, before the election results, I want the project staffed. I have to replace Patil.”

“If Khalid shouldget into office…”

“Exactly. I’m going to be raiding other nanistics people out of Beta–where Defense is going to be mildly unhappy with me. I’m going to hire people away from theirprograms.”

“So you’re going full speed ahead. But we’re running out of nanistics Specials.”

“We’re outof Specials. I do have five candidates for the Eversnow directorship, backup in case Patil had said no, top of her list of her own choices to go to Fargone. I’m going ahead with the project, all out. Be advised of that.”

“I think we pretty well have to, don’t we?” she said, because that really was where her thoughts were tending now. “We need to find out what’s going on. Not to let our enemies win this. I wasn’t for it. But somebody who doesn’t like us is againstit.”

“I’m glad you take that position,” Yanni said, looking tired. He’d resisted the wine, beyond a sip or two. He picked it up, looked at it. Looked at her. “If I drink this and get indiscreet, are you going to be a priss about it?”

“I’m not,” she said. “Never will be. But answer me first, Uncle Yanni. I really, really love you and I so want you to tell me the absolutely honest truth in this. Maybe Jordan’s lying to everybody. Maybe he brought that card with him from Thieu for his own reasons. Do you have any inkling that’s the case?”

“I just think he knows more than he’s saying.”

That was a disappointment. She wanted more out of Yanni. She pressed her lips together. And waited.

Yanni said, “You really shouldn’t try to run Reseune yet, you know.”

Shift of direction. She saw it. She still tracked. “What makes you think about that?”

“Because you’re getting very sharp, very fast, and you’ve gathered a small army.”

“Yanni, somebody bugged my new staff, and I’m pretty sure who, and probably you are. I didn’t like that.”

“It wasn’t me,” he said.

“Hicks, then,” she said. “Independently. I may eventually forgive him for it, but he did it, and he pretty certainly knew he did it. I’m onto it, and I’ve fixed the problem. Don’t mention it to him, though. I’m trusting you to know about it and keep quiet. For your own protection. My people are dangerous to people who’d try to do things like that.”

“You remind me of your predecessor.”

“Did you like her?”

“Odd question.”

“Did you likeher, Yanni?”

“I did, actually. She was what she was, and she did good in her life, on the average. And let me say right now that if you want me to step down tonight, I will, but I hope you’ll reconsider a move like that.”

“Why?”

“Because, for one thing, we can get quite a bit of yardage for Reseune’s programs if we don’t let Corain know you’re coming into power sooner than most people think–and I think you are. They’ll deal, right now, because they’re scared to death of you. Corain is shocked by what happened to Patil–but he’s still on board with the Eversnow deal. So are the others. Secondly, we haven’t seen the outcome in the Defense election, and maintaining a bit of our flexibility in the face of that outcome is a good thing. Polls have been wrong before.”

“And meanwhile there’s somebody running around Reseune leaving cards from somebody who’s supposed to be under strictest security weeks before she was murdered? And it had Planys markers, Yanni. What’s the theory on that, officially?”

“Authenticity,” Yanni said with a shrug. “Whoever did it wanted it to smell like Planys, as authentic as possible, and whoever did it went to a small bit of trouble to do that–probably to rattle the walls and see if they could provoke some action. Or maybe it’s real and Jordan lied. Maybe an old man with a failing memory and a few weeks to live really wanted some personal acknowledgment from somebody about to take over his life’s work. It’s Planys paper. It may have been printed almost anywhere buton Reseune office machinery–there’s that security feature: micro‑ID in the typeface, if your security hasn’t told you. Which still leaves, as a source, the town, various neighboring towns, and passing rivercraft, not to mention the airport. The card has all kinds of issues attached, nofinger‑traces of any kind except the people that we well know handled it–super‑clean.”

“So it was real. Or it was somebody knew about the markers and knew to be careful about the microprint. Did you search Jordan’s apartment?”

“While he was at supper with you, yes. We did. Found nothing, of course.”

“Did you tell him you searched it?”

“No. Nor left any traces he could find, if Hicks was entirely up to his job.”

“Yanni, I want you to back off Jordan. Don’t make him mad. Give him work to do. Real work.”

“There’s a small problem with that.”

A pose, a quizzical tilt of the head. “You mean you don’t trust him?”

“I trust he’ll do something. He’ll sabotage something just to make us find it. And we’re busy.”

“Send the results to me. It’s good exercise. I’ll check them.”

“You have enough to do, yourself. Just keep going with your lessons.”

“Do it, Yanni.”

“He’ll burst a blood vessel.”

“Probably, but I’ll check what he does. Who’s Clavery?”

Yanni blinked, then shrugged. “Clavery is a name not in the computers. Ergo a nonperson, a construct, a codeword, or an alias.”

“Possibly someone she knew by sight.”

“We’re running checks on everybody who was ever in contact with her. But just occasionally, in Novgorod, there are places where you aren’t being logged, and people can make contact off the record. Restrooms. Subways. Standing on a street. At the theater. If she was ever accosted by somebody named Clavery it wouldn’t be in her apartment building–not until that night.”

“A hollow man?”

Yanni drew a deep breath. And gazed at her directly. “I’m not even asking where you learned that term. Myself, I’m strongly betting on Paxer involvement in the murders, but I’m not a hundred percent certain.”

“I’m worried about people running around the halls of Reseune putting cards in people’s pockets. And no camera caught them, either?”

“We’re working on it. Just say we’re working on it. Jordan favors very crowded, dark little restaurants where the chairs are jammed up together and people are moving all over the place. We don’t have good imaging. Right now we’re investigating a lot of people.”

“Jordan’s a magnet for blame. You never thought Jordan killed the first Ari, did you?”

Yanni shook his head. Took a drink of wine. “For one thing, he was in the hall when the electronics went out, and the system was very selective with what went dead at that point. –Are we going to starve?”

“Sorry.” She silently cued Haze, and said, “Yanni, will you support me if I do take over?”

“I’d support you, yes.”

“What if I’d asked you to drop the Eversnow project? Would you do that?”

“I wouldn’t be at all happy about it.”

“But would you do it if I asked it?”

“Actually,” Yanni said, “I’d probably go full ahead until the hour you nuked my accesses, because I believe in it. And I think you’d be quite wrong. So I’d fight you on that.”

“Good. I like it when somebody tells me the truth. Why do you think I’m wrong?”

“Because Eversnow solves the employment problem on Fargone.”

“Doesn’t help Pan‑Paris at all.”

“It still solves one critical unemployment problem and makes Pan‑Paris less critical. No, it doesn’t help Pan‑Paris and they’ll be mad about it and we’ll have to find something to give them pretty fast.”

“Not on this year’s budget.”

“We’ll let Pan‑Paris stew and protest and get jealous of Fargone, and then we’ll agree to do something. That makes it evident we’re listening.”

“You’re a total cynic.”

He shrugged. “Works. We’ve got worse potential problems on the horizon. We have an important alliance on this bill: us, Citizens, Defense. We can get Information and Trade in on it, and that’s our majority. But Defense is in mid‑election and Corain’s getting old. He could see himself challenged for the seat in Citizens, and believe me, a lot worse could come out of that huge electorate than Corain. It’s diverse. It may be true that if there hadn’t been a Corain to hold Citizens together, we’d have to invent one, but in any given year, we could see something nasty develop there. Another reason– anotherreason to pursue a major population burst at Fargone. Population in an area farthest removed from Alliance Space…most of them will end up voting in Citizens, supporting, we hope, moderates like Corain.”

“All right, let’s discuss it. You think that Eversnow is still an asset. I frankly see it having serious problems.”

“I think it’s a safety factor. If there’s another war, Alliance will think twice. If we toss their merchanters out of that route, we can enforce a ban, and we can protect it. It’s a very narrow corridor.”

“No great abundance of jump points in the region?”

“Scarce. Just about what we’re developing as destinations, places we’ll be able to defend. That’s the word from Defense.”

That was certainly a point in favor. “How soon is your population burst at Fargone?”

“All right. This is getting to be in your need‑to‑know, one more reason why it’s not good for you and me to have a contest for power this year. There’s a station onworld, already. That’s all military and classified to the hilt: it’s been black‑budgeted for decades, since your predecessor’s time. We’ve kept its secrecy because we use its facilities pretty freely, but there’ve been some issues over the years, too.”

“That’s how you got the samples! It wasn’t a robot. You lied on that, too.”

“Well, it was a robot, but we have people down there, as we speak. Very cold, very lonely people, in company with a lot of cold, lonely Defense people, and not an azi in the lot. Defense has been damned worried we’d tamper–so they haven’t allowed azi down there. Just a nice little born‑man society.”

“What are we, for God’s sake? At war?”

“During the War, it was a lot friendlier. Lately it’s gotten political and full of rules and restrictions. The restrictions on our information‑gathering and on our flow of personnel to and from is one motive on our part. We very much need a Reseune presence down there, an expanding presence in our own facility before the whole planet becomes a military zone where they make the rules.”

“Hence Patil’s project. Hence this whole thing. Patil’s an excuse. Terraforming never was it. It’s the population burst. It’s a colony, never mind what the rest of the planet is like! they can sit on an iceball. Terraforming’s just what you’re paying to enlist Corain’s people.”

“Well, not altogether,” Yanni said, “because ultimately, we want that planet, we want to colonize freely there, and we don’t want Defense controlling that real estate. Terraforming’s the excuse we use to get a base of our own down there. Right now Defense has themselves a nice one‑thousand‑kilometer‑wide salt water puddle they’re using Beta Labs nanistics people to work with, long‑distance, which is no way to run a laboratory. We need to be self‑sufficient down there, we need to be on‑site and in charge of anything genetic. We’re going to need integrations on foundational sets for Eversnow residency and some CIT volunteers pretty quick. We have that in part: we have the orbiting station and the military has the onworld base, which gives us the capability to land, and it’s kept them moderately cooperative, because they need us for supply–rather than them having to build their own station. But right now we only have the kernel of a star station in orbit. It needs to grow. Fast. It needs the onworld lab. We keep the military from owning the whole planet, we boot them entirely out of nanistics research, and Union gets a highway to new stars. I’ve needed you, young lady; I’ve desperately needed you to get up to speed on integrations. We need azi that can face down military CITs and say no, ser, that’s Reseune territory. Keep out.”

“You’re doubling the size of Union. You’re handing us problems we don’t even imagine yet!”

“It’s not me that’s running that onworld presence. Not at the moment. The elder Ari died at an inconvenient time and I couldn’t get Giraud to move faster. Not to mention youate up a lot of budget, young lady–your new wing, hell, your budding township’s nothing against what you’ve already cost Reseune in lab time, in research, set‑up. But we’ve done our Eversnow research, in budget masked behind the Fargone lab we already have. We’ve surveyed stars down that strand. There’s no likelihood of sapience down that route unless it comes a long way to meet us. Several planeted stars. Resources. Jobs. Habitat. New genetics, at least at Eversnow, not likely much at the gas‑balls and ice moons we’ll be dealing with further along. A lot of advantages. And as you say–prime opportunity for a major population burst that would solve several problems, including the Citizens electorate, within the next two to three decades. That could be of incalculable value.”

“Look, I’m sorry for what I cost–”

“Don’t be.”

“But I’mgoing to argue with you. I’m looking at the population dynamic that results from this project, not just down that route, but all over Union. I’m looking at Cyteen and our own home territory becoming a stagnant backwater in a few hundred years, if Eversnow works. Because if it does, the center of gravity of all of Union shifts–considerably. Political interests, population dynamics, everything goes out there to what we call the edge of space right now. And if it doesn’t work, we’ll have spent a bigger budget than I ever was, ending up with no viable planet out there, just one more star station, and twice and three times the population sitting out at Fargone with no jobs, while Pan‑Paris falls apart out on an unused route and hates us, maybe for nothing.”

“It’s going to work. Even at the rate we’re going, Eversnow is about twenty years from a tipover point, after which the melt accelerates and goes on its own. You’ll know it in your lifetime.”

“I’m not done, Yanni. I’m also looking at a future in which we lose touch with Alliance, if we shift our center toward Fargone. We’re at a point where we stand a small chance of making a lasting peace. Alliance has already gone poking off in another direction themselves, and they’ve proven that’s dangerous. But once Alliance finds out we’re expanding in another direction–what are they going to do to expand, but either start putting enclaves on Downbelow, or throwing some colonial effort onto Gehenna, which is their one usable planet with one hell of a local problem. –Or they accelerate their push into the Hinder Stars, and get closer to Earth. Not to mention Eversnow moves our center away from the border we share with the Alliance and that lets them take the star stations weused to own…”

“Not very profitable ones, except Mariner. I’m afraid I’m not an optimist about the peace with the Alliance lasting through your tenure.”

“ Iam. I think we cankeep the peace if we’re sensible and get control of our own people bombing subways and talk to Alliance with some kind of notion how our own politics are going to run for ten years consecutive. You talk about integrations out there. I’m worried about integrations here. We have a disease in our own heart, Yanni. We have a serious problem in the Novgorod population, and I’m pretty sure it’s not an azi problem, it’s probably come down from the station, and I think it’s serious. I think it’s serious enough that before we start any future population burst of the size you describe, we need to know why we have Paxers, and what drives them. Is it the azi‑CIT mix, or is there something about us?”

Yanni was silent a moment, thinking about that, and at that moment Haze and Hiro carried dinner in, briskly served. It was chicken with herbs, in a delicate pastry crust, and it smelled good.

“Eat,” she said. “It’s Cook’s first formal dinner. They probably went crazy back there keeping it ready to serve. Don’t let it go to waste.”

He had a bite. “It’s good. This is really good.”

Ari looked at Haze and Hiro. “Tell Wyndham so. It really is.”

“Thank you, ser, sera,” Haze said, pleased, and quietly departed, and the door shut.

Two bites later: “I cantake over Admin,” she said, “when I want to. Don’t think Base Two can ever overpower Base One. It just won’t happen. That’s not a threat, Yanni. It’s a warning. Please don’t try me. Convince me. I’m willing to listen to your plans. I am listening.”

“You find out things already, don’t you?” Yanni asked. “You get what you want. You didn’t need my clearance. You’re as deep into the information as you want to be.”

She lifted a shoulder, and had a bite. To get information, sometimes you had to give away a real piece on your side. “Generally,” she said, and swallowed, and laid down her knife and fork and looked at him. “Yanni, please don’t be against me. I don’t wantto be against you.”

“I won’t cede you Eversnow. I’ll fight you for that. On everything else, I’m with you. But for that, because I believe in it, and I believe I’m right, I’ll fight yon.”

She considered that a moment, on two bites of dinner, then nodded. “All right, Yanni,” she said, finally. “I think you’re making me a lot of trouble, long term, but I’ll think hard about what you’re saying. I did promise, and you’ll get your onworld base and I’ll work your integrations–I’m not up to what you want now, and you’re right, I don’t know enough to argue. But I’ll be there; and I’ll back your project until I have a clear reason not to. I promise you. If I have to set my successor on the case, it will run, and we’ll take care of those people. But I want you to know I’m worried. My predecessor was murdered. We have people in Reseune we can’t trust. We have a lot of people in Novgorod who aren’t behaving rationally–you can argue it’s rational from their point of view, but not in the macrosetted view. Macrosets in that population aren’t working the way they’re supposed to. People aren’t as happy as they’re supposed to be, for no damned reason I can figure.”

“I’m not sure those people will ever be happy; the planet isn’t what their parents were promised it was going to be. They were all going to be rich. It wasn’t going to take them a great deal of education to succeed. Now it is. That’s just pure human nature, Ari, nothing too arcane.”

That was a point. She thought about it. “So it ismore work than some people want. But that’s not all that’s going on. Those people, who are persuading other people to build bombs–you can always find somebody out of sorts and desperate: people get themselves into mental messes. But the Paxers are out creating more unhappy people as a matter of policy, because they want power, and they’re getting recruits because they’re either tapping into some flaw in the macrosets–which is possible. But I have a theory that upsets me more than that.”

“What?”

“Maybe they’re using Reseune techniques to get the recruits they want. Maybe they’re doing things we don’t know about.”

“The Paxers?”

“Look. We created the science: the military went off on their own tangent thinking they could use it, and we ended up with some spacecases and some real dangerous people. The first Ari’s book got published, and all of a sudden we had people trying to run interventions on each other in their living rooms. –It’s serious, Yanni, don’t laugh. What we do is power. And power is what people want. The people operating in their living rooms, they’re fools, especially if they do it under therapeutic kat; but remember what the first Ari said about ordinary people understanding Einstein, in this age, and someday they’d understand Bok?”

A bite stayed poised on Yanni’s fork. “Meaning we’ve got a society that thinks they understand what we do.”

“I think Ari’s book wasn’t exactly a trigger. It just warned us that we needed to look at how much people believe they really do understand what we do. Powercomes from doing what we do, and maybe there have been a few people who are smart enough, but not smart enough, if you get what I mean. Ari One and her mother both designed azi sets that worked around that CIT footprint, but what if a handful of CITs have been freelancing for the last few decades, and bringing up bent kids? Look at Giraud and Denys’s mother. Look at Olga Emory herself, the things she did to my predecessor. There wasn’t a method, back then, there was just this viral idea floating around society that if there was a hyper‑efficient way to educate azi, there could also be some process to make a bright CIT kid a genius. And if some people ran the wrong intervention on the wrong kid, they could create what Denys called me.”

“What’s that?”

“A monster,” she said. “A real monster.”

“You have a hellof an imagination,” Yanni said.

“I’m serious, Yanni. Novgorod’s lag‑timed by rejuv and birthlabs: if they store the genesets, people can have kids into their eighties and hundreds, with birthlabs: and the time the Paxers start blowing things up is during my predecessor’s lifetime–that’s third‑gen. That’s where the problems usuallycome out in a bad set.”

“That also happened to coincide with the War they were protesting.”

“True. But there’s no War now, and they’re still protesting. They’re not real clear whatthey’re protesting, except the planet isn’t what they want it to be, and they clearly think they can dispense with us.”

“Nothing psychotic about that. Humanity did without us for thousands of years. Alliance and Earth, somehow, still do.”

“That’s not it, though. It’s not that they can do without us, it’s that somebody wants to be us. What if that’sthe viral idea, Yanni? That somebody’s always going to beus, and that’s where the power is situated, and maybe somebody’s little kid, or several people’s little kids, were turned into something that’s angrier about us than the parents were. Maybe that’s why they’re still protesting a war that’s been over for decades, and why it’s only gotten worse and crazier. I mean, the first Paxers blew up buildings at odd hours when people weren’t likely to be there, and now they’re just trying to cause the worst casualties they can. It’s accelerated. They’re sucking in mental cases their violence created, and giving thembombs and sending them out–but you don’t think the leaders of this movement are ever going to carry the bombs. They’ll sit back pretending to be us, congratulating themselves that they’ve becomeus.”

“So do you see a fix, short of a mass mindwipe of every CIT in Novgorod?”

“I see Paxers proliferating like crazy, once Eversnow goes public. That worries me, Yanni.”

“Why would they proliferate?”

“Because it’s change. Because it scares the followers. Because change changes the balance of power and that’s going to agitate their leaders. Some people won’t want the whole terraforming question shunted out to the edge of space: they want it here. Some people won’t want it anywhere. Some people will agree with me that it’s too much too soon. It’s going to be like yeast in a bowl, it’s just going to froth up and make a hell of a mess.”

“In your theory you could change the national polling hours and they’d bomb subways over it.”

“They probably would,” Ari said. “It would all become some Reseune plot.”

“So there’s a monster in the walls. What’s his name, Anton Clavery?”

“You’re making fun of me.”

“Not exactly. Your theory would say the Paxers took out Patil and Thieu. The one’s easy, the other’s hard. You need sane people to get into Planys and then go insane.”

She shook her head. “You need a killer. Money’s a motive, too. When you need something delicate done, you hire an expert.”

Yanni sat and thought about that a moment. “Nasty theory, young lady.”

“It’s scary. So’s your Eversnow, but I said I’d support it. You know what else worries me in the whole issue? Jordan worries me.”

“Regarding the Paxers?”

“ He’san issue with them. If he’s as self‑interested as you say, he’ll do whatever benefits him. He’s the embodiment of the disaffected, the third‑gen problem. You can’t makehim care. And he doesn’t.”

“Interesting analysis.”

“Am I right?”

“Jordan’s an old issue with the Paxers: they thinkthey’d like to see him out in public–they think he’d blast Reseune in the media if he gets his chance, and they’d really love that. He doesn’t personally give a rat’s ass whether we terraform or don’t. And if you want somebody who’s got the skill to be a real operator, your bogeyman in the CIT sector, that’s Jordan. But–” Yanni said, “there’s one thing against it. Jordan is entirely for himself. He’d fry the Paxers quicker than he’d fry Reseune. Stupid people bother him. He’d turn on them in a heartbeat, the moment they cross him.”

“And he designs azi sets.”

“Damned good ones,” he said.

“So have you ever worried what he put into them?” she asked. “Back when he was working, and mad at Ari? I say it’s probablyCITs that are the cause. But we had the War, we had the military running interventions on their own azi, who later decommissioned and went civilian, a lot of them in Novgorod. And we had Jordan designing azi sets for decades and decades. I don’t think he could have gotten anything past my predecessor, but that may just be my own ego. We never had the handle on military sets I wish we had.”

“We had people blowing up subways forty years ago,” Yanni said. “Well before Jordan became the ass he is.”

“Was there ever a point he wasn’t one?”

“You want the truth? He said he was in love with your predecessor,” Yanni said. “I don’t think he really was. But he may have thought he was, for a complex of reasons involving power, and he was certainly less of an ass before that major blowup.”

That was interesting. “So he lied to her. He was interested in romance and power, and she was interested in her projects?”

“I don’t think she cared about the sex. It was his mind she wanted. I think he lied to himself, for one of the rare times in his life. Major self‑delusion, wrapped up in his self‑concept. He was sleeping with Paul while that affair was going on. I told him it wouldn’t work. He told me go to hell. A year later he had Justin conceived, born the year after. The Ari affair was on again, off again. They were trying to work together. He suddenly got the notion she was taking his ideas. Sharing didn’t work with either of them. That’s where it blew up. What happened in the bedroom, I don’t know; but the ideas were the issue he complained about.”

“I can imagine that,” she said. “He’s very self‑protective in that regard.”

“So,” Yanni said somewhat cheerfully, “it all blew up. I don’t think Jordan’s the godfather of the Paxers, not even the model of them–he may have done a few designs that could be problematic in Ari’s integrations, you could be right about that. She tossed certain of them out and wouldn’t let them go to implementation. There was a hell of a fight about it–he called her a goddess‑bitch and she said he was a damned lunatic. They traded those words back and forth and had one shouting light right in Admin offices in front of the secretaries and the visitors. I don’t think they slept together after that.”

She had to laugh ruefully for a microsecond, and grew sad after, thinking about herself and Justin, and swearing to herself it never would happen to them that way. “What did Paul think about it?”

Yanni looked at the door, as if measuring the distance to the conference room, and said, quietly, “Poor Paul. Always, poor Paul. Paul puts up with him. That’s got to be a ferociously strong mindset, Paul’s. God knows Jordan’s tinkered with it over the years. But Paul loves him.”

“That’s what Paul gets out of it, at least. Did the first Ari ever try to do anything with him?”

Yanni shook his head emphatically. “No. That would have really torn it worse than what she did with Justin. Paul’s where Jordan lives, that’s all. Justin just happenedone year–a project that ran for a couple of decades, and blew up when Ari intervened. Became a permanent reminder of a quarrel he’d had with Ari. That’s one way to look at it, on Jordan’s scale of things.”

“That’s sad, too. Justin loves him.”

“A lot of people have tried,” Yanni said with a second shake of his head. “God knows. If you have an altruistic bent, young lady, take it from me on this one. Don’t try kindness, not with him. He’s just what he is. Let him be.”

“I wish I could Get him, all the same,” she said, and set to work at the dish again. “Yanni, Uncle Yanni, you keep being Director for a while. I’ll wait. Just don’t you be my Jordan, and let’s be friends. I’ll respect your opinion, you respect mine, and don’t hold out on me anymore.”

“I’ll take a good deep look at your theory on Novgorod,” he said.

“Good,” she said. “I’ll be interested.”

“Eversnow,” he said, “stays.”

“Through anything I can foresee at the moment,” she said, wishing otherwise–but it was necessary, right now.

So was keeping her word, if she didn’t want to make honest people mad at her. And she had always thought Yanni was honest. “I’ll really try to make it work, Yanni.”

She signaled for the next course. Gianni had made a really beautiful dessert, showing off, she was sure. It was layered, and oh, so good. Yanni ate his and ended up being persuaded to another half slice, and a little glass of liqueur to top the evening off. She couldn’t eat another bite. Her stomach was a little upset by the time she saw Yanni to the door.

But it hadn’t gone that badly.

Yanni said he still trusted Hicks. That was a problem.

She didn’t anymore, not until Hicks really proved himself.

She could take Hicks out, put someone she really trusted into that post–like Amy Carnath. Amy had the brains and she’d be fair. But she’d absolutely hate running ReseuneSec. Besides, she was only eighteen, same as the rest of them, and that was the problem–in a post like Hicks’, history mattered. Yanni knew all sorts of things, just a long, long memory, and so did Hicks, and you didn’t just replace a memory like that with a new appointment and hope to have anything like the prior performance in a job involving information.

She could take Admin herself, and put Yanni into Hicks’ job, but he’d really hate that, and that wouldn’t improve matters.

So they were stuck, temporarily, with Hicks.

The good part was, so far, she still had Yanni. They could work with each other, until things had to be different.

BOOK THREE Section 2 Chapter ix

JUNE 17, 2424

1008H

“Hello,” Ari said, opening the door to Justin’s office, and he spun his chair around.

Grant turned more slowly.

She came in solo. They hadgotten the extra chair, which they used in her lessons, since they’d folded their other Wing One office into this one, and she turned it around and sat down, primly proper.

“Coffee, sera?” Grant asked.

“Please. Thank you. I need to talk to both of you.”

“Is there a problem?” Justin asked.

“Yes and no.” She waited until Grant had handed her a cup of coffee in a pretty gilt mug, and just held it in her lap, not to delay or draw this out. “The sets you did that I snatched back. Thank you for that. I came to tell you you were right, there was a problem.”

“Which set?”

“The one you delayed on.”

Justin gave out a long, long breath.

“That set was tampered with,” she said. “I think I’ve fixed it. I’m sure I’ve fixed it. Sure enough to have him in charge of my own guard.”

“That’s very sure,” Justin said.

“His name is Rafael,” she said, “and now he’s under my orders. I think he was under Hicks’, and I think Giraud’s before that.”

“He’s too young,” Grant said.

“He is, but he’s not the first of his number. I think there was some off‑record done with his whole type…no, I don’t just think. I know. There was. I’m quitting being the kid as of this week.”

Zap.

“I didn’t get that out of it,” Justin said, frowning, so her bow‑shot had gone right past him. “I should have. I assumed. Never assume. You certainly beat me on this one.”

She shrugged lightly. “I had a head start. I knowgreen barracks programming.” With a shift of her glance toward the hall where Catlin waited. “And you wouldn’t have that experience. Still, you had something spotted. That’s what warned me to look twice. You had your finger pretty well on it.”

“What did it do?”

“He conflicted like hell when I took the Contract. He had a nice little reservation built in and I blitzed it. Not as good as an axe code, what I did, but close.”

Grant made a face. Grant knew.

“Anyway,” she said, “you deserved to know.”

“Thanks,” Justin said.

“I have it set up with Yanni: Jordan will get to work; I’ll check. If he blows up, maybe he and I will eventually have to talk about it. But we’ll just see how it goes. Let him calm down first.”

“Thank you,” Justin said.

“You’re still bothered about the BR set.”

“It bothers me that I missed it.”

“It bothers you. That’s why you’re good. Besides being Special‑level smart.”

He laughed silently at that. Didn’t say a thing. But self‑doubt was major in him.

“I’m sorry I’ve missed lessons lately,” she said.

“I think you’re getting beyond them, aren’t you?”

“I don’t think you’re at all through teaching me. I learn all sorts of things. You were spotting that conflict from the microset side of things; I was looking at the large picture, and I fixed it by yanking at the deepsets. You’re kind, is what. Grant knows what I mean.”

“Sera is right,” Grant said quietly.

“It’s why you want to rehabilitate your father. You’re just soft‑hearted. I need somebody who teaches me what soft‑hearted is.”

“I don’t know that it’s so valuable a commodity these days.”

“Because Reseune isn’t safe?” she asked. “It isn’t. Neither is Planys. Neither is here, granted Jordan got that card the way he says he did. We could have a problem at Planys that we never spotted. We could, here. Something like a Rafael type. Nothing of his geneset is there. One is in Hicks’ office, probably with nobody to report to now that Giraud is dead, but I’m going to put a tag on him–I’ll know every contact he has.”

“Ari,” he said, and cast a look up, at the over head.

She smiled sadly. “It’s only Catlin listening. We know about this office. We have our own protections around it, and if it’s leaky, they’ve gotten past all my bodyguards and nothing is safe. Just figure: there are three hundred fifty‑one azi at Planys. And somebody killed Thieu. And somebody killed Patil. I’m betting they got a professional in to take out Patil, somehow, maybe azi, maybe not.”

“An azi didn’t originate the idea,” Grant said.

“I agree with you,” Ari said. “An azi didn’t. But I’d be interested to hear your thinking on motivation. You’re not green barracks.”

“I’m house,” Grant said. “And I hardly remember when I wasn’t. I absorbed my values from tape, from instruction, and from being part of the household.”

“That changed,” Ari said.

“Ari,” Justin said, a warn‑off.

“Grant, you don’t have to answer me. I’m not being a Supervisor, I’m just curious where your focus is.”

“Classified,” Justin said.

Grant shrugged. “Not hard to guess it’s you, born‑man. Ari doesn’t scare me.”

“I really don’t want to,” Ari said. “I’m sorry, Grant, but I don’t want to ask my own staff, and I want an azi viewpoint on this question. In your psychset, could anybody get you to kill?”

An easy shrug. “ Hecould.”

“Ari, leave it!”

“I’m not at all conflicted about it,” Grant said. “No more than Florian would be, under a hypothetical. I just ran your question through my deepsets and there’s no prohibition against it, no great emotional charge to compare with my attachment to your orders, Justin.”

“Well, then, shut up, for God’s sake! Quit answering her damned questions!”

“I have a strong attachment to questions, too,” Grant said with a little tilt of the head, with humor. “Can’t resist them, if they’re hypothetical. Or I’ll think about it all night.”

“Don’t, if you please.”

“Now I’m conflicted,” Grant said, “because it’s actually an interesting question. You’re saying some azi out at Planys murdered Thieu simply because some born‑man asked him to.”

“Might have. Abban probably murdered the first Ari.”

“That’s my prime candidate,” Justin said. “That’s what I believe.”

“I don’t think I’d botch it, however,” Grant said, “if I was asked to do a murder. I’d look up techniques and pick one I knew I could carry out.”

“Now I’m angry,” Justin said. “It’s not damned funny, Ari.”

“I know it’s not,” she said, “and I won’t run a calm‑down on Grant. That’s your job. He’s just the closest alpha I could ask who’s not Security; and a beta couldn’t. I’m sorry, Grant. Justin’s concerned about you, and I haven’t been entirely nice.”

“I’d leave the office,” Grant said, “if it weren’t an interesting question. And I’ve thought about it–what I would do. What I coulddo, if someone threatened him. I told myself I could, and would. I actually take a certain comfort in that.”

“Same,” Justin said, “on this side.”

She nodded. “It’s nice to have somebody that close,” she said. “I do. I’m glad you both do.” She took something from her coat pocket, which turned out to be two com units, and she laid them on the nearest table. “Those are exactly the same as Florian’s, as Catlin’s–a few limitations: they only call Base One, they can only get voice contact if someone calls you back, and if you hit the red button, they’re going to bring down the ceiling, so don’t use that unless you have to. Just carry them and don’t for God’s sake lose them. If you see anything suspicious around you, if you want someone to show up quietly and intervene, hit any button but the red one. If you hit the red one, figure you’re going to get an armed response. Understood?”

“Understood,” Justin said, looking a little mollified.

“I hope you’ll never need them,” she said, “but I’m carrying my own.” She touched the door. “And don’t put yourselves in situations. Please.”

“Like visiting my father?”

“You’ll protect Grant,” she said, “and he’ll protect you. You do what you want to do.”

She left, then.

She’d made Justin mad for a few minutes, and she hadn’t wanted to, but she felt better, knowing Grant wasn’t limited in Justin’s defense. She’d suspected the answer she’d get: but she’d not been entirely sure she’d believe it. Now she did.

And that was good.

BOOK THREE Section 3 Chapter i

JUNE 26, 2424

1528H

Giraud, at nineteen weeks, had bones instead of cartilage, and those bones shaped a face increasingly distinctive from, say, Abban, or Seely. For all of them it was the same story: arms and legs finally matched in proportion. They made urine: kidneys were working.

Giraud’s heart, which one day might betray him, functioned well enough now, on a steady beat. He was just starting to grow the sandy hair that would characterize him in life. His lungs weren’t at all developed, so nothing but the artificial womb could sustain him at this point. His lungs lacked their life‑giving minor passages, and breathing any substance as rarified as air was impossible for him; but he was already getting vocal cords. His brain wasn’t cognitively active, and had nothing like its destined size, but it was acquiring a little organization. Areas of his brain made the most rudimentary start at sensing a touch, tasting, and smelling, though stimuli were much the same right now, and until that organization happened he couldn’t differentiate between touch or smell or sound: it was all the same to him, just a stimulus that got on his nerves.

He’d be a little insomniac throughout his adult life–but he’d begun to have periods of quasi‑sleep, or at least quiet. That, again, was the brain, organizing. And his nerves, which had lacked a myelin sheath, had begun to acquire it, which would be a process not limited to his stay in the womb. As that coating formed, finer and finer organization would become possible. As yet, it was very basic.

His eyes, completely colorless as yet, had begun moving, simple languid muscle twitch, behind sealed lids.

When he was born he would have a restless blue gaze, noting this, noting that, until those eyes fixed, and then one had better take care, even when he was a little boy.

He was nearly halfway to birth, which was scheduled for November 20.

But right now Giraud didn’t see a thing.

BOOK THREE Section 3 Chapter ii

JULY 1, 2424

0928H

I went to see Giraud today. He’s at twenty weeks, and about halfway toward, his birthdate. I don’t know why I went–or I’m reluctant to admit it, but things in the house have changed so drastically that I just wanted to get him in view again and use my brain about him, not my emotions.

He’s just a baby. He’s even gotten to look pretty well like a human being, and I halfway felt guilty about stopping Denys. I’m sure someday he’ll ask about his brother.

And I worry about what I’ll have say to him to explain it. He’ll feel a sense of loss, even for something he didn’t have.

It wasn’t Giraud who really shaped me, after all: it was Denys. It was definitely Denys that tried to kill me, and I’m reasonably sure he killed the first Ari, but I’m still trying to prove that, and I don’t know what the balance is.

Do I have to do to them what they did to me. Do I have to create a mess of an infant’s life to create a man to make a mess of your early life? I’d rather not.

And what if I live as long as the first Ari or longer, and the Giraud I created gets too old and dies, and they have to start over with a new baby Giraud right before you’re born? It’s all crazy. Making everybody all match is going to be impossible if they go on replicating people whenever they die, and so far they’re not saving us all up and starting the eldest first, so it’s going to get all scrambled about the timeline. Giraud might drown in the river before he’s forty. And then where will we be? Again, a total mismatch.

It’s absolutely crazy–and I’m the one–and you’re the one–the universe has to have continually at work, fast as we can.

So I officially give up trying to make things as exact as I was. I know it’s not possible. I don’t think it’s altogether necessary: I hope that it isn’t. The medics were going in blind when they used to take the first Ari’s constant tests and bloodwork and make mine fit her profile in any given week I was due for a major new tape–shooting me full of hormones. Now we have me for a test subject, and Dr. Peterson is writing up the work they did, matching my learning with what I was working on, and with what I needed to be working on. So that will tell us some relevance between hormonal state, particular tape, and test scores.

With Giraud, we know what he studied, and when he studied it, and we’ll still play games with his blood chemistry to make sure he has his brain on line when he studies certain things, but I don’t honestly think it has to be week by week, and I don’t think it has to be that tightly on schedule or sequence: I think the main thing is whether the brain is going to be totally fluxed and doing freethinking with, say, art, or whether it’s going to be absorbing facts on a given tape where facts, fast and exact, are what you want.

Besides, I’m not going to do to Giraud Two what Giraud One’s mother did, which was bear down on Giraud hard to be a genius. Denys was, Giraud wasn’t, and she couldn’t change that. I’m pretty sure she didn’t do Denys any good by coddling him: he could be as odd as he liked and she excused it. She was always hard on Giraud. And when she died he took over being hard on himself. That is a key to what he was, and I’ve got to think about that one in his setup.

I’ve arranged for Yanni to take Giraud: he hasn’t exactly said yes, but I just don’t see him refusing at the last moment, and it’s just a few months to go. And Yanni didn’t say anything when I said I’d backed out of creating Denys. I know he thinks something about it, but he’s not easy to read. I’ve found that out. I don’t think he really wants either of them. He knows he’s going to get Giraud. But I think he feels something about Denys and I can’t get a straightforward answer out of him. He says I know’ what others don’t and I’ll make up my own mind.

Well, I still have seven years to talk to Yanni about it. I don’t want to have Denys back and forth, but I didn’t destroy his geneset. I just sent it back to deep storage.

Maybe it would be a little less crazy if I just threw up my hands and declared everything had to follow program as close as possible, and Denys had to become a thorough bastard and have a maman who was as‑crazy as the originals’ was.

If I admitted that it’s entirely nurture, or the lack of it, that wakes up the genes, then everything and anything is justifiable.

But I’ve gone off my program, marginally, and I’m still pretty good.

And Giraud helped in that: the first Giraud did. He turned downright fatherly with me, warning me, trying to guide me toward survival, even while Denys was probably telling himself if I got too close to taking over too soon, he’d kill me without a qualm. I have to wonder if Giraud picked up on that, and tried to hit some middle ground between Denys killing me and my killing Denys. And instead, Giraud died.

It probably wasn’t all sweetness and fatherly feeling on Giraud’s part. He’d probably been worried about Denys doing something to foul up everything Reseune had worked for, for very selfish reasons. Denys could be selfish like that, if Giraud didn’t step in and fix things.

And if I create Denys, Denys could be like that again, if he turned out to be really Denys: utterly disagreeable, and utterly self‑centered, lost in his own world. It may be there’s something in Denys’s brain that made that happen, and it could be genetic, essential to what made him a genius.

Poor Giraud was just Giraud and I don’t think a little kindness will really hurt him. His end‑of‑life change of mind very likely was sincere–I figured that out, trying to plan for a maman for Giraud, and I just can’t come up with one. There was that critical a difference between the two brothers.

And Denys, if he had had one strong emotion in his head, wanted him reborn, wanted, himself reborn, so, so much–wanted himself with Giraud. Not because he loved Giraud, I’ve come to think, because so much about him was sociopathic, but because, to him, Giraud was part of himself, part of his all‑important existence. One of the things that drove Denys to try to kill me might have been a fear that, when I took over, I might abort Giraud, in one sense or the other–either physically or psychologically.

And, oh, Denys knew by then he hadn’t won any favors of me, and I suppose I should, have kept my feelings a little more secret. Denys had wanted. Giraud back so desperately.

But Giraud had never been just for Giraud. That was the difference a little love had made, and Giraud might have interpreted their mother’s hammering away at him as a kind of love–in his own way, he might have taken it for that. Giraud was, of the two, far more the wild card. Giraud would attach, sooner or later.

If I knew I had a sister who wasn’t reproduced, I’d feel deprived, wouldn’t I? And knowing it would fester, and turn toxic in the process…so maybe I’m wrong. I won’t know. I won’t know for a few years. I’ll see if Giraud asks the question.

A lot of things will change in Reseune. Or maybe I’m deluding myself…trying to change some things back to what they were twenty years ago.

My letter’s had time to get to Fargone. An answer could be coming back to me as I write this. Maybe even the people I invited have gotten on a ship and they’re coming here. I’ll know, before Giraud is born, what the answer is from all those people I wrote to.

We aren’t making any progress to speak of on the Patil investigation. They’ve hauled in some Paxer elements, the usual. The investigation at Planys is slow: there are two CITs from Big Blue, and before that, from Novgorod: they’d been in the University. Hadn’t everybody, when Centrists, Abolitionists, and Paxers were the radical chic? They passed a questioning under trank. Patil’s still dead, and likely to stay that way–but we have her geneset on file. So never bet on it.

There haven’t been any other cards turning up in people’s pockets.

We still assume the two events, the card with Patil’s name, and Patil being murdered, were connected.

And the rest of it just boils down to a lot of police work, sifting hundreds of records of people who were put into Planys during the War, because of radical connections or Defense‑connected projects–wasn’t that a brilliant mix? Everybody’s background has suspicious connections, because Defense used to shove anybody called “essential to the war effort” into Planys. And then Reseune, in Yanni’s time, moved in Jordan, who’s not the sort to be quiet or suffer fools.

The same with the University: Expansionist professors and Centrist professors, some that Defense moved down‑world for protection, and the ones they taught, and then those that couldn’t take the pressured environment and just got jobs out in the city. It’s an odd, odd network in the University, not like Reseune at all: most of the professors have contacts in the city, and they live all over, some in the University neighborhood and some clear over in the port area, and it’s very hard to track what their contacts are. There’s just no information in Novgorod that isn’t tangled.

We have too many suspects, not too few. Patil hadn’t socialized with the radicals, but they clustered around her.

And Thieu was connected to her and Jordan. And he worked for Defense.

I wish I knew who’d pushed that card on Jordan. It almost makes me think Jordan is innocent of involvement. He’s innocent of an unusual number of things he was almost involved in. I find that odd enough to constitute a watch‑it.

But I’m taking measures to protect everyone I can. And when I set up the new wing, I have to decide who’s in, and who’s out, the way it was when we were kids.

There’s Stef Dietrich. He’s been on the outs with us for a long time. He used to be one of us, but he’s a troublemaker when it comes to sex, and he can’t settle with anybody–people just don’t trust him. I don’t think I want to bring him in.

There’s Amy and Maddy and Sam, them first; Justin and Grant; Yvgenia Wojkowski’s in a relationship that won’t pass muster: if she asks, I’ll tell her that–it won’t make her happy, but at least she’ll know what her choice is. There’s Tommy and Mika Carnath; they’re definitely in; there’s Stasi Ramirez–she’s in; Will Morley: he’s all right, but his girl friend isn’t–another Yvgenia case. Pity Yvgenia’s boyfriend and Will’s girlfriend aren’t interested in each other. And there’s Dan Peterson–he’s got an azi companion, a beta, who’s all right: I checked. And there’ll be Valery, if he comes home, and there’s room for Gloria Strassen, who probably hates me; and Julia, who’s Maman’s real daughter; but she’ll probably tell me go to hell. That’s all right: I hope she does and she won’t be my responsibility.

I suppose I’m going to move in poor old Patrick Emory. He’s not that old, he’s just dull and a little odd, but then he’s my only living real relative but one, so for once in his life somebody’s going to be nice to him. And my aunt… God, my Aunt Victoria. She’s probably going to refuse to move, but there’s room if she wants to. I won’t leave her out. Nobody would dare do that. But I hope she’ll tell me go to hell, too. She’s still offended I exist, and she’d gladly pull the plug on Giraud, never mind Denys. And I think she’s immortal.

I hope Valery comes. I so much want to see him.

But there’ll be room, too, in that wing, for people that aren’t born yet.

You, maybe. I’ve no idea who’ll bring you up. Amy would be one of the best. But that’s, I hope, a long, long time from now.

BOOK THREE Section 3 Chapter iii

JULY 3, 2424

1405H

There wasn’t much to pack, and staff handled most of it. For herself, Ari just put together a bag that held her essential makeup, her current notebooks, her study tapes, anything security‑sensitive, and Poo‑thing–poor raggedy Poo‑thing couldn’tmake the transition to a new life in the bottom of some box.

She took her bag on her shoulder. She met Florian and Catlin, who had also packed their personal items–many of them lethal, she was quite sure, or at least classified, and this time when they went out to go to the new wing, they didn’t take the runabout. They took the ordinary mid‑hall lift down, the three of them, and walked into the ell that had always been a dead end, keyed their way through a door that had only opened this morning, to a reception by her security–Rafael himself was on duty–and then to a lift that you had to have a key for.

The lift took them up to the upstairs hall of the new wing.

And it was marvelous. A gray carpeted floor had a ribbon of bright blue rippling down the middle and along the edges–weaving and interweaving not so much that one wanted to follow that path, but providing a hint of cheerful whimsy she would lay bets was Sam’s personal notion, not Maddy’s.

She hadn’t seen it in its final preparation. She deliberately hadn’t seen it in the month and a half Maddy and Sam had been doing all the work here. Her paintings–the first Ari’s–stayed where they were, in Ari’s apartment, to wait there until her successor made a decision, and by the time it was her successor’s successor in question, the first Ari’s apartment would probably become irrelevant, to that centuries‑from‑now world, its content just scattered where it made sense to go.

But the artwork on the first Ari’s walls had been only a fraction of the collection. Paintings in the modern mode were spaced along the walls of this corridor, turning the gray and white expanse into segments you could say belonged to the green painting, or the red one–nothing of the sterile black and gray and white surrounds of Wing One. Alpha Wing, still smelling of paint and plaster and the attendant moisture, was a different world, a profound change from where she’d always lived. Very, very unlike anything Denys would approve.

And the double doors that each gave access to various apartments down the hall–they weren’t black, or beige, or one of twenty variations on white: one pair of doors, apartment 10, was red, 9 was blue, and 8 was bright green.

Her own doors, at the end of the hall, were as blue‑green as new Cy‑teen leaves, and when Florian unlocked them, they gave way silently onto her waterfall, bubbling and flowing down a wall that could have been natural rock, and making a soft sound to welcome them.

The miniature brook, lighted underneath the glass, ran right across under the stonework hall floor, and meandered off into the living room. She followed it there, and just stopped and set down her bag, and looked around her and up at the tank, the immense tank that sparkled with ripples and moved with small living fish and shadowed with living rocks and waving sea life. That watery wall reflected off the unbreakable glass that topped the cross‑floor river, so that the river underneath her feet was brown rock and flowing fresh water, and when she looked across the room, the glass top of the river reflected the Earth‑ocean that was the wall.

The ocean suddenly vanished. It was directional glass, and Florian demonstrated the wall control, “if sera wants to have it plain,” Florian said, “it will vanish. The light is still on, on the other side. Sam sent us the instructions.”

She looked away, turning slowly. Paintings. Framed colors, on the severe stone walls. The master artisans of Earth.

Part of the living room wall was garden behind glass–the wall that divided the living room from the dining room turned out transparent, with that kind of glass, just like the other. It could turn opaque at the flick of a switch, making the wall something else, making the dining room or the living room a private, undistracted area at need.

And the living room, even with the furniture, was big enough for several large sets of people to sit and talk at once–in some privacy. The water‑sound permeated the space, luxurious, and peaceful. Florian switched both walls back to transparency, and the ocean and the garden were instantly back.

It was everything Sam had promised. It was magical, top to bottom. She’d wanted to be surprised, and she was overwhelmed. Florian and Catlin looked around as she did, their own baggage left in the foyer.

Catlin asked:

“Are you happy with it, sera?”

“Very. Very.”

And there was no Sam. She’d thought he might be here to meet her, but he wasn’t, which was like him–just to have his work make its own declaration. He’d done it all: everything was going to be fresh, from the dinner plates in the dining room–rose‑colored pottery, mostly–to the couches, blue, just as she’d asked, but they turned out a grayed blue that went better with the stonework and the water and the plants behind the glass.

It all just fit, a harmony of sound and color that reached right into the senses. It was hers, in a way no place she had ever been had been hers. Maddy had helped do this. So had Amy, in the organizational sense, finding all the pieces Sam wanted. They’d given her this wonderful place, and she loved them. And Yanni was going to talk about the cost, but she’d told them–do it with their own places. Do it everywhere. Make it right.

She was happy, she decided. Really, really happy. She’d been so scared it wouldn’t feel right to her, and it wouldn’t behome.

But it was. It was home even when she’d never been here before.

BOOK THREE Section 3 Chapter iv

JULY 3, 2424

1628H

Through with work for the day. Dinner over at Antonio’s, one of their older haunts, over in the main wing, and home again, or that was the direction they were going, in Justin’s intentions–himself and Grant, homeward bound for an entertainment vid they’d looked forward to, and with every intention of spending a quiet evening with absolutely nothing pressing to do.

But the door security at Wing One said, as they came through into the Wing: “Just a moment, ser. There’s a message for you.”

Message from whom was the instant question. Jordan or Yanni were the two fast guesses.

It turned out to be a note which the guard called up on his handheld with a few button‑pushes, and it started out, “Justin, don’t be mad.”

That was Ari. He didn’t even need to read the next line to be sure it was going to be something he wouldn’t like, a bad surprise about Jordan, or–

“Your stuff has all been moved. Most of it, anyway, and the rest will be by the time you get back. Don’t worry about a thing If you want anything else from the apartment that didn’t get transferred, you can get it–just ask security.

“Go down to the storm tunnels the usual way, go to your left, to where there used to be a dead end, in C corridor. There’s a big door there today. To get to the new wing, just use your regular keycard and walk through the doors. Security on the other side will let you in, give you your new keycards, and tell you where to go. I really hope you like it. Love, Ari.”

Love? Love?was it?

And moved?

“Thank you.” he said to the guard.

“You’re welcome, ser.”

They walked on. He reached the point of decision, at the corner by the lift, and said, “I suppose there’s no real reason to go to our apartment, is there?”

“I suppose the vid will show up eventually,” Grant said. “It probably got switched over to the new system anyway.”

“We’d better try the route,” Justin said. “Find out what we’re into.”

They took the lift down to the tunnels. C corridor had always had a nook in it. They’d seen it on a fairly frequent basis since they’d come to Wing One. Two days ago he’d swear it had still had a nook in it.

Today it had a clean new doorway with a card slot and no labeling whatsoever except: ID AND KEYCARD REQUIRED.

He shoved his card in. The door opened. They went through. Another guard, in the glass‑enclosed foyer, sat at a desk. The guard said pleasantly, “Justin Warrick, Grant ALX. Your keys. Your apartment is upstairs on the third floor, number 2. Your office will be on the first floor, number 28. Take the lift.”

“My keycard,” he said, and the guard returned it.

“Use the new card in the lift, ser.”

“Right,” he said, and he and Grant went into the lift. Grant hit 3, and they rose fast.

“With authority,” Grant commented. And the door let them out into a corridor with gray carpet–gray carpet, with a ripple of blue threading down its length. Abstract pictures hung at intervals, each one a bright color that played off the last one.

The place smelled of paint and plaster. And they walked. It was ghostly quiet. Deserted.

“Are we the only ones here, I wonder?” he asked.

“Not a sound,” Grant said.

“I can understand the suddenness,” he said. “Her security requirements. But, God…”

“It is certainly a surprise,” Grant said.

On the analogy of other moves, it would likely be thorough…and might include the rented vid. If there was a vending chit forgotten at the bottom of a drawer, he had every confidence that it was going to be swept up, installed in a neat box of “we don’t know where this goes” items, but it would be there. Anything that seemed like personal property was likely going with them.

It wouldn’t, however–a stray and irritated thought, from experience–include the electronic list in the minder, all his phone numbers and addresses. He remembered the color‑coded office supplies.

And his minder file was precisely the sort of thing a security operation was going to peel out and go over with a microscope before they gave it back to him–but if he asked nicely they mightstream it onto the new minder, in the new place, for his convenience.

That prospect annoyed him, in advance of the event, no matter that there wasn’t a thing in it he cared if they knew.

“They’ve moved our office again,” Grant commented.

“And, damn it all, we just got the pictures hung!”

“They might move them, too,” Grant said. “Or not. Maybe they’ve provided some.”

High‑handed security touched off old twitches, no question, visions of little rooms and endless questions.

But this Ari was not the enemy, and she was keeping herself alive, and presumably taking care of those she deemed close to her. It was just one more step toward a life that, nervous as it made him, wasn’t going to be the quiet life he’d tried to make for himself and Grant. It wasn’t going to be inconspicuous, or safe–probably he lacked all power to do any damned thing in his career henceforward butserve as her backup, checker, and sounding board, but hell, he wasn’t ambitious. He’d survived this far. That had, all along, been the name of the game. Never mind the job classification. Never mind personal aspirations. Just stay alive.

They walked. Doors on the left and right, very widely spaced. “Big apartments,” he said to Grant. There was number 10, 8, 6–all evens in this hall. And a corner.

Number 1, a blue‑green door, occupied an enormous stretch of hall, and right across from it–

“Number 2,” Grant said.

There was a red door on the right, number 4, then, occupying the middle, number 2, a bright green one, and beyond that, finishing that corridor before another bend, gold number 3 and blue number 5.

“Right across from her,” he said tentatively. “Who are 3, 4 and 5, I wonder?”

“I have no notion,” Grant said, and used his new keycard on the door. It shot open.

The lights came on, brightened overhead, a high‑ceilinged corridor with the illusion of mid‑afternoon sky overhead–it drew the eye up, in total startlement, made one think, nervously, that it was a skylight.

But it went on brightening. There was the sound of water splashing, somewhere. And down the hall, beneath it–statuary, and pictures, old ones, classic ones.

Living room at the left. New furniture. Medium green couch. Abstract carpet pattern in rust browns. Classy. Goldtone metal edge on the coffee table in front of it. Big wall sculpture in brass and rust brown enamel, an explosion of angles. He just stood there, half‑blocking Grant’s entry, until he realized that fact and walked all the way in.

Dining room, beyond that, in brass and glass, tiled floor like stone. A stream of water ran noisily down one wall, with a splashing sound that carried into the living room and the foyer.

“My God,” he said.

“Rather pleasant place,” Grant said.

“We don’t possibly earn this much,” he said.

“It seems we do now,” Grant said. “And I’m sure, for whatever reason, we’re worth it to someone.”

He drew a breath, headed back through the apartment to the bedroom.

Correction: bedrooms. There were three, one green, one rust and reds, one blue. And an office or study, in lighter green.

“What in hell are we supposed to do here?” Justin asked, turning from one bedroom to the other, in the hall. “Is it multiple choice?”

“This must be the main one,” Grant said, and walked into the largest‑looking bedroom, the blue one.

Justin followed. Beyond was a bathroom beyond the size a public gym might need. Sunken tub. Shower. Exercise equipment. He didn’t even go in. He just turned full circle, saw a bed in a mirrored nook, mirrored ceiling.

“Good God.” He was embarrassed.

Grant walked over and touched the switches by the bed. Room lights went down. Water ripple made the whole area look underwater.

“Dramatic,” Grant said.

It was. Grant stood bathed in that light. He was still moderately appalled, as Grant apparently hit another switch. It became firelight, playing games on the bed, and in the mirrors on either hand.

Third was flashing neon. A blare of music.

Grant cut it off, startled, and, after two tries, went back to firelight. It was an interesting aesthetic effect. It might be, if nerves could quit insisting the building might be afire.

“I think she means well,” Grant said.

“I can’t imagine where they got this thing,” he said. “God, what does she think we are?”

He walked midroom, where there was a bureau. A vase of fresh flowers of mixed colors sat propping a note card.

Dear Justin,it read, I hope you like it. I hope it’s not too gaudy, but you’d said all along you wanted color. You’re safe here. Staff will do cleaning once a day, or oftener if you need them: you don’t have to maintain anything, or cook if you don’t want to. The minder has the call button. Wing staff will clean for you: they’re all going to be high security. And there’s going to be a restaurant downstairs on 1 sometime next week, so they’ll cater for you, at any hour: I wouldn’t presume to install domestic staff for you, but if you and Grant decide you need some, and Wing staff isn’t enough, you only have to ask. Guards assigned, specifically to Apartment 2 security are Mark BM‑18 and Gerry BG‑22–they’re general Alpha Wing security, but they’re two you passed on, and if there’s a general emergency, their first priority is you and Grant, so know who they are, and they’ll just look out for you in general. Your accesses are a subset of Base One, officially now, registered that way, so you don’t have to pretend to be Callie or Theo any more. All Library is open to you, and any security situation in the Wing will be at least as transparent to you as to any of my staff except my bodyguard, if you just query Base One, so if you ever get worried you or Grant can access it immediately from any handheld anywhere in Reseune. I know you’re careful with codes.

Have I ever mentioned you and Grant kept me honest when I was a kid? You still do. You never flattered me, never lied to me. Please talk to me first if you ever have a problem. That means you’ll never cross up something I’m doing. Meanwhile I just feel safer and more comfortable if you’re across the hall. I don’t know why that is, but it’s so.

The minder is primed with all the Alpha Wing service numbers as well as all your old ones. You can go anywhere you ever went. Just guard those keycards with your lives.

Grant, keep him out of trouble. I love you both so much. And I’ll be so happy if you like this place, but you can change anything you want to change, anything at all.

Ari.

He walked back, sat down on the side of the bed. Just sat, and looked up at Grant, thinking–they’d never get back to their plain, ordinary apartment, their little place where they’d been alternately safe and scared as hell.

This place wasn’t the ongoing penance of the posh black and white apartment. It was comfortable. Extravagant beyond belief.

“It’s nice,” Grant said.

“God, if that music cycles on in the middle of the night,” he said, “I’ll teleport.”

“Well,” Grant said, “there’s probably a manual somewhere in System. We can look. Maybe we can change the programming.”

Justin gave a rueful laugh. And looked around him soberly then, all but overwhelmed.

“Why are we possibly this important to her?”

“You’re asking the azi, born‑man.”

“It’s just–every ratchet up the scale, we’re increasingly in the target zone, if anything ever goes wrong.”

“I think that’s always been a given, from way back. Hasn’t it?”

“I suppose it was. Is. Will be.”

“It’s probably very wise to put us behind her security wall. You’d easily be a target, if someone aimed at her. And I think, if you want my opinion, she’d be a different Ari if she lost you. I think she knows that very well.”

“I don’t know why,” he said.

“I do,” Grant said, “but I’m not going to tell you.”

“You’re a help.”

“She absolutely trusts you, and considering who you are, that’s probably quite a scary situation for her.”

“I don’t have to be here for that. We had our arrangement. She can trust me anywhere.”

“You’re a vulnerability. She’s sealing up her armor.”

That, he saw. He could all but hear the clanks of doors shutting. Figuratively.

She was growing up. The place was a fortress. Total security, her own guard…

“She’s preparing to take Reseune,” he said. “She’s preparing not to be caught the way Denys was.” He recalled the paintings outside–different from anything that had hung anywhere–uncertain they were art, or just for color, but they had an effect. They dragged the eye from one to the next, took hold and led, one to the next.

He remembered that night in Ari Senior’s apartment, when he’d had an injudicious drink and found himself changed, yanked sideways, away from Jordan, in ways he still couldn’t overcome. That hallway. The paintings on Ari’s walls.

He’d admired one. A painting of trees that weren’t woolwood. He’d been terrified of his situation, fascinated by the intricate, fine‑scale art. Set off balance by the luxury.

Overload. That was what he was getting, in this place. Wild angles. Water. Art that went sideways and splashed wild color, vastly different from anything in Wing One–anything he’d ever seen. But it was an Ari kind of thing, the paintings. It played psychological games. They were stark. Potent. Expensive.

“She’s becoming Ari,” he said. “We’re seeing it now. This may be the beta version, but this is power, not just wealth. This wing isn’t just decorated. If somebody did it for her, they know her. They painted herin this place. This is power. This just hits you in the gut.”

“In some ways,” Grant said, “she’s alpha azi–but with an emotional dimension I certainly don’t understand.” Grant’s eyes traveled up and around. “Then I see this place. The ceilings, way off scale. The way colors hit you. The waterfall in the living room–” His voice trailed off. Justin made the little caution sign. If they’d been bugged before, they were surely bugged now. “The waterfall is CIT. Pure CIT. But it’s pleasant.”

“The sky arch in the foyer. Like being outside. That’s a psychological difference, isn’t it?” He took the warning, took a deep breath. “Maybe a big difference in our Ari. Who knows?”

“I’m sure we’re going to find out,” Grant said.

“Are you all right here?” Grant asked him then, quietly. “Are you all right with this?”

Sometimes Grant functioned as hisSupervisor. He did a mental check. “I think so,” he said. It didn’t feel like home. It wouldn’t, for a while. “We had apartment design A. apartment design B, and C. And pick one of three, over in Ed. This is certainly something else, isn’t it?”

“It’s not black and white,” Grant said.

“You know what bothers me here? The black and white place was a place where we stayed. This one–this one just gets right under your skin, doesn’t it? I like the colors. Like the look. She read me. Read both of us, didn’t she? She did, or somebody sure did.”

“I’m not that difficult,” Grant said.

“That’s what you think,” he said, and thought about their growing up together, and thought about Jordan, who never, ever could get in here to see where his son lived.

Jordan. Step by step, he won’t like this, he won’t live with it, he’s going to blow, sooner or later.

He’s doing those sets knowing she’s going to check them, and there’ll be something wrong, because he’ll find out about this place, and it’ll eat him alive. He doesn’t like unknowns. Doesn’t like anything that’s been happening. And when she does take over–

“What are you thinking?” Grant asked.

“That Jordan’s going to be pissed about this arrangement.”

“We can’t fix it.”

“May be. But I’m a stupid, emotional born‑man and I want to fix it. And he’s a damned fool. He’s writing those sets. He’ll foul them in some particularly subtle way to try her. Just to try her. And if she bounces them back with no comment, he’ll just try again.”

“At least he has a focus,” Grant said, and that was true.

“I don’t think she’s shown anybody yet what she can do,” he said absently. “I don’t think she knows herself what she can do. Jordan’s going to try the limits. Hell, maybe it’s good for both of them.”

“Maybe,” Grant said.

“All those other numbers up and down the hall. And this is the third floor. Who else has she targeted, do you think? Who else decorates her universe?”

“Amy Carnath,” Grant said. “Sam Whitely. Probably Madelaine Strassen. –Maybe Yanni.”

“The kids. Yanni. And us. Oh, that’s going to be a well‑matched social set.”

“Yanni won’t want to move from where he is,” Grant said. “Yanni always seems to like things to stay the way they are.”

“Yanni’ll hit the roof if he gets home and she’s moved him. If he gets it. If he doesn’t get in on this–Yanni could be on his way back to the labs. God knows. I honestly hope not. He doesn’t deserve that kind of dealing.”

Upheaval in the whole world could be going on and they wouldn’t know. Except Ari had said they could know anything if they just asked. It didn’t seem that easy from here.

He got up off the bed and opened a closet. Their own plain clothing hung there, mostly brown, casual, out of place, looking lonely, a little worn and tired outside the offices they’d worked in.

What did they do for a living now? Where did they go from here? They had a new office downstairs, near, he supposed, a restaurant that was going to exist next week.

Where did they sit in the evening, in a living room with running water and no vid that he’d spotted with any casual glance?

What did they have in the fridge?

Probably what they’d had in it before, a saner thought informed him. The automations were probably loaded. He remembered the coffee dispenser in the Wing One office.

That would be good. Now they just had to find the damned kitchen.

BOOK THREE Section 3 Chapter v

JULY 3, 2424

1728H

Just cocktails, Ari had said, inviting the new residents for the evening reception in her apartment, and she knew if Sam and Justin and Grant were there it wasn’t going to be a wild evening, certainly not in the sense that the youngers had used to have wild evenings. They were all grown up now. They had outside interests. It was just a quiet drink shared among new neighbors, canapes and not even a very late evening.

And it went well. Amy showed up with Quentin– theywere a couple, everyone knew it, even if Quentin hung out with Grant and Sam’s Pavel and Yanni’s decidedly older Frank. Maddy’s Samara stood out like a fashion doll in that company; well, but so did Maddy, who’d arrived in a verypricy azure blue bodysuit with just the tiniest hint of white sparkle‑lights running at cuffs and collar. Maddy looked fabulous. Amy wore a nice black suit with an electric blue blouse, shocking and stylish contrast to her companion. Quentin, in his black uniform–bet that Maddy had had something to do with that, too. Patrick Emory showed up–he looked fairly cheerful, for cousin Patrick. He’d already spilled a drink on his coat, and had two more, and was getting a little loud, but he was family, and Ari felt responsible for him, not to leave him outside the way everyone had, even the first Ari. He had worked in Admin, in records, just quietly, forever, the same job, every day, and he did pretty well, by all she knew, though he had no relationships and never seemed to get any enjoyment out of life. His obsession was vids, and he would talk about them if you wanted to; and he always came to family parties.

Aunt Victoria Strassen hadn’t moved in: Aunt Vickie had her apartment over in Residential A. She sent a precisely written, neatly folded note that informed her niece that she appreciated the offer, but that she preferred her current residence and her old neighbors, and sent along a little box, which she called a housewarming gift. For Aunt Victoria, that was very, very considerate. It proved to contain a small carved plaque, which said, between sprigs of carved leaves, Family Matters. Probably Aunt Vickie had taken a bit of effort picking that out, to mean absolutely anything one wanted it to–particularly whatever Aunt Vickie meant, which might not be entirely polite, considering Vickie’s opinion of her origins. But Ari had Spessy hang it on the inner wall of the dining room, where it nearly matched the stone.

Justin and Grant showed up in brown knit and tweed–it set off Grant’s red hair and did absolutely nothing good for Justin. Set Maddy on him, was Ari’s wicked thought.

But she held back. She thought probably she’d pushed Justin just a little too far all in one day as it was, and figured if he’d wanted to stand out in the crowd, he might really have picked something other than that medium‑beige sweater and Harris tweed coat.

Truth was, he didn’t look particularly happy in being here, and mostly, nursing one drink, and surrounded by people twenty years younger than he was, he stayed close to Yanni, who himself stayed close to the cluster of azi–social, all of that lot of azi, more even than Florian and Catlin. The olders seemed more comfortable there, and with each other.

As for Florian and Catlin, both of themstayed on the fringe of the azi group, cheerful enough, but notindulging in wine at all this evening, she’d noted that, not even with these people who were her dearest friends in all the world. She saw absolutely no reason in present company that they couldn’t or shouldn’t relax, but they didn’t let go, not for a heartbeat. They’d worked so hard, so long, they’d gotten her here safely, they’d gotten her friends here, and there wasn’t anything wrong tonight–was there?

Was there something afoot that she didn’t know?

She almost went and asked them. But she was the hostess, and she had a very conscientious serving staff trying to manage a new arrangement, a new kitchen, and new premises, and trying not to ask questions of her. That was her situation to watch, her current level of crisis being an upset and lost azi maid standing there idle.

“Joyesse,” she said, “you’ve done very well setting up. Would you mind serving canapes? Go to Wyndham. He’ll like your help.”

Joyesse took off. Happy again. All her younger friends were happy–Sam, with his girlfriend at his side, and with Pavel hovering close to him, was telling one of his stories, talking about the build. Justin and Yanni were talking about something–probably lab business. Or Jordan, their mutual problem. And she wasn’t going to think about Jordan tonight.

The fish wall was an absolute success. Everyone admired it. Even the azi serving kept looking up at it, or around at it, in moments of utter, unguarded distraction, eyes taking in this and that detail. Amy naturally wanted to know the names of all the fish and everything that waved or moved or crawled in that tank–because Amy’s place had a similar tank, but round, a cylinder in the middle of her living room, and her aquarium specialist would serve Amy’s place, too. Amy knew fish, but she’d never dealt with salt water, and she was fascinated, happy and excited–for Amy. Maddy–Maddy got a waterfall, with orchids. Sam got a river all through his apartment, with a little pond under a glass floor in the rec room; and Yanni got a big vivarium, with lots of little skinks, which were lizards; and plants and flowers–Yanni said it was a damned waste of money. That was Yanni. He was most probably nervous about actually enjoying it.

She hadn’t asked Stef Dietrich to move in, so there, for someone double‑dealing in relationships from the time he was a kid. She’d arranged a very good job at Viking for Stef, he’d live like a prince on a Reseune salary on that mining station, and that was that for him, who’d tried to break hearts in the group…and never had changed his ways.

There were Dan and Mischa Peterson, each with a significant other; there was Stasi Morley‑Ramirez, who’d grown up taller than any of them–she just towered; she was going into airport admin, and had a beta azi assistant she’d gotten on her own. She’d grown much more serious than she’d used to be, and that was very, very serious; but she unbent and laughed with Dan and Mischa, like old times.

And there were Mika and Tommy Carnath, each with their own place, both single, so that would have to be watched: they got terrarium gardens and sky‑roofs. There was Dan Peterson and Will Morely with under‑floor ponds–Will had a relationship going with Peterson’s sister Judith, and she was all right: she was a Gamma Supervisor, and had a clean record, and they were almost engaged.

There were no children in the entire lot. That was going to change, this November.

God, she thought, Giraud. Giraud was going to be fascinated by the skinks.

And that would actually work very well. Giraud had so loved little microcosms. He’d visit here, with the fishes. With Sam’s river. He’d be all over the place. If she were a kid again, in this place, she’d have it all mapped out, and she’d be everywhere.

Sam kept company with his significant other, Maria. She looked very nice in a white lace‑edged skirt–was a little tanned, a little freckled, a little on the well‑fed side, and was very anxious, clinging close to Sam and thus far speaking to no one without being spoken to. But it was niceto have somebody find a relationship who wasn’t a security problem, and if Sam liked her, she had to have special qualities. Give Maria plenty of latitude–because it was, in a very major way, Sam’s evening, and he deserved to be absolutely happy. Ari found the chance to say so, in the way of welcoming everyone officially.

“This is all Sam’s doing, all this place. He’s worked so hard. How do you like the new wing?”

That was a set‑up question. Of course they all had to say yes, and Sam blushed, and looked at Maria, and Maria looked at him with a little blush of her own, adoring, so sweet it was acutely embarrassing.

At least she didn’t need to single Maria out for a special introduction: most present knew Maria, and Sam took care to introduce her to anyone else in range, even Patrick, who hastily wiped crumbs from his fingers–on his coat–and extended a hand. “This is Maria Wilkins‑Teague,” Sam said, beaming. “She’s from the AG wing. This is Patrick Emory. He’s Sera Ariane Emory’s cousin.”

Wilkins‑Teague. Freckles and curious mixed‑color eyes, mostly green. Ari had only rarely met the name of Teague, more often the Wilkinses. Definitely not one of the Families of Reseune, not at all common names in the CIT lists, which repeated a great deal. But Maria had never even had a security reprimand, not from her very outdoor childhood. And she didn’t wipe her fingers on her skirt.

Sam made his way across the room to pay his respects officially, did so: “Ari, you know Maria.”

“Of course,” she said. “So glad you’ll be a neighbor, Maria.” And Maria blushed brighter than Sam and said, softly, with, God help her, a kind of little curtsey. “Thank you, sera. Thank you so much.”

“My pleasure,” she’d said. “Anyone Sam likes is all right. I’d be jealous if Sam wasn’t my brother. You’ve got a good one in him.”

“I know I have,” Maria said, and hesitated over an offered tray of pricey imported cheese and crackers while Sam asked Ari matter‑of‑factly how the tank plumbing and water system was working.

“Fine,” Ari said. “Absolutely not a glitch.” Which showed where Sam’s mind was today, besides Maria. He was looking around, up and down, seeing all the forms and the conduits and the works of the place, and he just wanted everything he’d done to work right, all the switches and all the plumbing.

She loved him tremendously for that. And Maria had finally taken a peppery piece from the tray and now looked as if the taste wasn’t at all what she wanted. Ari pretended not to notice, and Sam, with finesse, simply took it in his big hand and ate it on his way, hooking Maria’s arm, as it proved, to show Maria the workings of the electronic glass, which switched on and off in the next moments.

Ari wended her own way over to the olders. “How do you find your apartments?” she asked in general.

“Big,” Yanni said, in Yanni’s way. “My furniture’s kind of swallowed up.”

“But is it all right?”

“Nice,” was Yanni’s answer. “The garden’s infested with fast little things. They ate one of the bugs. I take it they take care of themselves. Where does the shit go? Or are we supposed to clean it?”

She was amused. “There’ll be maintenance, Yanni. Trust me.”

“You don’t need my beetle, now, do you?”

She kissed him on the cheek. “It’s in my study,” she said, “holding down my important papers, right along with Giraud’s butterfly. And I will never, never in my life think he’s superfluous.”

“Go on with you,” Yanni said. “Carry on this way and there’ll be talk.”

She laughed, moved on, and snagged Justin’s arm next–in such a happy mood she went up on tiptoe and kissed Justin’s cheek, next. “You’re a dear,” she said. Justin had tried to turn, but she held fast.

“A dear, am I? That old?”

“Not nearly too old,” she said, and caught Grant’s arm on the other side, and walked them both to the waterfall hall, where there was a bit more room, and the sunset sky overhead. “I absolutely meant what I wrote in the note. I want my lessons. I need them, understand, I really desperately need them right now.”

“Is my father behaving himself?”

The designs Jordan was doing, Justin meant. “He’s dropped a bug in. Naturally. It went back. Naturally. I’m sure he’ll clean that out and add another one.” It was funny, and it wasn’t. She didn’t kiss Grant. She hugged his arm hard. “You take care of each other, hear me? It may be chancy in the next few years. I proved who I was in court, but a court ruling is one thing. By the time certain people figure out that I really am what the law says I am, I’m going to be in charge. I’m in charge of this wing, in a way I wasn’t ever, in Wing One. And this wing is coming alive, tonight. Reseune is going to know Base One is active again, not just tiptoeing around the edges. It can snatch control. It can lock out any other Base, just the way it did. I laid it down for a while, so far as people know, but it’s up and running full bore now. And as of tonight, Yanni’s still Director, but every operation in Reseune, down to the electronics on the precip towers, and the off‑ons in the birth labs, they’re all reachable, if I want to reach them. It’s been true all along–I think you’ve suspected so. But now everybody in Reseune will know it. They’ll know it in the town tomorrow and I give it twenty‑four more hours before it’s all over Novgorod and Planys.” She hugged Justin’s arm. “Your father will know it, right along with everybody else, and he’s likely to be upset, but I don’t want to upset him. I’m glad I’m working with him. It gives him an outlet for his frustration. Is that all right with you?”

“Fine,” was Justin’s answer, very proper, very quiet, and never quite looking at her.

“Justin, you’re not mad at me. Please say you’re not upset.”

He didn’t answer glibly, or at once. “Truthers running?”

“No,” she said. He looked at her then, quite soberly.

“I’m not upset. It’s a beautiful apartment. More than we earn, by a long shot. I just hope we won’t get a hell of a bill one of these days…in the physical or the metaphysical sense.”

“No,” she said. “You never will. Not that I have any control over. You paid it. All those years, you certainly paid for it. What you’ll do in future will pay for it. Don’t doubt that.”

“I want to design sets,” he said. “I’m a designer. That’s what I trained to be. I like doing that.”

“No doubt of it,” she said. “You and Grant–both. You’re going to do pretty well what you want to do. Teach me for another year. Maybe two. There are projects coming. Things on the drawing board that mean I need your advice. What you do–what you do is going to matter in the universe. And you’re notgoing to be wondering when the next security panic comes through. If it does, they’ll be protecting you.”

“That would certainly be a novelty” Justin said.

“No question of that,” Grant said.

“You’ve got what I gave you.”

“Yes,” Justin said, touching his coat pocket. “Does everybody have them?”

“No,” she said, the truth. “Do you like the apartment?”

“It’s not black and white,” Justin said, humor restored, and that made her happy.

“Lessons on Monday next?”

“Lessons Monday next. We still have to search up our office.”

Humor definitely back. She grinned and hugged his arm and Grant’s, and slipped free, happy, finally, because everybody was all right. For once, everybody was.

Then Florian turned up in her path, with a very businesslike look. “Sera,” Florian said.

Catlin was there, too.

And the happiness took a dive. Instantly. Florian’s eyes traveled further down the hall, where it became private, in front of the security office, and she went there with him.

Florian said, “Sera, there was a bombing at Strassenberg.”

“At Strassenberg.” She was utterly floored. “What damage?”

“The precip tower’s down.”

“Damn.” It didn’t make sense. Strassenberg wasn’t a place anybody went. Yet. Except for the construction crew, the transport people, and a handful of sniffer pigs and handlers. “Anybody hurt?”

“Reports are still coming in,” Catlin said. “A perimeter alarm went off. ReseuneSec reports the alarm triggered was between the port and the barracks. Somebody attempted approach. They thought it was a platythere: they scrambled to deal with that. Then the tower came down.”

“No need to disturb the party, sera,” Florian said, “at this point. There is a general shutdown of perimeters, a search in progress, but it’s believed they got in by river, overland, not by using the port. ReseuneSec’s placed Reseune and Reseune Township on yellow alert; they have river patrols out, looking for the landing site. They re diverting flights to Moreyville.”

Strassenberg was several hundred klicks upriver, still in Reseune Administrative Territory. It was a long stretch of river to try to find anything human‑sized–even a small boat. Reseune itself, on yellow alert, sat isolated in the midst of a no‑fly zone, surrounded by hundreds of kilometers of unbreathable atmosphere and antagonistic flora and fauna. The Novaya Volga ran along its shore; it had an airport. Those were the two most likely approaches for trouble to take. Overland was too much work. But–

She saw, down the hall, Yanni and Frank, in process of leaving.

She went that way. Yanni delayed for her at the front door, by the waterfall.

“I heard.” she said. “Yanni, can I help?”

“I’ll handle it,” Yanni said. “Just carry on. We’re not going to make a big thing of it. Natural gas explosion. That’s what we’ll say.”

“It wasn’t, though.”

“Whole damn truckful of explosives by the look of it. You carry on, you and your young people. This is going to take some sorting out.”

“Go,” she said, and by this time cousin Patrick had shown up, tucking a napkin full of something into his coat pocket, one more piece of Admin on his way.

“Ari,” Patrick said, with a little bow, and then he followed Yanni and Frank out, alone–they didn’t wait for him.

“Searches are in progress,” Florian said, “there and here. We’re under a mild alert, nothing that should bother the guests.”

You didn’t get into Reseune by water that easily these days. The bots zapped anything small; they reported anything big. The big machines that channeled the wild part of the river–they didn’t let things in easily, either. Somebodyhad gotten to Strassenberg a short distance overland, she’d bet on it. There was legitimate shipping that got close enough to it. You landed, and there were no barriers on the river shore yet, nothing like Reseune.

“Why?” she asked, the big why, but she wasn’t surprised when Florian and Catlin both shrugged an I‑don’t‑know.

“We’re hoping to find out, sera.”

“Understood,” she said, and thought, damn. She knew she had a worried, unhappy expression on her face, and tried to amend it as she walked out into the living room, but maybe Yanni and Patrick hadn’t been too discreet in their departure: heads turned. Conversation, already at a low ebb, died.

“We’ve got a problem,” she said. “Tower blown upriver at the new construction, definitely hostile action, but that stays under this roof. We don’t know why or what. We’re under a mild security alert here: if you’re going anywhere else this evening, use the storm tunnels.”

“Damn,” Amy said, just, “Damn.” And conversation stayed dead for a moment.

“Well,” Ari folded her arms and looked at the rest of her guests. “So we’re stuck here. Anybody want to follow this on the System?”

“Is somebody possibly on the grounds?” Maddy asked.

“Unknown, sera,” Catlin said. “But this wing is secure. Also secure: Admin, Ed, Labs A, B, C, and D. Search of Residencies A and B proceeding. Search of grounds proceeding, cascading alert. All AG notified.”

“Slow,” Ari muttered. She’d had time to hold converse, and they were just now closing up AG? “They can move faster than that.”

Storm sirens blew. Finally. They advised anyone out to get under cover, into the storm tunnels. Lethals might be patrolling the grounds: the little weedzappers, which already had a camera function, turned suddenly nasty and helping defenses target any response. It wouldn’t be a time to be walking around out there.

“Well,” Maddy said with a nervous little laugh. “I’ll stay in the Wing tonight. Champagne, anyone?”

There were takers, most of the party, and staff moved about seeing to it.

“It’s just become a dinner party,” Ari said. “In case any of you had planned on elsewhere after this: we’ll be serving something, and serving late, Joyesse, go tell Wyndham so.”

“Yes, sera,” Joyesse said.

“Catlin, tell Wes put the security screens up.”

“Yes,” Catlin said. Florian was in the hall, checking something, probably conversing with Wes and Marco, maybe communicating with Rafael and company.

The fish tank went opaque, dark blue. Then the other wall came alive with images, some with sunset darkening to night, showing the downed tower from a perspective below the cliffs, some with numbers, and one showing the view from a bot scurrying at turf level across Reseune grounds.

“Ari.” Justin came up at her elbow. “My father. I’d like permission to leave.”

Above all else she didn’t want Justin running around in the dark with the whole complex under alert. No was the reflexive answer.

But she couldn’t hold on to him. Or she’d lose him. She understood that.

“I’m going to be a spacecase until you get back. You’ve got Mark and Gerry with you. Get your father on the phone. Be sure he’s all right before you go anywhere. Security may have moved. Mark and Gerry can pull rank.”

“I–” he started to protest, but the security comment quieted any objection.

“Thank you,” Grant said, and the two of them went for the door, while she advised Marco to have Mark and Gerry meet them somewhere before the security desk.

Amy drifted over to her side, champagne glass in hand. “Something up with Jordan?”

“Not in play,” she said to one of her oldest co‑conspirators. “Whatever’s going on, if it’s Paxers, or if it’s not, Jordan’s a piece worth pinning down. Justin’s just going to tell him we care.”

Amy nodded, took a slow sip of champagne. Quentin was over with Florian and Catlin, getting information, watching the screens, which weren’t apt to change much this far into the emergency. Just the little robot skittering along in the dark, gone to night‑vision.

From Novgorod to Moreyville, even in Big Blue and faroff Planys, that scene was playing. The world was on alert.

Wonder if they knew, Ari asked herself. Wonder if this is specially for me. Another housewarming gift.

That implied a certain knowledge of the inner workings of Reseune–where the fact of so many relocations into Alpha Wing had, in fact, created quite a stir, and quite a lot of gossip.

The storm sirens still blew. Not a physical storm in the offing–but a storm, all the same.

BOOK THREE Section 3 Chapter vi

JULY 3, 2424

1934H

Two security were in the lower hall, black‑uniformed, rattling with full kit, including seldom‑worn helmets, and on an intercept. It didn’t make quiet company, but they were earnest types–Mark and Gerry, their names were. They hadn’t had time to introduce themselves formally–two lanky, tall azi, a lot alike: Mark, a serious fellow and Gerry a little less so: Justin actually recalled their files; but both were deadly serious at the moment.

“Ser,” they called him, and they said “ser,” to Grant, too, keeping their pace with no effort at all.

“We’re going to Ed,” Justin said. “My father lives there. I want to be sure he’s all right, considering what’s going on.” He had his ordinary pocket com. He punched the fast‑response buttons as they exited the lift toward the security station, and let it ring.

And ring.

“Brilliant,” he said to Grant. “He’s not home and he’s not answering.”

“Probably out at dinner,” Grant said.

“Ten thousand‑odd people are probably caught out at dinner.” They reached the desk and Justin showed his keycard. “Sera’s direct permission,” he said. “Out to Ed, personal.”

“Yes, ser,” the guard said. “Stay to the tunnels.”

“Absolutely.” They went out the door, into the familiar storm‑tunnel level of Wing One, and took an immediate left, Mark and Gerry rattling along behind. The sirens were intermittent now, as they were during a storm. The main corridor as they came out of Wing One and into the area of Admin was full of traffic, people generally in a fair hurry, one direction and the other, most trending the same direction they were going, which led, as the rim of a great box, through the Ed tunnels and over to the Residencies and the Labs. Anybody from the Township was going to have a long wait for buses or a long hike, via the Labs, to the second tier of storm tunnels and shelters…and there were people with children, one upset lost child–the father came and swept the lost boy up out of the bewildering traffic just as they came in range: the father and his partner had four others in their group, and tried to urge them to more speed.

“It’s all right,” Justin said as he came up with the harried father. “It’s a precautionary alert. No rush.”

Others heard, shouted out, “What’s going on?” and Justin yelled, “Precautionary alert. Damage upriver is all.”

He didn’t know if he made a dent in the distress, but a little further on, just as they were leaving Admin, Yanni’s voice came over the general address:

“ This is Director Schwartz. The alert is downgraded to level three. Those with indoor business are advised to pursue it with attention to level three cautions. Repeat…”

That calmed things, afterward. People caught their breath and quit trying to buck the flow. People began to walk normally, and to talk, and to ask questions, particularly of Gerry and Mark, who just said, repeatedly, “We’re on duty, ser. We can’t stop.”

Justin made another try on the com. “Dad? Answer, dammit.”

And a second one, after the next intersection. He wasn’t used to this much exercise. His legs were burning. “Dad? Come on, answer.”

“ What in hell’s going on?” the question came.

“Where are you?”

“ Abrizio’s.”

“Right below you. Coming up.” He was vastly relieved. And he had two large, heavily armed azi in tow, who weren’t going to help his father’s nerves at all. “Mark, Gerry, you’re on my tab. Just go in, after us, order soft drinks and sandwiches, sit, and have dinner until Grant and I leave.”

“Ser,” Gerry said, “we’re on duty.”

“This isyour duty, to look inconspicuous and not have my father create a public furor, which is bound to cause me and sera trouble. Just do it. You’re doing personal security at the moment. My rules apply.”

“Yes, ser,” came back, from both, and meanwhile they reached the escalator and rode it up, this time, to the concourse level of Education.

“He’s going to notice them,” Grant said. “They won’t stay that far back.”

“I’m sure he will.”

They had Abrizio’s in sight: yellow lights were flashing, lending an unwholesome look to the area, but people were moving about in a fair simulation of calm. He and Grant lengthened stride, got a little ahead of Mark and Gerry as they reached the door, came in and advanced a few paces to try to spot Jordan. Things had gotten quiet, just as Paul stood up to make clear where they were. Paul’s eyes were averted to something behind them, and Justin didn’t look: the silhouettes of two helmeted ReseuneSec agents appearing in the doorway, blinking with ready‑lights, could generally put a pall on conversation, or stimulate it, and both happened.

They had Paul and Jordan in view, however, and wended their way through the clutter of tables to take the vacant two seats.

“You’re being followed,” Jordan remarked as Justin sat down.

“The whole damn place is under alert,” Justin said. There was a half‑eaten order of chips and cheese with peppers. It was one of Abrizio’s better offerings. He took a chip with cheese. “Just came from supper and a party. Not real hungry.”

“The same,” Grant said.

“Party,” Jordan said.

“Social evening. The new wing’s open. We’ve moved again. We didn’t plan to.”

“And you just got lonesome for our company,” Jordan said.

“Drop the barbs. I got worried. There’s been an explosion at the up‑river construction. We don’t know if there’s anything going on here, but since you draw trouble the way I did, I borrowed a couple of Ari’s guards and came looking.”

“An attack on the construction. Interesting. And a couple of Ari’s guards in attendance. I should be flattered.”

“It’s nothing. It’s probably just an accident, hit a gas pocket in a dieoff area, something like that. Methane. Blew a new precip tower to bits. Security’s on alert, nonetheless. They’re not letting anybody onto the grounds.”

“We heard the announcement,” Jordan said glumly.

At least Mark and Gerry had taken off the helmets and the lights on their gear didn’t show. The waitress was over there. They were making their order, likely soft drinks. Maybe sandwiches.

“Well, I was going to call you. We’d just had one thing after the other. We took an early supper, headed home from the restaurant to find out we’d been moved–my number hasn’t changed, neither has Grant’s. Office, the whole thing. Then we had a note on the minder we were due at a reception not that long after, so we didn’t actually change for that. Just went. Had a few drinks, so I’m at max. I was going to call you in the morning…”

“We just heard the warning sound,” Jordan said, “and there hadn’t been any advisement they were going to make weather, so we figured it must be a natural storm. Guess not. Methane, eh?”

Sometimes the web of lies he told Jordan just overloaded. Sometimes, if things were ever going to be different, there had to be a dose of truth. “Fact is,” he said, lowering his voice, “it probably wasn’t. Somebody apparently blew up the tower up at the new construction.”

“Somebody?”

“The usual suspicion goes to the Paxers. But that would be major for them, a real break with habit.”

“Logistics.” Jordan had leaned forward, and Paul had too, both of them, just taking it in, and for the first time in a long time, there was no bitter edge. “How in hell did they get through?”

“They needed river transport,” Justin said. “They had to get either up‑river past Reseune or downriver.”

“Out of Svetlansk,” Jordan said, “maybe. Downriver saves fuel.”

“Not much civilization up there,” Paul said, “or wasn’t–last we knew.”

“Mining, shipping, plenty of opportunity to lay hands on explosives. Unless things have changed.”

“Not much to stop them going ashore at the new construction,” Justin said. “No filtration equipment like here. No weir. No bots. All they’d need to do would be get a boat somewhere, load it with something–go ashore in suits, get out again.”

“So what,” Jordan asked with sudden sharp focus, “would anybody at Svetlansk have against whatever’s going on at this new construction?”

And how much to tell Jordan? How many secrets to dance around? He’d gotten a response with the truth, a real change of disposition out of Jordan. He could make Ari mad. But Ari said she wanted to help Jordan. And was thatthe truth?

“Jordan,” he said, “I’m going to tell you something I don’t want to go beyond you and Paul. The new construction is another township in the works. Name of Strassenberg.”

“Strassenberg.” Jordan gave a short, bitter laugh. “My God. She’s building a city.”

But he kept his voice down when he said it.

“Dad, I’m about as close to Ari as I can get. And that’s likely to be a permanent arrangement.” Jordan drew back a little at that, and Justin brought his hand down on Jordan’s, pinning it. “Just listen to me. Permanent arrangement. It’s where I live. I’m not her lover. I’m her teacher. And I’m not inclined to say no.”

“Clearly it pays well.”

“I want to do it. Dad. I get things out of the arrangement…”

“Oh, I’ll bet you do.”

“Listen to me! She’s damned smart, is that a surprise? But I get access to the first Ari’s notes, so you should know money isn’t the game. Neither is sex.” Jordan tried to move the hand and he held it, hard. “Listen. Talk to me about this. I want you to understand me, just once. I’m learning. I missed a hell of a lot during the bad years. Same as you. I’m getting a break, and I’m taking it. I don’t think that’s such a bad deal.”

“Count your change. That’s all I’ll say.”

“She’ll use some of the things I know, yes. But meanwhile I get input in what’s going on in the world, I get some policy input, and that’s important. I get to have a say.”

“Sure. As long as you agree with her you’ll have a major say. Wake up.”

“I’ll have to see how it plays out. I won’t know. But I’m not locking myself away from the chance.”

“You look pretty well locked away to me. You don’t get a say in who you can let in’ the door–do you?”

“Dad. Eventually, yes. This isn’t the time…”

“Bullshit.” Jordan jerked his hand free. “Paul. Have you had enough?”

“We’ll walk you back,” Justin said.

“The hell. With those two over there? The hell you will. Paul. Come on.” He stood up. Looked down at Justin. “You’re rich. You pay the bill.”

“Sit down. Please.”

“No, thanks.”

Jordan headed for the door, Paul in his wake.

Justin got up. Grant did. “Grant,” Justin asked him, “pay the bill.”

“We don’t split up.” Grant said. “If you go after him, we go.”

“Grant, just for God’s sake, take care of it.” He shoved through the narrow gap between two occupied chairs and started to leave, and Grant did, both of them heading for the door, but Jordan and Paul were already outside.

“Hey!” a female voice yelled.

They knew the waitress. Justin stopped, half‑turned to show his face in the dim ambient light. “Justin Warrick, Greta, just put it on my tab. All of it.” He could see their guards on their feet and starting out. He turned, hardly having stopped moving, and got out the door.

A presence at the side caught his eye–two ReseuneSec agents and Jordan and Paul up against the frontage of the bar–familiar sight, but not familiar with his father and Paul involved.

“Hey!” Justin said, and immediately faced a drawn stunner. He raised his hands to show them vacant. Grant did.

And about that time two more on their side came out of the bar.

Guns came next.

“For God’s sake!” Justin exclaimed. “We’re on the same side!”

“Interfering in an arrest,” one of the outside guards said.

“On what grounds?” Jordan shot back.

Justin, hands still lifted, said, “Dad, just shut up!”

“Both of you, up against the wall.”

“Don’t move!” That, from one of their own pair. “Don’t anybody move. They’re under our watch.”

“Where’s your orders?” one of the others asked. “Who are you?”

“Mark BM, special assignment, Alpha Wing.”

“There isn’t any Alpha Wing.”

“There is,” Justin said, “as of today.”

“Shut up,” the agent advised him. “Get over there.”

“Ser Warrick isn’t moving,” Mark said. “Special assignment, Ariane Emory’s personal guard. Alpha Wing. Ser Warrick. Stand away from the wall.”

“Don’t move!”

“Call–” Justin began to suggest, and flinched and shut up when he heard the hum of a stunner.

“We will shoot if you fire that.” That was the other voice from his side. “Gerry GB, Alpha Wing. Call your headquarters.”

Justin stood still. Grant did. They’d drawn a crowd. “Hell of a fix,” he said, and remembered what he had in his pocket. And he didn’t dare reach for it. He found occasion to lower his hands a degree. In case.

“Stand still!”

“This is a warning,” Gerry said. “We are authorized. Call your headquarters.”

“Better do it,” Justin muttered. “Director Hicks is going to be damned mad if you and her security start shooting at each other. Let me get my com and I’ll call Yanni Schwartz if you want to take the chance.”

“I’m calling HQ,” the other agent said.

“I want to know.” Jordan said, “on what charges we’re being arrested.”

“Shut up, Dad.”

“I want to know!” Jordan said sharply.

“Because there’s an alert out on you. Detain and hold for HQ.”

“And I want to know who gave that order,” Justin said. “Was it Hicks? I want to see badges, and authorization.”

“Stay put.”

“I’ll find out,” Justin said, seeing he was gaining ground. “You can bet I will, and if I can’t, Emory’s bodyguard will.”

There was a brief exchange on the com. Justin couldn’t hear the other side of it, but he heard, “We’ve found Warrick, ser, in company with his son and two azi–”

“Grant ALX,” Grant supplied, “and Paul AP.”

“Grant and Paul,” the other agent said, and began making signs to his partner, who took a step back. “No. Not actually in detention, ser.” Hand‑sign for “back way off.” “We’ve got a pair in uniform with lethals claiming to be bodyguard from Alpha Wing. Claiming they’ve got jurisdiction.” Moment of silence. “Yes, ser. Understood, ser. Thank you, ser. –We’re to back off,” he said to his partner. “Apologies. You’re free to go.”

“The hell!” Jordan shouted.

“Jordan,” Justin said, and quietly went and got Jordan by the arm. “Just come with me.” Jordan’s cheek was red–contact with the ornate frontage, likely, not a voluntary contact. “Paul. Let’s just go.”

Jordan wiped at his cheek and looked at his hand, and looked venom at the two agents, only slightly less so at Mark and Gerry.

“It’s all right, Dad. We’re going now. Grant, Paul, can you go back in there and settle the tab? Mark, go with them, will you?”

“Yes, ser,” Mark said. And the other two agents, nameless, went on down the mall. Not unreported. There’d been badge numbers, and Justin would bet Grant remembered. Not counting the report Mark and Gerry might file.

“It’s going to bruise,” Justin said, still holding Jordan’s arm, and Jordan shook him off.

“I’m fine.”

“Sure you are. Thank God they really were ReseuneSec.”

Jordan gave him a stark stare. “Any reason to expect anything else wandering around the mall?”

There wasn’t. But there could be. “You attract cards, remember?”

“No fucking way to run things,” Jordan said. “Damn!”

“Glad I came after you,” Justin said.

“Why did you?”

“Just generally worried,” he said. “Worried about your safety.” The com wasn’t the only thing he had in his pocket. He felt in his pants pocket and found the old keycard. “I can’t bring you into Alpha Wing. But I can get you into Wing One. If there’s anything else afoot–that’ll stop some things.”

“Since when, Wing One?”

“Since it’s mostly vacant, since we have a perfectly good apartment there we still have keys to. You’ll have to go out for meals–I recommend the Admin section. I don’t know if there’ll be sheets, but there’s a bed and I know they left the furniture. Tonight, with things going crazy like this–I just want you to go there, Dad. Come on. You know you’re curious.”

“I know that Wing pretty damned well. I know her apartment–pretty damned well.”

“She’s not in it. She’s in Alpha Wing now. Security there’s still tight, however.”

“Well, it’s tight here! You saw what came of it.”

“If I tell Wing One Security you belong there for a while, I don’t think anybody’s going to bother you. Dad, just do me the favor. Please. I’m begging you. For Paul’s sake. Don’t mess around with this. You’re on somebody’s list, and some stupid order got fired off when the alert went out, maybe an accident, maybe an accident somebody just let happen, but I don’t want you running the risk. Bruises heal. A stunner’s not damned funny.” He pulled the keycard out. Offered it. “Yours, until I get this sorted out.”

“You get us in there,” Jordan said with a shadow of that sour quirk he could take on, “and Security doesn’t nail us twice in the process…and I’ll be very interested to see how it plays with her highness.”

“I’ll talk to her.”

“So nice to have a son who has pull.”

“Come on,” he said. Paul and Grant came out of the bar, mission accomplished, he trusted, and he caught Grant’s eye and then turned to Mark and Gerry. “You understand what I’m doing. I’m moving my father and his companion into Wing One, our apartment there, where they’ll be safe. I want you to advise your command we’re doing it, tell them what’s happened, and say my father would appreciate it if he has sheets, towels, and a bar setup.”

“Yes, ser,” Gerry said.

He’d tossed the last in. Gerry seemed in no wise fazed by the order. He motioned Jordan on toward the down escalator.

“We haven’t got a change of clothes,” Jordan said.

“Welcome to my ever‑changing world,” Justin said, and turned his head toward Mark. “Mark, my father’s had no chance to pack anything. Can you arrange him and Paul to have clothes, personal kit, that sort of thing?”

“We’re going to get turned back at the door,” Jordan predicted.

But they didn’t. The Alpha Wing keycard got them right through, and the ever‑present Wing One security guards said, “Justin Warrick, ser. We have orders from Alpha Wing. Go on up.”

They rode the lift to their old apartment. Silence aboard, just the thump of the car on its tracks. They got out into a hall as brightly lit as ever, right by their door. “Go ahead,” Justin said to Jordan as they reached the key‑slot. “You’ve got the key.”

Jordan put it in. Opened the door. Their living room, their couch. And a small tray of canapes, and another of vodka and glasses.

“That wasn’t sitting here all day,” Jordan said.

“That’s from the party, pretty clearly,” Justin said. He walked over and turned on the autobar. “Still stocked. Good they brought the glasses.”

“Clearly they’ve got a key to this place.” Jordan said.

“There’s no place they can’t get, actually,” Justin said, and took a look into the bedroom. “Sheets and towels. I imagine your clothes will arrive shortly.”

“Fast service,” Jordan said.

“She approves,” Justin said, fixing Jordan with a level stare. “Or you wouldn’t get the canapes.”

Jordan didn’t say a thing. Just walked back into the hall, had a look at the bedroom, and walked back again. “You’re right. Black and white and grey. A psychotic’s dream.”

“The bed’s not bad,” he said. “Pretty comfortable, actually.”

“What’s the rent?” Jordan said. “Your immortal soul?”

“Call it caretaking. Ari’s moved. We’ve moved. They’re going to be renovating all over the Wing, what I hear; but this place can wait.” He gave a nod toward the adjoining wall. “That was her apartment. Which I suppose you know. We’re across one major wall and a security gate, but not that far away. Assuming you want to stay here.”

“Is there ice?” Jordan asked.

“The bar says there’s ice.”

“Then we’ll stay,” Jordan said, sitting down on the couch. “Paul, all right with you?”

“Fine,” Paul said, and in passing, shot a look of gratitude Justin’s way, just that.

Justin nodded. Looked at Grant, then, and at Mark and Gerry, before glancing back at Jordan. Paul had gone to the bar, was preparing a drink. “Lunch tomorrow, Dad?”

“I can’t afford those fancy places over in Admin.”

“My treat. Just shut up about it. You get those designs done and you’ll have income again.”

“They could fucking pay me while I’m working.”

“Look, there’s a perfectly good office in there. Not like working in your living room. Computer connections probably work.” It was a thought. He didn’t know if they’d gotten that equipment out, and he went back specifically to look. Everything of that sort was stripped. “Your stuff’s coming in,” he reported, coming back into the living room. “Plenty of room for it. I’ll talk to Ari about permanency here.”

“The place is psychotic.”

“You’ve got colored towels. Colored sheets. It’s not psychotic. I’m going to ask for a guard to be put down here. Contact with housekeeping.” He put his hand on the door switch, prepared to leave. “Glad you’re here,” he said. “Don’t let anybody from housekeeping in until you get the guards out there.”

“Oh, thanks,” Jordan said. Paul put the drink into his hand. He lifted it, silent salute.

“And lay off that stuff,” Justin snapped, and hit the door switch and left.

BOOK THREE Section 3 Chapter vii

JULY 4, 2424

0251H

The party ended, late, with all youngers in attendance, those who didn’thave responsibility for the safety of Reseune. Sam made a few calls to check on Fitz and crew, being sure that personnel had gotten out unscathed at Strassenberg–and Ari just keyed into Base One in her office and searched up details Sam couldn’t get.

ReseuneSec had sent a plane up there with senior officers, they’d landed at the airstrip, and they were trying to track whoever had gotten up on the cliffs with that much explosive. Boats were searching the shore for any sign of landings.

About time they got some bots on the site, guarding the area, Ari said to herself, but they cost, and she was going to have to convince Yanni they’d be cheaper than rebuilding that tower.

And the messages came flooding in.

From Yanni: “We’ve had an armed confrontation with your guard in the middle of the Education Wing mall. I have enough on my plate without the Warricks at it.”

From ReseuneSec: “To: Sera Ariane Emory, Director, Alpha Wing

“From: Office of Adam Hicks, Director, Reseune Security.

“Posted by: Kyle AK‑36, duty officer: automated system.

“This is to notify you that staff under your supervision has violated:

“Code 2871‑82, section three: Resisting arrest.

“Code 2281‑91, section one: Interfering with Reseune Security officers in the performance of their duty.

“Code 2281‑91, section two: Inciting others to interfere with Reseune Security officers in the performance of their duty.

“Code 291‑1, section two: Involvement of azi in the commission of a crime…”

It went on for a list of twenty‑one items.

It made Rafael’s note compulsory reading: “To: Sera Ariane Emory, Director, Alpha Wing

“From: Rafael BR‑283, Commanding Officer, Alpha Wing Security

“Officers Mark BM and Gerry BG accompanied Justin Warrick to Abrizio’s Bar and Grill in the Education Wing where, pursuant to the orders of Justin Warrick, they disengaged but observed. Justin Warrick engaged Jordan Warrick in private conversation at another table. Jordan Warrick left the bar and was placed under arrest outside by officers BY‑210 and BO‑8 of Reseune Security. Justin Warrick objected. Reseune Security threatened him with a stunner, while applying restraint to Jordan Warrick. Alpha Wing officer Mark BM then drew a lethal and instructed Reseune Security to stand down…”

Oh, even better. She skipped to Justin’s message.

“Ari, forgive me. I lost my head. It wasn’t Jordan’s fault…”

It went on to say, “On my own discretion, I told Jordan the nature of the upriver construction and the incident there. His reaction was sympathetic, and despite the public locale, the ambient noise was as good as a silencer, so I am relatively confident no one overheard. Conversation kept to a quiet level until Jordan left the bar with Paul, whereupon they were arrested by ReseuneSec personnel outside the bar. Grant and I followed, an argument ensued, and Mark and Gerry intervened to abort the arrest of all of us. I think Mark and Gerry will report more details.

“You know that I put Jordan into our old apartment. I apologize. If you want to talk about this incident I’m available at any hour. I very much regret the inconvenience.”

There was even one from Jordan Warrick: “I don’t know if this will get to you, but it’s a nice place. Thanks for the tray.”

She wrote back. To Yanni: “Sorry about that. There was a communications problem. I’ll communicate with Hicks and straighten it out. Keep me current with what you find out on the other matter. If you need me, call.”

To Adam Hicks: “We had a problem tonight. Jordan Warrick should be subject to observation, not arrest during general curfew, unless, as per any other CIT, he violates the law. Justin Warrick is not to receive any reprimand for his actions of last night. All charges are to be dropped. Jordan Warrick is now resident in Wing One and has received rights of access there.”

To Rafael: “Your personnel acted as they ought. Please stress that they should contact ReseuneSec Command offices and cite my authority to defuse any further such situations, so long as Alpha Wing personnel are safe, and that should remain the priority. Under no circumstances is any Alpha Wing resident to be arrested on any charge without clearance from me.”

To Justin: “I knew it was going to be interesting when you left the party. I’m glad you’re all right and it’s all right what you did. That information is due for release soon anyway, before the news obsesses about it. Jordan is safer where you put him, and I don’t think I could have persuaded him to go there. Congratulations on that part; Please write Hicks and Yanni a meaningful apology and say you were following my orders.”

And, not least to Jordan, who’d actually initiated an exchange with her: “You and Paul are welcome. You can contact the Office of Domestic Services, Alpha Wing–the minder will have the number; and, arrange a pair of betas, set of your choosing, to serve as domestic staff if you like. Justin and Grant never opted to have anyone live in: that was their choice, but they relied somewhat on my staff. Now that I’m removed from that area, you probably will find it easier to have someone to take care of the day‑to‑day operations. It is, however, entirely your choice. I hope you like, the place.”

Last was a mundane detail, an order to the ODS to allow exactly that, to send the bill to her office, and to allow Jordan Warrick, whose request would otherwise ring bells all the way to Yanni’s office, to come and go on his own.

She leaned back, then, still in her evening finery, and got up, called Joyesse to get her out of the blouse and hang things in the ‘fresher. She slipped on a gown and told Joyesse, “Call Florian.”

For some nights there was no other solution.

She lay there abed, waiting, hands behind her head and thinking, with some amusement, that she’d probably issued the order for Jordan’s free pass only marginally ahead of Jordan’s first provocation of security in that wing.

And thinking, with much less humor, that the world was a little darker tonight, now that somebody had decided to bomb a tower on something shewas building. It hadn’t hurt anybody. But it had done financial damage. It was Reseune property. More, it was her project.

Maybe whoever had done it had known it was a special night for her. Was that too paranoid to imagine?

First the two nanistics Specials, mightily inconveniencing Yanni’s plans; and now this, a setback in hers…

The Paxers usually expressed themselves harmlessly in graffiti, or, not harmlessly, in subway incidents in Novgorod. They didn’t challenge Reseune directly.

Maybe that had just changed.

It might actually be an improvement. If they got out in the open, where security could lay hands on them…

Florian showed up in the doorway.

“I’m not at all in a bad mood,” she said. “I’m actually fairly cheerful, all things considered. You don’t mind my calling you, do you?”

“Not at all,” he said. Which he always said, but he always seemed to mean it. And he was just what she needed at the moment: a major distraction.

BOOK THREE Section 4 Chapter i

JULY 17, 2424

0827H

Twenty‑two weeks, and Giraud was growing a pancreas–not so dramatic as a heart, or lungs, but it meant he would be ever after able to digest food, to produce insulin and deal with sugars, and proteins…and thereby regulate his body chemistry. Not as dramatic as a heart, not as romantic, but just as life‑essential, and very, very important to a man who’d value good health and enjoy his table as much as Giraud would.

He had gotten a bit fuzzy, meanwhile: body hair had started. His skin was too big for him: he was wrinkled as dried fruit, but he actually had gotten lips, and had tooth buds–they’d be squarish teeth when they finally came in, the two center ones a bit prominent–but those wouldn’t be needed for months and months yet. The bones were still growing, and teeth now got their share of calcium and other nutrients.

He and his companions were getting much more complex.

BOOK THREE Section 4 Chapter ii

JULY 18, 2424

1829H

Disappointing, the lack of progress on the Patil case and the Thieu business. Ari had a small soiree for at least some of the youngers–Yanni and Justin were at dinner elsewhere, Sam had gone off to Strassenberg: she’d urged him to be very, very careful, and she’d diverted two of her own security to go up there with him and make sure neither Sam nor Pavel did anything rash. Maria had stayed here–barracks living was no place for Maria, Sam said, and she’d take care of the place.

But Maria would have been lost in a council of war, so she didn’t get the dinner invitation tonight. Sam would have come, however, and they missed him.

Tommy and Mischa and Mika came. Yvgenia Wojkowski, who had lost no time dumping the boyfriend who had jeopardized her chance to stay with the group…she was there. Will Morley arrived, and of course Amy and Maddy. They had a simple supper and drinks after, and they sat under the fish wall, which cast a rippling light on everything, and tried to absorb the complex detail Catlin and Florian told them in the general what’s‑going‑on briefing.

Namely: Rafael’s lot had turned up a list of twenty contacts Patil had had with shady connections; nobody yet knew anything but rumor on Anton Clavery–but ReseuneSec was still digging–and the Thieu autopsy was still doubtful as to murder, but on circumstantial grounds the death was just too connected to the Patil murder to be anything but.

“Meaning they’re good,” Catlin concluded regarding the perpetrators, “and that means they’re not amateurs.”

“Or it means they meant to kill Thieu the hard way,” Florian said, “and ended up just stressing him to death. But there are no marks, no bruises, except the livor mortis that happens when a body–”

“Ugh,” Maddy said, and waved the information away. “We don’t need that much detail.”

“Blown out a window is nicer?” Mischa said. “Twelve stories down to a cooling tower?”

“Nasty,” Tommy said. “So we know they weren’t squeamish.”

“That’s not highly helpful,” Amy said. “As if you’re going to commit a murder and squeamishness matters?”

“It does probably add into the ‘not amateur’ theory,” Florian said.

“Getting into Planys also does that,” Amy said.

“And the tower at Strassenberg.” Will said. “Which is organization.”

“Considerable logistics,” Florian said. “ReseuneSec lab’s traced the explosives to a mining company at Svetlansk. That’s no surprise. The mode of delivery is uncertain. No boats are reported missing from Svetlansk, none scheduled to be in the vicinity on that day.”

“But the explosives might have been planted earlier,” Catlin said, “and detonated by timer or remote. Proximity‑detonation would have been possible, but it’s not really logical to do it that way, and it doesn’t seem they did.”

The site was an inconvenient remove and an inconvenient height above the Strassenberg complex.

“One other thing of note,” Catlin said. “We also didhave a boat out and in motion at that time. It came from Moreyville, visited Svetlansk, and came back.”

“Long trip,” ‘Stasi said.

“Especially long if they came from Moreyville, past Strassenberg–” Ari said.

“Upcurrent,” Yvgenia supplied.

“And,” Ari said, “didn’t refuel at Reseune docks.”

That got attention from the rest. “Big gas tank,” Mika said. “Did somebody do that?”

“Yes,” Florian said. “ReseuneSec is wondering about fuel drops along the way. The boat was in fact on its way back from Svetlansk when the tower blew. Rafael is trying to check currents and times. Downriver’s naturally faster. The time could work. It’s a large boat, a rental, which makes it more suspicious. It’s easy to piggyback in more fuel tanks without altering the boat.”

“So they didn’t want to refuel at Reseune so we wouldn’t have records?” Maddy said.

“Something like,” Ari said. “That’s the lead we’re following, at least, the best we’ve got.”

“A link, who knows?–from Novgorod to Morleyville, past us, to Svetlansk, for people wanting to blow up the tower,” Tommy said. “At least they didn’t get help here at Reseune.”

“Who was aboard?” Mischa asked. “Can we tell?”

“The rental was made by one Sera Penny Esker.”

“Never heard that name on any list.” Amy said.

“None of us have.” Ari said. “It searches to an Esker line resident in Novgorod, some employed by Novgorod Transport, Penny Esker being currently employed by the public library, data archive department.”

“Where Patil used to lecture.”

“Former student?” Tommy asked.

“Way out of her field. No University connections, not on any of the watch‑it lists, but they wouldn’t use somebody who flashed red lights. Penny Esker seems to be a nobody, so far as criminal records, which is the sort, if you were up to no good, that you’d prefer to use, especially to rent boats. Florian says, and I agree, she wouldn’t have been on the boat.”

“Why did they do it at all, though?” Amy asked. “Blow up a tower? Paxer nonsense?”

“Maybe,” Ari said. “Maybe something about the site leaked–but that sort of incident doesn’t do the Paxers any good. They’d want some sort of media coup, blowing up something of mine, coupled with revealing I’m some sort of junior megalomaniac out founding towns at random, building secret laboratories and siphoning money out of Reseune to do it. They want publicity. They want public dislike of me, in particular. What the bombers actually got out of this business was my attention, and a slowdown of about two weeks in the Strassenberg build.”

“It could scare people, though,” Tommy said. “It could scare Fitz Fitzpatrick. It could be aimed at him and his company.”

The man in charge of the construction company, the man Sam was up there working for. She nodded, not liking that version of it, but it was indeed possible.

“Did we do anybody out of a contract they wanted?” Amy asked. “Fourstar was closest bidder besides Fitzpatrick.”

“Worth checking,” Catlin said, “since Fourstar is working next door to us in Wing One. They’ve already passed a security check, but a second one wouldn’t hurt.”