No apparent problems in Novgorod. So far. Even the Abolitionists might be healthy. At least people disagreed with the majority.

So let Novgorod meet something Else. In her time, in her successor's time, let two separate psycharcologies learn each other. That would deliver a poke to the urban organism downriver, to see how it wiggled.

It might also guarantee that her successor would need to exist.

Azi felt a certain pride in the continuance of their type. It was part of their sets. But was it wired into what was basically human?

Curious, curious. She was able to compare herself only against the first Ari. Her successor would at least have a broader field of inquiry in that department.

And perhaps her successor would found yet another colony, just to check things out. She thought if she were that Ari, that thought would certainly occur to her.

But that would complicate the situation long-term, when populations merged and met, as they would when the world grew. Too many variables spoiled the soup, to mix a metaphor.

Forgetting that they were dealing with living, self-willed people spoiled it, too. Too much deepstudy, too much immersion in the theoretical, the give and take only of electrons, not the behavior of whole organisms. The world was more complicated than theory ever yet predicted: that was why she was important. It was her job to see things coming, and figure how to shift the demographics without conflicts. A machine didn't work, mixing in yet one more metaphor, if it was all one h.o.m.ogenous piece. Neither did a city, or a species.

Finding the glitches was her job. Her problem. Man started out a.n.a.lyzing his environment, graduated into understanding his own psyche, graduated, again, into a.n.a.lyzing the behavior of the human species en ma.s.se.

That guaranteed employment for several of her kind, didn't it?

Chapter vii.

April 27, 2424 0117 H.

Florian was back from down the hilllate. Exhausted. He fell into bed in the dark, and Catlin rolled over and asked, face to face, brow to brow with him: "So. What's the story? Do we accept these people?"

"I didn't find anyone to object to. I've interviewed them. I've ordered them into a single barracks, two days of special tape. They'll be firmly under our orders and initially operational by, I'd think, the fifteenth of next month."

"Good." She eased an arm around him. She was tired, herself, from hour after hour at the screens, and running up and downstairs seeing to the move. He was tired from a day with Hicks and trekking from one end of Reseune to the other, down to the labs and the barracks, back to the offices, meeting upon meeting with prospective help.

"Has sera asked after me?"

"She knows where you've been all day. She's very busy in her studies, but she approves of what we've done."

"Good." He pulled her close, bestowed a weary kiss on the forehead. She wasn't that tired, that that didn't get a reaction. But she stayed tracked, business first. "There was an interesting development on my side today."

"Oh?"

"Justin called me. Called us. He wanted to know what was on the card. He wanted to distance himself from that inquiry. But he also wanted to know."

The penalty of interesting information. Florian pushed her back enough to look at her eye to eye. "Curious about the card, is he?"

"Curious and worried. He's conflicted. He wants to know and he doesn't want to know. On my own judgment, I told him about the Novgorod doctor to see what his reaction would be, and also to warn him about the nature of the danger. He didn't know her, not even by name. I ran the clip of his call for sera to hear it."

"Interesting," Florian murmured. "And what did she say?"

"Much the same. She found it interesting."

Hands moved. And stopped. "Do you think sera's going to call me tonight?"

"Definitely she won't," Catlin said. "She skipped supper again and went straight into deep-study."

"She shouldn't do that."

"I said so, too. She said she'd have a big breakfast in the morning."

"She's pushing herself again. It's not good."

"It's not good," Catlin agreed. "I think she feels we're in danger. I think she suspects something she can't identify, the same as us."

"What's Unusual?" Florian said. It was the old game, the childhood game. Find the change. Find the anomaly. Find the problem.

"Jordan," she answered. "Jordan being in Justin's old office."

"The card." He tossed the list of Unusuals back. "Yanni. This Dr. Patil. The new colony. The new wing. The new township. Am I missing anything?"

"I think," Catlin said, "that the card fits Jordan. Jordan wanting Justin to get caught. Justin giving us the card and being angry at Jordan. Justin calling me this afternoon."

"Sera studying late," Florian said, "night after night. She doesn't feel she's ready. Or she's looking for something."

"Yanni coming to dinner, right after his trip to Novgorod. Talking about Eversnow. Which Patil is going to run. Connection."

"Hicks suddenly giving us all this staff. Which he was prepared to do before I walked in. Which meant he could have prepared to do it before the card ever came upor only after he knew about the card he didn't haveyetuntil I gave it to him. Does the card show him some specific danger? Or is he trying to plant a spy on us, by giving us this staff?"

"Sera pulling Justin into the Wing," Catlin said. "She didn't even exit the Wing to talk to Yanni. Yanni came here to talk to herso she's still regarding our warningsbut she pulled Justin inside our perimeters."

"She may be going out of the Wing more often than the last couple of months, if we have this new security staff," Florian said. "That exposes her to danger. Would Hicks want that?"

"We're about to have domestic staff down in prep," Catlin said. "That's an exposure."

"Hicks seemed to relax once he had the card. He seemed more friendly. That's an emotional a.s.sessment. He's a born-man. He has authority, despite what we hear about the office. And he is cooperating."

"So what do we conclude?" Catlin asked. "That something's moving, one. Jordan's stirred up, Justin is, ReseuneSec is, that's two. And we still don't know what Eversnow and Patil have to do with anybody."

"Something's moving," Florian agreed, "and once we have more staff, sooner or later sera's going to be going outside the perimeter we've established."

"We've just got to watch out for her. It's all we can do."

"And follow up on Justin and this card."

"Sera won't like it," Catlin said. "But we have to."

"Justin Warrick is the one piece we can move. We have to. Or we have to ask Yanni about Patil and the card, and I don't think he'll tell us the truth."

"Do you think Hicks will tell us the truth, once he has an answer about the card?"

"Emotional a.s.sessment. No. Not for free. So I don't want to ask, officially, not while we don't know who talked to Jordan, and why he gave Justin that card."

Catlin heaved a sigh and put her arms around him. He put his around her. They had s.e.x, purely a tension-reliever, mutual release, mutual pleasure. Afterward Catlin said, side by side on the same pillow: "At least we'll have help on staff."

"We'll have more to do for a while, watching the watchers. Being sure Hicks isn't our problem."

"Good news, if he is being honest. And if his staff is. And we know there's danger outside. But we've been shut in the Wing so long there's risk of sera losing touch with outside. Isolating herself from Reseunefrom Novgorodshe can't afford that. She has to go outside sooner or later. That's coming. We just have to be sure of our own staff. That's basic."

"True." He shut his eyes and relaxed with his partner, a long sigh flowing out of him. They could rest, the few hours of someone else's watchMarco and Wes took the night shift in the Wing One office. Those two, they could trust.

They did know at least Justin Warrick was safer than he had been, thanks to them getting him into a new office.

The question was whether they might have opened another window for an attack on sera, by letting Justin inand yet another by accepting Hicks's offer. There were very many, very skilled people they were letting into the wing.

Catlin objected to things. Catlin was always suspicious, and Catlin had agreed with him in this. He wished she'd seen a major problem up front. . . because the transition to outside made him very, very uneasy.

Section 3

Chapter i.

May 1, 2424 2000 H.

Eleven weeks, and Giraud, and Abban AB, and Seely AS would each one easily fit in the circle of an adult's thumb and forefinger, and that was after the latest growth spurt. they didn't weigh as much as a lab mouse. But their bones were forming, and their teeth were starting. They had the beginnings of a breathing apparatus, that floor of the rib cage, the diaphragm, which prepared them to draw breath. They were transparent, full of blood vessels, paths for the blood which had definite structure. Their fingers and toes were starting to grow in length. Legs grew longer. And they moved their whole bodies. They stretched, widely, and often, a.s.serting their presence in the world.

Chapter ii.

May 1, 2424 2123 H.

I'm different than the first Ari, young Ari, so far as I can figure, in one very major way: it was her Maman who drove her so hard, not Denys Nye, and she never loved her mother. I had Jane Stra.s.sen to take care of me, and I loved her very much. I expected to love people. The first Ari didn't. The first Ari was very much solo throughout her life, but I have my friends, and I even liked Giraud Nye at the lastand he protected me, though I don't think I'll ever forgive Denysmy Denys, remember.

Don't let my feelings prejudice yours. Maybe your Denys will turn out nicer. Until I meet him, I won't know.

So there are differences. Sometimes I worry about that. I don't know if I've turned out as bright as the first Ari. She was really good with computers and her Florian was, and I'm still not, though I suppose I'll learn, and I know Florian's studying, and he's getting into programming as fast as he has time for. So I'm working very hard to absorb what she knew on a whole lot of fronts at once. I'm studying how Admin works and who's responsible to whom. The thing the first Ari was incredibly good with, psychsets, I study really hardI've dropped five kilos just from the study this last month, and I can't eat enough to keep up with the weight loss. But the harder I study, the more I just keep seeing a maze of possibilities, when it comes to fixing a psychset onto a genesetand I'm starting to do that job for real. I'm confident operating at the gamma level, but I know I'm not ready to mess with an alpha's sets. And she was capable of that, at my age, which just amazes me.

Understand, I've mostly met the alphas she setted later in her career the early ones, the older ones, are either dead or a.s.signed out, admin jobs, that sort of thingexcept Ollie, who was with Maman. There was Ollie, and he was pretty remarkablestill is: he's running Fargone Station. Maybe she was just that good, that early. Who knows? Maybe I would- be, if Yanni let me have a try at alphas. But I just don't want to mess one up, so I'm not arguing with Yanni on that point. I'm starting my work with simpler sets.

I do worry that being overall happier might have taken something vital off my potential. That's yet to prove. If you never hear this, well, I'm not the model someone wants you to follow. But I think I'm intellectually close to the first Ari, despite some detours, and despite the fact I play off a bit. I'm very close to being up with my studies, at the benchmarks she set for me, so I guess it's all right; and if I think about it I'm exceeding some of them. I did start study early. I tend to forget I'm younger than I'm supposed to be by a few years. And I'm close to being able to make my own decisions in the labs, and I know I'm going to be capable of Admin, though I just haven't got the time even to consider actually taking that on, and I really don't want to. I'm so glad Yanni is running things and I don't have to. And anything that suggests there's any problem with Yanni scares me. There's something right now, just a question about the way he's handling Jordan Warrick, and I want to trust him, but I'd be a fool to say I'm not thinking about it, thinking hard. If I had to step in and control Reseune, it would be a major setback for my studies. And I don't want that, and most of all I don't want to lose Yanni, because, so much he does is good. And he could even be right.

It's natural he should keep secrets from me. I haven't let him see all I can do. And maybe I should just call him here and ask him outright what he's done or what he thinks he's doing, but I'm just reluctant to do it while Florian and Catlin are investigating things. I could make everything blow up. And that's no good.

For now, Yanni limits what I do, and that's good. He gets the results of my tests, and he's my outside checkup. He says he wants me to keep focused on study precisely so I don't appear in public and disturb peopleespecially people down in Novgorodbut I think, too, so I don't scattershot my studies. I can do so many things and I'm interested in so many things I sometimes think I could just fly apart. Stra.s.senburg's a toy, in one sense. In another, it's important for me to set that up early, and you'll see why, if you think about it two seconds. And now I have to think about Reseune itself, and find out who's doing what, and how the lines of power run.

I've been far too happy in the last couple of months to be entirely safe. Isn't that a paradox? And I'm frustrated because there are things I can already see skewing off Ari's plan, and I can't fix them without taking authority over things and potentially making things worsebecause I'm not as good yet as she was when she set up the parameters of what I think might be going wrong.

Is being able to see trouble coming normal for an eighteen-year-old? It's not normal for an eighteen-year-old to have the power to do what I can do, that's for sureand just in the rules that govern Reseune, I can do anything right now but make an unchecked decision in the labs. I know I could remove Jordan Warrick. I could have him killed and no one would find out. Is that normal for an eighteen-year-old? It's not supposed to be normal for a civilized being. But I just have to worry if it's normal for me. I keep thinkingif I got rid of him I could save Yanni, if Yanni's involved in anything he shouldn't be.

And the choice not to do it may be a mistake on my part, but I see real problems down the years if I do remove him.

Jordan Warrick's existence may even be important for me. He's my enemy. And I need one. I need a good, strong enemy to gather up the people who wish I didn't exist, so I can keep an eye on the lot. I just can't get distracted from the possibility he's not my only enemy.

He wants Justin in his control. He'll fight me for Justin. That makes me mad every time I think about it.

But Mad doesn't think straight. Mad may be honest, but it doesn't plan well at all.

So I won't give way to Mad.

And I won't kill him. Or replace Yanni. I really don't want to do things like that. I wonder who put that reluctance into my psychset. I'm not sure it was ever in the first Ari's. But I watch impulses like that. I'm telling myself there's a logical reason I'm reluctant to take extreme measures, as Florian would call it, but I have to be sure it's a logic structure, and not air castles. Do you know that expression, air castles? I found it in a book. It's a city without any foundations, a perfect dream without any feet on the ground. And you don't see the fact there's no connection between it and solid thinking, because you're looking at how pretty the towers are, instead of the fact there's no logic supporting them.

Pretty is good. But survivable is important, when real people are depending for their lives on your logic. And people do depend on me. I depend on me. I want to live a long time.

Soon I will have a security unit that will report directly to Catlin and Florian, and they'll be able to know if there's any undercurrent anywhere in the world that I need to know about. I can trust them to come to me if there's anything peculiar going on, anything out of parameters . . . even in high places.

They're going to be very busy for the next while. Soon they'll be getting a whole lot of files on all our current problems. And maybe I'll learn things I don't want to hear once they do start reporting on people I knowI wish I could omit that, but I'll have to deal with it when it happens. This was Hicks's idea, Florian tells me. He's the director of ReseuneSec, the post Giraud used to have. And in my worry about people's loyalty, Hicks is one I've wanted to keep an eye on. Now he sends us a gift. Florian says all the people he's sending are clean, so far as he can tell by the manuals. But I'm going to go over the manuals myself that's going to be instructive. I have to be sure there's nothing in them I can't rely on, once their Contracts are engaged. Yanni won't let me work above gamma, but these people are higher than that, mostly, and if I make a mistake it could be very bad.

That means, among other things, if we find these people are reliable, I can actually get out of this wing and go places on a regular basisfor the first time since Denys died, with minor exceptions. I'll be able to go wherever I want in Reseune, whenever I want, and I'll be so glad of that. I haven't ridden Horse for months: his trainer is taking care of him. I haven't been out to the pond to see the goldfish. I haven't seen the new construction, just the virtuals. Note maybe I can do all those things. I feel as if I haven't been able to breathe for weeks, and now I almost think I mightand yet I have all these worries about Yanni, and Hicks, and the very people who are supposed to be helping Florian and Catlinnot to mention new staff coming into the apartment. . . those are all delayed while we look through their records and check through the tape they've had.

One thing I'm certainly going to do, so when you accede to power, you won't have to go through what I have, and risk what I've risked. My security office may not outlive mebut I'm going to see to it that a security staff inside ReseuneSec is automatically offered to your Florian and your Catlin when you reach your majority, and that you don't have to fight for it or ask for it or wait until someone offers. I very much suspect Denys ordered Giraud to take the first Ari's security apparatus apart when she died, under the excuse it was dangerous to his power. I don't know what circ.u.mstances may apply when you're hearing this. But by the time you're making your first steps into being an adult in charge, you have to have information and a secure perimeter, and you have to have it fast. I was very lucky to have had Yanni, and not somebody much worse than Denys stepping into control of Reseune, or I might not have survived.

So as soon as Florian and I can manage Base One the way we need to do, I'll be making the re-const.i.tution automatic, embedding various provisions that won't look like they're working together, the pre-training of certain Contracts, with an instruction that will trigger retraining for personnel on a certain date to be set by your circ.u.mstancesmeaning they'll turn up in your life when the time is right, and a.s.semble themselves, because I'm going to have a direct hand in the tape they get. It's not going to be apparent even to the directors out at the azi facilities that these people and these programs have any connection with each other. On a given trigger, they'll a.s.semble, and they'll know what to do.

And your Florian and your Catlin will run that office, so that's the explanation of one mystery for you, which you may have already seen in operation. I hope it's a peaceful transition.

I was lucky to survive my teens, and I don't count on luck even once, let alone twice. Thank me for your safety, which will at least be greater than mine, granted I live long enough. And do the same for your successor, and leave notes for her time. Learn how to program Base One, how to really handle it, and get your Florian to: we're running behind on that. I'm able to do the links that surround the segments I'm recording for you, quite honestly because I'm copying what's there on the files she gave me; and I'm making notes; but it's not integrated, yet. It won't run yet the way Ari I and her Florian made it run because I haven't linked the whole structure in yet, just made a chain of unerasable files, to make sure you get my thoughts appropriate to the age I am now, and that I can't edit them, and I really hope you aren't having to excavate those files the hard way.

My office hasn't gotten anything solid for me yet on the ongoing puzzles we're Working. The questions are all still questions. But at least I'm about to refuse to be confined to the Wing and I intend to start asking questions of my own.

Chapter iii.

May 2, 2424 1342 H.