Catlin frowned. "That would be somewhat beyond us. Certainly outside the question of the card."

"Except that Justin became the target of it, after they had a fight about the first Ari's procedures. I don't see a connection, unless he's aiming at something and wants to divert Justin into some scheme of his own. Maybe he really does hate Thieu. Or wants to sabotage Patil, just for spite."

"Or for profit. Profit would be a reason," Catlin said. "A re-contact with old networks. Former alliances. That has politics in it. That's more like what the records say of Jordan Warrick."

An action, not a gesture, something designed to do exactly what it was doing & getting Patil delayed in her move to Fargone. Possible.

And someone, probably Base Two, in Yanni's hands, was hiding Jordan's records from Hicks & or Hicks was hiding them from sera.

"Well," Florian said, and flicked up the general ReseuneSec Planys office reports on Jordan Warrick. One statistic leapt out. "Jordan received two thousand eight hundred and fourteen security cautions during his tenure at Planys. Persistent note on his file: Immune. Do Not Interrogate. Immune. Do Not Interrogate."

"That's been the problem all along with him."

"Yanni doesn't want him in the public eye again. Reseune doesn't want the first Ari's murder opened up again. That was what was going on when Denys went down. We've got the content of the card chipnothing overt there, if it's not a verbal code; and still no absolute a.s.surance where the card itself was made. They can go after where it's beentesting to destruction if they do. But I think it was made for exactly what it was used for: an introduction, dropped right in front of us."

"From whom?" Catlin asked. "To whom?"

"Let's see what ReseuneSec admits it knows about Patil."

ReseuneSec's top-level surveillance of Patil came up easily, creditably meticulous, and ongoing, in Novgorod, within the University where she taught. Her contacts, back inside ReseuneSec files, were all neatly mappedincluding letters, some sixty-three in number, to her old mentor Thieu, and one hundred eighteen from Thieu to Patil, fifty-two of them in the last half year.

"None to Jordan," Catlin said. "None from Jordan. As should be. Several from Yanni to Patil."

"Patil's house sale is pending. Reseune's buying it. This week. Yanni's order. He had some reason. That could hurry up her trip to Fargone."

Meanwhile the list of Patil's other possible primary and secondary contacts stretched on and on, listed and identified by ReseuneSec agents in the ReseuneSec files, every cla.s.s of person from senators and councillors to teaching a.s.sistants, radicals, vid personalities, her real estate agent, and the home repair technician who'd recently fixed her refrigerator. She'd made numerous net calls on the local Fargone site, investigating housing, amenities, facilities, reasonable in someone contemplating a move there. She'd made a few tries at getting into the restricted Fargone Reseunes.p.a.ce site, on a long lag to Cyteen Station, which held that site and others available in its months-ago state: data arrived at the speed of ships that picked up that electronic load at Cyteen Station via their black boxes, and delivered that load to somewhere else, and on to Fargonein a sense, if you sent a message that entered Cyteen Station, it eventually reached every civilized star, and was everywhere at once, until deleted as absolutely irrelevant to the locale where it had ended up. There was no such thing as complete privacy on interstation mail, by the nature of black boxes; and that also went for net data, restricted or not: it got everywhere unless it had a gate restriction that didn't let it flow to any ships but, say, military, or to no ships at all.

A lot of CITs weren't aware of that fact of life, or, being aware, so profoundly took it for granted that they didn't worry about it. Patil's request for information was certainly widespread by now, so if she'd intended any secrecy, that was blown.

Meticulous, vexatious police work filled other pages, agents patiently tracing out the threads of contact and delving into Patil's household garbage, a list of items intended to be recycled, and diverted, some of it interesting, in the list items, including unopened physical mail. ReseuneSec's investigation seemed thorough. It was a fat correspondence folder. The woman didn't open mail that arrived from unknowns: her system routed it to delete, which deleted a lot of filesor appeared to delete them. ReseuneSec had gotten at the mail source, and been into that, with a resultant long list of would-be contacts, some of which were red-flagged.

"Lot of Paxer contact. Lot of complete unknowns," Florian observed.

"She'd be a fool to send messages of any interesting sort to anyone," Catlin said. "She deletes their messagesevidently knows who to delete. Some of them are on the watch list."

Her mailings out to PlanysLabs were all electronic. One mailing was, by t.i.tle, "Rethinking the Theory of Long-Period Nanistic Self-direction," the censored Scientia articlesent, with indignation, to Thieu, who had been her teacher. Thieu had replied that it was brilliant. She had written back, decrying entrenched War-years thinking and Luddism & the commenting agent had flagged that word and supplied a definition. It meant people who were against progress, based on a political movement of 1811 and some years after, against the introduction of weaving machines in pre-s.p.a.ce England.

"Patil has a large vocabulary," Florian said wryly, "clearly."

"Why weaving machines?" Catlin wanted to know. But the remark in context seemed metaphorical, not literal.

"I have no idea," Florian muttered. He was already tracing other things, successfully pulling up ReseuneSec files on the ongoing investigation of Jordan's Planys apartment, and the people ReseuneSec had sent into Planys were clearly better than the airport security team haste had trusted with the outbound search. Jordan hadn't gotten to go back to his apartment once he'd been notified he was returning to Reseune: agents had packed for him.

While Jordan and Paul, caught in their office, had perversely or purposefully brought paper goodseither to camouflage something; or simply because, being a person for whom hand notes and writing were a habit, Jordan had wanted materials he hadn't been sure he'd get easily if he returned to house arrest in Reseune. It might have been innocent. It seemed Jordan Warrick rarely had been innocentnot by that Planys ReseuneSec record.

One thing he knew: sera's security wouldn't have let Jordan fly without a body scan, let alone turning out his pockets. The staff at Planys' airport had searched him for foodstuffs and biological contraband, their usual worry in flights originating from Planys, but nothing morebecause, for security reasons, they hadn't been in on the investigation ReseuneSec was making of Jordan's apartment and had no idea at all what they were looking for.

That was a major slip; but sera's orders had been unexpected, and speed had mattered. Not even ReseuneSec at Planys Airport had known why Jordan was being put on a plane, but people were about to die in Reseune, and had already died in Novgorod: it had been just a confused few hours.

The agents at Reseune Airport had naturally confiscated and copied his notes when he landed, but let blank paper pa.s.s without, likely, paging through a personal-use handful of blank sheets. Florian made a mental note of his own, that airport security needed more attention to detail, once sera took Reseune.

And it still boiled down to one question: how had Jordan known about the Patil appointment in Novgorod, in security so tight Base One hadn't penetrated it? That took the old fashioned sneaker-net approach. Someone had hand-carried either the card or actual information about the Patil appointment. Either would do.

So. they could certainly politely ask Jordan about the card and see if he'd cooperate, but they weren't to that point yet, and clearly there was no use asking a Special any question to which they didn't already know the answer.

So Patil's condo had found a buyer, in Yanni's office, with a possession date on July 20 & whether or not Patil knew that was how it had sold. She was currently saying goodbye to the University in a round of parties attended mostly by academicsone such was scheduled this evening. She had sold most of her furnishings, given other items away to friends and charity; was actively arranging storage for all her non-data possessions that she planned to keep, perhaps to ship later. She had no known s.e.xual attachments, no children, no relatives.

She was a scholarly woman with a lot of electronic files, preparing to make a long, state-sponsored and fairly high-ma.s.s move to a new life, accompanied by those data files and a fair number of household goods plus being a CIT, likely a few items of emotional attachment.

"She's teaching two cla.s.ses currently," Catlin reported, "besides lab courses, and she is maintaining her schedule. I checked other professors. They have more cla.s.ses. Patil spends a lot of time writing and some time doing correspondence with the military labs out at Beta, which we can't penetrate. No change of pattern there. She does guest lectures, attends bioethics conferences &"

"The people she's contacting on Cyteen," Florian murmured, scanning that list, and the commentary ReseuneSec provided, "old acquaintances, former students, but not many."

"The majority may be on Beta, in Beta Labs. Security block, there."

"I'm not going to try to crack that," Florian said. "Not worth it to go after thoseyet." He kept reading. "Mmm. Here's a few names on her home system, people ReseuneSec notes for further investigation." He ran a who-is on the few, at ReseuneSec level. "Well. Well. Well. How long have we been at this?"

"Two and a half hours."

"Well, nothing totally new in this. We have some footnotes here from ReseuneSec. But no mischief attaches directly to Patil, except her lectures attract radicals. Coffee," Florian said, and got up and poured a cup from the dispenser. A glance at Catlin drew a nod, and he poured another, then looked at the clock himself. Close to time for shift-change. "I'm going to message Marco and Wes to lie in for another couple of hours. I think we should look through Science Bureau records. Base One can probably get into those."

"Suits me." Catlin said. "Try it. Shall I have Gianni send us sandwiches?"

"I could use one," Florian said, and settled back at his console, pulled out the under-counter return that kept coffee off the main desk, and set his cup there. Catlin did whatever she was doing. He worked delicately, probed this, probed that, scanned text without storing it, and didn't get a Base One warning of any unadvertised connections on Yanni's access, no strings attached.

The files had some background of interest. Defense had apparently had a lot to do with Patil's career. Black budget funding had been behind the terraforming labs when they were on Cyteen, specifically at a lab just a little outside Novgorod, a lab later razed in favor of a food production facility. Behind closed Council doors, there'd been an intense battle over removal of the nanistics lab out to Beta during the War. Centrists campaigned to keep it at least as close as Cyteen Station, not relegated to the outer system inside a Defense installation. The first Ari had supported the nanistics move to Beta, however, in agreement with Defense, and Centrists had opposed her and Defense, at that time, in a rare configuration of political alliances.

Patil, at a hundred and five years of age, had gone out to Beta when Thieu moved down to Cyteen, had subsequently distinguished herself in ways deeply cla.s.sified, and then Patil herself had been moved back to Central System and onto Cyteen as a safety measure during the darkest days of the War. Patil, Thieu, and a researcher named Ibsen, Pauline Ibsen, since deceased, age one hundred thirty-six, had all been sent down to Cyteen, three people who had been working on the blackest of black projectsmost likely the production of terraforming nanistics, but theoretically only: any lab work was done out at Beta, as a potential and never-used weapon of war.

After the War, Patil hadn't gotten promoted back out to Beta. "Articulate, sharp, and gregarious," so the report said, she had "fallen into the social milieu of the University," had found herself a comfortable post and a prosperous side income as a favorite speaker at Centrist and pro-terraforming conferences and meetings.

Clearly her imminent departure into Reseune's employment had stirred up the Centrist community. Some comments had hit the general web, the one that any CIT could access. Some Centrists were pleased at the acceptance of what they called a moderating influence into a Reseune post: others were more concerned about losing Dr. Patil's moderate and respectable voice in Novgorod politics, once she shipped to Fargone, and wondered if it was a means of silencing her voice. None of the reports apparently knew about her relationship to the Eversnow project.

" 'Moderate and reasonable,' they call her," Florian said, having condensed the flow for Catlin. " 'A peacekeeper.' Which might argue that Yanni's move to send Patil to Fargone really isn't the best idea, losing her local influence. The Paxers come to her lectures. She doesn't appear to support their activities."

"Moderation might have been what recommended her to Yanni, however," Catlin said, and they read a while longer.

Then Catlin said: "Read the post under Gulag."

Interesting word. they were down to CIT political gossip on the Novgorod city net. Florian looked that word up, before investigating the site Catlin had tossed him.

The Gulag writer was pa.s.sionately angry, convinced Patil's transfer was a ticket to a Reseune-run oblivion and possible a.s.sa.s.sination. Well, there might be a grain of truth, not likely in the second.

And there seemed, according to the ReseuneSec note, another conspiracy theory circulating, quoting a Bureau of Defense argument in committee, that it was a move by Reseune to gut the Beta Station lab: one supporter of that viewpoint maintained Patil was still doing Defense work, and could not legally be transferred from a public university into a Reseune-run lab.

"It's not actually the law that she can't be transferred," Catlin commented. "they just make it sound illegal. She's a scientist. Science posts come from Science, even if her post is cla.s.sified by Defense. She just has a job offer from Science. And if she accepts it, Defense can't claim there's a war reason, because the War Powers Act has lapsed."

Catlin was very much better on law than he was.

But law wasn't the name of the game. "Politics. Politics is all. Both sides are likely pressuring her for loyalty. But she votes in Science, because that's what she is. doesn't she? Check what profession she actually votes in."

A few key-taps, Science Bureau records. "Her voter registration is definitely Science. So she's not registered military any more, not since 2406. Defense still runs the lab at Beta, and if she went back out there, she'd properly be voting in Defense again. But if she goes to Fargone and works in the new Reseune set-up, then Defense hasn't got any complaint. They can't claim she knows military secrets, none current, at least. No more than Thieu. So the Gulag writer is wrong in his suppositions."

"And she wants to go to Fargone. Otherwise she could easily get legal help from Defense and get transferred to them."

"Which she's not doing. So she does accept going to Fargone. And so do Defense's upper echelons, because they agreed with Yanni. And that will be this Eversnow project, when it starts, and it's likely to be very soon."

"Why did she accept Yanni's offer?" Florian asked. "Why is she agreeing to jump ship to Reseune?" Why was one of his favorite questions, best when asked when things seemed neat and wrapped up. And it seemed to fit, here. Understandable if someone didn't want to be returned to Beta, which was remote and secretive and full of regulations. Fargone was a comfortable stationnot the comforts of Cyteen Station, to be sure, but very much better than Beta. There was that. Eversnow, on the other hand, was a frontier. As barren as Big Blue. A bare steel and prefab station. No luxuries. "Novgorod's the height of comfort. She's respected. She has an important job. She doesn't work hard. She's very well paid. She has very many a.s.sociates who respect her. why choose to leave?"

Catlin frowned. It was close on CIT territory, asking the unanswerable: the emotionally founded question posing as born-man logic, with far too little knowledge of the individual. "Either going to something or from something."

"To Reseune's new lab. Or from Novgorod. Could there be something in Fargone she wants? Or could there be something in Novgorod she'd like to be away from?"

"The work at Eversnow might attract her."

"Or Novgorod might not be as good for her as it seems. She has the Paxers here. They won't be there. Some of these people at her lectures are politically intense fringe elements. I've got the background summation on people attending. Long, long list." He flashed it over to her. "Some of these people have third-degree contacts under intense watch, indirect links to persons undergoing mindwipe in the hotel bombing that tried to kill us."

"Politics," Catlin said.

"Politics," Florian said, and tagged the whole area for re-reading and absorption. "I'm going to tape this bitconsidering how it connects to Yanni, and considering sera's planswhich don't wholly agree with Yanni. It still doesn't answer the timing of the card."

"Give me the tape," Catlin said. "That's a good find. Not the opinion, the names."

For deepstudy, that is: things they needed to absorb completely, names they needed to know and deep-a.s.sociate with Paxer activity. And with Sandi Patil. So they never forgot them.

It was a luxury he and Catlin had never enjoyed before, to sit atop a pyramid of data, with skilled people doing exactly what they were Contracted to do, people tapped into all of ReseuneSec and going over reports from all that organization did on Cyteen and elsewhere. The ReseuneSec access didn't lead them to new things, but it organized things in a way different from Base Oneand that gave them a window into ReseuneSec thinking.

First it seemed to lead them further and further afield from the item they'd started chasing: Jordan Warrick and the infamous card & and then it seemed to lead back again & to Yanni's office; and Jordan Warrick. And Patil.

"We need to filter this other, too," Florian said. "The net opinions. Not good to deepstudy it." Deepstudy diminished critical thinking. This was opinion. A lot of opinion, from untrustworthy people. They just needed the names from the Novgorod CIT net, and the suspicions attached to them.

"I don't know where we're going to get the time to do this," Catlin said. "Sera wants to begin prep for moving."

It wasn't convenient, the timing of their complete relocation. Their new staff was delayed. But there was worry on the other side, too, that sera would be less safe if they delayed getting her into a more fortified residence.

"No good complaining," Florian said. "We just have to do this." Patil's data was still flying under his fingers. "We need to understand it. All our lives, we'll need to. These are the Enemy. This is where it starts. The people that may be against sera now are the people that will be against sera all her life. And for nowfor now we just watch Base Two very carefully."

BOOK THREE.

Section 1

Chapter i.

June 1, 2424 1528 H.

Growth proceeded at the same breakneck pace, for Giraud, for Abban, for Seek, at fifteen weeks. They were all without significant defect, and on the path to being male. They took in amniotic fluid, practice and pressure alike expanding the rudimentary structures of their lungs, and Abban was now tallest of the three, a bit heavierin grams, which was the scale on which they existed.

Giraud's face was broaderhard to see, but it was.

They had human proportions, more or lesstheir legs were longer than their arms were. Their rudimentary eyes, as yet without an opening in the lids, and not quite on the front of the faces, were growing sensitive to more and less lighta probing beam, into a tank, would get a definite reactive flinch: they didn't know they didn't like it, but change in what-was drew response, an instinct to preserve the status quo. It wasn't fight-flight yet, just the beginnings of it.

Details had emerged, tastebuds, which would matter a great deal to Giraud, less so to Abban and Seely Those appeared, and simultaneously, the ability to sweatthough sweat was not that useful, in the fluid environment, in the rocking safety of artificial wombs. They continued, enveloped by the soft, variable thump of a human heartbeat, steel mother-sound, helping set the rhythm of their bodies. Individuality had a.s.serted itself. Their fingerprints differed, as surely as their DNA. And they were not like each other, not at all.

Chapter ii.

June 1, 2424 1528 H.

There's a reason, I think, that the first Ari wasn't kind: not many people were kind to herthey just gave her a lot of privileges, or let her get away with what she wanted to do because they didn't pay attention, and that's not the same. So I don't think Ari quite understood about kindness. But I don't think having had kindness in my life means that I'm less driven to succeed than she was. My brain is as good as hers. I might have just a few different motivesshe fought for power and her own protection. I fight to protect the people I love. But she fought, and I fight. That much is the same.

The new wing, Alpha Whig, wellnew, in my time, though for you it's not. It's where you live now, unless somebody decides otherwise, or unless you decide otherwise, for security reasons, or just because you don't like my decor any more than I like Denys'. I don't know: how long Reseune can add new wings for every one of us that's ever born. But there you are. Or there you will beI hope somewhat safe and comfortable in your day.

And today I've given the order that will mean my Uncle Denys gets born in due course, seven years from now, or whenever if I'm sure I can compress the schedule a bit: that's a decision Yanni has left to me, but Til probably stick to the seven years. If I do, it's mostly for Giraud's sake. And I'm going to apologize to you right now about creating Denys, because you'll probably hate him and you'll probably have really good reason. But I'm afraid Giraud is going to be too easygoing, without him. And this time Denys will be the young and ignorant kid, not me. I'm afraid by the time you come along, you'll get the old Denys, the way I did, and I'm sorry for that.

I don't want to change Denys's essential natureit's his program but I'll have to think about that, maybe for quite a few years before I actually order his geneset into the womb. I have plenty of time to get ahead of him. Once you start changing foundational things in our patterns, as you'll be learning, everything after that has to flex, and that's rapidly a field-too-large problem. A very, very big problem. The variables are terrible.

And I don't know how well my upcoming move to a new wing will work. Wing One is historic, and it's important, and if architecture can embody a psychological structure, a lot of what made Reseune is in its walls and its rooms. But I'm trying, at least, to set new patterns, and the new wing is where I'm making my start.

Among first jobs, I want to patch all the things up that my Denys deliberately broke. He sent a lot of people away, people I'd attached to & my playmate Valery, and Ids whole family, even if they were Yanni's relatives. I missed him terribly. And they sent Maman and Ollie out to Fargone, and I couldn't do anything about it. Maybe you've had people vanish from your life, too. I hope not. But if they have, pay attention to what I'm doing note. These people I'm calling home to me may be important to you in your own life, if they all live that long, and if I could, subst.i.tute Valery for Denys, for your sake, oh, I would do that, so fast. Valery was so kind, so nice, he made me happy as long as I had him for a friend, and they sent him and his mother away precisely because I liked, him. And we were only babies, ourselves, well, nearly so. But I never forgot him. That's one piece of justice I'm going to do, first and foremost. I don't know how he's turned out. That's one.

And Ollie. He was an alpha azi when I knew him. He was Maman's companion. Right now he's Director of the labs out at Fargone & he's very good at what he does. He's legally a CIT now, and of course he's old, far, far past a hundred, and a long time on rejuv, and he'll do what he wants to. I'd so love to see Ollie again. I'd love to make everything right for himhe'd have grieved so much when Maman died and n.o.body treated him with any consideration at all, here at Reseune, or out there, at the time. But I won't order him to come, as old as he is, and knowing the trip itself might be hard on him. Fargone was where she died, and for all I know he may be attached to that place, and it's certain he has his work out there, that's very important to Reseune. No matter what I want, I wouldn't want to tear him away from his place there if he doesn't want to come back. And between you and me, I really don't think he will.

And I've given invitations to the others, too, not necessarily to live in Alpha Wing, but maybe they will, if they're nice people. I want them at least to be able to come back to Wing One, where they used to live.

Valery's mother was Andrea Schwartz, who is Yanni Schwartz's family, and Yanni couldn't protect her from being exiled: she was out there with Jenna Schwartz, who used to be in charge out there, but she was a fool, and Yanni moved her out. And then there's Julia Stra.s.sen, and I know she's still alive: she was Maman's real daughter, and I've written to her, too, to bring her back with Valery and Andrea Schwartz. Maman had agreed to bring me up, because she was a scientist, That meant Julia and her daughter Gloria had to stay away from the apartment and not upset me. Gloria was a brat, but her mother hated me for ruining their lives even if she knew it wasn't really my faultI was a baby. I think Julia pretty well set up the atmosphere that made Gloria act up whenever they visited. She probably didn't intend to, which I think shows something about Julia. Their going awayI think that would have happened when I got to a certain age anyway; and I'm sure Denys would have sent them away when he sent Maman. But I'm sure it hurt less for Aunt Julia to be mad at me than it did for her to be mad at her own maman, and being mad at me was certainly a lot safer than being mad at Denys Nye at the time. So she was exiled to Fargone, too, and I don't know what Maman thought about it, but I'm not sure she liked Julia or Gloria that much at the last.

So it's time for all those old accounts to be settled, and for me to make amends as best I canespecially to Valery, who never did anything in his life but be my friend without being in the Program.

My maman's real name, you know by now, was Jane Stra.s.sen. And she was a brilliant woman, and very dedicated to the Project, but she wasn't ever cold to me the way Denys was. Maman really loved me and I loved her, which is probably the first place I deviated from the Program because the first Ari's mother wasn't kind to her at all.

And I'm sure Maman started out loving Julia and Gloria, too, but Gloria certainly wasn't very loveable by the time I remember anything about her, and Julia just looked daggers at methat's all I can remember about her. Maybe she'll read my invitation and tell me go to h.e.l.l. I'd honestly be relieved.

Why did Maman get involved in bringing me up, and forget about her own daughter and granddaughter? I found out that Yanni talked her into it and promised her she could get off Cyteen and go back into s.p.a.ce where she was from. But at a certain point I think Maman got curious what I'd be like, and maybe she saw things about me that reminded her of the Ari she'd, worked with, and deliberately encouraged some things and corrected others. I can't remember that part, and I haven't found all of it in records, but if you can find it, it might be worth looking at, just for your own curiosityin case it answers some question you hate about me. I think Maman had some inkling of protecting me from Denys, or maybe making the Program work better for some altruistic or scientific reasonbecause I was an experiment, after all, and Maman was a scientist, not somebody just mindlessly plodding along a track.

I remember one day: Maman comparing Gloria to me and finally telling Julia to take Gloria and get out of the apartment & Gloria was trying to beat my brains in, that day, so there was a reason, but I can still hear Maman telling Julia to get her daughter out of there, and even then I knew it wasn't the most politic thing she could have said to her daughter. When you live so longwhen rejuv lets you go through family after family, the layers get more complicated than nature ever designed us to deal with, I think. The relationships get tangled, adults with kids, this generation's kids with the other onethey sell a lot of books advising people how to get along with polygenerational families and serial partners and rejuv issues. Maybe by your generation it'll all be saner, but rejuv was still a new issue in those days, and people didn't always handle it well. I know Maman's household was likely upset before I even got there, and my presence just drove Julia over the edge and made her do things that weren't smart.