" & which is not necessarily a good thing, young Ari."

That was spooky. That was just downright scary scary.

"You'll need complete control of ReseuneSec to protect yourself. For the rest, rely on Base One. At need, you can lock anyone out of communication. Your codeword is CannaeCannaeCannae. Input that and the Base you target will only respond to you. You will at that point be able to dispense other codewords, so have them ready, but hand a Base access only to those who are both friends and allies."

Control on a platter. Elder Ari had set it all up for her, the way elder Ari had had Base One a.s.semble itself out of bits and pieces and come alive. She'd triggered something without intending it or even knowing it existed, and possibly it would just roll on like a juggernaut, without her being able to stop it.

She thought: I don't know if I want this. I don't know if I want to lock Yanni out. I'm not ready to do that. Hicks' peoplethey could start shooting. Hicks is Yanni's man, I'm pretty sure. What am I supposed to do about that?

"Key your receipt of this message so the program is sure you heard it. It will replay on demand, should you need to review it. I recommend that."

She keyed her login. Said yes to the question. And the screen went dark again, shut down.

She hugged her arms around her and stared at it, feeling the cold go numb, the mindthe mind traveling its own starless s.p.a.ce.

Joyesse found her that way some time later, and hovered by her, saying, "Sera? Sera? Are you well?"

She knew it was Joyesse. The surface mind still took account of things, but the deeper thoughts didn't want to be interrupted. She got up, and walked toward the bed, and got in, letting Joyesse draw the covers over her. She shut her eyes, but she wasn't asleep, wouldn't sleep, not while her thoughts were going over the dynamic that was Reseune, and the legislature, and the necessity of appropriating ReseuneSec.

She didn't want to pull the trigger. She didn't want to lose Yanni. She didn't want to treat Yanni as an enemy, but Hicks had told Florian they were going to have top-level access and either Yanni was hiding things from ReseuneSec, or ReseuneSec was hiding things from them.

And that wasn't good.

Hicks was giving them a gift. Did they trust the thirty agents they were getting?

a.s.sume the worst case where it regards those possessing what you intend to take.

I do have to do something. And something we've done put Base One on alert. It had a trigger tripped. Something I did, or that Florian or Catlin did, tripped it, and that means Yanni may figure it out, too, or Hicks might.

If it wasn't us that tripped the alarmif Yanni's moved & It was the middle of the night. She couldn't call Justin. She shouldn't shouldn't call Justin and ask him to hurry in his a.s.sessments on the security sets. That wasn't the way to get the best results. call Justin and ask him to hurry in his a.s.sessments on the security sets. That wasn't the way to get the best results.

Base One, however, could find out how he was doing. Base One could get into any computer in the Wing.

She got up, grabbed a robe from the closet this time, and said, "Base One, on."

Base One a.s.serted itself in the computer, and turned the terminal on. She sat down. She searched up computers that were active in the Wing and found Justin's office net with no trouble at all. It was listed as secure, probe-proof. That meant nothing to Base One, which ran System in the Wing. She simply had a look into the files, and ran a search for recent files involving betas.

There they were, in a folder labeled G.o.ddess1.

G.o.ddess, was it? Sarcastic, maybe. Justin could be that. It was certain he had no interest in her that way. He'd made that clear when she was, oh, much, much too young. And he was settled with Grant. She'd be a fool to mess with that attachment, a really great fool.

She read the notes on the people Hicks had sent her. Justin had started with the bottom, the gammas. Number one gamma, pa.s.sed, number two, pa.s.sed.

She read far beyond that. He had left the betas for last, and was two individuals from finishing, which meant he might be done tomorrow.

"Sera?" From the door. Joyesse again. "Sera, would you like anything?"

"Nothing," she said, and Joyesse went away. Ari delved deeper, deeper into her own understanding of sets, and read Justin's notes, and absorbed his comments, which made sense. He saw, clear as clear, where the sets were vulnerable to a command, and noted push-b.u.t.ton items that just had to be patched, was all.

Easy to do. She knew the way to do it. People reactedto expectation of good stimulus, like praise; to fear, linked to imaginationimaginative people feared a wider range of things. And some people had an "off" switch that routed an idea to the a.n.a.lytic faculties, and somemus, which they didn't birth many of, were like thatyou started them on a track and they'd follow it without a second thought. Mus wanted everything to be the same all the timethey were happier when it was like thatunless what they were a.s.signed linked to a desire for an adrenaline rush, which was a whole other problem & Betas, however, tended to overcheck and hesitate, and reconsider, and given an adrenaline rush, they dithered a second and then acted. These were guards. They had lightning-quick fuses where it came to threat against their Contract holders. But she also had to defuse their "pause" switch where it came to reluctance to report something as yet unresolved.

Report any anomaly to Florian or Catlin immediately, she'd tell them: they'll take the responsibility.

And being azi, the new people would do that, once they took that order deep: they'd want that contact with Florian and Catlinthey'd be uneasy and unresolved until they got it, and they'd run to get it.

And if there was some buried contrary instruction in the stack, say, one to report to Hicks or Yanni, something that just somehow hadn't gotten into the records, that command to go to Florian, emphasized with a hard drug punch, would send them into profound emotional conflictenough to show up, fast, in a very, very upset azi. If you ever feel conflicted, she'd tell them, additionally, report to Florian immediately.

If you can't find a bug in a set, elder Ari's tape had told her, just do something to make the conflict show itselfmake the subject react, never mind finesse. Present a quandary, contrary to the direction you suspect the bug to react, identify itand excise it.

So just give me the files, Justin. Quit fretting. I need to get to work, and I need these people. Whatever's been done, if it was done, it's not going to be in any record. That's what we have to worry about.

Justin thought she was still studying the basicsmaybe thought she was out of her depth with these security sets; or he was, which was possible: he hadn't really worked with the type before.

She had. From childhood. She knew Florian and Catlin. She looked at the possibilities in a security azi tape & And she suddenly had a picture of how to solve any problem in a security azi set. It was right in the same place in the set that they attached the compulsion. Just conflict it, and get angst in the subject, and then resolve the angst, leaving the subject feeling oh, so much better. In azi, deep set work was so much easier. Deep set stuff didn't need to be unhooked from all sorts of randomly acquired born-man thinking, which ran like a bad cabling job; and it didn't even have to be unhooked from the later instructions: if there were conflicts, they'd show. The azi in question, above delta level, was very likely to report his own conflicts. Azi were so, so elegantly clean. A thought led to very planned places, economical, and ideally un-conflicted, everything structured and architectured and efficient.

And she wasn't. G.o.d, she wasn't. Her thoughts skipped all over the place. They tunneled, they ran riot through completely extraneous topics, they hopped from one point to anotherpity the programmer that tried to solve her.

But a beta with a buried directive?

d.a.m.n if she couldn't bring that to the surface, by exactly such brute-force mechanics as the first Ari said.

And she'd make the tape for the head of her new Security: beta azi he might be, but she could make the instructional tape herself, right to the deep sets, and be sure of him. She'd send Catlin down to barracks, to sit there and personally see he got it.

And when he woke up, he'd know definitely who was in charge and who could cure any angst he felt. She could help him. She would be his first recourse, in any case of doubt, because she was the highest authority in Reseune, and Reseune was the highest authority on the planet, and an azi who had access to her had access to having his questions answered definitively and absolutely. An azi who obeyed her directives was always in the rightas any azi wanted with all his being to be correct. Any delivery of information to anyone other than her chain of command was utterly forbidden; any request from anyone outside her chain of command had to be cleared, and any lingering doubt was utterly overcome by the power she had within Reseune. She owned his Contract, and any azi under that authority could be a.s.sured, very a.s.sured, that he was psychologically safe following her orders.

She took notes. She took abundant notes on the officer's set, which she had scanned before she sent it to Justin, and for good measure she looked up deepsets for four of the unrelated gamma genotypes with a related program list, for whom the same tape would be quite, quite sufficient. For three others, again program sets related to each other, she could do a minor modification in the directive, but it sufficed. For the newly arrived Theo and Jorya little different approach, but much the same. Physically, they were easy to get at. Intervening with Hicks' incoming security team was logistically a little harder, but Catlin could manage. Cat Jin would go armed, and if the subjects had a psychotic episodemeaning her rewiring had hit a major or a lethal blockCatlin would deal with it, get the individual sedated, and notify her, specifically, that someone had tried something.

Sorry, Justin: sorry you've had to sweat this, and I know you hate real-time work worse than poison. You don't need to send it to me: I see your notes, and they help me. They show me what I need to do, and it's in the deep sets, not the things they've hung on it.

No wonder it's driving you crazy. It's like a birthday cake, icing all over, decorations here, decorations there, all sorts of programs and routines added on, none of it really showing you what's underneath. We just need to slice right into it, and you're far too kind for that.

I can't afford to be. Maybe later, but not now, not in this.

Chapter vi.

June 7, 2424 0821 H.

Early to the office, early to work, mindful of the extra requests, and there was a note from Ari, time-stamped yesterday at 1701: Justin: I'm really anxious to have your comments on the sets I gave you. Please hurry. Justin: I'm really anxious to have your comments on the sets I gave you. Please hurry.

Hurry. h.e.l.l. He'd already hurried.

Then another one, time stamped this morning at 0131: It's not that urgent. Relax. It's not that urgent. Relax.

Haste makes waste, he messaged back. he messaged back. But I'm hurrying. I should have something for you this evening. And when are you sleeping, anyway? But I'm hurrying. I should have something for you this evening. And when are you sleeping, anyway?

"Little sera wants miracles," he said to Grant. "Lunch is going to be in, today."

"No problem," Grant said. "Shoot me what you have." He shot. Grant took it, and there was silence for an hour, until Grant ran out of coffee.

Grant filled his cup, fuel for the morning. And into the afternoon.

Grant ordered sandwiches delivered. With cream pastry. Justin devoured his, reading and annotating the while. One set to go, a fairly simple one. He'd been over it twenty times. He'd done all the betas to try to understand the type. He didn't find a handle on it, anywhere, and it wasn't right. It wasn't right, it wasn't the level of work that belonged on a Contract she was taking. At first he'd suspected subtlety. Then he'd suspected error. Now he had a different picture. Library censorship. Again.

He said to Grant: "You know what I think? I don't think Library's given us all the records yet. Florian thought he had that cleared up. But I don't think he did."

"It would answer your objection."

"We're two weeks overdue on this. But I'm afraid it's the fact they're security. Ari's going to have to go back to Library one more time on her access. There's something still we haven't gotten."

"It would answer the question," Grant said. "You're right, and after the last round, I wouldn't want to be in the librarian's shoes. You get to write the memo, born-man."

Chapter vii.

June 7, 2424 1542 H.

The azi in question, BR-283, was a nice-looking fellow, Catlin observed that on the monitor, while BR-283, Rafael, was deep asleepnice face, nice body, dark as Floriantaller than Florian.

But absolutely no attraction here, just an aesthetic note. Rafael BR wasn't Florian, and wouldn't be. being a betaa situation which suited her. Betas took orders. Alphas didn't need orders, just a goal. Sera had explained the situation to her, as much as, in sera's judgement, she needed to know, and prime among sera's instructions was the posited call, every fifteen minutes, while she was on this a.s.signment. She was to beware any food or drink offered by lab staff. She was to disobey any command to leave or submit to detention, herself, but if held, she should not risk injuryjust wait for sera to take action & within the next fifteen minutes.

That was advis.e.m.e.nt enough that sera considered these tapes important to give personally to four of the new security team. The situation itself hardly seemed dicey: walk into the labs with the tapepossibly containing the Contract itselfinvoke sera's name and sera's order to gain access and order this group to lab, where she personally installed each tape, waving off the a.s.sistance of staff.

And it had run for a relatively tedious hour and forty-two minutes, while Rafael BR and the other three of sera's choosing slept with eyes occasionally open, and occasionally reacted, or smiled, or concentrated.

Contracting didn't take long. So what else were the tapes? That wasn't hard to guess. They were probably primary tapes, a slightly amended refresher on the most basic sets. Tapes like that were generally quite pleasant, an hour or so of confirmation, affirmationa transcendental experience, when a Supervisor offered it to a troubled or stressed azi. In this case it was likely some patch to enable the four to work together under BR-283's direction.

And since sera had the accesses she did, and she'd signed for them and meant to deliver the Contract tape herself, she was perfectly within her rights to order it, and to order that her own staff carry out the request for BR-283, and for BG-8, BJ-190, and BB-291, the same, even if the four were listed as ReseuneSec. A note might have gone to Hicks, but Hicks hadn't intervened.

The other three were in the adjacent rooms, on the other three active monitors, affording a constant view, two of them on the same tape, one on a third, and all, presumably, experiencing primary tape, blissful and content, they were also all on the same schedule, the tape very soon to run out, by the individual counters. And after that, they would enjoy a little peaceful sleep. Tedious, but she'd stay until they waked naturally. She'd bring them up the hill herself, the core members of the team Hicks had provided, having pa.s.sed them through a sieve and having a.s.sured they were settled, in advance of the others.

More, sera provided her own tape without a ReseuneSec indexing sticker on it: they were ReseuneSec personnel, and the lab had taken a momentary issue with that, and had wanted to call the lab supervisor and Hicks about it, but Catlin had stood fast, maintaining that, indeed, sera did hold the Contracts, was a licensed Alpha Supervisorthere were five such in all of Reseune proper & six, counting Jordan Warrickand if a Beta tape issued from an Alpha Supervisor's office, then a Beta Supervisor should accept it and run the tape as requested.

"My princ.i.p.al," Catlin had reminded the man with some firmness, "is Ariane Emory."

One could watch the thoughts pa.s.s through the Supervisor's eyesa born-man considering his career options, perhaps. He hadn't been more cheerful after that, but he'd been polite. And he'd let her insert the tapes she'd brought, giving her access to a whole row of lab beds, clearing two other doubtlessly deserving azi who'd been scheduled for the afternoon.

"This is sera's business," Catlin had remarked further, as severely as possible, "and intimately pertains to her household. She will appreciate discretion. Your name is John Elway. Mine is Catlin AC-7892. I will report."

Reading born-men was possible, when they were strongly conflicted. The man just nodded, and likely had not made a phone call to higher levels, even yet.

Twitch of BR-283's head. Catlin looked critically at that subject, and let it pa.s.s. Possibly he'd just met a small alteration in his program. The dose had been heavy. BR-283 probably could have taken the tape without the drug & but he was deep enough that a twitch was unusual.

Twitch became a tic. Jerk of the hands. "Let the tape run," sera had told her. "Let it complete."

The subject sat bolt upright, eyes staring, then vaulted off the couch, right into the walla wall that a.s.suredly was not there in BR-283's vision. He rebounded against the couch, fighting for balance.

He was dangerous in this state, dangerous to himself. He hit another wall, hard. His forehead was bleeding.

There was a red b.u.t.ton that could call help. Catlin opted not to use it. By the clock, she was due to call base. She touched the com b.u.t.ton on her shoulder and said, "Catlin here. There's been a reaction."

The micro receiver in her right ear said, in sera's voice, "I'm coming."

The other subjects were getting to the end of their tape sessions without hurling themselves off their couches. There was one subject huddled on the floor in a fetal tuck in the corner, one subject in the throes of a psychotic episode from the deeptape he'd been givenand that individual happened to be the officer Hicks had put in charge of the unit. Rafael BR-283.

That said something. And John Elway had not come to a.s.sess the progress of the session. In a little bit more, John Elway would have visitors to the section, visitors who would not be prevented. She watched the other azi, walked to the one-way gla.s.s and looked at BR-283, who had gotten into a corner the camera didn't completely reach. He was bleeding down his face, shaking and rocking. It wasn't a pleasant sight.

It was 1601h, by her watch, when someone came down the hall outside. She drew her sidearmone never a.s.sumed the other side wasn't prepared to shootand faced the opaque door.

It opened, and it was sera, with Florian, a very welcome sight, with Wes for reinforcement. John Elway had come in among them, looking upset, and two of his staff attended, just ahead of Wes, but sera didn't seem worried in the least about them, only about the business at hand.

Catlin said, holstering her sidearm, "A reaction, sera, in the unit senior."

"Well," was all sera said, and sera went to the monitors, on which three azi were quiet, likely asleep; and then went to the window of the first room, a.s.sessing the situation. Sera punched that b.u.t.ton for communication and said, softly, "Rafael. Rafael."

The subject convulsed, and knotted himself tighter into the corner.

"This is Ariane Emory, your Contract and your Supervisor. I've come to help you. Can you get up?"

Nothing, for a moment. Then a slight response, a leg straightened out of the tuck, folded, knee against the floor.

"This is your Supervisor. Get up, Rafael."

He moved, unfolded his arms, laid hands on the wall, got a knee under him, and tried to get up. "Are you all right, Rafael?"

"I can't see."

"Yes, you can," sera said, and Rafael turned his head and stared around him.

"Is that better, Rafael?" A slight nod.

"I'm your Supervisor," sera said, in that calm, calm voice she could usethe tone that made Catlin's own nerves twitch, and brought a silence and quiet from all of the azi present. "I'm your Contract. It's all right. I have a resolution for you. Are you ready to hear it?"

A nod. "Yes."

"What you believed true, was true before this. Now something else is true, and I tell you it's all right. Do you believe me? Do you accept it?"

"I can't," Rafael said.