"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 thisYanni could be on his way back to the labs. G.o.d 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 d.a.m.ned kitchen.

Chapter v.

July 3, 2424 1728 H.

Just c.o.c.ktails, 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 Quentinthey were 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 very pricy 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 uniformbet that Maddy had had something to do with that, too. Patrick Emory showed uphe 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 Stra.s.sen 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 toparticularly 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 tweedit 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 cl.u.s.ter of azisocial, 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 them stayed on the fringe of the azi group, cheerful enough, but not indulging 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 tonightwas 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 somethingprobably 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 tankbecause 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 excitedfor Amy. MaddyMaddy got a waterfall, with orchids. Sam got a river all through his apartment, with a little pond under a gla.s.s floor in the rec room; and Yanni got a big vivarium, with lots of little skinks, which were lizards; and plants and flowersYanni said it was a d.a.m.ned 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 themshe just towered; she was going into airport admin, and had a beta azi a.s.sistant 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 pondsWill 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.

G.o.d, 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 skirtwas 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 nice to 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 lat.i.tudebecause 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 embarra.s.sing.

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 coatand 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, G.o.d 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 gla.s.s, 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 s.h.i.t 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 b.u.t.terfly. 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 nextin 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 s.n.a.t.c.h 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 alongI 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 h.e.l.l 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 Grantboth. 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 dowhat you do is going to matter in the universe. And you're not going 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 Stra.s.senberg."

"At Stra.s.senberg." She was utterly floored. "What damage?"

"The precip tower's down."

"d.a.m.n." It didn't make sense. Stra.s.senberg 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."

Stra.s.senberg was several hundred klicks upriver, still in Reseune Administrative Territory. It was a long stretch of river to try to find anything human-sizedeven 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 sh.o.r.e; 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 d.a.m.n 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, alonethey 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 riverthey didn't let things in easily, either. Somebody had gotten to Stra.s.senberg 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 sh.o.r.e 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, d.a.m.n. 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."

"d.a.m.n," Amy said, just, "d.a.m.n." 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."