"So," she said. "I'm not as good as I'd like to be. And I don't feel as confident as I'd like. I've got a lot of my predecessor's techniquesI've studied. I'll try. I want to do it the best, the safest way possible."

"How many people did you just kill, shooting up my office?"

"n.o.body's dead. None of yours needed more than on-site medical. One of mine's still in hospital. Kyle's not hurt at all, beyond a few bruises, He just got a dose of a non-lethal and went out."

Hicks absorbed that, seeming guardedly relieved.

"Yanni says he wants you back in charge of ReseuneSec," she said, "and I'm not going to argue with that, personally, if we can get Kyle straightened out." Thai brought a sharper attention. "And I'll tell you why I agree with Yanni. Reseune is running shorter and shorter of people with an actual memory of what happened back in our beginnings. Kind of odd to think of, but I have that kind of memoryjust sort-of. just enough to know how much really valuable detail is still going to go away with administrators like you. like Yanni. Kyle's age makes him very valuable, if we can just get him backget him to the state you believed he was."

No response to that. No challenge, either.

She said: "Absolutely if that axe code never did take, he's been conflicted, lie's probably been very painfully conflicted over certain things he's done, which he probably tries not to think about too often. He's worked it out, saying to himself he never hurt Giraud, never hurts you, not in his self-adjusted view of the universe. Everything's for the ultimate good. He's been doing what Defense asks, being a good soldier while he's in Defense; and then he can go home to Reseune and follow a program that will ultimately make the world run better. He's comfortable again, since Denys died, because Yanni's been making the Novgorod trips, and he'll never have to go to Defense again."

"Fantasy. The code took. He's not guilty. He is what he's always been. You want the man who murdered your predecessor, look at the man you brought back from Planys."

"If you're right and it is true, we'll find it out in the process, and we won't stress Kyle at all; if I'm right, there will be stress. There'll be a block; and we'll have to go after it before we can apply the axe code and get him back."

"He's not young, for any of this."

"And you're worried I'll botch it. But you're really, extremely worried it could possibly be true."

"I'm worried an eighteen-year-old kid is going to start messing with his psychsets and upsetting him, and he's not young."

"Would you like to be there?"

"I wouldn't like to be there. But I want to be there, yes."

"He's very strong, consideringhe put up a h.e.l.l of a physical fight. But you're quite right: if there is a block, this is going to hit his endocrine system like a hammer, and at his age, it could have an impact on rejuv. So what my studies tell me is that he should have complete medical support. Everything to safeguard him. But mostly, you should be there. He's your companion. You are his Supervisor, at least one of his Supervisors, though I'm betting there's another in Defense. I hope he'll respond to you. And I do want him to come through this all right, not just because I want the truth from him."

"You're saying he's guilty of everything in the book. That he killed your predecessor. What reason do you have to want him to be all right?"

"You don't think it'd be his fault, do you? I don't either."

"If it were true in the first place," he said, "no, it's not his fault."

"I'm calling in Chi Prang. And Justin Warrick."

"Oh, that's a help."

"You know you're not his favorite human being, no more than Giraud was. But I know Justin as well as I know anybody outside my personal staff; and he's very good. He's professional. He'd never hold a grudge against an azi. And you should also know I'm consulting Jordan. Jordan's mad at me, no question. He's probably mad at you and at Kyle. But I don't think that would ever extend to his work on a case."

"Then you're a fool."

"I don't think so," she said. "Jordan's actually written an important paper on this kind of operationwhat they learned about blocks, both creating and undoing. I read it. He's probably the best authority on it of anyone still alive."

"I'm saying he has a grudge, and he's the man who'd hold it. I'm saying I knew your predecessor, and she was a b.i.t.c.h. She'd lie with a straight face, when it suited."

"Most people will," she said quietly, "in a good cause. But she was exactly what you say, sometimes. And I won't say I haven't had a little trouble unwiring my own feelings about Abban. It got personal, about him. It never should have, because my feelings misled me. I've asked myself how I feel about Kyle, because I don't think I could work if I were ambivalent on this. So I tell myself he's been in a h.e.l.l of a position for a long, long time, and I wish for a lot of reasons that Giraud hadn't made a mistake in handling him. I wish Giraud had told Ari he had a potential problem, instead of testing his own ability to handle it. But Giraud didn't want Ari to start paying attention to his psych operations, and particularly to Denys, whose certificate to run Seely was an outright lieand Giraud had run the certification & I found that little detail. You had no reason to think Kyle had a problem, since you got him from Giraud. Kyle couldn't tell you; and you weren't going to spot itbeing a provisional Superbut frankly, I know you're better than Denys. Denys wasn't really doing any direct Supering until Giraud died; and then he was handling both Abban and Seely and you could just watch the stress pile up on both of them. I saw it. I didn't know at the time what I was seeingparticularly in Abban. I learned a lot from that. Is Kyle happy?"

"I think he has been."

"Particularly in recent years?"

"Maybe."

"I've asked that of people he worked with, your office peopleother azi who've worked with him. He used to be tense, with Giraud; calmed down, after Giraud died and he shifted over to you. Tight-focused on his job. Zealous. All good things. He'd laugh."

"He can." Hicks said & feeling better, perhaps, with the implied positives.

"Abban couldn't," she said, fast, like a knife cut. "So you're better than Denys. You're a lot better than Denys. Reports say you're real good with the betas. So I think you know that you're the one that can help himor really hurt him. And he'll be safer if you're there. Let him focus on you. And stay steady. Stay absolutely steady."

I licks' face was quite, quite pale. He kept gnawing at his lip. "What happens if you do find a block?"

"It's usually very simple. It's usually just like at beta or gamma level, something hooked right to the deep sets. We give him a lot of kat, we convince him to let it go, and we give the axe code, because we want to redo everything fast. He'll need a Contract very quickly. That's you, if you want to take it on. That would be the easy thing."

"A block" Hicks said, "can stop a heart."

"I know it can," she said. "And we'll support him, with everything we have available, the best in Reseune. I'm not blithely optimistic on this. I know the danger to him. It's why I want you there. I know, whatever your opinion of me, you'll support him."

"I will," Hicks said.

"Good," she said. And rested her arms on the table. "There's one other, unrelated matter I want to ask you about."

Immediately defensive. Suspicious. Very justifiably so.

"Anton Clavery," she said. "What do you know about that name?"

"We don't," he said. "We've investigated, connected it to the Paxers. But that's all."

"So you haven't solved that one."

Hicks shook his head, relaxing a little, deciding, maybe, that it was a change of topics. "Why Patil used that name, she died knowing. We've been all through her affairs. And we have nothing to show for it."

"She knew one other thing we don't," she said. "She knew what Defense knew about the project she was going to work on. She knew all sorts of things Defense knows, and we don't. It could have to do with what Defense is doing. I was just curious." She got up and offered her hand.

Hicks took it with a peculiar look, as if wondering if there had been a connection between the two topics after all; and maybe after an hour or two he'd begin to see there was. His hand was cold. Probably it would be good to have Wes have a look at him, just in case. If they lost Hicks, they lost Kyle, almost certainly, and she didn't want to lose either one: Hicks, for Yanni's sake, and Kyle, because if they lost him, they'd likely never know what he'd done and what he knew and what he could say & or if he'd been contacted recently, with new orders.

So she did what she could with what she could reach.

Meanwhile Kyle, besides being on a suicide watch, was pretty deeply under, for as long as they thought it safe or good, and she wasn't going to trouble him with an inquiry he'd only have to resist. The less apprehension he carried into the session the better, and the greater the chance they could keep him from crisis.

Put him and Hicks on ice for the duration and concentrate only on Novgorod? She thought about that, about her whole list of priorities. She thought about going down to the capital in personwhich would draw media attention, maybe draw other things, but it would get attention planetwide and up in orbit.

She thought about how the first Ari had let Reseune matters slide, and trusted Giraud to handle what he was certified to handle, when she went up to Novgorodher mistake, her very big mistake, a long time ago. And that was the bottom line: Ari had trusted Giraud to handle what Giraud said he could handle, a simple matter for somebody with that level of certificationif Giraud hadn't been dealing with the best Reseune could turn out, with the bollixed-up pyschtech Defense could manage: exactly the kind of thing that could fool somebody who, being a by-the-book operator himself, only expected what was in the books.

So, faced with a choice of going to Novgorod before she had the requisite years behind her, she trusted Yanni not to make a mistakewith something not simple, either. Sometimes you just had to let things go in the hands of people who were expert at what they did. Yanni had been talking to Council for years. He knew them. He knew his contacts.

Meanwhile she had to figure out what a spy inside Reseune could have told Defense, and what kind of an organization their enemies had been building, from the War years when Reseune and Defense had had a tight, tight relationship.

Jordan, she thought & when Ari yanked back the azi from the combat zones, they'd been dealing with the old Contracts, and undoing what had been done and undone around the time of the War. Jordan, a junior in the labs in those days, must have heard the first Ari fight her battles with Defense & and when Ari was old, and he was in his prime, he'd gone to Defense with an offer to betray Reseune. Defense, who already had a man inside, had double-crossed himwhy?

Because they weren't interested in what Jordan had offered them. They'd heard what he said and drew some other conclusion. Hadn't they? Jordan hadn't proposed murdering Ari. Had he?

One thing seemed evident: Jordan had written that paper. He'd at least met the problem of the military sets, post-War, and a.n.a.lyzed the security measures Defense had set into its azi soldiers, a self-destruct if captured, in some instancesDefense work cobbled into Reseune's clean psychsets. Involving Jordan was a riskto Kyle AK, mentally; to Justin, emotionally; in all respects, to himself-and to Reseune, if he was still bent on revenge.

But if you wanted to dig up the things that lay buried in Reseune, Jordan Warrick was one who knew, and who'd been in a position to know. Yanni, who also knew, was in Novgorod, out of reach. There was Ivanov. There was Wendy Peterson. Neither of them had been involved in the labs the way Jordan had.

It might be a big mistake. If he said yes instantly, it was time to worry.

But he might also be their best a.s.set.

Chapter xv.

Aug 9, 2424 0808 H.

Prang was her first visit. Chi Prang, Alpha Supervisor, another of the old hands, met her with a notion of what the case was about: Ari had told her that in a letter sent along with the file; and Prang didn't have much encouragement. Prang said if she had ever been notified the code had had any questionable outcome she would have taken AK-36 in immediately. She said that she had, yesterday evening, checked records that Giraud had sent and the notation was simply that AK-36 had had the code administered, that he was "doing well," and that he was under Giraud's Supervision.

Giraud had, Prang added, maintained an ironclad and p.r.i.c.kly secrecy about his department, his operations, and his personnel: she recalled he had had arguments with the first Ari on that topic.

The first Ari, Ari thought to herself, hearing that, had isolated herself, had set everybody at distance, didn't read the people she was living with as well or as impartially as she read everybody else she dealt with.

Read a stranger? Absolutely. Instantly.

Read a group of people? Easily.

Read the Nyes? Not well enough. The first Ari had grown up with them; been a child with them. Of course she knew them. If you stared at a thing a long time, after a while you weren't really seeing it. Your mind started being busy, and you knew what you were staring at hadn't moved, but maybe you didn't see every detail. You didn't notice when it blinked or its eyes dilated. You didn't know when it changed its mind. You didn't notice when loyalty to something else had gotten to the surface and started to move its thoughts in another direction. You didn't notice that, the older Giraud got, maybe, the more Giraud was being run by his younger brotherwho was the real Special, as Ari knew, and brilliant in azi psych, but who wasn't a d.a.m.ned good Supervisor. Do this for me. Do that. Don't let them know. Don't let them inquire. Giraud, fix it for me. Giraud, keep them out. Giraud, she's dangerous. She'll be rid of us & Major blind spot. Giraud loved her: not many had, but Giraud had, and of course she could trust Giraud's motives.

Put that in the notes to her successor: mind her own relationships.

Like Justin. Like Amy. Like Yanni. It was scan. It was one thing to say the first Ari should have done it; it was another, to think of doing it with Florian, with Catlin, Justin, and Amy & "He won't come through it," Prang said bluntly, regarding their chances of dealing with Kyle at this point. "He won't likely survive it."

"Is the block likely in the deep sets?" she asked. "Did Defense have anybody that could do it that way?"

"The fact that they didn't have anybody who could," Prang said solemnly, "doesn't mean they didn't try. They had a high failure rate. There were azi we never saw again. Killed in combat. Always killed in combat. Alphas, no less."

"How many were lost?"

"Twelve. None that belonged in combat. None psychologically fit for it. they didn't want us enabling combat in an alpha. they wanted their career officers to run them, not have an azi taking combat command. They were clear on that score. Ariyour predecessorworked to get them all back, and it took the turning point in the War and a slowdown in our production to bend them."

"Betas lost?"

"I don't recall the numbers. High hundreds. Gammas. G.o.d. Near four thousand."

That made her mad & mad, and she thought she'd lie awake tonight thinking about it. That att.i.tude in Defense, and then Prang's little shrug, as ifwhat could we do? What could anyone do?

She'd spent a very little time with Prang, which put her on the edge of furious.

Then she wanted to go ask Jordan about what he remembered, but that wasn't going to work, if she went in on a frontal a.s.sault.

So she went to Justin's office insteadwent just with Florian, and asked him and Grant if they'd reached any results in the case she'd given them.

Justin said, "I can't tell you where any block is. I can tell you, if I were good, where I'd put it, if I were working on the psychset in the original manual. Grant agrees."

She sat down by them and let them show her, just where; and it was where she thought.

But then she asked, "What if you were a total fool? If you weren't that good, and you just wanted to go ahead anyway, and you weren't that smart?"

They both frowned, even Grant, who rarely did. And then Grant said, "If you were a fool, maybe," and searched the file and showed where you could put it in the secondary sets, and it made sense to hersecondaries was where ethics went, and they played off the deep sets, but they were shifty things, and interrelated, and they mutated considerably over a lifetime. It was why azi went back time and again for refresher tape.

Ethics & and emotional needs.

"Could be," Justin said, and added: "Kyle was a cold b.a.s.t.a.r.d, whenever I had to deal with him. I can't say my opinion's entirely clinical. I've tried to get past that. I've asked myself if it was partially null-state, on his part. And it could have been. I could have misinterpreted it."

"You mean when you were arrested."

"He was there, during some unpleasant sessions. I knew him. I can't say I know him latelyI can't say I can do an impartial a.s.sessment on him, at all. Exceptthe azi this original manual should have produced would have had some emotional reaction. He didn't. That's why I say, subjectively, it could have been a partial shutdown."

"He could have done that," Grant said. "Justin and I have talked about it. We think it's not just that the axe code didn't take. He's self-adjusted, possibly even to the point of being his own reason the axe code didn't take. He's been running internal adjustments, whatever situation he's in. If he takes tape, which I'm sure a provisional Supervisor would want him to do, he takes it surface-level, absorbs it as a behavioral guide. It steadies him down, re-teaches him what his responses ought to be in order to fool everybody. He has an emotional capability: that's currently completely engaged with his Supervisor. He gets pleasure out of doing the best he can, but he probably knows how messed up he really is. He knows, constantly, that he's King to the one he's attached to, except when he's dealing with his Supervisor in Defense, whoever that isand whether it's been the same person all along, or whether that's changed, he'll be loyal, and emotionally engaged, and ii what they ask him to do throws his deep sets into confusion, his actions will still be clear, even through the conflict. I've studied the military sets. Actions are the real loyalty. That's the mantra way deep in what they used to set. Do what you're told."

She could see it, in what Grant pointed out, the ethic to follow instructions and do no harm until one could get to a Supervisor, the sort of thing you'd set in for somebody who had to survive where Supervisors weren't going to be as close as the nearest office. It was a beta kind of setting. Grant was more complex on that issue. Florian Florian, right beside her, was capable of intense argument: you had to know how to get him to do what he didn't want to, and you had to make it clear to him it really was an order.

And then he'd do anything. Absolutely anything. Catlin would do it even faster, and not need advice and sympathy after; Florian did.

So what sort was AK-36?

By all she'd read, he'd have been a Catlin sort. Point him at an enemy. He was setted for headquarters security, and that was what he'd been intended to be, in the purest form of his psychset.

But somebody had done something with the secondaries, and he had become, to all intents and purposes, self-steering ever since, and they'd flung him into Supering combat betas and other alphas. Surviving. Trying to comply with his deep sets. Everybody did. Even born-men did that, in their own chaotic way.

Ask Florian? There was a level at which she didn't mess with her security's working mindsets. Theory was a designer question, and she wasn't as good yet as she would be. It was, more specifically, a Grant kind of question, if you were going to ask an alpha.

It was a Justin or a Jordan kind of question, if you were going to ask a designer.

She left, thinking about it, and she went into the security office and, in a small conference room with Florian, she called Jordan.

"It's Ari," she said. "Do you have a moment, ser?"