And, be it noted, in Gianni's defense, he lacked supervisory qualificationshe was not emotionally able to make clear staff a.s.signments. He hated to raise his voice, and, when asked his preferences directly, said he simply wanted to do desserts the way he could really do them and hoped sera would find someone to handle the other things.

Well, they tried. In Callie's place, they needed someone with the security training necessary to back up sera's bodyguard, the ability to order CITs a.s.sertively, at need, anda talent more regularly employedthe voice to command respect from Wing One's ReseuneSec officers. Callie BC certainly didn't have the voice. She politely and tentatively suggested rather than ordered. She'd been one of the Carnath household, well qualified in supply; but she hated having to face interpersonal problems. Or deal with CIT emotions.

The household really, desperately needed an alpha like Seely, in Florian's own view. They needed one, like Seely, that had the capability to act decisively against anyone, even a born-man who claimed supervisor authority. That That strength wasn't easily come by. The original Seely had been Denys Nye's majordomo . . . and there was actually a seventeen-year-old azi of that exact geneset-psychset combination available for training, ideal for the job, in Florian's own opinionif sera would possibly take a direct hand and request him. Butsera had said, a logical leap that confused him, first that there was already a Seely-type being born fairly soon, and secondly she could never abide meeting a Seely-type in the halls. strength wasn't easily come by. The original Seely had been Denys Nye's majordomo . . . and there was actually a seventeen-year-old azi of that exact geneset-psychset combination available for training, ideal for the job, in Florian's own opinionif sera would possibly take a direct hand and request him. Butsera had said, a logical leap that confused him, first that there was already a Seely-type being born fairly soon, and secondly she could never abide meeting a Seely-type in the halls.

True, there was that particular individual in the birthlabs, to be paired with another Abban: that was a problem they well understood. But now that the issue had come up, sera declared she wouldn't have AS-10 a.s.signed on the planet, let alone in her household.

Well, it was clearly a decision, one there was certainly no disputing. And absent Seely AS-10, all other alphas of Contractable age were already committed to specific programs from infancy. There were a very few others, older, some of those quite concentrated in their own specialty, none of them socialized for a household.

So they were down to three household candidates not quite as good, one a beta, the other two gammas, the highest cla.s.sification they could find that weren't designated elsewherenot optimum, but satisfactory, in their estimation. They'd have to mesh smoothly with Gianni and Callie, not get underfoot of sera's security, and and the majordomo had to know when to turn a situation over to security. the majordomo had to know when to turn a situation over to security.

That put it down to the solitary beta, who was at the top end of beta, but under-socialized for the job.

It was frustrating. They were both up to their elbows in lists of tapes studied and certifications given, which sera could have read at a glance. But sera was either in deepstudy or, lately, on her computer, and on a motion-sensitive trigger, so neither of them thought it good to ask sera about it.

There were other experts they could ask: they sat in Wing One, in the heart of ReseuneLabs, where such sources abounded. But that meant exposing the makeup of sera's potential staff to people outside, which they were more than reluctant to do. The manuals of Contracted azi, containing the alterations made in that specific mindset over a lifetimethose were closely guarded, property of that azi and his Supervisor and not available in Library. But for anybody with a Base access above Three and they were using a small subset of Base Onethey could just walk though any unContracted's manual there was.

Scary, already, in their way of thinking. they hadn't known how accessible the unContracteds' manuals were to people in Wing One and Admin. they were supposed to find new people who were safe. They found instead that the ones they already had hadn't been as safe as they hoped. Somebody had been sloppy. And they ought to report that to serawhen she was herself again.

But that wouldn't happen until they had the household running smoothly, and that meant relief in the schedule, freedom for them and Marco and Wes to leave the premises and know the apartment would be safe. That meant a good majordomo who wouldn't go limp under pressure.

And that brought it down to five paired beta genesets in the security track. And finding out whether Denys or Giraud had ordered any special features in lower-level, una.s.signed security was, again, in Florian's estimation, something sera really needed to do, with her expertise. The best they could do was search the database they could reach for all interventions in the training, any decision that indicated a deviation from that geneset's initial program.

They learned a bit, doing it. They learned more than they'd planned to know about where to look and what to watch for. Social tapes, sera had said to Florian, half asleep, in bed. Just be careful of those. The skill tapes don't tend to cause problems. Social tapes are generally what to watch for. Just be careful of those. The skill tapes don't tend to cause problems. Social tapes are generally what to watch for. That was where spurious instructions could get in, at a very general level. That was where spurious instructions could get in, at a very general level.

Well, at least the available betas weren't long on social training. And they were beta-smart, meaning they'd take tape fast, and literally, if they had to.

They ran their search from the security office inside sera's apartment, in premises where the first Florian and the first Catlin had been the authority, in an apartment where the first Ari had lived. Two of the wall screens were the weather and the airport schedulethe Yanni matter. Two more monitored the main concourse of Wing One, downstairs, where the number and manner of people out and about the building seemed ordinary. One monitor covered the upstairs, the hall outside. That was vacant, their immediate surrounds.

A bank of other screens, constantly shifting the view, monitored the riverside, the private boat dock and the big wharves where shipments arrived in the town adjunct to Reseune. Cameras swept the town streets, with its usual traffic of azi and CITs on their own business, a bus, some few runabouts whizzing about to the hazard of pedestrians. Another set of cameras swept the broad fields and pens down in AG, where crops were burgeoning out of winter earth and pigs and chickens lived in long, safe sheds, protected, like all the town and labs, by the ring of tall precip towers that kept the world at bay.

Another screen, to the left of the view of the town, was occupied with the parsing of lines of code, the beta psychset they were currently investigating.

Three screens, on the side console, kept an electronic eye on sera's friend Sam Whitely, at work on the construction site adjacent tobut not yet accessingWing One. Sam's azi, Pavel, had a camera clipped to his collar and rarely left Sam for more than a brief errand. That afforded them a good constant view of Sam, who was not the sort to get into trouble in the first place.

The cameras gave them a view of everything and everyone they had to protect ... a split screen kept an eye on Justin Warrick and his companion Grant ALX-972, in their small office over in Education, where they were spending the dayit was where they were supposed to be on Thursdays.

They didn't didn't, however, have one to track Warrick seniorwho was on no one's trusted list, and who was the reason they didn't want to present the files they were working on to Justin Warrick for review.

Jordan Warrick. Warrick. There There was the problem that disturbed the whole houseand one reason they were anxious to improve sera's general security. They weren't a completely conjoined problem, Justin and Jordan. Jordan and Justin hadn't met face to face since a notable argument some days ago. Jordan had mostly staved in his own apartment since, and had he attempted to crack a restricted level, the whole of Reseune would have twitched. was the problem that disturbed the whole houseand one reason they were anxious to improve sera's general security. They weren't a completely conjoined problem, Justin and Jordan. Jordan and Justin hadn't met face to face since a notable argument some days ago. Jordan had mostly staved in his own apartment since, and had he attempted to crack a restricted level, the whole of Reseune would have twitched.

As it was, ReseuneSec just logged every keystroke, every request Jordan Warrick made of Library, and pa.s.sed the collected information on. What the elder Warrick asked to access today were all generally published files two years old, so they raised no alarms. The actual content was for some specialist in Hicks's officeReseuneSecto read, because they involved genetic expression, and for that maybe even ReseuneSec would have to ask one of the scientists.

Harmless? Probably. Not definitely, however.

There was also some indication the argument between the Warricks had abated somewhat: Jordan had sent a message to Justin this afternoon asking him to supper. Justin had refused to come. Another message had followed. Jordan had proposed a restaurant. They'd agreed to meet, so ReseuneSec informed them, via sera's standing request for information about such contacts.

And if they pa.s.sed a memo to sera to tell her that was going on, sera, in her current mood, would tell them back off, that Jordan Warrick was not her concern at the moment.

But then ReseuneSec, Hicks's office, would move in on the meeting all on their own. And sera had told them to protect Justin, had she not?

It was like the other instructions this weeka scheduling problem.

"We could use both these sets," Florian said to his partner, regarding the two top candidate pairs. "They could be ready soonest. We could use the extra hands. And one more set than we planned gives us backup to handle a situation at the door. There's that. Sera won't mind the cost."

"Which one should be senior, then?" Catlin asked. "I say BT-384 and GJ-2720."

"Agreed." BT-384 and GJ-2720, at twenty-one, were younger than the other two, in factsenior was always in terms of genetics, rank, and training, not birth-order. But the BT-384 geneset combined with the 348-3498 psychset in fact did have an older history: five of that geneset-psychset combo had been in the military: their complete records had been difficult to get. But by what they did get, all five priors had died in the Company Wars, two sets in the same action, attempting to rescue the company commander. Gallantly devoted and distinguished for courage under fire.

It would have been more commendable to have gotten themselves and their company commander out alive, in Florian's way of thinking. Still..."

"Agreed," he said. BT-384 and his partner were both security-trained, beta and gamma in Green Barracks, where gamma was as low as they accepted. Both were older than Florian and Catlin were. GJ-2720, female, was currently engaged in demolitions instruction, in the security wing, which was an a.s.set, and a gamma tended to be steadier than most betas in that application. Demolitions was his own field, and he had a certain bias in favor of GJ-2720.

BT-384, their high-end beta destined for majordomo, was surveillance, trained for a desk job, simple monitoring, but that meant good attention to detail, an a.s.set.

None of their choices had at any time been in direct or traceable contact with Denys Nye, Yanni Schwartz, Giraud Nye, Jordan Warrick, Justin Warrick, or any of their staffs. No one had messed with the standard path in any recorded degree.

BT-384 had a name. It was Theo. GJ-2720 was Jory.

"Take their Contracts?" Catlin asked. "We might as well make a decision."

"We'll order initial tape for Domestic Supervision," he said. That would call Theo BT-384 and his partner Jory to the labs for what they might think was a routine training update. Instead, under a heavier sedation, a deepset tape would reorder their priorities and loyalties and bind them simply to their Contract. They would lose the focus they had, and gain a more general one, the knowledge they were to serve an important domestic situation somewhere, of some sort, together.

That would break their absolute focus on their current general a.s.signment. It wasan azi could well remembera disturbing and emotional experience. Theo and his partner had been destined for ReseuneSec. But they were about to run a ReseuneLabs household ... a different world indeed. The walk they would take from the barracks to the labs where they would get their Contract would be a cold walk through absolute non-existence.

It felt so good when the Contract turned out to be the answer to every study, every ambition, every hope of one's life. Even knowing intellectually that the emotion was pre-programmed in an azi, it still jolted everything, still evoked a response of absolute joy.

"Bring them here for all the specific skills tapes?" Catlin said, following his train of thought, as she did, without his quite uttering it. It was best to have that part done here, not exposing any of sera's people to lab personnel.

No need to report the decisions to sera. Sera had told them handle it. They did.

They took Theo BT-384 and Jory GJ-2720 to be in charge of the household, Callie to be under their authority in domestic matters, but in charge of orders and supply, which would please Callie no end. They took the other set. Logan GL-331, with his partner Hiro GH-89, for general staff under Theo. Jory. and Callie, and then swept up two individual epsilons, Tomas and Spessy, for general cleaning and maintenance service, with a paired couple of thetas, Del and Joyesse, for maids of all work and sera's personal wardrobe.

And most of allthe one find about which they'd had absolutely no doubttwo other betas, a paired set, Wyndham and Haze. Wyndham and Haze, both male, had been destined for a hotel in Novgorod, to run a very high-end restaurant with a VIP security certificatethe CIT master chef intended to retire. The CIT chef and the hotel could wait another year. Sera had just gained one sure prize.

Staff might be a little crowded downstairs, given the number of rooms in the lower half of the apartment given over to storage. The CIT living s.p.a.ce of the apartment was very large. Its travertine floors and high-ceilinged rooms had easy room for a hundred CITs at a party. But the staff, all but themselves and Marco and Wes being resident in the downward L of main staff quarters, were going to need more beds than they had. Those had to be ordered.

Training tape would occupy the new staff's leisure time for several weeks. They'd be in deepstudy in their quarters in their off hours during that time, and then they'd emerge to make the place run smoothly.

Especially the front door. Especially the kitchen.

So. Decision made. Die cast. The new staff would go through medical, take their pre-Contracting tape. Contracting itself took a single moment, once that essential groundwork was done. They'd first be taught social behaviors and protocols in lab, n.o.body but Admin knowing where they were going, and there would be no great fuss here to disturb sera's mood. All sera had to do was agree to it and sign the request.

Once it was donethey could draw a breath, not be working twelve hours on and twelve off, as they were now, as they had done for months, while sera studied day and night, and ran background checks on everyone around her. They didn't disagree with sera's preoccupation with security. They weren't quite sure that the threat to sera's life was entirely past. They'd seen her through childhood. They'd gotten her this far alive.

But the day was coming when sera would need a staff far more complex than they had ever been, and in which they might not be as close to sera, as all-in-all, as they had once been. They saw that comingthough Florian was upset by the prospect. Sera seemed less happy because of the pressure on her, and that defined everything. She'd snapped at him. She'd never done that and not apologized. So they had to take special care of her.

"We should monitor Justin tonight," Florian said abruptly, "or Hicks will. I don't want that." Catlin said, "I can do it."

"Set it up," Florian said. "I have to make sure Gianni stays on track until dinnertime. Then we'll trade a.s.signments, and I'll go."

The storm pa.s.sed overhead. On the monitor, a ray of sun hit the tower, in the gray, glistening world outside.

A private plane, glistening white, came in wheels-down for a landing on a puddled runway. The tail emblem, the Infinite Man of ReseuneLaboratories, was distinctive. It was Reseune One.

Yanni was back.

Chapter ix.

April 25, 2424 1748 H.

"How was Novgorod?" Ari asked purposely, over the shrimp c.o.c.ktail. "Quiet?"

"Agreeably so, actually," Yanni said. He had never yet asked the reason for the dinner invitation.

Not uncommon for Yanni. Yanni Schwartz gave very little away, and he'd always accorded the same privilege of reticence to her, since she had been on his good list, or thought she was. He was on rejuv, of course, dyed his hair, was eightyish and looked forty, except that most people that looked forty weren't forty. He wasn't handsome, but he had a strong face. She liked that face. And it made her feel better that he showed up on time and didn't act guilty at allas if he was going to have a reason to give her. Oh, she so hoped he had a reason. Something in her unknotted just because he'd come in and met her cheerfully, without a flinch.

He'd brought her a trinket from the capital. Giraud used to do that, and this one, when she unwrapped it, looked even to be from the same company as some of Giraud's gifts. It was a desk sitter, a little gla.s.s globe with a holo insect that crawled in a circle so long as you set it in the light. He had handed it to her before they sat down at table and she had it by her plate. It kept running, brilliant green armor and serrated jaws, round and round.

The gift-giving urge in Yanni was new. She noted that.

One thing was sure: Yanni had thought about her when he was in Novgorod, and Yanni had never particularly curried favor: he'd always been fair, and expected it in return. Now that he was here, at her table, she could actually quit fluxing and remember Yanni, not the reports she'd found in System. Maybe he he had brought her the thing just because it tickled his fancy, and made him think of her. had brought her the thing just because it tickled his fancy, and made him think of her.

In her opinion, that was the way family ought to be. She'd almost begun to think of him that way. Until this last week.

"I love the bug," she said.

"Beetle," he said. "A Glorious Beetle."

"Well, he is, but is that his name?"

"Plusiotis gloriosa. Native to the western hemisphere of Earth."

"He's really that green?"

Yanni took a little advert card from his coat pocket and set it in the middle of the table, between them and facing her. "You can actually get a collection of insects. The b.u.t.terflies were obviously the big item. But you have one of those, I remembered. I thought you'd rather have the beetle."

She had Giraud's b.u.t.terfly. They lately had real b.u.t.terflies in the Conservatory. All sorts of them. But they didn't have a beetle.

"I absolutely love him," she said. It had been ages since she'd spent time in the Conservatory. Reseune sprawled, from the high end, where Wing One sat, down to the town and the fields, and she hadn't been to the Conservatory sinceoh, long before the shooting that had brought Denys down, long before the world had come apart. She and Maman used to go there when she was small, to walk the garden paths and see the flowers.

The family that she had once had, had been broken by Denys' order.

Yanni's family, too. Scattered by the same set of orders, sacrificed to the Project that was her, sent out to a distant star-station, depriving Yanni of relatives, including stupid Jenna. She wouldn't be surprised if Yanni did resent her. But she hoped he didn't.

Lump-lump-lump, in its endless silent circle.

She dropped her napkin over it, to remove the distraction. Looked Yanni in the eyesthey were brown, direct, hard eyes.

"It doesn't have an off switch," Yanni said. "Except light."

"So there's nothing up I should know about," she said, direct to the point, regarding Novgorod and the legislative session.

"Oh, the Paxers are kicking up the usual fuss, we didn't get the remediation increase we wanted, and there's talk about putting an embargo on Earth-origin wood veneers."

So he wasn't going to get to the topic of secret meetings straight off. So neither did she. "It'll only drive up the price. It won't ever stop the demand, will it?"

"It might drive the price far beyond what the average citizen can afford. Take the ma.s.s out of ma.s.s market. Earth is claiming its woods are a sustainable resource. We're saying they're not, on an interstellar scale, and we're talking about a hundred-year embargo."

"If Alliance doesn't go with it" she began. She hadn't been interested at all in that, but a brain cell fired, and she couldn't help it.

"Alliance is actually going with it."

That rated a lift of the brows, for an item that hadn't been to the forefront of the news at all. The Alliance kept their hands off their own forested world, at Pell, a planet called Downbelow, barred exploitation by vote of the station residents, if not the far-flung ship-communities that were the greatest majority of that government.

So the whole ecosystem of Downbelow was protected from intrusion because practically speaking there was n.o.body but Pell Station that would mount an expedition down there. The ecological sensibilities of the Alliance capital, however, had not stopped the Alliance merchanters from buying up luxuries out of Sol System hand over fist, which they were selling, hand over fist, to Union. Since the Alliance sat halfway between Union and Sol, a ban on certain Earth products couldn't couldn't be be meaningful without Alliance compliance, and she'd have bet Alliance, composed mostly of merchanter families, wouldn't possibly go with it. be be meaningful without Alliance compliance, and she'd have bet Alliance, composed mostly of merchanter families, wouldn't possibly go with it.

Uncommon that Alliance and Union both, former enemies, ended up banning something so prized by the rich. Never mind that they could easily synthesize the product. Never mind that there were very good synthetic veneers, down to the cell structure, if you wanted that. The fact a thing was real real aroused a certain l.u.s.t to possess, in certain moneyed circles. People would pay fortunes for what was real and Earth-origin. Crazy, in her opinion. aroused a certain l.u.s.t to possess, in certain moneyed circles. People would pay fortunes for what was real and Earth-origin. Crazy, in her opinion.

"Well," she said. "So no more wood from Earth?"

"I think it will pa.s.s in the Council of Worlds," he said. "A lot of talk, a lot of fire and fury and discussion. The spotlight's on the users of certain products, and no senator wants to be tagged as one of the conspicuously rich consumers. They've exempted historical pieces from the ban. I've objected that we'll see an uncommon glut of relics coming out of Earth. And we get one other quiet little provisionthe Hinder Stars Defense Treaty gets moved forward. Talks renewed."

"That's good." It was.

"So," he said, in a changing-the-subject tone, "how are things here?"

And still no mention of the private meetings. "Same as last week. Same as the week before." There was some local news, not as dramatic as the ban on wood veneers. "The new wing has its foundations laid."

"Saw that, as the plane came in. Looking quite impressive back there."

"They're mostly finished with the storm tunnels and accesses now conduits are going in. And they finished the power plant up at the upriver site. Precip stations are about to go online."

Not that much besides a twenty-bed residential bunker and a machine shop stood on that remote site yet. The new building, well upriver, was in the early stages, a lot of raw earth and robots at the moment, superintended by a small azi technical crew and a supervisor, and soon to be occupied by the loneliest and craziest people on Cyteen, line-runners on the automated precip stations.

"Fine," he said. "And how are your studies going?"

"Oh, good enough."

"So" Archly. "are we moving researchers in upriver?"

"We're a few months from that."