“Ser Denys wants you,” Florian said in a hushed voice.
“Tell him go to hell.”
Florian looked distressed. But he would go do that and he would get in a lot of trouble for her, she knew he would.
“Yes, sera.”
“No,” she said, and wiped her eyes and got up. “I will.” She wiped her eyes again and walked past him and Catlin, and went out to the living room.
It was a mistake to walk out on uncle Denys. When she did that, she let him Work her, and now she was having to walk back into the living room he owned and be nice.
Stupid, stupid, she told herself, and unraveled her mad and got a nicer expression on her face when she went to uncle Denys. Denys was in the dining room having his coffee and he pretended not to notice her for a second.
That was Working, too.
“I’m sorry, uncle Denys.”
He looked at her then, took a quick sip of coffee, and said: “I did have a surprise planned for you today,” he said. “Do you want some more orange juice?”
She moped over to the chair and climbed into it, hugging her cast with her good hand. “Florian and Catlin too,” she said.
“Seely,” uncle Denys said. And Seely came and got two more glasses and poured orange juice as Florian and Catlin quietly settled down across the table.
“Nelly’s in hospital again,” uncle Denys said. “Ari, you know it hurts her when you put her out and call somebody else.”
“Well, I can’t help it. Nelly fusses.”
“Nelly doesn’t know what to do with you anymore. I think it might be a good idea to let Nelly go work down in the Town, in the nursery. You think about that. But that’s for you to decide.”
She could not lose maman and Nelly in one week. Even if Nelly drove her crazy. She looked at the table and tried not to think about that.
“You think about it,” uncle Denys said. “Nelly’s the happiest when she has a baby to take care of. And you’re not a baby. So you’re making her unhappy—especially when you give her orders. But you just think about it. It’s not like you couldn’t see Nelly again. Otherwise she’s going to have to take tape to re-train her and she’ll have to do house management or something.”
“What does Nelly want?”
“She wants you to be three years old. But that won’t work. So Nelly’s got to move or Nelly’s got to change.”
“Can Nelly have a job down in the baby lab? And live here?”
“Yes, she could do that. It’s not really a bad idea.” Uncle Denys set his cup down for Seely to pour more coffee, then stirred it. “If that’s what you want.”
“I want Horse.”
Uncle Denys’ brows came together. “Ari, you can’t have what’ll hurt you.”
“Florian says there’s a baby.”
“Ari, horses are big animals. Nobody knows anything about riding them, not on Cyteen. We have them for research, not to play with.”
“You could give me the baby one.”
“God,” uncle Denys said.
“Florian knows all about horses.”
Uncle Denys looked at Florian and Florian went azi, all blank.
“No,” uncle Denys said flatly. Then: “Let me talk to AG about it, Ari, all right? I don’t know about horses. When you grow a bit, maybe. When you show me you’re grown up enough not to sneak down there and break your neck.”
“That’s nasty.”
“It’s true, isn’t it? You could have broken your neck. Or your back. Or your head. I don’t mind if you do things: you’ll fly a plane someday. You’ll do a lot of things. But for God’s sake, Ari, you don’t sneak off and try to fly one of the jets, do you? You have to study. There’s no second chance when the ground’s coming at you. You have to know what can go wrong and how to deal with it, and you have to be big enough; and if you want to deal with a horse, you’d better be big enough to hold on to it, and you’d better show me you’re grown up enough to be smarter than the horse is.”
That was nasty too. But it was probably true.
“He surprised you,” uncle Denys said, “because you didn’t know what you were doing. So I suggest you study about animals. They’re not machines. They think. And he thought: there’s some fool on my back. And he was bigger and he got rid of her. Figure that one out.”
She frowned harder. It sounded too much like what had happened. Only uncle Denys had gotten down to a Maybe about giving her Horse. That was something.
“I needed a saddle and a bridle.”
“All right. So how do you make the horse wear it, hmmn? Maybe you’d better do some advance study. Maybe you’d better look some things up in library. Maybe you’d better talk to some people who might know. Anyway, you prove to me you know what you’re doing and you prove to me you’re responsible. Then we’ll see about seeing about it.”
That was halfway, anyway. For about two seconds she had forgotten how much she hurt, which threw her off for a moment when it all came back again, and she thought how she had been when maman went away to Fargone, and how she got over that.
It was awful to get over maman dying. But that was starting to happen. She felt it start. Like things were trying to go back the way they were, and uncle Denys was getting short with her and she was going to have to go back to classes and everything was going to be the way it was again.
She felt sad about feeling better, which was stupid.
She wished she could have told maman about Horse.
And then she still wasn’t sure if maman had ever gotten her letters at all, no matter what they said, or if Ollie had. Thinking that made her throat swell up and the tears start, and she scrambled down from the table, ran for her hall and shut the door.
Then she stood there by Florian and Catlin’s room and cried and pounded her fist on the wall and kicked it, and went in their room and got some tissue to wipe her eyes and blow her nose.
They came in. And just stood there.
“I’m all right,” she said. Which probably confused hell out of them, maman would say.
“Ari,” she heard uncle Denys calling her from the other room. The door was open. “Ari?”
She had given uncle Denys a hard morning. But that was all right, uncle Denys said; it was like getting well from something, sometimes you had aches and pains, and they got better, eventually. He wasn’t mad at her.
“I’ve talked to AG,” uncle Denys said at lunch. “As soon as they can schedule a tank, they’re going to do a run for you.”
“You mean a horse?”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full. Manners.”
She swallowed. Fast.
“Here’s the work part. You have to go over all the data and write up a report just the way the techs do. You have to do it on comp, and the computer will compare your work against the real techs’ input. And where you’re wrong you have to find out why and write up a report on it. You have to do that from start to birth and then keep up with all the other stuff and all your other studies. If you want something born, you have to work for it.”
That was a lot of work. “Do I get him, then?”
“Her, actually. We need another female anyway. Two males tend to fight. Some animals are like that. We’re going to do another just like the one we have, instead of a new type, so we won’t risk losing her. But if you don’t keep up the work, you don’t get the horse at all, because you won’t have earned her. Understood?”
“Yes, ser,” she said. Not with her mouth full. Horses grew up fast. She remembered that. Real fast. Like all herd animals. A year, maybe?
“They’re real delicate,” uncle Denys said. “They’re a bitch to manage, frankly, but your predecessor had this notion that it was important for people to have them. Human beings grew up with other lifeforms on the motherworld, she used to say, and those other lifeforms were part of humans learning about non-humans, and learning patience and the value of life. She didn’t want people on Cyteen to grow up without that. Her maman Olga was interested in pigs and goat
s because they were useful and they were tough and adaptable for a new planet. Ari wanted horses because they’re a high-strung herd ungulate with a lot of accessible data on their handling: we can learn something from them for some of the other, more exotic preservation projects. But the other important reason, the reason of all reasons for having horses, she said, is that working with them does something to people. ‘They’re exciting to something in our own psych-sets,’ those are her exact words: ‘I don’t want humans in the Beyond to grow up without them. Our ancient partners are a part of what’s human: horses, cattle, oxen, buffalo, dolphins, whatever. Dogs and cats, except we can’t support carnivores yet, or tolerate a predator on Cyteen—yet. Earth’s ecology is an interlocking system,’ she used to say, ‘and maybe humans aren’t human without input from their old partners.’ She wasn’t sure about that. But she tried a lot of things. So it’s not surprising you want a horse. She certainly did, although she was too old to try riding it—thank God.—Does it bother you for me to talk about her?”
“No.” She gave a twitch of her shoulders. “It’s just—funny. That’s all.”
“I imagine it is. But she was a remarkable woman. Are you through? We can walk back now.”
xi
Florian did the best he could. He and Catlin both.
He had even asked ser Denys if they were letting sera down somehow, or if there was something they ought to be doing to help her get well, and ser Denys had patted him on the shoulder and said no, they were doing very well, that when a CIT had trouble there were no tapes to help, just people. That if they were strong enough to take the stress of sera’s upset without needing sera’s help that was the best thing, because that was what CITs would do for her. “But don’t let yourselves take damage,” ser Denys had said. “That’s even worse for sera, if something bad happened to you, too. You protect yourselves as well as her. Understand?”
Florian understood. He told Catlin, because they had agreed he would ask, she just wasn’t good with CIT questions.
“We’re doing right,” he had said to her. “Sera’s doing all right. We’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing. Ser Denys is happy with us.”
“I’m not,” Catlin said, which summed it up. Catlin was hurting worse than he was, he thought, because Catlin was mad about sera being hurt, and Catlin couldn’t figure out who was responsible, or whether people were doing enough to help sera.
They were both relieved when sera had said she had an idea and a job for them to do. And when sera started back to classes and things started getting back to normal, they had classes then, down in the Town, ser Denys said they should and sera agreed. “Meet me after class,” she said.
So they did.
And sera walked with them out to the fishpond and fed the fish and said: “We have to wait until a rainy day. That’s next Thursday. I looked.”
On the charts that showed when the weathermakers were going to try to make it rain, that meant. Usually the charts were good, when they were down to a few days. And sera told them what they had to do.
Catlin was happy then. It was an Operation and it was a real one.
Florian just hoped sera was not going to get herself into trouble.
Skipping study was easy: sera just sent a request down to Green Barracks and said they couldn’t come.
Then they worked out a way to get to C-tunnel without going through the Main Residency Hall, which meant going down the maintenance corridors. That was easy, too.
So sera told them what she wanted, and they all set up the Operation, with a lot of variations; but the one that they were going to use, sera thought of herself, because she said it would work and it was simplest and she could handle the trouble if it went bad.
So Catlin got to be the rear guard and he got to be the point man because sera said nobody suspected an azi and Catlin said he was better at talking.
The storm happened, the students kept the schedule sera had gotten from Dr. Edwards’ classbook, and sera whispered: “Last two, on the left,” as the Regular Students came back from their classes over in the Ed Wing, right down the tunnel, right past them where they were waiting in the side tunnel that led to air systems maintenance. It was a good place for them: dark in the access, and noisy with the fans.
Florian let them get past just the way sera had said. They had talked about how to Work it. He let them string way out.
Then sera patted him on the back just as he was moving on his own: he went out in the middle of the hall just before the last few students could disappear around the corner.
“Sera Carnath!” he called out, and the last students all stopped. He held up his fist. “You dropped something.” And just the way sera had said, several of the students walked on, disappearing at the turn. Then more did, and finally Amy Carnath walked back a little, looking through the things she had in her arms.
He jogged up to her. Just one girl was waiting with Amy Carnath. He did a fast check behind to make sure no one was coming.
No one was. Catlin was supposed to see to that, back at the other turn, having a cut hand and an emergency if she had to, if it was some Older coming and not a kid.
So he gave Amy Carnath the note sera had written.
Dear Amy, it said. That was how you wrote, sera said. Don’t say a thing about this and don’t tell anybody where you’re going. Say you forgot something and have to go back, and don’t let anybody go with you. I want to talk with you a minute. Florian will bring you. If you don’t come, I’ll see something terrible happens to you. Sincerely, Ari.
Amy Carnath’s face went very frightened. She looked at Florian and looked back at her friend.
Florian waited. Sera had instructed him not to speak at all in front of any of the rest of them.
“I forgot something,” Amy Carnath said in a faint voice, looking at her friend. “Go on, Maddy. I’ll catch up.”
The girl called Maddy wrinkled her nose, then walked on after the rest of them.
“Sera, please,” Florian said, and indicated the way she should go.
“What does she want?” sera Carnath asked, angry.
“I’m sure I don’t know, sera. Please?”
Amy Carnath walked with him. She had her library bag. She could swing that, he reckoned, but sera said sera Carnath didn’t know how to fight.
“This way,” he said, when they got to the service corridor, and sera Carnath balked when she looked the way he pointed, into the dark.
And when sera stepped out from behind the doorway.
“Hello, Amy,” sera said; and grabbed Amy herself, by the front of the blouse, one-handed, and pulled her, so Florian opened the door to the service corridor.
As Catlin came jogging up and into their little dark space.
Amy Carnath looked at her. Terrified.
“Inside,” sera said. And pushed sera Carnath, not letting her go. Sera Carnath tried to protect her blouse from being torn, but that was all.
“Let me go,” sera Carnath said, upset. “Let go of me!”
Florian pulled the penlight from his pocket and turned it on; Catlin shut the door; sera pushed Amy Carnath against the wall.
“Let me go!” sera Carnath screamed. But the door was shut and the fans were noisy.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” sera said very calmly. “But Catlin will break your arm if you don’t stand still and talk to me.”
There were tears on sera Carnath’s face. Florian felt a little sick, she was so scared. Even if she was the Target.
“I want to know,” sera said, “where Valery Schwartz is.”
“I don’t know where he is,” sera Carnath cried, biting her lip and trying to calm down. “He’s at Fargone, that’s all I know.”
“I want to know where Sam Whitely is.”
“He’s down at the mechanics school! Let me go, let me go—”
“Florian has a knife,” sera said. “Do you want to see it? Shut up and answer me. What do you know about my maman?”
“I don’t
know anything about your maman! I swear I don’t!”
“Stop sniveling. You tell me what I ask or I’ll have Florian cut you up. Hear me?”
“I don’t know anything, I don’t know.”
“Why am I poison?”
“I don’t know!”
“You know, Amy Carnath, you know, and if you don’t start talking we’re going to go down deep in the tunnels and Catlin and Florian are going to ask you, you hear me? And you can scream and nobody’s going to hear you.”
“I don’t know. Ari, I don’t know, I swear I don’t.”
Sera Carnath was crying and hiccuping, and Ari said:
“Florian,—”
“I can’t tell you!” sera Carnath screamed. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!”
“Can’t tell me what?”
Sera Carnath gulped for air, and sera pulled sera Carnath’s blouse loose and started unbuttoning it, one-handed.
“They’ll send us away!” sera Carnath cried, flinching away; but Catlin grabbed her from behind. “They’ll send us away!”
Sera stopped and said: “Are you going to tell me everything?”
Sera Carnath nodded and gulped and hiccuped.
“All right. Let her go, Catlin. Amy’s going to tell us.”
Catlin let sera Carnath go, and sera Carnath backed up to a bundle of pipes and stood with her back against that. Florian kept the light on her.
“Well?” sera asked.
“They send you away,” sera Carnath said. Her teeth were chattering. “If anybody gets in trouble with you, they can send them to Fargone.”
“Who does?”
“Your uncles.”
“Giraud,” sera said.
Sera Carnath nodded. There was sweat on her face, even if it was cold in the tunnels. She was crying, tears pouring down her cheeks, and her nose was running.
“All the kids?” sera asked.
Sera Carnath nodded again.
Sera came closer and took sera Carnath by the shoulder, not rough. Sera Carnath thought sera was going to hit her, but sera patted her shoulder then and had her sit down on the steps. Sera got down on one knee and put her hand on sera Carnath’s knee.