“Amy, I’m not going to hit you now. I’m not going to tell you told. I want to know if you know anything about why my maman got sent away.”
Sera Carnath shook her head.
“Who sent her?”
“Ser Nye. I guess it was ser Nye.”
“Giraud?”
Sera Carnath nodded, and bit her lips.
“Amy, I’m not mad at you. I’m not going to be mad. Tell me what the other kids say about me.”
“They just say—” Sera Carnath gulped. “—They just say let you have your way, because everybody knows what happens if you fight back and we don’t want to get sent to Fargone and never come back—”
Sera just sat there a moment. Then: “Like Valery Schwartz?”
“Sometimes you just get moved to another wing. Sometimes they take you and put you on a plane and you just have to go, that’s all, like Valery and his mama.” Sera Carnath’s teeth started chattering again, and she hugged her arms around her. “I don’t want to get sent away. Don’t tell I told.”
“I won’t. Dammit, Amy! Who said that?”
“My mama said. My mama said—no matter what, don’t hit you, don’t talk back to you.” Sera Carnath started sobbing again, and covered her face with her hand. “I don’t want to get my mama shipped to Fargone—”
Sera stood up, out of the light. Maman and Fargone were touchy words with her. Florian felt them too, but he kept the light steady.
“Amy,” sera said after a little while, “I won’t tell on you. I’ll keep it secret if you will. I’ll be your friend.”
Sera Carnath wiped her face and looked up at her.
“I will,” sera said. “So will Florian and Catlin. And they’re good friends to have. All you have to do is be friends with us.”
Sera Carnath wiped her nose and buttoned her blouse.
“It’s the truth, isn’t it, Catlin?”
“Whatever sera says,” Catlin said, “that’s the Rule.”
Sera got down beside sera Carnath on the steps, her casted arm in her lap. “If I was your friend,” sera said, “I’d stand up for you. We’d be real smart and not tell people we were friends. We’d just be zero. Not good, not bad. So you’d be safe. Same with the other kids. I didn’t know what they were doing. I don’t want them to do that. I can get a lot out of my uncle Denys, and Denys can get things out of uncle Giraud. So I’m a pretty good friend to have.”
“I don’t want to be enemies,” sera Carnath said.
“Can you be my friend?”
Sera Carnath bit her lip and nodded, and took sera’s left hand when sera reached it over.
They shook, like CITs when they agreed.
Florian stood easier then, and was terribly glad they didn’t have to hurt sera Carnath. She didn’t seem like an Enemy.
When sera Carnath got herself back together and stopped hiccuping, she talked to sera very calm, very quiet, and didn’t sound at all stupid. Catlin stopped being disgusted with her and hunkered down when sera said, and rested her arms on her knees. So did Florian.
“We shouldn’t be friends right off,” sera Carnath said. “The other kids wouldn’t trust me. They’re scared.”
As if sera Carnath hadn’t been.
“We get them one at a time,” sera said.
xii
“Shut the door,” Yanni said; Justin shut it, and came and took the chair in front of Yanni’s desk.
Not his problem this time. Yanni’s. The Project’s. It was in those papers on Yanni’s desk, the reports and tests that he had not scanned and run on the office computer, but on a portable with retent-storage.
He had not signed his write-up. Yanni knew whose it was. That was enough.
“I’ve read it,” Yanni said. “What does Grant say, by the by?”
Justin bit his lip and considered a shrug and no comment: Yanni still made his nerves twitch; but it was foolish, he told himself. Old business, raw nerves. “We talked about it. Grant protests it’s a CIT question—but he says the man doesn’t sound like he’s handling it well at all.”
“We’re six months down on this data,” Yanni said. “We don’t have a ship-call from that direction for another month and a half, we don’t have anything going out their way till the 29th. Jane was worried about Rubin. If our CIT staff kept off Ollie he’ll have tried to work on it, I’m sure of that, but he’s azi, and he’s going through hell, damn my daughter’s meddling—she’s a damn expert, she has to know CIT psych better than Ollie does, right?”
“No comment.”
“No comment. Dammit, I can tell you what they’ve been doing these last few months. My daughter and Julia Strassen. I never wanted those two on staff. So they get a harmless job…on the Residency side, of course. With Rubin. Jane gets out there and gets a look at the Residency data and Jane and my daughter go fusion in the first staff meeting. I think it contributed to Jane’s heart attack, if you want my guess.”
Justin felt his stomach unsettled—Yanni’s pig-stubborn daughter, thrown out to Fargone on an appointment she never wanted…and probably thought she would get promotion from, setting up RESEUNESPACE labs and administration along with Johanna Morley; then Yanni’s old adversary-sometime-lover Strassen the Immovable suddenly put in as Administrator over her head the same as over her father’s; his stomach was upset, and he figured what was going on in Yanni.
Dammit, Administration is crazy.
Crazy.
“I’d trust Strassen,” he said quietly, since Yanni left it for him to say something.
“Oh, yes, damn right I’d trust Strassen. Jenna might be a good Wing supervisor, but hell if she’s got her own life sorted out, and she’s Alpha-bitch when she’s challenged. So Jane dies. That means someone has to run things. Jenna listens to her staff, all right. But Rubin’s mother is a complicated problem. A real power-high when Rubin got his Special status, a real resentment when Rubin got the lab facilities and a little power of his own. Rubin’s psychological problems—well, you’ve got the list: depressions over his health, his relationship with his mother—all of that. Rubin acts like he’s doing fine. Happy as a fish in water. While his mother wants to give network interviews till Jenna hauls her in. Stella Rubin didn’t like that. Not a bit. That woman and the Defense Bureau go fusion from the start…and Rubin’s situation has been an ongoing case of can’t live with her or without her. Rubin plays the psych tests we give him, Rubin’s happy so he can keep peace, that’s what Jane estimated—not an honest reaction out of him since the Defense Bureau put the lid on mama. Six months ago, spacetime. That’s why I wanted you to look at the series. And the bloodwork—”
“Considering what’s going to arrive out there in another six months or so.”
“Ari’s interviews, you mean.”
“He’s a biochemist. He’s aware they’re running some genetic experiments on him. What if someone picks up on it?”
“Especially—” Yanni tapped the report on his desk. “This shows a man a hell of a lot more politically sophisticated than he started. Same with his mother.”
“Reseune can do that, can’t it?”
“Let me give you the profile I’ve got: Rubin isn’t the young kid they made a Special out of. Rubin’s grown up. Rubin’s realized there’s something going on outside the walls of his lab, Rubin’s realized he’s got a sexual dimension, he’s frustrated as hell with his health problems, RESEUNESPACE goes into a power crisis at the top and Rubin’s hitherto quiet, hypochondriac mother, who used to focus his health anxieties and his dependencies on herself, is carrying on a feud with Administration and the Defense Bureau and reaching for the old control mechanisms with her son, who’s reacting to those button-pushes with lies on his psych tests and stress in the bloodwork, while Jenna, damn her, has torn up Jane’s reassignments list and declared herself autonomous in that Wing on the grounds Ollie Strassen can’t make CIT-psych judgments.”
“Damn,” Justin murmured, gut reaction, and wished he hadn’t. But Yanni was being very quiet.
Deadly quiet.
“I’m firing her, needless to say,” Yanni said. “I’m firing her right out of Reseune projects and recalling her under Security Silence. Six months from now. When the order gets there. I’m telling you, son, so you’ll understand I’m a little…personally bothered…about this.”
What in hell am I in here for? He knew this. It didn’t take me to see it. What’s he doing?
“You have some insights,” Yanni said, “that are a little different. That come out of your own peculiar slant on designs, crazed that it is. I talked your suggestions over with committee, and things being what they were—I told Denys what my source was.”
“Dammit, Yanni,—”
“You happened to agree with him, son, and Denys has the say where it concerns Ari’s programs. Giraud was his usual argumentative self, but I had a long quiet talk with Denys, about you, about your projects, about the whole ongoing situation. I’ll tell you what you’re seeing here at Reseune. You’re seeing a system that’s stressed to its limits and putting second-tier administrative personnel like my daughter in positions of considerable responsibility, because they don’t have anyone more qualified, because, God help us, the next choice down is worse. Reseune is stretched too thin, and Defense has their project blowing up in their faces. If Jane had lived six months longer, even two weeks longer, if Ollie could have leaned on Jenna and told her go to hell—but he can’t, because the damn regulations don’t let him have unquestioned power over a CIT program and he can’t fire Jenna. He’s got a Final tape, he can get CIT status, but Jenna’s reinstated herself over his head with the help of other staff, and Julia Strassen declaring she’s Jane’s executor—so Jenna and Julia are the ones who have to sign Ollie’s CIT papers, isn’t that brilliant on our part? Jenna’s going to pay for it. Now Ollie’s got his status, from this end. But that won’t get there for some few months either, and he doesn’t know it.” Yanni waved his hand, shook his head. “Hell. It’s a mess. It’s a mess out there. And I’m going to ask you something, son.”
“What?”
“I want you to keep running checks on the Rubin data as it comes in, in whatever timeframe. Our surrogate with the Rubin clone is Ally Morley. But I want you to work some of your reward loops into CIT psych.”
“You mean you’re thinking of intervention? On which one of them?”
“It’s the structures we want to look at. It’s the feedback between job and reward. Gustav Morley’s working on the problem. You don’t know CIT psych that well, that’s always been one of your problems. No. If we have to make course changes, you won’t design it. We just want to compare his notes against yours. And we want to compare the situation against Ari’s, frankly.”
He was very calm on the surface. “I really want to think you’re telling the truth, Yanni. Is this a real-time problem?”
“It’s no longer real-time. I’ll tell you the truth, Justin. I’ll tell you the absolute truth. A military courier came in hard after the freighter that got us this data, cutting—a classified amount of time—off the freighter run. Benjamin Rubin committed suicide.”
“Oh, God.”
Yanni just stared at him. A Yanni looking older, tired, emotionally wrung out. “If we didn’t have the public success with Ari right now,” Yanni said, “we’d lose Reseune. We’d lose it. We’re income-negative right now. We’re using Defense Bureau funds and we’re understaffed as hell. You understand now, I think—we were getting those stress indicators on Rubin before the Discovery bill came up, before Ari’s little prank in the Town. We knew then that there was trouble on the Project. We’d sent out instructions which turned out to be—too late. We had pressure on the Discovery bill; we knew that was coming before it was brought out in public. We knew Ari was going to have to go public—and we had all of that going on. You may not forgive Giraud’s reaction, but you might find it useful to know what was happening off in the shadows. Right now, Administration is looking at you—in a whole new light.”
“I haven’t got any animosity toward a nine-year-old kid, for God’s sake, I’ve proved that, I’ve answered it under probe—”
“Calm down. That’s not what I’m saying. We’ve got a kid out at Fargone who’s the psychological replicate of a suicide. We’ve got decisions to make—one possibility is handing him to Stella Rubin, in the theory she’s the ultimate surrogate for the clone. But Stella Rubin has problems, problems of the first order. Leave him with Morley. But where’s the glitch-up that led to this? With Jenna? Or earlier, with the basic mindset of a mother-smothered baby with a health problem? We need some answers. There’s time. It’s not even your problem. It’s Gustav Morley’s and Ally’s. There’s just—content—in your work that interests Denys, frankly, and interests me. I think you see how.”
“Motivational psych.”
“Relating to Emory’s work. There’s a reason she wanted you, I’m prepared to believe that. Jordan’s being handed the Rubin data too. When you say you’ve got some clear thought on it—I’m sending you out to Planys for a week or so.”
“Grant—”
“You. Grant will be all right here, my word on it. Absolutely no one is going to lay a hand on him. We just don’t need complications. Defense is going to be damned nervous about Reseune. We’ve got some careful navigation to do. I’m telling you, son, Administration is watching you very, very closely. You’ve been immaculate. If you—and Jordan—can get through the next few years—there’s some chance of getting a much, much better situation. But if this situation blows up, if anything—if anything goes wrong with Ari—I don’t make any bets. For any of us.”
“Dammit, doesn’t anybody care about the kid?”
“We care. You can answer this one for yourself. Right now, Reseune is in a major financial mess and Defense is keeping us alive. What happens to her—if Defense moves in on this, if this project ends up—under that Bureau instead of Science? What happens to any of us? What happens to the direction all of Union will take after that? Changes, that much is certain. Imbalance—in the whole system of priorities we’ve run on. I’m no politician. I hate politics. But, damn, son, I can see the pit ahead of us.”
“I see it quite clearly. But it’s not ahead of us, Yanni. I live in it. So does Jordan.”
Yanni said nothing for a moment. Then: “Stay alive, son. You, and Grant,—be damn careful.”
“Are you telling me something? Make it plain.”
“I’m just saying we’ve lost something we couldn’t afford to lose. We. Everybody, dammit. So much is so damn fragile. I feel like I’ve lost a kid.”
Yanni’s chin shook. For a moment everything was wide open and Justin felt it all the way to his gut. Then:
“Get,” Yanni said, in his ordinary voice. “I’ve got work to do.”
xiii
Ari walked with uncle Denys out of the lift in the big hall next to Wing One, upstairs, and it was not the kind of hall she had expected. It was polished floors, it was a Residency kind of door, halfway down, and no other doors at all, until a security door cut the hallway off.
“I want to show you something,” uncle Denys had said.
“Is it a surprise?” she had asked, because uncle Denys had never shown her what he had said he would show her; and uncle Denys had been busy in his office with an emergency day till dark, till she was glad Nelly was still with them: Seely was gone too.
“Sort of a surprise,” uncle Denys had said.
She had not known there were any apartments up here.
She walked to the door with uncle Denys and expected him to ring the Minder; but:
“Where’s your keycard?” he said to her, the way the kids used to tease each other and make somebody look fast to see if it had come off somewhere. But he was not joking. He was asking her to take it and use it.
So she took it off and stuck it in the key-slot.
The door opened, the lights came on, and the Minder said: “There have been twenty-seven entries since last use of this card. Shall I print?” r />
“Tell it save,” uncle Denys said.
She was looking into a beautiful apartment, with a pale stone floor, with big furniture and room, more room than maman’s apartment, more room than uncle Denys’, it was huge; and all of a sudden she put together last use of this card and twenty-seven and the fact it was her card.
Hers. Ari Emory’s.
“This was your predecessor’s apartment,” uncle Denys said, and walked her inside as the Minder started to repeat. “Tell it save.”
“Minder, save.”
“Voice pattern out of parameters.”
“Minder, save,” uncle Denys said.
“Insert card at console.”
He did, his card. And it saved. The red light went off. “You have to be very careful with some of the systems in here,” uncle Denys said. “Ari took precautions against intruders. It took Security some doing to get the Minder reset.” He walked farther in. “This is yours. This whole apartment. Everything in it. You won’t live here on your own until you’re grown. But we are going to get the Minder to recognize your voice.” He walked on, down the steps, across the rug and up again, and Ari followed, skipping up the steps on the far side to keep close to him.
It was spooky. It was like a fairy-tale out of Grimm. A palace. She kept up with uncle Denys as he went down the hall and opened up another big room, with a sunken center, and a couch with brass trim, and woolwood walls—pretty and dangerous, except the woolwood was coated in thick clear plastic, like the specimens in class. There were paintings on the walls, along a walkway above the sunken center. Lots of paintings.
Up more steps then, past the bar, where there were still glasses on the shelves. And down a hall, to another hall, and into an office, a big office, with a huge black desk with built-ins like uncle Denys’ desk.
“This was Ari’s office.” Uncle Denys pushed a button, and a terminal came up on the desk. “You always have a ‘base’ terminal. It’s how the House computer system works. And this one is quite—protective. It isn’t a particularly good idea to go changing these base accesses around, particularly on my base terminal…or yours. Sit down, Ari. Log on with your CIT-number.”