She took the paper and carefully, deliberately slowly, folded it and put it in her carry-bag, thinking, in maman’s tones: Like hell, uncle Denys.
“I wanted to give you that,” uncle Denys said. “I won’t keep you. Thank you for having lunch with me.”
“That’s eight.”
“Eight what?”
“Times you’ve tried to get me to feel sorry for you. I told you. It was a lousy thing to do, uncle Denys.”
Shift and Shift again. Working only worked if you used it when it was time. No matter if you were ready.
“The taping. I know. I’m sorry. What can I say? That I wouldn’t have done it? That would be a lie. I am glad you’re doing all right. I’m terribly proud of you.”
She gave him a nasty smile, fast and right into a sulk. “Sure.”
“ ‘To thine own self be true’?” With a smile of his own. “You know who planned this.”
She ran that through again. It was one of his better zaps, right out of the blind-side, and it knocked the thoughts right out of her.
Damn. There weren’t very many people who could Get her like that.
“I wonder if you can imagine how it feels,” uncle Denys said, “to have known your predecessor—my first memories of her are as a beautiful young woman, outstandingly beautiful; and having the same young woman arriving at the end of my life—while I’m old—is an incredible perspective.”
Trying to Work her for sure. “I’m glad you like it.”
“I’m glad you accepted my invitation.” He sipped at his coffee.
“You want to do something to make me happy?”
“What?”
“Tell Ivanov I don’t need any appointment.”
“No. I won’t say that. I can tell you where the answer is. It’s in the fifteenth-year material.”
“That’s real funny, uncle Denys.”
“I don’t mean it to be. It’s only the truth. Don’t go too fast, Ari. But I am changing something. I’m terminating your classes.”
“What do you mean, terminating my classes?”
“Hush, Ari. Voices. Voices. This is a public place. I mean it’s a waste of your time. You’ll still see Dr. Edwards—on a need-to basis. Dr. Dietrich. Any of them will give you special time. You have access to more tapes than you can possibly do. You’ll have to select the best. The answer to what you are is in there—much more than in the biographical material. Choose for yourself. At this point—you’re a Special. You have privileges. You have responsibilities. That’s the way it always works.” He drank two swallows of the coffee and set the cup down. “I’ll put the library charges to my account. It’s still larger.—You can see your school friends anytime you like. Just send to them through the system. They’ll get the message.”
He left the table. She sat there a moment, figuring, trying to catch her breath.
She could go to classes if she wanted to. She could request her instructors’ time, that was all.
She could do anything she wanted to.
Shots again. She scowled at the tech who took her blood and gave them to her. She did not even see Dr. Ivanov.
“There’ll be prescriptions at pharmacy,” the tech said. “We understand you’ll be using home teaching. Please be careful. Follow the instructions.”
The tech was azi. it was no one she could yell at. So she got up, feeling flushed, and went out to the pharmacy in the hospital and got the damned prescriptions.
Kat. At least it was useful.
She got home early: no interview with Dr. Ivanov, no hanging around waiting. She put the sack in the plastics bin and read the ticket and discovered they had billed her account thirty cred for the pills and probably for Florian and Catlin’s too.
“Dammit,” she said out loud. “Minder, message to Denys Nye: Pharmacy is your bill. You pay it. I didn’t order it.”
It made her furious.
Which was the shot. It did that to her. She took half a dozen deep breaths and went to the library to put the prescription bottles in the cabinet under the machine.
Damn. It was nowhere near time for her cycle. And she felt like that. She felt—
On. Like she wished she had homework tonight, or something. Or she could go down and see the Filly, maybe. She had been working too hard and going down there too little, leaving too much of the Filly’s upbringing to Florian, but she didn’t feel like that, either. The shots bothered her and she hated to be out of control when she was around people. It was going to be bad enough just trying not to be irritable with Catlin and Florian when they got home, without going around Andy, who was too nice to have to put up with a CIT brat in a lousy, prickly mood.
She knew what was going on with her, it had to do with her cycles, damn Dr. Ivanov was messing with her again, and it was embarrassing. Going around other people, grown-ups, likely they could tell what was going on with her, and that made her embarrassed too.
The whole thing was probably on Denys’ orders. She bet it was. And she tried to think of a way to get them to stop it, but as long as Ivanov had the right to suspend her Super’s license if she dodged sessions—she was in for it.
Dammit, there wasn’t anything in the world those shots and those checkups had to do with her dealing with azi, not a thing—but she couldn’t prove it, unless maybe she could do what the first Ari had done and call Security, and get them to arrange a House council meeting.
God, and sit there in front of every grown-up she knew in the whole House and explain about the shots and her cycles? She had rather die.
Don’t go up against Administration, Ari senior had told her, out of the things she had learned.
Except it was Ari senior doing it to her as much as it was Denys.
Damn.
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
She opened the tape cabinet, looking for something to keep her mind busy and burn some of the mad off. One of the E-tapes. Dumas, maybe. She was willing to do that tape twice. She knew it was all right.
But it was the adult ones that she started thinking about, which made her think about the last sex tape she had had, which was a long time back. And it was just exactly what she was in the mood for.
So she pulled one out that didn’t sound as embarrassing as the others, Models, it was called; and she took it to the library, told the Minder to tell Florian and Catlin when they came in that she was doing tape and might be fifteen more minutes—she checked the time—by the time they got the message.
And locked the tape-lab door, tranked down with the mild dose you did for entertainment, set up and let it run.
In a while more she thought she should cut it off. It was different than anything she had thought.
But the feelings she got were interesting.
Very.
Florian and Catlin were home by the time the tape ran out. She ought not, she thought, stir about yet; but it was only a tiny dose, it was not dangerous, it only made her feel a little tranked, in that strange, warm way. She asked the Minder was it only them—silly precaution—before she unlocked the door and came out.
She found them in the kitchen making supper. Warm-ups again. “Hello, sera,” Florian said. “Did it go all right today?”
Lunch with Denys, she realized. And remembered she was still mad, if she were not so tranked down. It was strange—the way things went in and out of importance in the day. “He stopped my classes,” she said. “Said I didn’t have to go to class anymore except just for special help. Said I had too many tapes to do.”
So what do I start with? That stupid thing. Like I had all kinds of time.
“Is it all right, sera?” Catlin was worried.
“It’s all right.” She shoved away from the doorframe and came to put napkins down. The oven timer was running down, a flicker of green readout. “I can handle it. I will handle it. Maybe he’s even right: I’ve got a lot to go through. And it’s not like I was losing the school.” She leaned on a chair back. The timer went. “I’ll miss the kids, though.”
“Will we meet with them?” Florian asked.
“Oh, sure. Not that we won’t.” She grabbed her plate and held it out as Florian used the tongs to get the heated dinner from the oven. She took hers and sat down as Florian and Catlin served themselves and joined her.
Dinner. A little talk. Retreat to their rooms to study. It was the way it always had been—except she had her own office and they had their computer terminals and their House accesses through the Minder.
She went to her room to change. And sat down on the bed, wishing she had left the cabinet alone and knowing she was in trouble.
Bad trouble. Because she was good at saying no to herself when she saw a reason for it…but it got harder and harder to think of the reasons not to do what she wanted, because when she did refuse she got mad, and when she got mad that feeling was there.
She went and read Base One…long, long stretches of the trivial housekeeping records Ari senior had generated, just the way they themselves were doing, until she ran them past faster and faster. Who cared whether Ari senior had wanted an order of tomatoes on the 28th September?
She thought about the tape library, about pulling up one of the Recommendeds and getting started with it. And finally thought that was probably the thing to do.
“Sera.” It was Florian’s voice through the Minder. “Excuse me. I’m doing the list. Do you want anything from Housekeeping?”
Bother and damnation.
“Just send it.” A thought came, warm and tingly, and very, very dangerous. Then she said, deliberately, knowing it was stupid: “And come here a minute. My office.”
“Yes, sera.”
Stupid, she said to herself. And cruel. It’s mean to do, dammit. Make up something else. Send him off on a job.
God…
She thought about Ollie. The way she had thought about him all afternoon. Ollie with maman. Ollie when he had looked young and maman had. Maman had never had to be lonely…while Ollie was there. And Ollie never minded.
“Sera?” Florian said, a real voice, from the doorway.
“Log-off,” she told Base One, and turned her chair around, and got up. “Come on in, Florian.—What’s Catlin doing?”
“Studying. We have a manual to do. Just light tape. It—isn’t something you need to Super,—is it? Should I stop her?”
“No. It’s all right. Is it something really urgent?”
“No.”
“Even if you were late? Even if you didn’t get to it?”
“No, sera. They said—when we could. I think it would be all right. What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to come to my room a minute,” she said, and took him by the hand and walked him down the hall to her bedroom.
And shut the door once they were inside and locked it.
He looked at that and at her, concerned. “Is there some trouble, sera?”
“I don’t know.” She put her hands on his shoulders. Carefully. He twitched, hands moved, just a little defensive reaction, even if he knew she was going to do it. Uneasiness at being touched, the way he had reacted with Maddy once. “Is that all right? Do you mind that?”
“No, sera. I don’t mind.” He was still disturbed. His breathing got faster and deeper as she ran her hands down to his sides, and walked around behind him, and around again. Maybe he thought it was some kind of test. Maybe he understood. Another twitch, when she touched his chest.
She knew better. That was the awful thing. She was ashamed of herself all the way. She was afraid for Catlin and for him and none of it mattered, not for a moment.
She took a hard grip on his shoulder, friend-like. “Florian. Do you know about sex?”
He nodded. Once and emphatically.
“If you did it with me, would Catlin be upset?”
A shake of his head. A deep breath. “Not if you said it was right.”
“Would you be upset?”
Another shake of his head. “No, sera.”
“Are you sure?”
A deep nod. Another breath. “Yes, sera.” Another. “Can I go tell Catlin?”
“Now?”
“If it’s going to be a while. She’ll worry. I think I ought to tell her.”
That was fair. There were complications in everything. “All right,” she said. “Come right back.”
v
He left sera to sleep, finally—he had slept a little while, but sera was restless. Sera said she was a little uncomfortable, and he could go back and sleep in his own bed, she was fine, she just wanted to sleep now and she wasn’t used to company.
So he put his pants on, but he was only going to bed, so he carried the rest, and slipped out and shut the door.
But Catlin’s room had the light on, and Catlin came out into the hall.
He stopped dead still. He wished he had finished dressing.
She just stood there a moment. So he walked on down as far as her room, past his own.
“All right?” she asked.
“I think so,” he said. Sera was in a little discomfort, he had hurt sera, necessarily, because sera was built that way: sera said go on, and she had been happy with him, overall. He hoped. He truly hoped. “Sera said she wanted to sleep, I should go to bed. I’ll do the manual tomorrow.”
Catlin just looked at him, the way she did sometimes when she was confused, gut-deep open. He did not know what to say to her. He did not know what she wanted from him.
“How did it feel?”
“Good,” he said on an irregular breath. Knowing then what he was telling her and how her mind had been running and was running then. Partners. For a lot of years. Catlin was curious. Some things went past her and she paid no attention. But if Catlin was interested this far, Catlin wanted to figure it out, the same way she would take a thing apart to understand it.
She said finally—he knew she was going to say—: “Can you show me? You think sera would mind?”
It was not wrong. He would have felt a tape-jolt about it if it were. He was tired. But if his partner wanted something, his partner got it, always, forever.
“All right,” he said, trying to wake himself up and find the energy. And came into her room with her.
He undressed. So did she—which felt strange, because they had always been so modest, as much as they could, even in the field, and just not looked, if there was no cover.
But he was mostly the one who was embarrassed, because he had always had sex-feelings, he understood that now—while Catlin, who was so much more capable than he was in a lot of ways, missed so much that involved what sera called flux-values.
“Bed,” he said, and turned back the covers and got under, because it was a little cold; and because bed was a comfortable, resting kind of place, and he knew Catlin would feel more comfortable about being up against him skin against skin in that context.
So she got in and lay on her side facing him, and got up against him when he told her she should, and relaxed when he told her to, even when he put his hand on her side and his knee between hers. “You let me do everything first,” he said, and told her there was a little pain involved, but that was no more than a don’t-react where Catlin was concerned. You didn’t surprise her in things like that.
“All right,” she said.
She could react, he found that out very fast, with his fingers.
He stopped. “It gets stronger. You want to keep going with this? Does that feel all right?”
She was thinking about it. Breathing hard. “Fine,” she decided.
“You let that get started again,” he said, “then you do the same with me. All right? Just like dancing. Variations. All right?”
She drew a deep, deep breath, and she took his advice, until he suddenly felt himself losing control. “Ease up,” he said. “Stop.”
She did. He managed all right then, finding it smoother with her than with sera—but of course it would be. Catlin would listen, even when it was hard to listen, and he had a far better idea this time what he was doing.
/> He warned her of things. She was as careful with him as he was with her, not to draw a surprise reaction: he had more confidence in her in that way too.
She did not put a mark on him. Sera had, a lot of them.
He finished; and said, out of breath: “Most I can do, Catlin. Sorry. Second round for me. I’m awfully tired.”
She was quiet a minute, out of breath herself. “That was all right.” In the thoughtful way she had when she approved of something.
He hugged her, on that warm feeling. She didn’t always understand why he did things like that. He didn’t think she had understood this time, just that it was temporary reflex, a sex thing, but when he kissed her on the forehead and said he had better get back to his own bed:
“You can stay here,” she said, and sort of fitted herself to him puzzle-fashion and gave him a comfortable spot it was just easier not to leave.
They had to get up before sera anyway.
vi
Ari woke up at the Minder-call, remembered what she had done last night, and lay there for a minute remembering.
A little scared. A little sore. It had not been quite like the tapes—like real-life, a little awkward. But someone had said—the tape, she thought—that happens; even sex takes practice.
So they were twelve pushing thirteen real hard. Which was young. Her body wasn’t through growing, Florian’s wasn’t. She knew that made a difference.
The tape had said so. “Does Ari have any reference on sex?” Ari asked Base One.
But Base One only gave her the same thing it had always given, and she had read that so often she had it memorized.
She had been irresponsible, completely, last night, that was what kept eating at her. She could have hurt them, and the worst thing was she still could: this morning she was still on,—a whole lot cooler and calmer, but sex was just like the tape, hard to remember what it felt like the minute it was over, a damn cheat, leaving just a curiosity, something you kept picking at like a fool picking at a scab to see if it hurt—again.