Cyteen

  Now their jailers had the ultimate excuse, if they had ever needed one.

  “I had no idea,” he said to Grant, “I had no idea what she was working on, or where this was going.”

  “Ari is not entirely naive in this,” Grant said. “If Gehenna is what she’s working on—and she wants to work on it with you—she knows that won’t sit well in some circles; and that you’ll understand right through to the heart of the designs and beyond. Ari is accustomed to having her way. More than that, Ari is convinced her way is all-important. Be careful of her. Be extremely careful.”

  “She knows something, something that’s got to do with Gehenna, that hasn’t gotten into public.”

  Grant looked at him long and hard. “Be careful,” Grant said. “Justin, for God’s sake, be careful.”

  “Dammit, I—” The frustration in Grant’s voice got to him, reached raw nerves, even past the whiskey. He set the glass down and rested his elbows on his knees, his hands on the back of his neck. “Oh, God.” The tears came the way they had not in years. He squeezed his eyes shut, tried to dam them back, aware of painful silence in the room.

  After a while he got up and added more whiskey to the ice-melt, and stood staring at the corner until he heard Grant get up and come over to the bar, and he looked and took Grant’s glass and added ice and whiskey.

  “Someday the situation will change,” Grant said, took his glass and touched it to his, a light, fragile clink of glass on glass. “Keep your balance. There’s no profit in anything else. The election count will be over by fall. The whole situation may change, not overnight, but change, all the same.”

  “Khalid could win.”

  “A meteor could strike us. Do we worry about such things? Finish that. Come to bed. All right?”

  He shuddered, drank the rest off and shuddered again. He could not get drunk enough.

  He slammed the glass down on the counter-top and pushed away from the bar, to do what Grant had said.

  ii

  Ari, Justin’s voice had said on the Minder, be in my office in the morning.

  So she came, was waiting for him when he got there, and he said, opening the door—he had come alone this time, almost the only time: “Ari, I owe you an apology. A profound apology for yesterday.” He had her report with him and he laid it down on his desk and riffled the pages. “You did this. Yourself. It was your idea.”

  “Yes,” she said, anxious.

  “It’s remarkable. It’s a really remarkable job.—I don’t say it’s right, understand, but it’s going to take me a little to get through it, not just because of the size. Have you shown this to your uncle?”

  She shook her head. It was too hard to talk about coherently. She had not slept much. “No. I did it for you.”

  “I wasn’t very gracious about it. Forgive me. I’ve been that route myself, with Yanni. I didn’t mean to do that to you.”

  “I understand why you’re upset,” she said. “I do.” Grant was likely to come in at any time and she wanted to get this out beforehand. “Justin, Grant took into me. He was right. But I am too. If Reseune is safe again you can travel. If it isn’t, nothing will help, and this won’t hurt—in fact it makes you safer, because there’s no way they can come at you or your father without coming at me, because your father’s worked on your stuff, and that means he’s working with you and you’re working with me, and all he has to do, Justin, all he has to do, if he wants my help—is not do anything against me. I don’t even care if he likes me. I just want to work things out so they’re better. I thought about the danger in working with you, I did think, over and over again—but you’re the one I need, because you work long-term and you work with the value-sets and that’s what I’m interested in. I’m not a stupid little girl, Justin. I know what I want to work on and Yanni can’t help me anymore. Nobody can. So I have to come to you. Uncle Denys knows it. He says—he says—be careful. But he also says you’re honest. So am I—no!”—As he opened his mouth. “Let me say this. I will not steal from you. You think about this. What if we put out a paper with your name and mine and your father’s? Don’t you think that would shake them up in the Bureau?”

  He sat down. “That would have to get by Denys, Ari, and I don’t think he’d approve it. I’m sure Giraud wouldn’t.”

  “You know what I’d say to my uncles? I’d say—someday I’ll have to run Reseune. I’m trying to fix things. I don’t want things to go the way they did. Let me try while I have your advice. Or let me try after I don’t.”

  He scared her for a moment. His face got very still and very pale. Then Grant showed up, coming through the door, so he drew a large breath and paid attention to Grant instead. “Good morning. Coffee’s not on. Yet.”

  “Hint,” Grant said, and made a face and took the pot out for water.

  “Ari,” Justin said then, “I wish you luck with your uncles. More than I’ve had. That’s all I’ll say. Someday you’ll find me missing if you’re not careful. I’ll be down in Detention. Just so you know where. I’m rather well expecting it today. And I’m not sure you can prevent that, no matter how much power you think you have in the House. I hope I’m wrong. But I’ll work with you. I’ll do everything I can. I’ve got a few questions for you to start off with. Why did you install two variables?”

  She opened her mouth. She wanted to talk about the other thing. But he didn’t. He closed that off like a door going shut and threw her an important question. And Grant came back with the water. They were Working her, timing every thing. And he had said what he wanted to say.

  “It’s because one is an action and one is a substantive. Defend will drift and so will base. And there’s going to be no enemy from offworld, just the possibility of one, if that gets passed down. And they’re not going to have tape after the first few years: Gehenna didn’t.”

  Justin nodded slowly. “You know that my father specializes in educational sets. That Gehenna has political consequences. You talk about my working with him. You know what you’re doing, throwing this my way. You know what it could cost me. And him. If anything goes wrong, if anything blows up—it comes down on us. Do you understand that?”

  “It won’t.”

  “It won’t. Young sera, do you know how thin that sounds to me? For God’s sake be wiser than that. Not smarter. Wiser. Hear me?”

  God. Complications. Complications with Defense. With politics. With him. With everything.

  “So,” he said. “Now you do know. I just want you to be aware.—Your idea about semantic drift and flux is quite good—but a little simple, because there’s going to be occupational diversity, which affects semantics, and so on—”

  Another shift of direction. Finn and definitive. “They stay agricultural.”

  He nodded. “Let’s work through this, step by step. I’ll give you my objections and you note them and give me your answers…”

  She focused down tight, the way Florian and Catlin had taught her, mind on business, and tried to hold it, but it was not easy, she was not azi, and there was so much to him, there was so much complication with him, he was always so soft-spoken, Yanni’s complete opposite. He could come off the flank and surprise her, and so few people could do that.

  He could go from being mad to being kind—so fast; and both things felt solid, both of them felt real.

  She felt Grant’s disapproval from across the room. There was nothing she could gain there: win Justin and eventually she won Grant, it was that simple. And she had made headway with Justin: she added it up in its various columns and thought that, overall, complicated as he was, he had given her a great deal.

  iii

  “He was nice about it,” she said to Florian and Catlin at dinner. “He truly was. I think it was real.”

  “We’ll keep an eye on him,” Florian said.

  They did much less of their work at the Barracks nowadays. Just occasionally they went down to take a course, only for the day. They had taken one this day. Catlin was sporting a scrape on her h
and and a bruise on her chin, but she was pleased with herself, which meant pleased with the way things had gone.

  Mostly they did their study by tape. Mostly things were real, nowadays. And they watched the reports they got on the Defense Bureau, and all the comings and goings of things in the installations that bordered on Reseune properties.

  There had been a lot of dirty maneuvers—attempts to create scandal around Reseune. Attempts to snare Reseune personnel into public statements. Khalid was much better behind the scenes than in front of the cameras, and he had gained ground, while Giraud told her no, no, there’s no percentage in debating him. He can make charges. The minute you deny them you’re news and the thing is loose again.

  But she had rather have been news so she could throw trouble into Khalid’s lap.

  There had been a scare last week when a boat had lost its engines and come ashore down by precip 10: some CITs had taken offense at the level of security they ran into, and said so, which a Centrist senator from Svetlansk had used to some advantage, and proposed an investigation of brutality on the part of Reseune Security.

  Never mind that the CIT in question had tried to repossess from Security a carry-bag that had turned out to contain a questionable number of prescription drugs. The CIT claimed they were all legitimate and that he had a respiratory ailment which was aggravated by stress. He was suing for damages.

  There was a directive out to Security reaffirming that Reseune stood by the guard. But Florian worried about it; and Catlin did, when Florian pointed out that it could be a deliberate thing, and if someone hadn’t thought of creating an incident with Reseune Security in front of cameras, someone surely would now, likely Khalid, and likely something in Novgorod.

  Let me tell you, she had said, when they brought it up with her, don’t worry about it. If that was engineered, that’s a fallout that could benefit our enemies. Don’t doubt your tape; react, and react on any level your tape tells you. If I’m alive I can handle whatever falls out—politically. Do you doubt that?

  No, they had said solemnly.

  So she slammed her hand down on the table and they jumped like a bomb had gone off, scared white.

  “Got you,” she said. “You’re still fast enough. That was go and stop, wasn’t it? Damn fast.”

  Two or three breaths later Florian had said: “Sera, that was good. But you shouldn’t scare us like that.”

  She had laughed. And patted Florian’s hand and Catlin’s, Catlin all sober and attentive, the way Catlin got when she was On. “You’re my staff. Do what I say. Not Denys. Not your instructors. Not anyone.”

  So when Florian said, We’ll keep an eye on him, there was a certain ominous tone to it.

  “He’s my friend,” she said, reminding them of that.

  “Yes, sera,” Catlin said. “But we don’t take things for granted.”

  “Enemies are much easier to plan for,” Florian said. “Enemies can’t get in here.”

  It was sense they gave her. They were things she had known once, when they were children, in uncle Denys’ apartment.

  “Hormones,” she said, “are a bitch. They do terrible things to your thinking. Of course you’re right. Do what you have to.”

  “Hormones, sera?” Florian asked.

  She shrugged, feeling uncomfortable. But there was no jealousy about it. Just worry. “He’s good-looking,” she said. “That gets in the way, doesn’t it? But I’m not crazy, either.”

  She felt strange about that, after. Scared. And she thought of times when she had had a lot less flux going on.

  So she thought of Nelly; and thought that it had been much too long since she had seen her; and found her the next morning, a Nelly a little on the plump side, and very, very busy with her charges in the nursery.

  Nelly had a little trouble focusing on her, as if the changes were too sudden or the time had been too long. “Young sera?” Nelly said, blinking several times. “Young sera?”

  “I got to thinking about you,” she said to Nelly. “How are you doing? Are you happy?”

  “Oh, yes. Yes, young sera.” A baby began crying. Nelly gave it a distracted look, over her shoulder. Someone else saw to it. “You’ve grown so much.”

  “I have. I’m sixteen, Nelly.”

  “Is it that long?” Nelly bunked again, and shook her head. “You were my first baby.”

  “I’m your oldest. Can I buy you lunch, Nelly? Put on your coat and come to lunch with me?”

  “Well, I—” Nelly looked back at the rows of cribs.

  “I’ve cleared it with your Super. Everything’s fine. Come on.”

  It was very strange. In some ways Nelly was still only Nelly, fussy with her own appearance—fussy with hers. Nelly reached out and straightened her collar, and Ari smiled in spite of the twitch it made about self-defense, because there was no one else in the universe who would do that now.

  But she knew before lunch was half over that the small wistful thought she had had, of bringing Nelly back to the apartment, was not the thing to do.

  Poor Nelly would never understand the pressures she stood—or, God knew, the tape library.

  Nelly was only glad to have found one of her babies again. And Ari made a note to tell the nursery Super that Nelly should have reward tape: that was the best thing she could do for Nelly—besides let her know that her eldest baby was doing well.

  That her eldest baby was—what she was… Nelly was hardly able to understand.

  Only that Nelly straightened her collar again before they parted company, Ari treasured. It made a little lump in her throat and made her feel warm all the way down the hall.

  She went out to the cemetery, where there was a little marker that said Jane Strassen, 2272-2414. And she sat there a long time.

  “I know why you didn’t write,” she said to no one, because maman had gone to the sun, the way Ariane Emory had. “I know you loved me. I wish Ollie would write. But I can guess why he doesn’t—and I’m afraid to write to him because Khalid knows too much about people I’m fond of as it is.

  “I saw Nelly today. Nelly’s happy. She has so many babies to take care of—but she never cares what they’ll be, just that they’re babies, that’s all. She’s really nice—in a way so few people are.

  “I know why you tried to keep me away from Justin. But we’ve become friends, maman. I remember the first time I saw him. That’s the first thing I remember—us going down the hall, and Ollie carrying me. And the punch bowl and Justin and Grant across the room; and me. I remember that. I remember the party at Valery’s after.

  “I’m doing all right, maman. I’m everything all of you wanted me to be. I wish there was something you’d left me, the way Ari senior did. Because I wish I knew so many things.

  “Mostly I’m doing all right. I thought you’d like to know.”

  Which was stupid. Of course maman knew nothing. She only made herself cry, and sat there a long time on the bench, and remembered herself with her arm in the cast, and aunt Victoria, and Novgorod and Giraud, and everything that had happened.

  She was lonely. That was the problem. Florian and Catlin could not understand flux the way she felt it, and she wished when it grew as bad as it was, that there had been maman to say: Dammit, Ari, what in hell’s the matter with you?

  “Mostly I’m lonely, maman. Florian’s fine. But he’s not like Ollie. He’s mostly Catlin’s. And I can’t interfere in that.

  “I wish they’d made an Ollie too. Somebody who was just mine. And if there was, Florian would be jealous—but of him being another azi and close to me, not—not about what a CIT would be jealous of.

  “I’m not altogether like Ari senior. I’ve been a lot smarter about sex. I haven’t fouled up my friends. They’ve fouled each other up. ’Stasi’s not speaking to Amy. Over Stef Dietrich. And Sam’s hurt. And Maddy’s just disgusted. I hate it.

  “And I’m fluxing so badly I could die. I want Florian and I know it’s smart to stay to him. But I feel like there’s something in
me that’s just—alone all the time.

  “And I feel bad about thinking it, but Florian doesn’t touch the lonely feeling. He just feels good for a while. And even while we’re doing it, you know, sometimes everything’s all right and sometimes I feel like I’m all alone. He doesn’t know all my problems, but he tries, and he’ll never tell me no, I have to tell myself no for him. Like I always have to be careful. That’s the trouble.

  “I think it’s like floating in space, maman. There’s nothing around me for lightyears all around. There’s times that I’d rather Florian than anybody, because there’s no one understands me like he does when I’m down or when I’m scared. But there’s a side of me he just can’t help, that’s the problem. And I think he knows it.

  “That’s the awful thing. He’s starting to worry about me. Like it was his fault. And I don’t know why I’m doing this to him. I’m so mad at myself. Ari talked about hurting Florian—her Florian. And that scares hell out of me, maman. I don’t ever want to do that. But I am, when I make him feel like my problems are his fault.

  “Did you ever have this with Ollie?

  “Maybe I should just go down to the Town and try it with some of the azi down there, that do that kind of tiling. Maybe somebody like a Mu-class, who knows? A grown-up one. Somebody I can’t mess up.

  “But that kind of embarrasses me. Uncle Denys would have a fit. He’d say—O God, I couldn’t discuss that with him. Besides, it would hurt Florian’s feelings. Florian would be a little disgusted if I did it with Stef, but he wouldn’t be hurt.

  “Some azi from the Town, though—I couldn’t do that to him. I don’t think Ari senior ever did anything like that. I can’t find it in any records. And I looked.