“I’ll take a good deep look at your theory on Novgorod,” he said.
“Good,” she said. “I’ll be interested.”
“Eversnow,” he said, “stays.”
“Through anything I can foresee at the moment,” she said, wishing otherwise—but it was necessary, right now.
So was keeping her word, if she didn’t want to make honest people mad at her. And she had always thought Yanni was honest. “I’ll really try to make it work, Yanni.”
She signaled for the next course. Gianni had made a really beautiful dessert, showing off, she was sure. It was layered, and oh, so good. Yanni ate his and ended up being persuaded to another half slice, and a little glass of liqueur to top the evening off. She couldn’t eat another bite. Her stomach was a little upset by the time she saw Yanni to the door.
But it hadn’t gone that badly.
Yanni said he still trusted Hicks. That was a problem.
She didn’t anymore, not until Hicks really proved himself.
She could take Hicks out, put someone she really trusted into that post—like Amy Carnath. Amy had the brains and she’d be fair. But she’d absolutely hate running ReseuneSec. Besides, she was only eighteen, same as the rest of them, and that was the problem—in a post like Hicks’, history mattered. Yanni knew all sorts of things, just a long, long memory, and so did Hicks, and you didn’t just replace a memory like that with a new appointment and hope to have anything like the prior performance in a job involving information.
She could take Admin herself, and put Yanni into Hicks’ job, but he’d really hate that, and that wouldn’t improve matters.
So they were stuck, temporarily, with Hicks.
The good part was, so far, she still had Yanni. They could work with each other, until things had to be different.
BOOK THREE Section 2 Chapter ix
JUNE 17, 2424
1008H
“Hello,” Ari said, opening the door to Justin’s office, and he spun his chair around.
Grant turned more slowly.
She came in solo. They had gotten the extra chair, which they used in her lessons, since they’d folded their other Wing One office into this one, and she turned it around and sat down, primly proper.
“Coffee, sera?” Grant asked.
“Please. Thank you. I need to talk to both of you.”
“Is there a problem?” Justin asked.
“Yes and no.” She waited until Grant had handed her a cup of coffee in a pretty gilt mug, and just held it in her lap, not to delay or draw this out. “The sets you did that I snatched back. Thank you for that. I came to tell you you were right, there was a problem.”
“Which set?”
“The one you delayed on.”
Justin gave out a long, long breath.
“That set was tampered with,” she said. “I think I’ve fixed it. I’m sure I’ve fixed it. Sure enough to have him in charge of my own guard.”
“That’s very sure,” Justin said.
“His name is Rafael,” she said, “and now he’s under my orders. I think he was under Hicks’, and I think Giraud’s before that.”
“He’s too young,” Grant said.
“He is, but he’s not the first of his number. I think there was some off-record done with his whole type…no, I don’t just think. I know. There was. I’m quitting being the kid as of this week.”
Zap.
“I didn’t get that out of it,” Justin said, frowning, so her bow-shot had gone right past him. “I should have. I assumed. Never assume. You certainly beat me on this one.”
She shrugged lightly. “I had a head start. I know green barracks programming.” With a shift of her glance toward the hall where Catlin waited. “And you wouldn’t have that experience. Still, you had something spotted. That’s what warned me to look twice. You had your finger pretty well on it.”
“What did it do?”
“He conflicted like hell when I took the Contract. He had a nice little reservation built in and I blitzed it. Not as good as an axe code, what I did, but close.”
Grant made a face. Grant knew.
“Anyway,” she said, “you deserved to know.”
“Thanks,” Justin said.
“I have it set up with Yanni: Jordan will get to work; I’ll check. If he blows up, maybe he and I will eventually have to talk about it. But we’ll just see how it goes. Let him calm down first.”
“Thank you,” Justin said.
“You’re still bothered about the BR set.”
“It bothers me that I missed it.”
“It bothers you. That’s why you’re good. Besides being Special-level smart.”
He laughed silently at that. Didn’t say a thing. But self-doubt was major in him.
“I’m sorry I’ve missed lessons lately,” she said.
“I think you’re getting beyond them, aren’t you?”
“I don’t think you’re at all through teaching me. I learn all sorts of things. You were spotting that conflict from the microset side of things; I was looking at the large picture, and I fixed it by yanking at the deepsets. You’re kind, is what. Grant knows what I mean.”
“Sera is right,” Grant said quietly.
“It’s why you want to rehabilitate your father. You’re just soft-hearted. I need somebody who teaches me what soft-hearted is.”
“I don’t know that it’s so valuable a commodity these days.”
“Because Reseune isn’t safe?” she asked. “It isn’t. Neither is Planys. Neither is here, granted Jordan got that card the way he says he did. We could have a problem at Planys that we never spotted. We could, here. Something like a Rafael type. Nothing of his geneset is there. One is in Hicks’ office, probably with nobody to report to now that Giraud is dead, but I’m going to put a tag on him—I’ll know every contact he has.”
“Ari,” he said, and cast a look up, at the overhead.
She smiled sadly. “It’s only Catlin listening. We know about this office. We have our own protections around it, and if it’s leaky, they’ve gotten past all my bodyguards and nothing is safe. Just figure: there are three hundred fifty-one azi at Planys. And somebody killed Thieu. And somebody killed Patil. I’m betting they got a professional in to take out Patil, somehow, maybe azi, maybe not.”
“An azi didn’t originate the idea,” Grant said.
“I agree with you,” Ari said. “An azi didn’t. But I’d be interested to hear your thinking on motivation. You’re not green barracks.”
“I’m house,” Grant said. “And I hardly remember when I wasn’t. I absorbed my values from tape, from instruction, and from being part of the household.”
“That changed,” Ari said.
“Ari,” Justin said, a warn-off.
“Grant, you don’t have to answer me. I’m not being a Supervisor, I’m just curious where your focus is.”
“Classified,” Justin said.
Grant shrugged. “Not hard to guess it’s you, born-man. Ari doesn’t scare me.”
“I really don’t want to,” Ari said. “I’m sorry, Grant, but I don’t want to ask my own staff, and I want an azi viewpoint on this question. In your psychset, could anybody get you to kill?”
An easy shrug. “He could.”
“Ari, leave it!”
“I’m not at all conflicted about it,” Grant said. “No more than Florian would be, under a hypothetical. I just ran your question through my deepsets and there’s no prohibition against it, no great emotional charge to compare with my attachment to your orders, Justin.”
“Well, then, shut up, for God’s sake! Quit answering her damned questions!”
“I have a strong attachment to questions, too,” Grant said with a little tilt of the head, with humor. “Can’t resist them, if they’re hypothetical. Or I’ll think about it all night.”
“Don’t, if you please.”
“Now I’m conflicted,” Grant said, “because it’s actually an interesting question. You’re
saying some azi out at Planys murdered Thieu simply because some born-man asked him to.”
“Might have. Abban probably murdered the first Ari.”
“That’s my prime candidate,” Justin said. “That’s what I believe.”
“I don’t think I’d botch it, however,” Grant said, “if I was asked to do a murder. I’d look up techniques and pick one I knew I could carry out.”
“Now I’m angry,” Justin said. “It’s not damned funny, Ari.”
“I know it’s not,” she said, “and I won’t run a calm-down on Grant. That’s your job. He’s just the closest alpha I could ask who’s not Security; and a beta couldn’t. I’m sorry, Grant. Justin’s concerned about you, and I haven’t been entirely nice.”
“I’d leave the office,” Grant said, “if it weren’t an interesting question. And I’ve thought about it—what I would do. What I could do, if someone threatened him. I told myself I could, and would. I actually take a certain comfort in that.”
“Same,” Justin said, “on this side.”
She nodded. “It’s nice to have somebody that close,” she said. “I do. I’m glad you both do.” She took something from her coat pocket, which turned out to be two com units, and she laid them on the nearest table. “Those are exactly the same as Florian’s, as Catlin’s—a few limitations: they only call Base One, they can only get voice contact if someone calls you back, and if you hit the red button, they’re going to bring down the ceiling, so don’t use that unless you have to. Just carry them and don’t for God’s sake lose them. If you see anything suspicious around you, if you want someone to show up quietly and intervene, hit any button but the red one. If you hit the red one, figure you’re going to get an armed response. Understood?”
“Understood,” Justin said, looking a little mollified.
“I hope you’ll never need them,” she said, “but I’m carrying my own.” She touched the door. “And don’t put yourselves in situations. Please.”
“Like visiting my father?”
“You’ll protect Grant,” she said, “and he’ll protect you. You do what you want to do.”
She left, then.
She’d made Justin mad for a few minutes, and she hadn’t wanted to, but she felt better, knowing Grant wasn’t limited in Justin’s defense. She’d suspected the answer she’d get: but she’d not been entirely sure she’d believe it. Now she did.
And that was good.
BOOK THREE Section 3 Chapter i
JUNE 26, 2424
1528H
Giraud, at nineteen weeks, had bones instead of cartilage, and those bones shaped a face increasingly distinctive from, say, Abban, or Seely. For all of them it was the same story: arms and legs finally matched in proportion. They made urine: kidneys were working.
Giraud’s heart, which one day might betray him, functioned well enough now, on a steady beat. He was just starting to grow the sandy hair that would characterize him in life. His lungs weren’t at all developed, so nothing but the artificial womb could sustain him at this point. His lungs lacked their life-giving minor passages, and breathing any substance as rarified as air was impossible for him; but he was already getting vocal cords. His brain wasn’t cognitively active, and had nothing like its destined size, but it was acquiring a little organization. Areas of his brain made the most rudimentary start at sensing a touch, tasting, and smelling, though stimuli were much the same right now, and until that organization happened he couldn’t differentiate between touch or smell or sound: it was all the same to him, just a stimulus that got on his nerves.
He’d be a little insomniac throughout his adult life—but he’d begun to have periods of quasi-sleep, or at least quiet. That, again, was the brain, organizing. And his nerves, which had lacked a myelin sheath, had begun to acquire it, which would be a process not limited to his stay in the womb. As that coating formed, finer and finer organization would become possible. As yet, it was very basic.
His eyes, completely colorless as yet, had begun moving, simple languid muscle twitch, behind sealed lids.
When he was born he would have a restless blue gaze, noting this, noting that, until those eyes fixed, and then one had better take care, even when he was a little boy.
He was nearly halfway to birth, which was scheduled for November 20.
But right now Giraud didn’t see a thing.
BOOK THREE Section 3 Chapter ii
JULY 1, 2424
0928H
I went to see Giraud today. He’s at twenty weeks, and about halfway toward, his birthdate. I don’t know why I went—or I’m reluctant to admit it, but things in the house have changed so drastically that I just wanted to get him in view again and use my brain about him, not my emotions.
He’s just a baby. He’s even gotten to look pretty well like a human being, and I halfway felt guilty about stopping Denys. I’m sure someday he’ll ask about his brother.
And I worry about what I’ll have say to him to explain it. He’ll feel a sense of loss, even for something he didn’t have.
It wasn’t Giraud who really shaped me, after all: it was Denys. It was definitely Denys that tried to kill me, and I’m reasonably sure he killed the first Ari, but I’m still trying to prove that, and I don’t know what the balance is.
Do I have to do to them what they did to me. Do I have to create a mess of an infant’s life to create a man to make a mess of your early life? I’d rather not.
And what if I live as long as the first Ari or longer, and the Giraud I created gets too old and dies, and they have to start over with a new baby Giraud right before you’re born? It’s all crazy. Making everybody all match is going to be impossible if they go on replicating people whenever they die, and so far they’re not saving us all up and starting the eldest first, so it’s going to get all scrambled about the timeline. Giraud might drown in the river before he’s forty. And then where will we be? Again, a total mismatch.
It’s absolutely crazy—and I’m the one—and you’re the one—the universe has to have continually at work, fast as we can.
So I officially give up trying to make things as exact as I was. I know it’s not possible. I don’t think it’s altogether necessary: I hope that it isn’t. The medics were going in blind when they used to take the first Ari’s constant tests and bloodwork and make mine fit her profile in any given week I was due for a major new tape—shooting me full of hormones. Now we have me for a test subject, and Dr. Peterson is writing up the work they did, matching my learning with what I was working on, and with what I needed to be working on. So that will tell us some relevance between hormonal state, particular tape, and test scores.
With Giraud, we know what he studied, and when he studied it, and we’ll still play games with his blood chemistry to make sure he has his brain on line when he studies certain things, but I don’t honestly think it has to be week by week, and I don’t think it has to be that tightly on schedule or sequence: I think the main thing is whether the brain is going to be totally fluxed and doing freethinking with, say, art, or whether it’s going to be absorbing facts on a given tape where facts, fast and exact, are what you want.
Besides, I’m not going to do to Giraud Two what Giraud One’s mother did, which was bear down on Giraud hard to be a genius. Denys was, Giraud wasn’t, and she couldn’t change that. I’m pretty sure she didn’t do Denys any good by coddling him: he could be as odd as he liked and she excused it. She was always hard on Giraud. And when she died he took over being hard on himself. That is a key to what he was, and I’ve got to think about that one in his setup.
I’ve arranged for Yanni to take Giraud: he hasn’t exactly said yes, but I just don’t see him refusing at the last moment, and it’s just a few months to go. And Yanni didn’t say anything when I said I’d backed out of creating Denys. I know he thinks something about it, but he’s not easy to read. I’ve found that out. I don’t think he really wants either of them. He knows he’s going to get Giraud. But I think he feels something
about Denys and I can’t get a straightforward answer out of him. He says I know’ what others don’t and I’ll make up my own mind.
Well, I still have seven years to talk to Yanni about it. I don’t want to have Denys back and forth, but I didn’t destroy his geneset. I just sent it back to deep storage.
Maybe it would be a little less crazy if I just threw up my hands and declared everything had to follow program as close as possible, and Denys had to become a thorough bastard and have a maman who was as-crazy as the originals’ was.
If I admitted that it’s entirely nurture, or the lack of it, that wakes up the genes, then everything and anything is justifiable.
But I’ve gone off my program, marginally, and I’m still pretty good.
And Giraud helped in that: the first Giraud did. He turned downright fatherly with me, warning me, trying to guide me toward survival, even while Denys was probably telling himself if I got too close to taking over too soon, he’d kill me without a qualm. I have to wonder if Giraud picked up on that, and tried to hit some middle ground between Denys killing me and my killing Denys. And instead, Giraud died.
It probably wasn’t all sweetness and fatherly feeling on Giraud’s part. He’d probably been worried about Denys doing something to foul up everything Reseune had worked for, for very selfish reasons. Denys could be selfish like that, if Giraud didn’t step in and fix things.
And if I create Denys, Denys could be like that again, if he turned out to be really Denys: utterly disagreeable, and utterly self-centered, lost in his own world. It may be there’s something in Denys’s brain that made that happen, and it could be genetic, essential to what made him a genius.
Poor Giraud was just Giraud and I don’t think a little kindness will really hurt him. His end-of-life change of mind very likely was sincere—I figured that out, trying to plan for a maman for Giraud, and I just can’t come up with one. There was that critical a difference between the two brothers.
And Denys, if he had had one strong emotion in his head, wanted him reborn, wanted, himself reborn, so, so much—wanted himself with Giraud. Not because he loved Giraud, I’ve come to think, because so much about him was sociopathic, but because, to him, Giraud was part of himself, part of his all-important existence. One of the things that drove Denys to try to kill me might have been a fear that, when I took over, I might abort Giraud, in one sense or the other—either physically or psychologically.