Текст книги "Regenesis"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 45 страниц)

So there are differences. Sometimes I worry about that. I don’t know if I’ve turned out as bright as the first Ari. She was really good with computers and her Florian was, and I’m still not, though I suppose I’ll learn, and I know Florian’s studying, and he’s getting into programming as fast as he has time for. So I’m working very hard to absorb what she knew on a whole lot of fronts at once. I’m studying how Admin works and who’s responsible to whom. The thing the first Ari was incredibly good with, psychsets, I study really hard–I’ve dropped five kilos just from the study this last month, and I can’t eat enough to keep up with the weight loss. But the harder I study, the more I just keep seeing a maze of possibilities, when it comes to fixing a psychset onto a geneset–and I’m starting to do that job for real. I’m confident operating at the gamma level, but I know I’m not ready to mess with an alpha’s sets. And she was capable of that, at my age, which just amazes me.

Understand, I’ve mostly met the alphas she setted later in her career–the early ones, the older ones, are either dead or assigned out, admin jobs, that sort of thing–except Ollie, who was with Maman. There was Ollie, and he was pretty remarkable–still is: he’s running Fargone Station. Maybe she was just that good, that early. Who knows? Maybe I would be, if Yanni let me have a try at alphas. But I just don’t want to mess one up, so I’m not arguing with Yanni on that point. I’m starting my work with simpler sets.

I do worry that being overall happier might have taken something vital off my potential. That’s yet to prove. If you never hear this, well, I’m not the model someone wants you to follow. But I think I’m intellectually close to the first Ari, despite some detours, and despite the fact I play off a bit. I’m very close to being up with my studies, at the benchmarks she set for me, so I guess it’s all right; and if I think about it I’m exceeding some of them. I did start study early. I tend to forget I’m younger than I’m supposed to be by a few years. And I’m close to being able to make my own decisions in the labs, and I know I’m going to be capable of Admin, though I just haven’t got the time even to consider actually taking that on, and I really don’t want to. I’m so glad Yanni is running things and I don’t have to. And anything that suggests there’s any problem with Yanni scares me. There’s something right now, just a question about the way he’s handling Jordan Warrick, and I want to trust him, but I’d be a fool to say I’m not thinking about it, thinking hard. If I had to step in and control Reseune, it would be a major setback for my studies. And I don’t want that, and most of all I don’t want to lose Yanni, because, so much he does is good. And he could even be right.

It’s natural he should keep secrets from me. I haven’t let him see all I can do. And maybe I should just call him here and ask him outright what he’s done or what he thinks he’s doing, but I’m just reluctant to do it while Florian and Catlin are investigating things. I could make everything blow up. And that’s no good.

For now, Yanni limits what I do, and that’s good. He gets the results of my tests, and he’s my outside checkup. He says he wants me to keep focused on study precisely so I don’t appear in public and disturb people–especially people down in Novgorod–but I think, too, so I don’t scattershot my studies. I can do so many things and I’m interested in so many things I sometimes think I could just fly apart. Strassenburg’s a toy, in one sense. In another, it’s important for me to set that up early, and you’ll see why, if you think about it two seconds. And now I have to think about Reseune itself, and find out who’s doing what, and how the lines of power run.

I’ve been far too happy in the last couple of months to be entirely safe. Isn’t that a paradox? And I’m frustrated because there are things I can already see skewing off Ari’s plan, and I can’t fix them without taking authority over things and potentially making things worse–because I’m not as good yet as she was when she set up the parameters of what I think might be going wrong.

Is being able to see trouble coming normal for an eighteen‑year‑old? It’s not normal for an eighteen‑year‑old to have the power to do what I can do, that’s for sure–and just in the rules that govern Reseune, I can do anything right now but make an unchecked decision in the labs. I know I could remove Jordan Warrick. I could have him killed and no one would find out. Is that normal for an eighteen‑year‑old? It’s not supposed to be normal for a civilized being. But I just have to worry if it’s normal for me. I keep thinking–if I got rid of him I could save Yanni, if Yanni’s involved in anything he shouldn’t be.

And the choice not to do it may be a mistake on my part, but I see real problems down the years if I do remove him.

Jordan Warrick’s existence may even be important for me. He’s my enemy. And I need one. I need a good, strong enemy to gather up the people who wish I didn’t exist, so I can keep an eye on the lot. I just can’t get distracted from the possibility he’s not my only enemy.

He wants Justin in his control. He’ll fight me for Justin. That makes me mad every time I think about it.

But Mad doesn’t think straight. Mad may be honest, but it doesn’t plan well at all.

So I won’t give way to Mad.

And I won’t kill him. Or replace Yanni. I really don’t want to do things like that. I wonder who put that reluctance into my psychset. I’m not sure it was ever in the first Ari’s. But I watch impulses like that. I’m telling myself there’s a logical reason I’m reluctant to take extreme measures, as Florian would call it, but I have to be sure it’s a logic structure, and not air castles. Do you know that expression, air castles? I found it in a book. It’s a city without any foundations, a perfect dream without any feet on the ground. And you don’t see the fact there’s no connection between it and solid thinking, because you’re looking at how pretty the towers are, instead of the fact there’s no logic supporting them.

Pretty is good. But survivable is important, when real people are depending for their lives on your logic. And people do depend on me. I depend on me. I want to live a long time.

Soon I will have a security unit that will report directly to Catlin and Florian, and they’ll be able to know if there’s any undercurrent anywhere in the world that I need to know about. I can trust them to come to me if there’s anything peculiar going on, anything out of parameters…even in high places.

They’re going to be very busy for the next while. Soon they’ll be getting a whole lot of files on all our current problems. And maybe I’ll learn things I don’t want to hear once they do start reporting on people I know–I wish I could omit that, but I’ll have to deal with it when it happens. This was Hicks’s idea, Florian tells me. He’s the director of ReseuneSec, the post Giraud used to have. And in my worry about people’s loyalty, Hicks is one I’ve wanted to keep an eye on. Now he sends us a gift. Florian says all the people he’s sending are clean, so far as he can tell by the manuals. But I’m going to go over the manuals myself that’s going to be instructive. I have to be sure there’s nothing in them I can’t rely on, once their Contracts are engaged. Yanni won’t let me work above gamma, but these people are higher than that, mostly, and if I make a mistake it could be very bad.

That means, among other things, if we find these people are reliable, I can actually get out of this wing and go places on a regular basis–for the first time since Denys died, with minor exceptions. I’ll be able to go wherever I want in Reseune, whenever I want, and I’ll be so glad of that. I haven’t ridden Horse for months: his trainer is taking care of him. I haven’t been out to the pond to see the goldfish. I haven’t seen the new construction, just the virtuals. Note maybe I can do all those things. I feel as if I haven’t been able to breathe for weeks, and now I almost think I might–and yet I have all these worries about Yanni, and Hicks, and the very people who are supposed to be helping Florian and Catlin–not to mention new staff coming into the apartment…those are all delayed while we look through their records and check through the tape they’ve had.

One thing I’m certainly going to do, so when you accede to power, you won’t have to go through what I have, and risk what I’ve risked. My security office may not outlive me–but I’m going to see to it that a security staff inside ReseuneSec is automatically offered to your Florian and your Catlin when you reach your majority, and that you don’t have to fight for it or ask for it or wait until someone offers. I very much suspect Denys ordered Giraud to take the first Ari’s security apparatus apart when she died, under the excuse it was dangerous to his power. I don’t know what circumstances may apply when you’re hearing this. But by the time you’re making your first steps into being an adult in charge, you have to have information and a secure perimeter, and you have to have it fast. I was very lucky to have had Yanni, and not somebody much worse than Denys stepping into control of Reseune, or I might not have survived.

So as soon as Florian and I can manage Base One the way we need to do, I’ll be making the re‑constitution automatic, embedding various provisions that won’t look like they’re working together, the pre‑training of certain Contracts, with an instruction that will trigger retraining for personnel on a certain date to be set by your circumstances–meaning they’ll turn up in your life when the time is right, and assemble themselves, because I’m going to have a direct hand in the tape they get. It’s not going to be apparent even to the directors out at the azi facilities that these people and these programs have any connection with each other. On a given trigger, they’ll assemble, and they’ll know what to do.

And your Florian and your Catlin will run that office, so that’s the explanation of one mystery for you, which you may have already seen in operation. I hope it’s a peaceful transition.

I was lucky to survive my teens, and I don’t count on luck even once, let alone twice. Thank me for your safety, which will at least be greater than mine, granted I live long enough. And do the same for your successor, and leave notes for her time. Learn how to program Base One, how to really handle it, and get your Florian to. We’re running behind on that. I’m able to do the links that surround the segments I’m recording for you, quite honestly because I’m copying what’s there on the files she gave me; and I’m making notes; but it’s not integrated, yet. It won’t run yet the way Ari I and her Florian made it run because I haven’t linked the whole structure in yet, just made a chain of unerasable files, to make sure you get my thoughts appropriate to the age I am now, and that I can’t edit them, and I really hope you aren’t having to excavate those files the hard way.

My office hasn’t gotten anything solid for me yet on the ongoing puzzles we’re Working. The questions are all still questions. But at least I’m about to refuse to be confined to the Wing and I intend to start asking questions of my own.

BOOK ONE Section 3 Chapter iii

MAY 2, 2424

1342H

Florian opened the office door, and Ari slipped into the space where two men, one extravagantly red‑haired, one common brown, were busy earning a living.

Or at least–they’d been trying to.

“Hello!” she said in her brightest tone, and Grant half‑turned and raised an eyebrow. Justin swiveled his chair around, leaned back against its auto‑adjust, and crossed a foot over his knee.

“Well,” he said. “Is it trouble?”

“Oh, never.” There wasn’t another chair. It wasn’t her scheduled day to be here, and she hadn’t been in this office ever, though Justin and Grant had moved in nearly a week ago. These two didn’t do patient‑consultations, and they no longer had staff, nor any room for them, so there was no available chair for a visitor. She had to stand, and simply leaned back against the wall, until Grant, seeing the situation, surrendered his with a small flourish. “You’re so sweet,” she said, and patted Grant on the arm. “We’ve got to get other chairs in here. At least one more.”

“I’ll arrange that,” Grant said, and as Florian rotated past the door frame and out into the corridor, Grant left, too, leaving the two of them alone to talk, herself and Justin.

“I so love the idea of your being in the Wing,” she said to him.

“It seems safer,” Justin said. “So I take it we’re not on the current arrest list.”

“Don’t joke like that. I’m not Denys. I won’t beDenys.”

“I know you’re not. Are we revising the schedule for lessons today, or–”

“We’re keeping to schedule. I’m sorry I haven’t been here this week. I’ve been studying.”

“I thought we agreed you were going to get some rest.”

“Well, it’s important. I’m onto something.”

“What?”

“What we were talking about. The integrations. But I’ll talk about that later. Monday.”

“Sure. Good.” Justin made a gesture toward the other counter. “Coffee?”

“I wouldn’t mind that, thank you.” She watched as he got up and poured a cup. Her stomach suddenly said empty. “You wouldn’t have a biscuit, would you?”

“As a matter of fact, we do,” Justin said, as he opened a packet and laid a tea‑biscuit on a paper saucer. And another for good measure. He gave her that saucer with the coffee. “The place came stocked.”

“I really hope you like the office.”

“I’m getting used to it.”

She regarded Justin’s first office with deep nostalgia. She remembered slipping by and giving him a gift of guppies. They hadn’t lived.

Those days had seemed so much safer. She’d been out and about, un‑watched, or she’d had the illusion she’d been unwatched–and never likely was. And he wasn’t there anymore.

She washed down a biscuit in two bites and a sip and tried to put the past out of her mind. “Mmm. I had breakfast. But I’ve been studying a lot and I know I’m getting skinny, and you’re right, and I’m reforming. I’m taking on real work this week, just a couple of projects. I’ve told Labs to let me run checks and I’ll actually do a theta design. I’m sure they’re going to have someone go over it. But I don’t think they’ll find mistakes.”

“I doubt they will.”

A second biscuit went down. That freed a hand to reach into her jacket pocket. “Here.” She handed him the data stick she’d brought “I’ve looked at it. I want you to.”

“What?” Justin looked amused. “You can do that. I’ve no doubt you can do it.”

“Not the theta stuff. These are staff. All sorts of staff. They’ll be mine. I want you to look them over and make sure there aren’t any bombs.”

His face went sober, thoughtful as he picked up the stick. He gave her a look, like he wanted to ask a question, and maybe thought it wasn’t wise to ask it at all.

“I trust you,” she said. It wouldn’t make him easier in his mind. She read him that well. He’d been through too much with Denys. He’d just had the row with his father and he knew Admin was upset. He was in a state of disturbance and flux, unable to settle, either physically or mentally, and he probably wasn’t getting a lot of work done. “I need it really soon.”

He nodded somberly and laid the data stick atop the books on his desk. “I’ll put it at the top of my list.”

“I know about the card,” she said, and saw his face suddenly go cold and wary. He wasn’t looking at her. Wasn’t looking at anything in particular. “I’m sorry you got into it,” she said, and he still didn’t look at her. “What do youthink your father’s up to?”

“I haven’t a clue.” He did look her way, and the hard face gave way to the old Justin, the very worried Justin, who had stood off Uncle Denys–confronting her, now, as the prevailing threat in his life, andhis hope of tranquility. “I really haven’t.”

“You know he’s under surveillance. He knows he is. He’s mad about it. I’m really sorry, Justin. I’m sorry he did that.”

He was upset. And the look was a little less protected, a little more the real Justin, worried, and on his guard. “Do you know what it’s about?” he asked her flat out…maybe a little ashamed to be asking. She read that. Ashamed of the situation with his father. Ashamed of havingto ask an outsider to the relationship.

“My staff is trying to find out,” she said quietly. “I don’t really know what it’s about. He’s not that easy to read. But I’d say he didn’t expect you to keep that card a secret.”

“I’m sure of that much,” he said.

She wanted to ask–what do youwant me to do with Jordan? But that wouldn’t be fair to ask, and the hurt would outlast the good it would do. Justin would never forgive himself, not inside, if he asked her to send Jordan away. In a technical way, neither of them had had real parents. In an emotional way, they’d both lost the single parent they’d been most attached to. They were alike, on that one emotional sore point. Something had happened, when Jordan handed Justin that card, and they had to patch it up, and try to bring back the even tenor of the lessons, the conferences, the work together. It wasn’t going to happen automatically. Jordan had already had that effect–Jordan, and the twitch of security, proving it was still alive.

“I’m trying to protect him from himself,” she said. “He’s certainly not making it easy.”

Score. She saw it in his expression, just the little dilation of the iris. “I appreciate that.”

“This Dr. Patil,” she said. “I can tell you something about that. We’re going to send her to Fargone. She’s the authority in her field–she’s certainly got the credentials. But we’re digging into her associations, all the way back. Just so you know what that was about.”

“I’m not sure I want to know more than that.”

“Justin, I’m not in charge of Reseune. I won’t be, for awhile. But you know I direct some decisions. Yanni listens to me.”

“I’m sure he does.”

“ Don’tbe like that. I’m not your enemy.”

“I don’t want you to be,” he said plainly. “I hope you won’t be.”

“ Jordanwants me to be your enemy.”

And his eyes averted, his whole body posture changing, as if he had to re‑balance his thinking.

“Doesn’t he?” she asked flatly. “Or what do youthink his motive is?”

Justin didn’t say anything for a moment. His hand found the datastick atop the books, picked it up, turned it over. And over. And set it down, not looking at her. “I don’t know why you ask my opinion on this,” he said, and let a long breath go. “I don’t know why you need it.”

“I need it,” she said. “I do need it.”

“No, you don’t. You’re good. The hell you’re working routine theta sets, you’re good.”

“So are you,” she said. “You’re toogood to go along with something even he didn’t plan to have work. You know what he’s really up to.”

“Then I wish you’dtell mewhat that is!”

“I just did.”

“God.” He did turn his face toward her, upset. “Dammit, Ari.”

“I’m being honest. Iwant you to be all right. I really do. I don’t mind you getting along with Jordan. But he certainly minds your getting along with me. That’s what it’s about, isn’t it? Am I wrong? His battles are all old history. The Centrists lost a lot of their power when we passed the anti‑terraforming bills and saved Cyteen’s native life. They lost this world to develop. So some not‑very‑bright people in that party thought they were going to get their way when Ari died. But Giraud didn’t let them repeal those laws. Giraud was friendly with Defense and that blocked them. And now there’s Yanni, telling them they’ve got just a little time to make deals before I come in. Eversnow is a poor second choice, but it’s what the pro‑terraformers have got.”

“Eversnow.”

“It’s a planet out beyond Fargone–”

“I know that.”

“Well, Patil’s in charge of terraforming it, and that’s a secret, so don’t tell it. If certain people think they can bring that snowball to life without wrecking it, well, they might, mightn’t they, but then, that’s not a very Centrist position for Corain’s people to be stuck in, a dozen light years from anything civilized, and no longer in the center of anything. It’s not their kind of territory. They want cities. They want Earth remade in a temperate world that’s central to everything, with all of Union clustered around it, and they want it fast. Well, fast won’t happen there. It’s going to take a long time, and we’ll be changing the Centrists, right along with Eversnow. People that go out there will belong there. Or their children will. That’s the way things work.”

“You’re losing me. Eversnow. Not Fargone.”

“Fargone’s just a cover.”

“I’m not sure I want to know these things. I’m not sure Yanni would be happy with my knowing these things.”

“Oh, pretty soon more people inside Reseune are going to know it. We’re just not putting it on the news until it launches. That’s why security’s all stirred up about this card.”

“You think Jordan could have had any contact with a secret some professor in Novgorod is up to? I thought you monitored his phone calls.”

“Not any current contact, no, he doesn’t have. But then he never cared whether it was Centrists or Expansionists he was supporting, so long as it gave his Ari grief, do you think? She was all his focus. Whatever she wanted, he was against, once that partnership split up. And the fight between them wasn’t ever really about Cyteen, or Eversnow, or Alpha or Beta or Fargone or terraforming or any station in the whole universe, for that matter. Reseune was everything. He wanted to leave it, but he didn’t, not in his head. And now he’s back, but Reseune after Denys isn’t the place he remembers. So it’s not a happy situation, and he’s not dealing well with the changes he finds here. That’s what I think.”

“That, I’ll entirely agree with.”

“I can’t make him happy. You can’t.”

Justin heaved a long sigh. “You’re right about that.” And then looked at her: “You just gave me that information on Patil to track whether or not I’d let it leak.”

“I know you won’t. You’re good on other things I’ve told you.”

A small, sorrowful laugh. “No, I’m not likely to. Lack of opportunity, maybe. I’m not in anyone’s social circles. So I take it you’re wondering if I’ll be crazy and take it to Jordan.”

“Florian was right in what he did: you needed to be out of Jordan’s reach unless youinitiate the contact.”

Justin muttered something under his breath, and pushed the data stick in a circle, where it lay. “I won’t ask you for favors. I know your security requirements. I know they’re justified. I won’t become a problem to you.”

“I couldn’t replace you,” she said. “I really couldn’t.”

He gave a short laugh. “Seems that’s what we do here, isn’t it?”

“Not in my lifetime. I’d miss you terribly. I really would. I’ve lost a lot of people I relied on.”

“Giraud. Denys.” That was a gibe. Giraud hadn’t been one of his favorite people. Denys wasn’t one of hers.

“My mother.” she said, matching dark for dark.

Lips tightened, and he didn’t look at her when he said, bitterly: “My father.”

“Right now,” she said soberly, “one of my worst problems is that I can’t be absolutely sure that Denys didn’t install some feature in the systems that just hasn’t gone off yet. Right now security has me completely walled in, same as you, because they can’t figure what else to do with me. Same as you. But that’s going to change, starting with my getting a security presence that’s mine, no one else’s. I’ll have a much longer reach and a way of knowing what’s going on that I don’t have now. I’ll be able to protect myself if I can trust it. And maybe if I’m safer, it can change things for your father–if he calms down. If you can talk him toward common sense. He took my gift and got off the plane looking for a fight, with Yanni, with me…”

“With everyone. No question of that.” A small silence, Justin looking hallward, in Grant’s general direction, then back. “I’ll talk to him, best I can. Whenwe talk. I’m not meeting with him until he calms down.”

“Tranquilizer in his coffee might be a good idea.”

He laughed, shortly. “Coming from someone who could actually do it.”

“It wouldn’t be real peace.” She got up. “You’ve got work to do, and I’m bothering you. Let me know what you think of those sets as soon as you can. It’s a priority. I’ll be back for a lesson Monday afternoon.”

“Will do,” he said, and she walked outside, where Grant and Florian waited, not in conversation.

“I think I’m going to have a small dinner party tonight,” she said to Grant, “just Justin and you, Jordan and Paul. What do you think?”

“You may have to send security to bring Jordan.”

“Maybe not,” she said. Jordan was rather like a bomb with a motion switch: thus far, she’d hesitated to jostle him. If you were going to Work someone you needed a good hook, and a theory had begun to gel. Jordan wanted dominance, wasn’t well socialized, had to be the center of attention, but didn’t like to be talked at by fools, because there wasn’t an ounce of tolerance in him. He couldn’t tolerate, say, a cocktail party, or someone who bored him for a minute. But his curiosity suffered in that isolation of his, the engine of that curiosity being a very keen intellect. She’d gotten that much long‑distance–that and the fact he was Justin’s twin as well as his father… Justin had been very much his twin until the first Ari ran an intervention and set a broad streak of insecurity into Justin’s pattern: insecurity, a strong sex drive, and self‑doubt.

The first two, Jordan certainly had. Self‑doubt was the big difference, self‑doubt in Justin that constantly put out feelers toward other people, constantly checked the environment and analyzed it, all with a high emotional charge. It hadn’t made Justin more brilliant than Jordan, but it had made him much, much more social, much more reachable.

She had the entire record of that encounter. It was hard to deal with. It told her what the first Ari could do. It told her what she could turn into. It told her the Ari who’d fought with Jordan had had some of Jordan’s characteristics–and tolerance of a rival hadn’t been high in the first Ari’s own list of qualities. The first Ari had actually tried…she’d tried very hard to work with Jordan. But he’d wanted to dominate their partnership and she absolutelyhad wanted to run things, as natural as breathing. What kept bringing the first Ari back, she suspected, what might even have sexually fascinated her, was the fact that she hadn’t been able to Work him: that would have kept her mentally engaged with him. The fact she hadn’t been about to work withhim–that was the thorn in the arrangement. The same terrible boredom had afflicted the first Ari: the first Ari had shared that trait of impatience with Jordan, but, unlike Jordan, the first Ari would at times tolerate fools–would analyze them, and use them, sometimes ruthlessly. Challengeset her off, challenge that would rouse her out of her boredom–so even that thorn in the arrangement might have been just one more attraction. She met challenge: she provoked it, enjoyed it until it potentially threatened her, and then she absolutely crushed it.

There was an extreme watch‑it in that mix, wasn’t there?

A very extreme watch‑it, for Jordan and for herself…because that challengething stirred something so visceral in her. It did, and she tried to keep the anger in it down. She could tolerate parties. She had friends–Sam, and Amy and Maddy, that she didn’t see nearly often enough these days. She valued people like Justin, who’d disagree with her. She valued him extremely She defined challengeas a threat to people she loved. And that was different than the first Ari, wasn’t it? She didn’t let a challenge to her as what she was…become personal. Anger was the bad part of it, and she kept that way back, bottled, stoppered, and far back on the shelf.

She walked on her way, saying nothing to Florian at first, knowing Catlin had heard the exchange with Grant, too, and both her bodyguards knew that what she wanted was ultimately what would happen, even if her staff didn’t like it. Scary notion, a supper with Justin and Jordan, in her hitherto off‑limits premises. Deliciously, excitingly scary. Maybe stupid. But she wasn’t sure it wasn’t smart.

She’d been patient, she’d been so good, but she was close to freedom, was what, and, out in the wide world, things were all of a sudden happening that she didn’t like. With that gift of security personnel from ReseuneSec, if they passed Justin’s scrutiny as well as hers and Florian’s, she established a presence inside Reseune Security. And once she had that, she’d know things; she’d know when it was safe to go somewhere, and she’d know when she needed to deal with a situation. She’d be much less reliant on others filtering what got to her attention…like secret meetings in Novgorod.

Interesting, what she felt. Aggression was part of her motives: she recognized that when it reared its head, and it was potent. The challenge impulse. Curiosity. Much more than Justin was Jordan, she wasthe first Ari. It felt good to go on the attack in this long waiting. It felt very good.

That was a suspect emotion, too. She was having strong reactions to this news about more freedom; she was having emotional reactions to the business with the card and someone having told Jordan about Patil, and at least part of what Patil was up to.

Endocrine thinking, she said to herself. The first Ari consistently warned her about that, told her do something to get rid of it. Sex could work, if it was a passing urge. But that just touched off more flux‑thinking, and sometimes complicated things worse than before. Rational thought was the long‑term cure for problems.

That was what the first Ari had said, out of Base One. Steady down. Think.

Florian asked quietly, as they walked: “What are we to expect tonight, sera?”

“I don’t quite know,” she said, still wondering if she’d just done something very unwise. But something to break the stalemate between Justin and Jordan once and for all–was that unwise? “Something interesting, at least.”

BOOK ONE Section 3 Chapter iv

MAY 2, 2424