Текст книги "Regenesis"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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“You have your own agenda,” Jordan said. “You think it’s in your practical interests to keep your own counsel. And you don’t want to share. I can respect that.”

“Thanks for the analysis.”

“You’re waiting. You plan to have influence in the great someday. Yanni’s not any younger and she‘s not old enough, not as old as she needs to be. So you’re going to be the stopgap. What kind of position will that put you into? You know, you could parlay your connections into the Directorship, what time the little dear doesn’t hold that post herself. Maybe Councillor for Science. And are you ready for that?”

He took another drink of wine, a deliberately small one, thinking: God, no. And said, “ You’rescared of her. But not scared enough. Watch it about trying to read me. You could make a mistake. You’re locked in what was. And things just may not be the same after twenty years.”

“You think I can’t read you, down to the fine print? I do, believe me, I do, right down to the fact you’re running scared of the little dear, same as you did her predecessor. I know all the twitches.”

“I know you owned the geneset first. But genesets are only part of the story. Weboth know that, don’t we? But do we both actually believe it? I wonder.”

“Oh, programming can do wonders,” Jordan said. “And you’ve been Worked for all those years. How many sessions did you have with Giraud Nye’s people, before you had one with little Ari?”

“Arrests, you mean?” He kept his tone light. “Oh, a few. But you were in one long detention, yourself, over on Planys. Do you find that makes a psychological difference? I’d say so.”

That actually caught Jordan just a little by surprise. Or maybe it stung, for reasons he hadn’t, until now, guessed. “So you won’t like having me in your office,” Jordan said, flank attack and redirect. “You don’t trust me.”

“Living the life I’ve lived, I don’t trust anybody. You think they didWork you over when you were arrested? Or aren’t you sure of that?”

Jordan avoided his eyes. In a psychmaster, that was a devastating flinch. And that avoidance hit him right in the heart, reminding him of his own little sojourns with interrogators. Ricochet, he thought, feeling the pain. Damn. And he didn’t look at Paul. He hadn’t invoked Paul’s name, or queried him. Paul wasn’t looking at him. But the shots didn’t go just at Jordan.

Salads arrived. They ate while Jordan sat and had more wine. They managed small talk, catching up on who was sleeping with whom, who was married, who had procreated. One of the many Carnaths had given natural birth to a daughter, opting to skip the birthlabs. It was the talk of the offices. Crazy, no few said.

“There’s a certain merit in it,” Jordan said. “Think of all the thousands who don’t have access to a lab, or don’t have it government‑subsidized. Fargone. Pan‑Paris. All those poor women doing it the hard way…those poor childless men with no other recourse…”

Justin didn’t often imagine Fargone, or Pan‑Paris, waystations in the dark which touched his personal world very little. He was glad not to have to imagine them, steel worlds orbiting stars whose planets, if any to speak of, were good only for mining. “We’re spoiled, I suppose.”

“Spoiled as hell,” Jordan said, more cheerfully. “Though there’s Planys, if you ever want not to be spoiled.”

Right back to the bitter edge.

And it didn’t pay to go there. “Rather not. Hope never to.”

“So how’s your apartment? Nice, I’ll imagine, being where it is.”

“Nice. Yes.”

“Bugged. Naturally.”

“Naturally.”

Main course arrived. Gratefully. Another service of wine. Jordan took a refill. He didn’t. Nor did Grant, nor Paul.

“Ever think of moving back to Education?” Jordan asked.

“I think about it.”

“You could come and visit me. But I can’t get into your restricted little paradise.”

“I know. I’m sorry about that. I really am.”

“Can’t do anything about it, can you?”

“I know it’s not going to last.”

“Isn’t it? Got a date when they’re going to stop bugging my apartment? Got a date when I can go into my son’s extravagant palace?”

“You know I don’t. Maybe, to a large extent, Dad, that depends on you.”

“Right next door to the little princess. Convenient for sex. Is that what you do for your keep?”

He said nothing, speared a bite of his dinner, and ate it. The spiced shrimp was curiously tasteless, and he resisted the impulse to lay his fork down and leave. Or have another wine. His pulse rate was up. Jordan always did that to him. And another wine would be deadly. He decided on a redirect, and had another bite of shrimp. “Paul?”

“Ser?”

“Ser, hell. I’m Justin. Remember?”

Paul’s face was generally somber. It remained that way–with good cause, tonight. “I remember.”

“Grant,” Jordan said, and Justin felt his heart kick up another notch. He couldn’t help it. And he resented that, resented Jordan having anything to do with Grant these days. “Are you taking good care of my boy? In every respect?”

“No problems, ser.” Grant’s voice was perfectly light and smooth, not a twitch. “Thank you.”

“You came through all the troubles in good shape.”

“Absolutely, Ser.”

“Have you ever needed a supervisor, beyond what you have?”

“Damn it, Jordan, just enjoy your dinner.”

“I was just asking. Concerned.”

“The hell.” Grant’s welfare and their relationship and the number of times Grant had needed a supervisor wasn’t a topic he wanted opened up. The past wasn’t. He didn’t want to list the things that had changed his relationship with Grant into a sexual one. He didn’t want Jordan’s commentary on their existence. They all ate in prickly silence for a space, except that Paul asked how long they should have to wait for Library access, which seemed a fairly minor request.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Justin said patiently. “That’s something you might legitimately ask Yanni.” He couldn’t stop himself from charitable impulses. “Or I can. I will.”

“One often thousand little nuisances,” Jordan said. “I need my own past articles. I don’t think I’m going to blow up the laboratories with information I’d find in my own damned articles, would I?”

“We do have an inquiry going in Yanni Schwartz’s office,” Paul said, “but that’s had to wait for him to get back.”

“He’s back now. This evening. Give him a day to get his feet on the ground. I’m sure he’ll give you that access.”

“Well, I’m sure I’m not a priority,” Jordan said sourly, and shoved his plate back. He’d mostly picked the chicken out of his salad and eaten a little of the green. “In any respect.”

Justin decided he was through. Grant was hardly eating. “Shall we order dessert?”

“Out of the mood, thanks.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s sad,” Jordan said. “We were one mind, once and long ago. Remember that? We were happy, then.”

“I remember you and Ari Emory got into a fight and Grant and I ended up on the short end of it. I’m not looking for a replay, Dad. If you want to pick a fight with Admin, just excuse me out of it this time.”

“Why don’t you come over for drinks after dinner?” Jordan asked. “Just a quiet family evening.”

“Did that, thanks,” Justin said. “Had enough to drink tonight, as is, and so have we all. Late supper and I’m going to bed. I’ve got a meeting in the morning.”

“Oh?”

“We’re conferring on a psychset,” Justin said.

“What stem?”

“Oh, out of the old Reza GLX tree,” Justin said, which actually was the truth, and he watched Jordan drink it in and jog a doubtless rusty memory, eyes momentarily innocent, mind working on a problem– thatwas the father he wanted back. If the conversation was going to change direction he might change his mind on dessert.

“Worker set, isn’t it?”

“There’s a new lab upriver. Or will be. It’s quite a project. Research and light manufacture.”

“And you’re picking the sets that go there?”

“Can’t discuss that one. Sorry” He wasn’t sure he should have said as much as he had. But it was common knowledge, and the answer he’d given didanswer Jordan’s question.

“And how soon does this new enterprise arise from the wasteland?”

“Awhile yet. They’ve only built the bunker as is, for the first workers. Precips are mostly built, but not online.”

“The little darling’s precocious ambition? Or Yanni’s?”

“Hers, as far as I know.”

“And only eighteen. What are we calling this installation?”

“I don’t know.”

“But with azi all picked out for it. And what CIT population? Is this where she’s sending all the dissidents?”

It wasn’t far off the mark, and Jordan Warrick could easily turn up on that list, but he didn’t want it to happen and he didn’t let his expression change, knowing that was exactly what Jordan was implying.

“I haven’t a clue about that.”

“Oh, come, you’re consulting on the psychsets of the azi component, the things they’re supposed to counter. You know damned well what CIT profile the azi will fit around, clear as a footprint.”

“Well, if I guessed, I’d be a fool to say, and you didn’t sire a fool, Dad, so give it up.”

“And she thought of this all on her own.”

“You’re assuming things I’ve never said.”

The waiter came, offering dessert. “No, thanks,” Justin said. “Just the bill.”

“Yes, ser,” the waiter said, having gotten his instructions, it seemed: the waiter tapped his handheld and called up a bill.

Thank God it was fast. Justin swept his keycard through the offered handheld and keyed a reasonable tip on a monumental charge. He gave it to the waiter, kept a pleasant smile on his own face as he pushed his chair back, and maneuvered himself between Jordan and Grant as they all got up and walked out.

“So where is this place?” Jordan asked, as they passed between the columns on their way out. “The new construction?”

“Not that far upriver.”

“Light manufacture? I just wonder what they’ll be making up there that we don’t have here. Or mining there that we can’t get elsewhere.” Jordan’s face was grim. “Oh, I have the picture, believe me. It’s no more manufacture than it is a recreation spot.”

“Assumptions are a bitch. They just don’t get you to any good outcome.”

“Lectures from my son?”

Dead stop. He faced Jordan. “I passed my majority some years ago, Dad. And you know it’s damned likely we’re bugged. So what in hell are you doing? Trying to piss off Yanni? I tell you, I really don’t appreciate being dragged into your quarrel with a kid you never met.”

“Are you afraid? Have they made you afraid?”

“The answer is no. No. I’m not afraid. I’m comfortable. I support Yanni. I support Ari, for that matter. I hope she has a long and happy career. And if you’ll take myadvice and just live here, I’m sure you’ll get along. If you want a fight for a fight’s sake, I’m sure you’ll get it from someone. I just don’t see the point in it.” He walked on, with Grant.

Jordan stayed beside him, Paul just behind. “Too beaten‑down. Too little fire. I missed your growing‑up.”

“Oh, plenty you missed, I assure you. You didn’t miss anything good. But that’s what we dealt with while you had your own troubles. It’s finished. Done is done. If you didn’t kill Ari–”

“I didn’t. You know it was a frame.”

He stopped, beyond the columns, in the public corridor, and faced Jordan. “I reserve judgement. You might have killed her–to protect your investment in me. Or Denys Nye thought she was going to die anyway, and a clone would be manageable, especially in his hands; and you weren’t connected to the right people to protect you. Whatever happened, it didn’t work for you. For good or for ill, you missed my growing‑up. You missed my times in detention. You missed my being Worked over by security, and you missed Grant’s troubles, too, but, you know, we just can’t recover those happy days, can we? So let’s not try. I’ll take your word you were innocent. You’ll take mine that I believe you. We’ll both get along.”

“We’ll talk about this tomorrow. In the office.”

“Damn it, Dad, you can’t come in there. It’s a security clearance area and you haven’t got one. So keep out!”

Jordan reached into his pocket and held out a card. Justin started to take it, automatically, and when he stalled in sudden apprehension that it had nothing to do with the office or the security clearance issue, Jordan reached out and dropped it into his coat pocket.

He wasn’t a kid, to skip out of the way. It was ludicrous. It was also an attack.

“Damn it, Jordan.”

“Damn what?”

He’d had earnest hopes when he’d heard Jordan was released and when Jordan made it home to a changed Reseune, that he’d have the father he’d been deprived of during all the Nye years. Everything would be healed and clean and new.

Neither Paul nor Grant said a word to what had just happened. He wanted to take the card out of his pocket, fling it away to be trampled by passers‑by, swept up by the cleaning‑bots–pounced on by security. He didn’t even reach into his pocket to look at it. “I really don’t appreciate this. Dad.”

“Tomorrow,” Jordan said. “See you tomorrow. That’s still one of your non‑teaching days, isn’t it?”

“No,” he said. “You’re notmoving in with us.”

“Tomorrow,” Jordan said again–the way he’d just held his ground in arguments two decades ago. No argument. Just a position from which he wouldn’t budge. “That was myoffice.”

“Damn it, Jordan.”

“My office, I say. Sure you won’t come over for an after‑dinner drink?”

“Good night,” Justin said, and started off in his own direction, toward the doors. Grant walked beside him, not saying a word until they’d exited the corridor for the outside, and started across the darkened quadrangle.

“You told him no,” Grant said. “But he will come ahead tomorrow anyway, won’t he?”

“My bet is on it,” he said. “And we’ve got to advise the staff Lock up the office if we have to. Damn him, Grant, damnhim. All he has to do to fit in is just do nothing. That’s the only requirement, just settle in, don’t push any buttons, and let things be.” Grant said nothing in reply, and Justin remembered that face, set and angry: Jordan, his elder twin–biologically speaking. Twin psychologically speaking, so far as being raised by his father went. Next best thing to psychogenesis.

Ari’s face, too. Elder Ari’s face. A glass in his hand. The feeling of being drugged. Sex. And a voice saying–

He couldn’t remember what she’d said. To this day, it blacked out at that point. He’d tried not to let his father know what had happened. He’d tried so hard.

But too many had known.

And he’d spent his next years being arrested for the suspicion of thinking. He’d given up his father’s head‑on attack on life and adopted a stubbornness that laid low, laid modest plans, and just survived into the next Ari’s growing up, to become a general annoyance to Denys Nye.

Mirror into mirror, physically, himself with Jordan. But the psychology Jordan knew in his son had been Worked on and Worked over every time they’d arrested him and hauled him in…

He suspected they’d tried to bend him, at least.

But cracking any Working the first Ari had done–that wasn’t easy. He’d been set on a course. He’d even begun to cling to it, mentally, telling himself from the start that the Nyes could have done the murder themselves, and that they might someday kill him, but they weren’t going to crack him, because he was Ari’spiece of work. What kept him alive, he greatly suspected, was the fact they couldn’t tell whether he was somehow essential in the plans Ari had laid down–essential in the construction of her own psychological and physiological clone. The genius that had made Reseune what it was had to be reborn to keep the power Reseune had, which was currently in their hands: and if Justin Warrick was somehow part of it–the Nyes had to keep him alive.

They’d gone into convulsions of policy when their precious clone had found her way to him.

They hadn’t known what to do with him after that, except try to make sure he didn’t come up with any Working of his own, where it regarded the little girl, who’d become a bigger girl, who’d become a young woman and developed notions her guardians finally couldn’t control.

Sex, prominent among them. He’d gotten away from her. He’d known that was worth his life, but the Nyes weren’t what scared hell out of him in that regard. What scared him was young Ari herself, the fact that there was no predicting what psychological trigger could go off in that interface, as if whatever the first Ari had done had set a mark on him that wouldn’t stay quiet if he ever got involved with child‑Ari. It wasn’t where he wanted to go. It wasn’t who he was supposed to be. His whole being shrieked no and he backed away.

And Jordan came back into his life, now that the Nyes were done, and now that Yanni Schwartz was in charge.

Yanni sat sphinxlike behind his desk, watching all the pieces shift on the board, doubtless wondering whether the piece that was Justin Warrick would gravitate to the troublesome piece that was Jordan, and whether Jordan would gravitate back to his old intention of getting out of Reseune and attacking its policies from the outside. Jordan had had contacts–contacts that had had contacts with the Paxers, the Abolitionists; and he’d had friends at the opposite end of the spectrum, the Defense Bureau, who’d been the first Ari’s allies, but who simultaneously wanted to get the upper hand over Reseune. And Jordan had dealt with them…back then, dealt with every contact on the planet he could use to break Reseune’s power and overthrow the system

They were all watched, constantly, had been for years, and Yanni reported regularly to an eighteen‑year‑old girl who would own absolute power over ReseuneLabs whenever she wanted to take it up. Within a decade, the corporation that was creating population and civilization in the farthest reaches of human exploration would come back under the control of a second Ariane Emory.

And a third Ariane, someday. That event was already in the planning stages. Every detail of young Ari’s life was being stored up, the way the first Ari’s life had been stored.

And come the day, the inevitable day–the question would be…which of the two Aris ought to be born again.

And how many of the people who’d been part and parcel of the second Ari’s life had to be recreated, and whichAri were those replicates going to have to deal with?

He had a horrid suspicion a storage somewhere now had hisdata, and Grant’s programming, and maybe Yanni’s. Giraud Nye, who had probably never looked to face such an event, was already less than a year from rebirth. Denys Nye, the shadowy eminence who’d run the labs in the interim years, was still a question mark…but he’d bet a year’s pay which way that decision was going to go. Ari’s teenaged emotions were still in the ascendant; but the cold, keen intellect was rising fast.

He didn’t know how much of that situation Jordan knew. How did you tell your father you–and therefore he, through you–were destined for immortality, right along with the original Ari, Jordan’s onetime partner and lifelong rival, all to help her exist again and go on shaping humankind for all eternity?

It wasn’t going to make for family tranquility once Jordan got that picture, that was for very damned certain.

And that city young Ari was founding, upriver from ReseuneLabs? Who wasgoing to live there, but people that Ari didn’t want living under Reseune’s roof, or downriver in Novgorod, either, where the government and other troubles resided?

“It should have been a pleasant evening,” he remarked, in the chill, deep silence of the deserted quadrangle, the absence, usually, of electronic bugs…unless somebody was aiming ears specifically at them. And he wouldn’t say absolutely that that wasn’t the case, given the red flag of Jordan’s invitation. “I’d tried to look forward to it.” He felt the card in his pocket, a little paper card.

“Tried?” Grant asked.

“He’s bitter,” Justin said. “I can’t blame him for that part of his attitude. Twenty years in exile…”

“Against whom should he be bitter?” Grant asked. Judging CIT emotions was not what he was born to do. “You? Does he blame you because you work with young Ari? Is it Yanni he dislikes? Or did I miss the entire point of that discussion?”

“No. You didn’t miss it. He blames me for coming out of it on her side. That’s one thing.”

“They’re all dead, all the ones actually responsible for his situation. Yanni’s alive. But Yanni didn’t send your father away, did he?”

“He didn’t, exactly. Or he actually may have, but the deal probably saved Jordan’s life. But the fact those responsible are dead now is only one more frustration for him. A slice of his life is gone in those two decades. He could live a hundred years more, on rejuv. But all he sees is the twenty years he lost. And the fact he’s been robbed of a fight about it. And what he really wants–what he really wants, between you and me, is no Reseune.”

Several more paces in silence. “What would take its place?” Grant asked. “Does he know that?”

“I didn’t say it was a reasonable attitude.”

“He’s as intelligent as either of us.”

“That’s no guarantee of rationality.”

“I’ve observed that occasionally,” Grant said dryly. It was worth a dry laugh, even under the circumstances.

“What I’ve said still holds,” Justin said. “You’re not to go anywhere near him without me, and you’re not to occupy a room with him or Paul without me, and you’re not to take seriously anything he tells you privately, not even if he tells you I’m dying. Just–no matter how finely you dice it–stay away from him.”

“He Created me. Reseune forever holds my Contract and you’re my Supervisor. I know what’s right.”

“Contract, hell. Protect yourself.”

“Protecting myself, I protect you. That’s logical, isn’t it?”

“Very. I’m glad you see it that way.”

“Someone is by the pond,” Grant remarked. And it was true. A shadow stood near the small fishpond ahead of them, where quadrangle walks crossed. Four benches offered seating there, to anybody who wanted to contemplate the water–a pleasant place to sit and think, on a sunny summer day. It was still April, it was long after dark, and the wind was up. Their ordinary coats were barely enough to make a walk to the other wing bearable. And somebody was standing there in the dark, somebody in dark, close‑fitting clothing.

The shadow watched the water. It might be a despondent lover, someone wanting solitude. It might have nothing to do with them.

But fear had been a constant, in the Nye years. Fear of arrest. Fear of being tampered with, of having Grant tampered with–Ari was their only protection. And Ari wasn’t going out of her Wing lately.

The figure had been intent on the water. Now the head turned. The whole body turned to stand confronting them.

“Ser,” the shadow said politely as they met, and recognition revised the shadowed vision into familiar detail, the black elite Security uniform, dark curly hair, light build.

Florian. Ari’s personal bodyguard. A youth no older than Ari herself, with absolute power–to arrest. To kill, without a second’s warning. And he had that damned card in his pocket.

“Jordan proposes to share your office,” Florian said.

“I told him no.” Surely Ari’s security knew he had. He’d bet his life they’d heard every word of it. And it was better than other alternatives.

“Let him have it. Your materials will go to another office.” Florian held out a keycard, offering it.

He took it. He had no choice but take it, in a hand growing chill through. “But our personnel–”

“Sorry, ser, they’ll have to find other employment. They aren’t cleared for Wing One.”

“They’re our people.”

“No longer.”

“And the computers, our files…we have notes, handwritten notes–the order they’re in–in delicate position. Stacks that can’t be disrupted without losing information–we’re not that neat. Things we can’t have just anybody rifling through, for God’s sake. It’s a mess, but we know where things are. Things in the safe. Look, if we have to do this, we can go over there tonight. We need to do this ourselves…we’re willingto do it ourselves.”

“We’re aware of the state of your office,” Florian said–dark humor at his expense, he had no idea. “And qualified personnel will perform the transfer.”

“We need to go over there.”

“Best you don’t, ser, so the persons moving it can do so with the greatest attention to detail. All the items will be there in the morning, in their original order, and new equipment will be in place in your former office by 0500.”

“For him. Buggedequipment.”

“Absolutely.”

“He’ll think I arranged this. No matter how you explain it, he’ll think I had something to do with this.”

“Unfortunate if so, ser, but your notes will be safe, and your staff will be safe, in other employ, at a priority. They’ll be given employment, no problem. Just not Wing One.”

At least they wouldn’t miss a paycheck, Em, and the others. They’d be all right. But they were the ones that knew his work. They’d been his people.

“No wipe.”

“No wipe, ser. Nothing of the sort.” This with a slight shift of the shadowed gaze toward Grant, and back. “We ask you to accept this arrangement and not attempt to circumvent it in any fashion. Grant, you’re not to go there, either.”

“My father won’t take this well at all,” Justin said. “I’m afraid he’ll be in Yanni’s office in the morning.”

“We’ll advise the Director. It’s not your problem, ser.”

“I appreciate your concern.” The cold of the night had penetrated his dinner jacket. He felt a shiver coming on. “I’m freezing, at the moment. Can you tell me–I take it, it was Ari ordered this?”

“Sera has retired for the evening. We’re operating on our own discretion, on sera’s general instruction. We’ll inform sera in the morning. You won’t need to.”

“And where is this new office?”

“Downstairs, ground level, and a right turn from your apartment. More convenient, and a better office, I believe. There’s room for staff. But it will be Wing One‑approved staff.”

Yanni Schwartzdidn’t maintain an office in that high‑security territory. He had one, already, a cubbyhole he used for Ari’s lessons. Downstairs–those rooms–they had a historic connection with the old Wing One lab, where the first Ari had died. That lab had been decommissioned now. And he didn’t know how up to date the offices in that area were, these days, whether they were still tied into System. But Florian said their computers were coming over. They must be.

“Do go on, ser,” Florian said. “You’re chilled. Good night to you.”

“Thank you,” he said, and started on his way, Grant attending without a word.

Then he thought of Jordan’s card in his pocket, wondered, all in a rush, what sort of trouble he could bring down on Jordan’s head; and considered the fact that Florian hadn’t asked him for it.

Florian didn’t know? Something had slipped past Ari’s staff? It had been a surreptitious handoff.

But Reseune Security surely knew. Florian might let him go his way. But someone inside Ari’s wing might confront him yet.

Maybe Catlin. Maybe, worse thought, someone he didn’t know, out of ReseuneSec, and that was more trouble than he wanted. He’d been fluxed by the office matter. He had an excuse for having forgotten.

But an azi of Florian’s bent didn’t flux. Not for two seconds running. Florian damned well hadn’t forgotten it.

He stopped, turned, reached into his pocket. Pulled out the thin card. “Florian.”

Florian had walked the other direction–was a diminished figure in the dark. But he heard, and stopped.

“I’ll take it to him,” Grant said.

He surrendered it without a word. Grant knew. Grant had seen Jordan’s action. Grant knew his reasoning the way Grant knew their situation from the inside out.

Grant crossed the dark distance between them, delivered the card, and walked back again. Florian stood there a moment, until Grant reached him, took the card, then turned and pursued his way back to Admin, where they had come from, and maybe on to the Education Wing beyond it, where their office was–or had been.

“Damn,” he said when Grant joined him. “Damn it. Grant.”

“Do you know what was on the card?” Grant asked.

“I haven’t the faintest, It may be a joke, for all I know. I don’t want to know. Damn him!”

“I intend to evade Jordan’s company, in private,” Grant said. “I’m relatively confident I could, even if we shared an office. But it seems the question is settled for now.”

“Settled,” Justin found himself saying, and realized it was impossible the second the word came out of his mouth. “It isn’t settled–not with him. Whatever quarrel he had with his Ari isn’t mine. It wasn’t mychoice to support young Ari against him. But–”

“But?”

“He’ll keep it going. And maybe he’s justified. Maybe he’s pure and right and just my living here put me on the other side. I’ve missed him all these years. But here I am, living on the other side, in herwing, working in herwing…”

“A different Ari. A very different Ari.”

“We don’t know how different she’ll become, as time passes.”

“Even azi,” Grant said, “aren’t identical.”

“But her interests are the same as the first Ari’s.”

“The people who pursued us are dead.”

“And all being reincarnated.” He reached the door. And stopped there, in the wind and the dark, in the last haven before they went into heavily monitored Wing One. “Maybe that concept ought to bother me more than it does.”

“You think that constitutes Jordan’s motive in this? That he believes she’ll eventually become his enemy?”

“I think it’s personal. I think it’s him against Ari. All the traits that make her and him. My immortality–if they do that to us–won’t be his. I don’t know if he’ll see it that way, but we’re not, thank God, psychological twins. I’m myself. I’m the first of myself. The only.”

“I understand that,” Grant said, who was also the first and only of his kind…so far.

“Thinking about it makes me a little crazy.”

“You’re notcrazy. Your actions have been completely logical, given the flux.”

“Including giving her security that card? Jordan’s going to land in trouble for it, and I set him up for it.”

“No. He set youup for it. You simply returned the favor.”

Cool, clear, utterly reasonable. He shivered in the cold wind. “Sometimes I don’t understand him. I just don’t understand him. Or I don’t want to.”

“Your father is intelligent. He iscapable of staying out of trouble. He simply declines to do that.”

“And it’s what you always said. CITs have their logic sets installed late. Emotions on the bottom, logic on the top. Sometimes it’s a complete bitch‑up.”