Текст книги "Cyteen "
Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh
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There was no good in panic, he told himself, since there was nothing, absolutely nothing he could do about it, nowhere he could hide and nothing he could do, ultimately, to stop them if that was what they intended.
But the first night that he had been alone with all the small lonely sounds of a very large apartment and no knowledge what was happening on the other side of the world, he had shot himself with one of the adrenaline doses they kept, along with knock-out doses of trank, in the clinical interview room; and taken kat on top of it.
Then he had sat down crosslegged at the side of his bed, and dived down into the innermost partitions he had made in himself, altering things step by step in a concentration that slicked his skin with sweat and left him dizzy and weak.
He had not been sure that he could do it; he was not sure when he exited the haze of the drug and the effort, that the combination of adrenaline and cataphoric would serve, but his heart was going like a hammer and he was able to do very little more after that than fall face down on the bed and count the beats of his heart, hoping he had not killed himself.
Fool was the word for a designer who got into his own sets and started moving them around.
Not much different, though, from what the test-unit azi did, when they organized their own mental compartmentalizations and controlled the extent to which they integrated new tape. It was a question of knowing one's own mental map, very, very thoroughly.
He turned off the computer, turned off the lights and locked the office door on his way out, walking the deserted hall to go back to that empty apartment and wait through another night.
Azi responses, dim and primal, said go to another Supervisor. Find help. Take a pill. Accept no stress in deep levels.
Of course doing the first was extremely foolish: he was not at all tempted. But taking a pill and sleeping through the night under sedation was very, very tempting. If he sedated himself deeply enough he could get through the night and go meet Justin's plane in the morning: it was only reasonable, perhaps even advisable, since the trank itselfwould present a problem to anyone who came after him, and if they were going to try anything at the last moment—
No, it was a very simple matter to delay a plane. They could always get more time, if they suddenly decided they needed it.
Mostly, he decided, he did not trank himself because he felt there was some benefit in getting through this without it; and that thought, perhaps, did not come from the logical underside of his mind—except that he saw value in endocrine-learning, which the constantly reasonable, sheltered, take-a-tape-and-feel-good way did not let happen. If it were an azi world everything would be black and white and very, very clear. It was the grays of flux-thinking that made born-men. Shaded responses in shaded values, acquired under endocrine instability.
He did not enjoy pain. But he saw value in the by-product.
He also saw value in having the trank in his pocket, a double dose loaded in a hypospray, because if they tried to take him anywhere, he could give them a real medical emergency to worry about.
iii
Nelly, Ari reflected, was still having her troubles.
"We have to be careful with her," Ari said to Florian and Catlin, in a council in Florian and Catlin's room, while Nelly was in the dining room helping Seely clean up.
"Yes, sera," Florian said earnestly; Catlin said nothing, which was normal: Catlin always let Florian talk if she agreed. Which was not to say Catlin was shy. She was just that way.
And Nelly had taken severe exception to Catlin showing Ari how to do an over-the-shoulder throw in the living room.
"You'll hurt yourself!" Nelly had cried. "Florian, Catlin, you should have better sense!"
Actually, it was Florian who was the one with the complaint coming, since Florian was the one on the floor. He was being the Enemy. Florian was all right: he could land and come right back up again, but Catlin wasn't teaching her what to do next, just first, and Florian was lying down being patient while Catlin was showing her how to make sure he wouldn't get up.
Nelly had heard the thump, that was all, and come flying in after Florian was down in the middle of the rug. Catlin was demonstrating how to break somebody's neck, but she was doing it real slow. If Catlin was really doing it and pulling it, she was so fast you could hardly see what she did. Catlin and Florian had showed her how to fall down and roll right up again. It was marvelous what they could do.
Sometimes they played Ambush, when they had the suite to themselves. You turned out the lights and had to find your way through.
She was alwaysthe one who was Got. That was all right. She was getting harder to Get and she was learning things all the time. It was a lot more fun than Amy Carnath.
Florian showed her a whole lot of things about computers and how to set Traps and do real nasty things with a Minder, like blow somebody up if you had a bomb, but they kept those down in the Military section. She knew about voice-prints and how the Minder knew who you were, and how handprint locks were linked into the House computer, along with retina-scans and all sorts of things; and how to make the electric locks open without a keycard.
Florian found out a lot of things, real fast. He said the House residential locks were all a special kind that was real hard to get past. He said that uncle Denys' apartment had a lot of interesting stuff, like really specialspecial locks, that were tied in somewhere Florian couldn't trace, but he thought it was Security: he said he could try to find out, but he could get in trouble and they were Olders and he would do it only if she wanted.
He wouldn't tell her that until they were outside, because he and Catlin had found out other things.
Like the Minder could listen to you.
It was a special kind, Florian had told her: it could hear anything and see anything, and it was specially quiet, so you never knew; and specially shielded, with the tape functions somewhere outside the apartment. The lenses and the pickups could be small as pinheads, the lenses could be fish-eyed and the pickups could be all kinds, motion detection and sound. "They can put one of those in the walls," Florian said, "and it's so tiny and so transparent you can't see it unless you go over the walls with a bright light sort of sideways, or if you've got equipment, which is the best, but they have real good focus. Then they can digitalize and you can get it a lot tighter than that. Same with the audio. They can run a voice-stress on you. If they want something they can get it. That's if they want to. It's a lot of work. Most Minders are real simple and you can get into them. The ones in the House are all the complicated kind, all security, all built-ins, and it's really hard to spot all the pickups if they set them into the cement between stones and stuff. "
That had made her feel real upset. "Even in the bathroom?"she had asked.
Florian had nodded. "Especially, because if you're setting up surveillance, they're going to try to go places they don't think they'll have a bug. "
She had gone to uncle Denys then, and asked, worried:
"Uncle Denys, is there a bug in my bathroom?"
And uncle Denys had said: "Who told you that?"
"Is there?"
"It's for Security, " uncle Denys had said. "Don't worry about it. They don't turn them on unless they have to. "
"I don't want it in my bathroom!"
"Well, you're not a thief, either, dear, are you? And if you were, the alarm would go off in Security and the Minder would watch and listen. Don't worry. "
"Yes, ser, " she said; and had Florian go over the whole bathroom till he found the lenses and the pickups and put a dab of clay over them. Except the one in the wall-speaker. So she hung a towel over it, and Nelly kept moving it, but she always put it back.
Florian found the ones in the bedroom too, but uncle Denys called her in and told her Security had found the bathroom pickups dead in a regular test they ran, and he would let her cover up the bathroom ones, but the rest were apartment Security, and she had better not mess with them.
So they hadn't.
That wasn't the only Security, either. Catlin said Seely was Security. So was Abban, Giraud's azi. She could tell. Florian said he thought so too.
Catlin taught her things too: how to stand so still nobody could hear you, and where all the spots were that you ought to hit for if somebody attacked you.
So uncle Denys didn't need to worry so much about security all the time, and didn't need to worry about her being in the halls. And when maman's letter came—it had to come, soon; she had the months figured out—then she could take care of herself going to Fargone.
She was a lot more scared of going where there were strangers than she had ever been, since she had begun to understand there were a lot of people outside Reseune who wanted to break into places and steal and a lot who would kill you or grab you and steal you;but at least it was a scared that knew how to spot somebody being wrong; and she was learning how to handle nasty people more than by getting Hold of them and Working them.
She would really like to do it to Amy Carnath.
But that was where you stopped thinking about like-to and knew how wide that would go, all over the place, and Amy would really be dead, which meant something you couldn't take back and you couldn't Work and you couldn't get Hold of.
You got a lot more by Working people, if you had the time.
That was something she showed Florian and Catlin a little about. But not too much. First, they were azi, and you couldn't push them and it was hard to show them without doingit; and, second, she didn't want them learning how to do it at her.
For one thing she had to be best at it. She was their Super.
For another, they made her scared sometimes; sometimes she really wanted them, and sometimes she wished she didn't have them, because they made her mad and they made her laugh and they made her think sometimes, in the middle of the night, that she shouldn't like them that much, because maman might not let them come.
She didn't know why she thought that, but it hurt a lot, and she hated it when people made her scared; and she hated it when people made her hurt.
"We shouldn't get in trouble, " she said to Florian and Catlin, when they were in the room after Nelly had scolded them; and finally, because it was on her mind, sneaked up on what she had been wanting to tell them for a long time, but it was hard to put words on it and it made her stomach upset. "I know a lot of people who aren't here anymore. You get in trouble and they get Disappeared. "
"What's that?" Florian asked.
"They just aren't here anymore. "
"Dead?" Catlin asked.
Her heart jumped. She shook her head, hard. "Just Disappeared. Out to Fargone or somewhere. " The next was hard to talk about. She warned them with her face to be real quiet or she would be mad, because it wasn't Nelly she was going to talk about. "My maman and her azi got Disappeared. She didn't want to. Uncle Denys said she had real important business out on Fargone. Maybe that's so. Maybe it isn't. Maybe it's what they tell you because you're a kid. A lot of kids got Disappeared, too. That's why I'm real careful. You've got to be careful. "
"If anybody Disappears us, " Catlin said, "we'll come back. "
That was like Catlin. Catlin would,too, Ari thought, or at least Catlin and Florian would do a lot of damage.
"My maman is real smart, " she said, "and Ollie is real strong, and I'm not sure they just grab you. I think maybe they Work you, you know, they psych you. "
"Who's our Enemy?" Florian asked.
It was the way they thought. Her heart beat hard. She had never, ever talked about it with anyone. She had never, ever thought about it the way the azi did, without being in the middle of it. Things suddenly made sense when you thought the way they did, straight and plain, without worrying. And when you thought: what if it couldbe an Enemy? She sat trying to think about who could do things like grab people and psych people and Disappear strong grown-up people without them being able to do anything about it.
She dragged Florian real close and whispered right into his ear between her two hands, the way you had to do if you really wanted something to be secret, because of the Minder—and if they were talking about an Enemy, you didn't know where you were safe. "I think it might be Giraud. But he's not a regular Enemy. He can give you orders. He can give Security orders. "
Florian looked real upset. Catlin elbowed him and he leaned over and whispered in Catlin's ear the same way.
Then Catlin looked scared, and Catlin didn't do that. She pulled Catlin close and whispered: "That's the only one I know could have Got my maman. "
Catlin whispered in her ear: "Then you have to Get him first. "
"He might not be it!" she whispered.
She sat and she thought, while Catlin passed it to Florian. Florian said something back, and then leaned forward and said to her: "We shouldn't be talking about this now. " She looked at Florian, upset.
"An Older is real dangerous, " Florian said. And in the faintest whisper of all: "Please, sera. Tomorrow. Outside. "
They understood her, then. They believed her, not just because they were azi. What she said made sense to them. She tucked up her legs in her arms and felt shaky and stupid and mad at herself; and at the same time thought she had not put a lot of things together because she hadn't had any way of making it make sense. She had thought things just happened because they happened, because they had always happened and the world was that way. But that was stupid. It wasn't just things that happened, people made things happen, and Florian and Catlin knew that the way she should have known it if it hadn't always been there, all the time.
What's unusual?was a game they played. Florian or Catlin would say: What's unusual in the living room? And they timed how long it took you to find it. Once or twice she beat Catlin and once she beat Florian at finding it; a couple of times she set things up they had to give on. She wasn't stupid about things like that. But she felt that way about this.
The stupid part was thinking things had to be the way they were. The stupid part was that she had thought when maman went away, that someone had made her go, but then she had just fitted everything together so that wasn't so important—if maman had had to go without her, it was because she was too young and it was too dangerous. And thatwas what she had been looking at, when the Something Unusual was sitting right in plain sight beside it.
The stupid part now was the way she still didn't want to think all the way to the end of it, about how if there was an enemy and he Got maman, she didn't really know whether maman was all right; and she was scared.
She remembered arguing with uncle Denys about the party last year. And her not wanting Giraud to come; and uncle Denys said: That's not nice, Ari. He's my brother.
That was scary too.
That was scary, because uncle Giraud might get uncle Denys to do things. Uncle Giraud had Security; and they might get into her letters. They might just stop the letters going to maman at all.
And that tore up everything.
Stupid. Stupid.
She felt sick all over. And she couldn't ask uncle Denys what was true. Denys would say: He's my brother.
iv
Giraud poured more water and drank, tracking on the reports, bored while the tutors argued over the relative merits of two essays, one out of archives, one current.
Denys, Peterson, Edwards, Ivanov, and Morley: all of them around a table, discussing the implications of vocabulary choice in eight-year-olds. It was not Giraud's field. It was, God help them, Peterson's.
"The verbal development, " Peterson said, in the stultifying murmur that was Peterson in full display, "is point seven off, the significant anomaly in the Gonner Developmentals.... "
"I don't think there's any cause for worry, " Denys said. "The difference is Jane and Olga, not Ari and Ari. "
"Of course there is some argument that the Gonner battery is weighted away from concept. Hermann Poling maintained in his article in—"
It went on. Giraud drew small squares on his notepaper. Peterson did good work. Ask him a question, he had a pre-recorded lecture. Teacher's disease. Colleagues and strangers got the same as his juvenile subjects.
"In sum, " Giraud said, finally, when the water was at half in his glass, and his paper was full of squares. "In sum, in brief, then, you believe the difference was Olga. "
"The Poling article—"
"Yes. Of course. And you don't think corrective tape is necessary. "
"The other scores indicate a very substantial correspondence—"
"What John means—" Edwards said, "is that she's understanding everything, she knows the words, but so much of her development was precocious, she had an internal vocabulary worked out that for her is a kind of shorthand. "
"There may be a downside effect to insisting on a shift of vocabulary, " Denys said. "Possibly it doesn'tdescribe what she's seeing. She simply prefers slang and her own internal jargon, which I haven't tried to discourage. She does know the words, the tests prove that. Also, I'm not certain we're seeing the whole picture. I rather well think she's resisting some of the exams. "
"Why?"
"Jane, " Denys said. "The child hasn't forgotten. I hoped the letters would taper off with time. I hoped that the azi could make a difference in that. "
"You don't think, " Edwards said, "that the way that was handled—tended to make her cling to that stage; I mean, a subconscious emphasis on that stage of her life, a clinging to those memories, a refusal—as it were, to leave that stage, a kind of waiting. "
"That's an interesting theory, " Giraud said, leaning forward on his arms. "Is there any particular reason?"
"The number of times she says: 'My maman said—' The tone of voice. "
"I want a voice-stress on that, " Denys said.
"No problem, " Giraud said. "It's certainly worth pursuing. Does she reference other people?"
"No, " Edwards said.
"Not family members. Not friends. Not the azi. "
"Nelly. 'Nelly says. ' When it regards something about home. Sometimes 'my uncle Denys doesn't mind' this or that.... She doesn't respect Nelly's opinions, she doesn't respect much Nelly says, but she evidences a desire not to upset her. 'Uncle Denys' is a much more respectful reference, but more that she uses the name as currency. She's quite willing to remind you that 'my uncle Denys' takes an interest in things. " Edwards cleared his throat. "Quite to the point, she hints her influence with 'uncle Denys' can get me a nicer office. "
Denys snorted in surprise, and laughed then, to Edwards' relief. "Like the party invitation?"
"Much the same thing. "
"What about Ollie?" Giraud asked.
"Quite rarely. Almost never. I'm being precise now. I'd say she used to mention Ollie right after Jane left. Now—I don't think I've heard that name in a long time. Maybe more than a year. "
"Interesting. Justin Warrick?"
"She never mentions him. I did, if you recall. She was quite anxious to quit the subject. That name never comes up. "
"Worth the time on the computers to run a name search, " Denys said.
On all those tapes. On years of tapes. Giraud let his breath flow out and nodded. More personnel. More time on the computers.
Dammit, there was pressure outside. A lot of pressure. They were prepared to go public finally, to break the story; and they had an anomaly; they had a child far less serious than the first Ari, far more capricious and more restrained in temper. The azi had not helped. There was a little more seriousness to the child lately, a little gain in vocabulary: Florian and Catlin were better at essay than she was, but the hard edge was not there, maman was still withAri in a very persistent sense, and the Warrick affair, Yanni's sudden revelation that young Justin had handed them something that stymied the Sociology computers—
Give it to Jordan, Denys had suggested. Send himto Jordan. The Warricks are far less likely to cause trouble with the Project if they're busy, and you know Jordan would work on the damned thing, no matter what it was, if it gave him a chance to see his son.
Which was trouble with Defense: they were jealous of Warrick's time. There was a chance Defense would take official interest in Justin Warrick: there was no way to run him past their noses unnoticed, and in the way of Defense, Defense wanted anything that might seem to be important, or useful, or suddenly anomalous.
Damn, and damn.
Ari wanted him,Yanni had said. And, dammit, there's something there.
There was the paradox of the Project: how wide the replication had to be. How many individuals, essential to each other? Thank God the first Ari's society had been extremely limited in terms of personal contacts—but it had been much more open in terms of news-services and public contact from a very early age.
"We've got to go ahead, " Giraud said. "Dammit, we've got to take her public, for a whole host of reasons, Lu's out of patience and we're running out of time! We can't be wrong, there's no way we can afford to be wrong. "
No one said anything. It was too evident what the stakes were.
"The triggers are all there, " Petros said. "Not all of them have been invoked. I think a little more pressure. Academic will do. Put it on her. Frustrate her. Give her things she's bound to fail in. Accelerate the program. "
That had consistently been Petros' advice.
"She hasn't met intellectual frustration, " Denys said, "—yet. "
"We don't want her bloody bored with school, either, " Giraud snapped. "Maybe it isan option. What do the computers say lately, when they're not running Warrick's school projects?"
"Do we run it again?" Peterson asked. "I don't think there's going to be a significant change. I just don't believe you can discount the results we have. Accelerating the program when there's an anomaly in question—"
Petros leaned forward, jaw jutting. "Allowing the program to stagnate while the anomaly proliferates is your answer, is it?"
"Dr. Ivanov, allow me to make my point—"
"I knowyour damn point, we knowyour damn point, doctor. "
Giraud poured another glass of water.
"Enough on it, " he said. "Enough. We run the damn tests. We take the computer time. We get our answers. Let's have the query in tomorrow, can we do that?"
Mostly, he thought, the voice-stress was the best lead. All those lesson-sessions to scan.
The Project ate computer time at an enormous rate. And the variances kept proliferating.
So did the demands of the Council investigating committee, that wanted to get into documents containing more and more details of Science Bureau involvement in the Gehenna project, because Alliance was asking hard questions, wanting more and more information on the Gehenna colonists, and Unking it to the betterment of Alliance-Union relations.
The Centrists and the Abolitionists wanted the whole archives opened. Giraud's intelligence reported Mikhail Corain was gathering evidence, planning to call for a Council bill of Discovery to open the entire Emory archives, charging that there were other covert projects, other timebombs waiting, and that the national security took precedence over Reseune's sovereignty: that Reseune had no right to the notes and papers which Ariane Emory had accrued while serving as Councillor for Science, that those became Union property on her death, and that a bill of Discovery was necessary to find out what was Reseune's and what of Emory's papers belonged to Union archives.
There were timebombs, for certain. The essential one was aged eight, and exposing her to the vitriol and the hostility in Novgorod—making her the center of controversy—
Everything came down to that critical point. They had to go public.
Before they ended up with a Discovery bill opening all Ari's future secrets into public view, where a precocious eight-year-old could access them out of sequence.
v
In mornings it was always lessons, and Ari took hers with Dr. Edwards in his office or in the study lab, but it was not just mornings now, it was after lunch in the library and the tape-lab, so there was a lot of follow-up and Dr. Edwards asked her questions and gave her tests.
Catlin and Florian had lessons every day too, their own kind, down in the Town at a place they called Green Barracks; and one day a week they had to stay in Green Barracks overnight. That was when they did a Room or did special drill. But most times they were able to meet her at the library or the lab and walk her home.
They did this day, both of them very proper and solemn in their black uniforms, but more solemn than usual, when they walked down to the doors and out to the crosswalk.
"This is as safe as we can find to talk, " Catlin said.
"But you don't know, " Florian said. "There's equipment that can hear you this far if they want to. You can't say they won't, you can just keep changing places so if they're not really expecting you to say something they want right then they won't bother. Set-up is a lot of work if your Subject moves around a lot. "
"If they didn't hear us last night, I don't think they would be onto us, " Ari said. She knew how to be nice enough not to get in trouble without being too nice and making people think she was up to something. But she didn't say that. She walked with them along toward the fishpond. She had brought food in her pocket. "What were you going to tell me?"
"It's this, " said Catlin. "You should hit your Enemy first if you can. But you have to be sure, first thing, whoit is. Then how many, where are they, what have they got? That's the next thing you have to find out. "
"When your Enemy is an Older, " Florian said, "it's real hard to know that, because they know so much more. "
"If he's not expecting it, " Catlin said, "anybody can be Got. "
"But if we try and miss, " Florian said, "they willtry to Disappear us. So we re not sure, sera. I think we could Get them. For real. I could steal some stuff that would. They put it in Supply, and they're real careless. They ought to fix that. But I can get it. And we could kill the Enemy, just it's real dangerous. You get one chance with an Older. Usually just one. "
"But if you don't know where his partners are, " Catlin said, "they'll Get you. It depends on how much that's worth. "
That made a lot of things she was thinking fall into place. Click. She walked along with her hands in her pockets and said: "And if you don't know all those things, it's more than getting caught; it's not knowing what one to grab next. There's things that run all over Reseune, there's what his partners are going to do, there's who's friends and who's not, and who's going to take Hold of things, and we can't do that. "
"I don't know, " Florian said. "You'd have to know those things, sera, we wouldn't. I know we could Get one, maybe two, if we split up, or if we could get the targets together. That's the main ones. But it's not near all the ones that would be after us. "
They reached the fishpond. Ari knelt down at the edge of the water and took the bag of fish-food out of her pocket. Catlin and Florian squatted beside her. "Here, " she said, passing them the bag to get their own, and then tossed a bit into the water for the white one that came up, from under the lilies. White-and-red was almost as fast. She watched the rings go out from the food, and from the strike, and the lilies swaying. "He's not easy, " she said finally. We can't Get everything. There are too many hook-ups. Connections. He's important; he's got a lot of people, not just in Reseune, and what he's got– Security, for one thing. I don't know what else. So even if he was gone—" It was strange and upsetting to be talking about killing somebody. It didn't feel real. But it was. Florian and Catlin really could do it. She was not sure that made her feel safer, but it made her feel less like things were closing in on her. "—We'd still be in trouble.
"Also, " she said, "they could Get my maman and Ollie. For real. " They didn't understand that part, she thought, because they had never had a maman, but they looked at her like they took it very seriously. "I'm afraid they could have. They're at Fargone. I sent letters. They should have got there by now. Now I'm not sure—" Dammit, she was going to snivel. She saw Florian and Catlin look at her all distressed. "—I'm not sure, " she said in a rush, hard and mad, "they ever got sent. "
They didn't understand, for sure. She tried to think of what she had left out they had to know.
"If there is an Enemy, " she said, "I don't know what they want. Sometimes I thought maman left me here because it was too dangerous to go with her. Sometimes I thought she left me here because they made her. But I don't know why, and I don't know why she didn't tell me. "
The azi didn't say anything for a minute. Then Florian said: "I don't think I'd try to say. I don't think Catlin can. It's CIT. I don't understand CITs. "
"CITs have connections, " she said. It was like telling them how to Work someone. She felt uneasy telling them. She explained, making a hook out of two fingers to hook together. "To other CITs. Like you to Catlin and Catlin to you and both of you to me. Sometimes not real strong. Sometimes real, real strong. That's the first thing. CITs do things foreach other, sometimes because it feels good, sometimes because they're Working each other. And sometimes they do things to Get each other. A lot of times it's to protect themselves, sometimes their connections: connections are a lot more in danger, sometimes, if you don't let your Enemy be sure where yourconnections are, and whether some of them are to people he's connected to. Like building-sticks. "
Wide, attentive stares. Anxious stares. Even from Catlin.
"So you can Work somebody to make them do something if you want to, if you tell him you'll hurt him or hurt somebody he's connected to. Like if somebody was going to hurt me, you'd react. " While she was saying it she thought: So it's maman they must want something out of, because maman's important. If that's true she's all right. They're Working her with me.
