Then the stinger: Please include me in them from now on.

Section 2

Chapter i.

June 11, 2424 2158 H.

Giraud"s eyes had been changing position slowly. By this seventeenth week they had moved all the way onto the front of his face, so he was much more Giraud than he"d ever been.

He"d gained weighthadn"t kept up with Abban in size, but was about the same as Seely. He not only twitched to stimuli this week, his bones had begun to harden out of the tough cartilage that earlier comprised his skeleton, and his joints, responding to muscle twitches, had begun to flex and move in a way they would do for the rest of his life.

He"d also gained a new sense: he had actually heard the maternal heartbeat that had timed his life & he heard it when a tech dropped a pan: he couldn"t tell it was different than taste or smellevery stimulus was the same to him, but he reacted, the way a plant might react. His newly functioning joints moved.

His sense of hearing would grow more acute as time pa.s.sed, but Seely"s would be extraordinary, an a.s.set, in Seely"s future profession.

And something else had changed, radically so, for Giraud. He was solo now. His brother Denys" sequence number had been active in the birthlab computer until just last week, a soft scheduling that would have let it go to implementation on any given day. That data and that material had gone back to deep storage, the CIT number dumped from lab files, officially disconnected from Giraud"s, so even if he looked, someday, he might find it hard to find his brother until his Base was significantly higher than the lab"s.

Denys might yet be born. There was seven years yet to change that back without deviating from program & seven years had been the gap between the brothers. But for now that data had quietly slipped deep into storage, with no extant string to pull it out. That would have to be rebuilt.

A subsequent generation might change its mind about connecting Denys to Giraud, having both of that set.

This one wasn"t likely to.

Chapter ii.

June 11, 2424 2158 H.

Living next door to Ari had its momentsone of them being about suppertime, when the hall suddenly flooded with ReseuneSec in uniform, and Justin"s plans for dinner out had taken second place to ingrained apprehension. Their door had stayed shut. The ma.s.s of black uniforms had, instead, been admitted to young Ari"s apartment, all of them at once.

Well, Justin said to himself, that was unnerving. Thirty was the number of Ari"s own detail, if the records he"d pa.s.sed on had been all-inclusive. Had that been thirty? It could be.

And were they safe, for G.o.d"s sake? Ari had yanked the initiative back from him, unfinished, said it was all right, he and Grant had been right Right? There"d been some sort of problem. He knew there was. Grant agreed. And she went ahead anyway.

"She must have done something," Justin commented to Grant, who stood at his shoulder to see the minder"s vid image. "She wouldn"t have them all in there, if she hadn"t. d.a.m.n, I still can"t find the glitch, and h.e.l.l if I want to ask hershe"s confident enough, as is."

The message she"d sent, taking the project back, still rankled. He"d lost sleep on that work. Lost a major amount of sleep. And he still didn"t have an answer, or a real thank you. There had been times, in the last few weeks, when he actually understood his father"s feud with the original.

Grant"s hand landed on his shoulder. "Doesn"t look like a good evening for us to go out," Grant said.

He ran a capture on the security monitor"s immediate record. "Entertainment," he said. And dinner out became dinner in.

They popped pizza into the luxury apartment"s very fast oven, and opened a respectable wine while they reviewed the tape & Yes, there were thirty. Thirty who presumably were about to be received and probably instructed inside Ari"s fairly capacious living area & after which they would presumably pour back out into the hall, ready to go on duty.

It was d.a.m.ned certain the thirty, plus the recently acquired domestic staff, weren"t by any means going to fit in that apartment"s staff quarters. So they had to be living somewhere else in the wing, likely downstairs.

"That"s the BR-283," Justin said, regarding the tall one with the officer"s silver on his collar. "Cla.s.sic officer set. Dates from the 2370s. Spooky, how much like Regis he looks."

"Not spooky," Grant said with a little laugh. "It would be spooky if he didn"t."

"I wonder whatever happened to Regis."

"No knowing," Grant said. The laugh had immediately vanished.

Dark thoughts. A dark time, a time worth forgetting. The crowd in the hall represented a new age. A new beginning. Regis had vanished, along with the rest of the first Ari"s staff. No one ever saw them again. Rumor had it her Florian and her Catlin had been terminated. No one knew how many others.

Cheerfulness, for G.o.d"s sake. The little minx had probably fixed whatever glitch there was in the BR set. Figure how she"d fixed it inside several weeks of working the problem & that was a question.

"Probably she did exactly what Jordan complained about," he said to Grant, "and went after the deep set on the BR. Fast fix."

"That"s one way to get his attention," Grant said. "It would be logical."

"Rough on him."

Grant gave a slow, thoughtful nod. "But it would work. And they"re ReseuneSec. Those are odd sets from the beginning."

"Cold as h.e.l.l"s hinges," Justin muttered, with other unpleasant memories, and tried to shake the mood of that black flood in the hallhis hallway as well as hers. He poured a white wine, poured another for Grant, and reran the tape. "That"s the BB-19." Justin said, regarding the thin, long-faced azi. "I"ve worked with another of that set. A bundle of nerves. Good on details. He"ll likely be scared to death of Florian and Catlin."

"With probable cause," Grant said, and, with a pizza wedge for a pointer: "That"s his counterpoint, I"m betting. BY-10. A lot like the BB-19. A good combination, those two. One"s detail, the other tends to macrofocus."

"Males generally get top posts in that house, have you noticed that? Since Florian and Catlin, that"s her predilection. It was her predecessor"s, too. Not a female in the whole lot." Flash on that apartment, that time. He"d been, then, around Ari"s age now.

And that night, in the first Ari"s apartment & had there been staff present, besides Florian and Catlin? He couldn"t remember it & didn"t want to remember. He was sorry for Florian and Catlin. He really was. It depressed him to think about it.

"And Theo ended up in authority over Jory on the domestic staff," Grant said. "I wouldn"t have advised that. Jory"s brighter. But they"ll manage. He"ll take advice."

"You know, Ari is far more social than her predecessor," Justin said, envisioning that crowd in Ari"s living roomprobably being served refreshments and urged to relaxwhich would make the lot almost comically uncomfortable. No, she actually wouldn"t do it. She knew better. She"d do what would make them comfortablelike brief them, give them information. Those mindsets would like that far better than teacakes, all things considered. But sociality & she"d encourage that, far more than those mindsets had ever seen. "She has a strong inclination to go for company. Not with that lot, but in general."

"I"ve observed," Grant said.

"Right from the start. She visited our office. Whenever she got bored, she went looking for people. Cultivated a set of friends. Still does. Denys really didn"t like that habit in her. Of course, Denys didn"t like people in the first place."

"Neither did the first Ari," Grant said. "Deviation from the model. Maybe an improvement. Maybe not. I can"t imagine that the first Ari ever had that bent in early years."

"Our Ari lost Jane Stra.s.sen, but she never grew bitter, just took to chasing us. Maybe she"s more people-oriented because she didn"t spend her early years wondering if her dear mother would kill her if she disappointed. That"s what they say about Olga Emory."

"A relationship I can"t imagine," Grant murmured. "But then, I can"t imagine a mother." A tilt of Grant"s head. "Just you."

"I don"t qualify."

"You absolutely don"t. Which suits me fine."

They were lovers. They made no particular fuss over it. It was just who they were. There was n.o.body they trusted more than each other, n.o.body they loved more than each other. That had been true for years. For a time, in his growing up, if there hadn"t been Grant, he wouldn"t have been sane. If there hadn"t been himit was equally sure Grant wouldn"t have been what he was.

And if not for the first Ari"s intervention, Grant would have been Jordan"s work, entirely.

And if not for the first Ari"s intervention, so, almost undoubtedly, would he.

"I wonder what she"s building out there behind the wing," Justin said hours later, when he and Grant were in bed, after a long evening and an entertainment vid. The only light was the clock face on the minder. The security force had, as predicted, departed after a precise hour and forty-five minutes. Headed for the lift. a.s.signed, signed, and delivered And that gave Ari as much protection as any other agency in Reseune.

"Building behind the wing?" Grant asked, half asleep. "What brought that up?"

"She"s acc.u.mulating an armycounting service people, that"s a large staff."

"You think?" Grant rolled over and managed a half-awake interest. "What are you thinking?"

"I think it"s not a building to replace the old Wing One Lab. I think it"s a huge extension of this whole wing."

"You can"t really see it on the monitors."

"Lot of earthmovers going back and forth, makes the ground floor shake. A lot of stuff landed down at the dock and brought up in that direction. It"s going to be big. Everybody"s saying labs to replace the old one they shut down. I"m sayingI don"t know why Ari wants huge labs attached to this wing, unless she"s setting up to do some work."

"Makes a certain sense she would," Grant said.

"Physical labs? She doesn"t need it. She"s theory. She"s computers. She doesn"t really need that kind of thing. I"ll bet youmark meI"ll bet a month"s pay the lab story is a blind." He cast a look up at the ceiling in the dark, not sure they were monitored, never sure they weren"t. "Just a guess."

"Soif it isdoes she move out and we stay here?"

"Would she leave her favorite neighbor behind? Dammit, something in me wants to go take back our old digs, with the worn carpet and the balky green fridge, all of it. I miss the place."

"I don"t know why. We weren"t safe there."

"We were, for a while." He let go a long slow breath, and remembered. "No, I suppose we were just ignorant." He stretched, hands under the pillow, under his head. "Maybe that"s what I want to get back to. Blissful ignorance."

"I"ve found little blissful about ignorance. Besides, it"s not in my mindset to tolerate that condition."

"I"m afraid it"s not in mine, either, ultimately" Two or three slow breaths. "Too big a staff, even for a palace. She"s got staff packed into that apartment. And thirty guards? That"s a lot even for Wing One. I think we"re witnessing an expansion. She"s going to move. Get the whole wing into something that wasn"t shot all to h.e.l.l by a handful of her staff. Make sure it can"t happen again."

"It"s a lot of building. That"s certain."

"If she moves us, at least we"ll be rid of the decor."

The room & if the lights had been on & or even when they weren"t & was a horror of modern decorating, stark white, stark black, and some mitigating grays. Grant avowed he didn"t mind it much. But Grant, being azi, lived more in his mind than he did in his physical surroundings. For himself, having grown up attached to textures and physical sensations, it was absolutely appalling. Admittedly it was a place to be safe. It was a place to be monitored by reasonably friendly agencies, and to maintain an absolutely incontrovertible record, capable of proving to any inquisitive authority that they hadn"t been up to anything, and couldn"t possibly deserve to be arrested. Again.

Warm, soft place to be, however, it was notonly in this bed, with the lights out, with Grant there, safe. Insulated from the worldand Ari. And from whatever she was doing, filling the hall with a G.o.dawful lot of Reseune Security.

Making the place echo with boots.

Advancing power. He could hear it coming.

The phone rang.

"d.a.m.n." He jumped. He couldn"t help it. Nothing good made ever made a phone ring at this hour. He shot an arm out, felt after the phone-set on the nightstand. Didn"t find it, and it was still going off "Minder? Minder, answer the d.a.m.n phone!"

"Complying." the robot voice said; the clock face over on the wall brightened as the room light came up a little. A telltale beside that clock went green, and a new voice came through.

"Ser Warrick?" Female. But not Ari.

"This is Justin Warrick." He never had blocked off calls after midnight. He"d never needed to. But here it was, after midnight. And he didn"t even know any women outside this wing and Admin. "Who is this?"

"Sandi Patil. Dr. Sandi Patil."

He sat straight up in bed as Grant lay there a heartbeat, then levered himself up on an arm.

"What do you want?" He was rude. He knew it. But so was Patil, calling him out of nowhere at this hour, on business that couldn"t be good.

"Are you alone?" Patil asked.

"I"m as alone as I choose to be." He didn"t want any part of this. He waved a hand at Grant, mimed recording the conversation, which took a keypush on the console. He got up to do it himself, on the wall panel near the door, but Grant, starting on that side of the bed, beat him to it, and then turned the room lights up full. "Why don"t you call my father?"

"I can"t reach him. Listen to me. Dr. Thieu is dead."

Dead. Dead wasn"t a metaphor. Not from this source, at this hour. And he didn"t want to ask, but not getting information could be as bad as hanging up, outright, for the monitoring that went on in this place.

"Dead? How?"

"They"re saying heart attack. But I don"t believe it. They"re monitoring my phone, they"re questioning my friends &"

"Look, if you deal with my father it"s a dead certainty they"ll do that, whoever "they" are &"

"Not Reseune," Patil said. "It"s not Reseune. They have people inside."

He made a furious gesture at the other wall, in the direction of next door, Ari"s apartment. Grant understood, grabbed a robe on his way and left, running, wrapping the robe about him like a bath towel.

"What do you mean?" he asked meanwhile, trying to keep the tone even and the conversation going.

"They"ve gotten to Dr. Thieu in the heart of Planys, on the other side of the world. They can get to anyone."

"Look, somebody gave me your card, I haven"t a clue why, I don"t know who "they" are, and I don"t know why you"d be calling me. What are you into, what do you want with my father, and where in h.e.l.l did you get my number?"

"I got it from Thieu. Look, I"m in the middle of selling my apartment. All my belongings are in boxes, my physical files are in a mess and I can"t find anything. I"m supposed to be going up to the station, and now everything"s stalled, I don"t know why, and I can"t get an answer out of the Director"s office! Thieu said to talk to your father, now Thieu"s just died and I can"t reach him, your number works, you"re on the inside of the agency that"s hiring me and now not talking to me, so here you are, Ser Warrick, and welcome to my situation! Can you just go down the hall or wherever you are and tell your father I urgently need to talk to him? There"ve been people coming through to look at this place I don"t like the look of, they say it"s sold, but someone arrives today and just walks through, and I didn"t know whether to let them in or not. I don"t want to deal with this, and someone I don"t know phones me to tell me Thieu is dead and hangs up. So what am I supposed to do? When I get hold of Schwartz, he"s going to tell me it"s all fine, I don"t need to worry, and just let them handle everything, but that"s what he said the last time. I need to talk to someone who knows what"s going on."

"Well, it"s not going to be my father. I think you should call Planys Security tonight and ask them what"s going on. You get a call in the night and you a.s.sume it"s even true &"

"Oh, it"s true. It"s true he"s dead. I have no doubt of it. I have no doubt I"m targeted and your father is, and Planys Security can"t even take care of its own, let alone protect me here. These aren"t reasonable people."

He didn"t like it. His heart had picked up the old familiar heavy beat. On one hand it felt like a trap. On the other & this woman might be in one, and in possession of information ReseuneSec was going to want. And if he could stay on the line and get a record down of this little playlet, naming names, it was safer for him and everyone attached to him.