He had thought down till then that Yanni was the Enemy. But of a sudden he felt easier with Yanni. He saw a decent man who was not good at listening. Who was listening for the moment.
"Ser. Please. Justin's not Jordan. He doesn't work like Jordan. But if you give him a chance he is working. Listen to me. Please. You don't agree with him, but he's learning from you. You know that an azi designer has an edge in Applications. I'm an Alpha. I can take a design and internalize it and tell a hell of a lot about it. I've worked with him on his own designs, and I can tell youI can tell you I believe in what he's trying to do."
"God, that's all I need."
"Ser, I know what his designs feel like, in a way no CIT can. I have the logic system."
"I'm not talking about his ability. He's fixed his rat-on-a-treadmill problems. He's got that covered. I'm talking about what happens when his sets integrate into CIT psych. Second and third and fourth generation. We don't want a work-crazy population. We don't want gray little people that go crazy when they're not on the assembly line. We don't want a suicide rate through the overhead when there's job failure or a dip in the economy. We're talking CIT psych, and that's exactly the field he's weakest in and exactly what I think he ought to go study for ten or twenty years before he does some real harm. You know what it feels like.
"I respect that, ser. I earnestly assure you. So does he. But his designs putput joy into a psychset. Not just efficiency. The designs you say will cause trouble are their own reward tape. Isn't it true, ser, that when an azi has a CIT child, and he teaches that child as a CIT, he teaches interpretively what he understands out of his pyschset. And an azi with one of Justin's small routines somewhere in his sets, even if he was never as lucky as I am, to be socialized as I am, to be Alpha and have one lifelong partner, would get so much sense of purpose out of that, so much sense of purpose, he would think about his job and get better at it. And have pride in that, ser. Maybe there are still problems in it. But it's the emotional level he reaches. It's the key to the logic sets themselves. It's a self-programming interaction. That's what no one is taking into account."
"Which create a whole complex of basic structural problems in synthetic psychsets. Let's talk theory here. You're a competent designer. Let's be real blunt. They tried this eighty years ago."
"I'm familiar with that."
"And they hung a few embellishments onto the psychsets and they ended up with neuroses. Obsessive behaviors."
"You say yourself he's avoided that."
"And it's self-programming, do you hear yourself talking?"
"Worm," Grant said. "But a benign one."
"That's just about where that kind of theory belongs. Worm. God! If it is self-programming, you have created a worm of sorts, and you're playing with people's lives. If it isn't, you've got a delayed-action problem that's going to crop up in the second or third generation. Another kind of worm, if you want to put it that way. Hell if I want to give research time to it. I've got a budget. You two are on my departmental budget and you're a hell of an expense with no damned return that justifies it."
"We have justified it this last year."
"Which is killing Warrick. Isn't that your complaint? He can't go on outputting at that level. He can't take it. Psychologically he can't take it. So what are you going to do? Carry it by yourself, while Justin lives in the clouds somewhere designing sets that won't work, that I'm damned well not going to let him install in some poor sod of a Tester. No!"
"I'll do the work. Give him the freedom. Lighten the load. A little. Ser, give him the chance. He has to rely on you. No one else can help him. He is good. You know he is."
"And he's damned well wasting himself."
"What were you doing at the start? Teaching him, while you took his designs apart. Do that for him. Lighten the load a little. The work will get done. You just can't pressure him like that, because he'll do it if he thinks someone is suffering, he just won't stop, he's like that. Give us things we can handle and we'll handle them. Justin has a talent at integration that can get more out of a genotype than anyone ever did, because he does get into the emotional level. Maybe his ideas won't work, but, for God's sake, he's still studying. You don't know what he can be. Give him a chance."
Yanni looked at him a long time, upset, unhappy, with his face red and his teeth working at his lip. "You're quite a salesman, son. You know what's the matter with him on this? Ari got hold of a vulnerable kid with an idea that was real advanced for a seventeen-year-old, she flattered hell out of him, she fed him full of this crap, and psyched him right into her bed. You're aware of that?"
"Yes, ser. I'm well aware of it."
"She did a real job on him. He thinks he was brilliant. He thinks there was more there than there was, and you don't do him any service by feeding that. He's bright, he's not brilliant. He'd be damn good on the Rubin project. I've seen what he can do, and there is a lot in him. I respect hell out of that. I don't like to feed a delusion. I spend my life trying to make normal people and you're asking me to humor him in the biggest delusion of his poor fucked-up life. I hate that like hell, Grant. I can't tell you how much I hate it."
"I'm talking to a man who's the nearest thing to a Supervisor Justin's got; the man Justin fought to get to help him; who's going to take a talent that's been fucked-up and kill it because it's a drain on the teacher. What kind of man is that?"
"Dammit."
"Yes, ser. Damn me all you like. It's Justin I'm talking about. He trusts you and he doesn't trust many people. Are you going to damn him because he's trying to do something you think will fail?"
Yanni chewed on his lip. "You're one of Ari's, aren't you?"
"You know I am, ser."
"Damn, she did good work. You remind me what she was. After all that's happened."
"Yes, ser." It stung. He thought that it was meant to.
But Yanni gave a great sigh and shook his head. "I'll do this. I'll put him on the project. I'll keep the work light. Which means, dammit, that you're going to carry some of it."
"Yes, ser."
"And if he does his damn designs I'll rip them apart. And teach him what I can. Everything I can. Has he got his problem with tape solved?"
"He has no problem with tape, ser."
"If you're in the room with him. That's what Petros says."
"That's so, ser. Can you blame him?"
"No. No, I can't. I'll tell you, Grant, I respect what you're doing. I'd like to have a dozen of you. Unfortunatelyyou're not a production item."
"No, ser. Justin as much as Ari and Jordanhad a hand in my psychsets. But you're welcome to analyze them."
"Stable as hell. Good. Good for you." Yanni got up and came around the desk as Grant got up in confusion. And Yanni put his hand on his shoulder and took his hand. "Grant, come back to me if you think he can't handle things."
That affected him, when before, he doubted everything about this man's goodwill. "Yes, ser," he said, thinking that if Yanni was telling the truth, and if there was anything of himself he could give that Yanni could not have out of library and lab, he would give it. Freely.
"Out," Yanni said brusquely. "Go."
Azi-like, simple, equal to equal. When he knew that Yanni was upset about Strassen, and about everything that was going on, and it had been the worst of times to go to him.