"You've requested a link. I know. You won'tget it. You know why you won't get it." Uncle Denys clasped his cup between two large hands. "For your own health. For your well-being. There are things you don't want to know yet. Be a child awhile. Even under the circumstances."
She took the paper and carefully, deliberately slowly, folded it and put it in her carry-bag, thinking, in maman's tones: Like hell, uncle Denys.
"I wanted to give you that," uncle Denys said. "I won't keep you. Thank you for having lunch with me."
"That's eight."
"Eight what?"
"Times you've tried to get me to feel sorry for you. I told you. It was a lousy thing to do, uncle Denys."
Shift and Shift again. Working only worked if you used it when it was time. No matter if you were ready.
"The taping. I know. I'm sorry. What can I say? That I wouldn't have done it? That would be a lie. I amglad you're doing all right. I'm terribly proud of you."
She gave him a nasty smile, fast and right into a sulk. "Sure."
"'To thine own self be true'?" With a smile of his own. "You know who planned this."
She ran that through again. It was one of his better zaps, rightout of the blind-side, and it knocked the thoughts right out of her.
Damn. There weren't very many people who could Get her like that.
"I wonder if you can imagine how it feels," uncle Denys said, "to have known your predecessor—my first memories of her are as a beautiful young woman, outstandingly beautiful; and having the same young woman arriving at the end of my life—while I'm old—is an incredible perspective."
Trying to Work her for sure. "I'm glad you like it."
"I'm glad you accepted my invitation." He sipped at his coffee.
"You want to do something to make me happy?"
"What?"
"Tell Ivanov I don't needany appointment."
"No. I won't say that. I can tell you where the answer is. It's in the fifteenth-year material."
"That's real funny, uncle Denys."
"I don't mean it to be. It's only the truth. Don't go too fast, Ari. But I am changing something. I'm terminating your classes."
"What do you mean, terminating my classes?"
"Hush, Ari. Voices. Voices. This is a public place. I mean it's a waste of your time. You'll still see Dr. Edwards—on a need-to basis. Dr. Dietrich. Any of them will give you special time. You have access to more tapes than you can possibly do. You'll have to select the best. The answer to what you are is in there—much more than in the biographical material. Choose for yourself. At this point—you're a Special. You have privileges. You have responsibilities. That's the way it always works." He drank two swallows of the coffee and set the cup down. "I'll put the library charges to my account. It's still larger. —You can see your school friends anytime you like. Just send to them through the system. They'll get the message."
He left the table. She sat there a moment, figuring, trying to catch her breath.
She couldgo to classes if she wanted to. She could request her instructors' time, that was all.
She could do anything she wanted to.
Shots again. She scowled at the tech who took her blood and gave them to her. She did not even seeDr. Ivanov.
"There'll be prescriptions at pharmacy," the tech said. "We understand you'll be using home teaching. Please be careful. Follow the instructions."
The tech was azi. it was no one she could yell at. So she got up, feeling flushed, and went out to the pharmacy in the hospital and got the damned prescriptions.
Kat. At least it was useful.
She got home early: no interview with Dr. Ivanov, no hanging around waiting. She put the sack in the plastics bin and read the ticket and discovered they had billed her account thirty cred for the pills and probably for Florian and Catlin's too.
"Dammit," she said out loud. "Minder, message to Denys Nye: Pharmacy is your bill. Youpay it. I didn't order it."
It made her furious.
Which was the shot. It didthat to her. She took half a dozen deep breaths and went to the library to put the prescription bottles in the cabinet under the machine.
Damn. It was nowhere near time for her cycle. And she felt like that. She felt—
On. Like she wished she had homework tonight, or something. Or she could go down and see the Filly, maybe. She had been working too hard and going down there too little, leaving too much of the Filly's upbringing to Florian, but she didn't feel like that, either. The shots bothered her and she hated to be out of control when she was around people. It was going to be bad enough just trying not to be irritable with Catlin and Florian when theygot home, without going around Andy, who was too nice to have to put up with a CIT brat in a lousy, prickly mood.
She knew what was going on with her, it had to do with her cycles, damn Dr. Ivanov was messing with her again, and it was embarrassing. Going around other people, grown-ups, likely they could tellwhat was going on with her, and that made her embarrassed too.
The whole thing was probably on Denys' orders. She bet it was. And she tried to think of a way to get them to stop it, but as long as Ivanov had the right to suspend her Super's license if she dodged sessions—she was in for it.
Dammit, there wasn't anything in the world those shots and those checkups had to do with her dealing with azi, not a thing—but she couldn't prove it, unless maybe she could do what the first Ari had done and call Security, and get them to arrange a House council meeting.
God, and sit there in front of every grown-up she knew in the whole House and explain about the shots and her cycles? She had rather die.
Don't go up against Administration, Ari senior had told her, out of the things she had learned.
Except it was Ari senior doing it to her as much as it was Denys.
Damn.
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
She opened the tape cabinet, looking for something to keep her mind busy and burn some of the mad off. One of the E-tapes. Dumas, maybe. She was willing to do that tape twice. She knew it was all right.
But it was the adult ones that she started thinking about, which made her think about the last sex tape she had had, which was a long time back. And it was just exactly what she was in the mood for.
So she pulled one out that didn't sound as embarrassing as the others, Models,it was called; and she took it to the library, told the Minder to tell Florian and Catlin when they came in that she was doing tape and might be fifteen more minutes—she checked the time—by the time they got the message.
And locked the tape-lab door, tranked down with the mild dose you did for entertainment, set up and let it run.
In a while more she thought she should cut it off. It was different than anything she had thought.
But the feelings she got were interesting.
Very.
Florian and Catlin were home by the time the tape ran out. She ought not, she thought, stir about yet; but it was only a tiny dose, it was not dangerous, it only made her feel a little tranked, in that strange, warm way. She asked the Minder was it only them—silly precaution—before she unlocked the door and came out.
She found them in the kitchen making supper. Warm-ups again. "Hello, sera," Florian said. "Did it go all right today?"
Lunch with Denys, she realized. And remembered she was still mad, if she were not so tranked down. It was strange—the way things went in and out of importance in the day. "He stopped my classes," she said. "Said I didn't have to go to class anymore except just for special help. Said I had too many tapes to do."