Uncommon that Alliance and Union both, former enemies, ended up banning something so prized by the rich. Never mind that they could easily synthesize the product. Never mind that there were very good synthetic veneers, down to the cell structure, if you wanted that. The fact a thing was realaroused a certain lust to possess, in certain moneyed circles. People would pay fortunes for what was realand Earth‑origin. Crazy, in her opinion.
“Well,” she said. “So no more wood from Earth?”
“I think it will pass in the Council of Worlds,” he said. “A lot of talk, a lot of fire and fury and discussion. The spotlight’s on the users of certain products, and no senator wants to be tagged as one of the conspicuously rich consumers. They’ve exempted historical pieces from the ban. I’ve objected that we’ll see an uncommon glut of relics coming out of Earth. And we get one other quiet little provision–the Hinder Stars Defense Treaty gets moved forward. Talks renewed.”
“That’s good.” It was.
“So,” he said, in a changing‑the‑subject tone, “how are things here?”
And still no mention of the private meetings. “Same as last week. Same as the week before.” There was some local news, not as dramatic as the ban on wood veneers. “The new wing has its foundations laid.”
“Saw that, as the plane came in. Looking quite impressive back there.”
“They’re mostly finished with the storm tunnels and accesses now–conduits are going in. Andthey finished the power plant up at the upriver site. Precip stations are about to go online.”
Not that much besides a twenty‑bed residential bunker and a machine shop stood on that remote site yet. The new building, well upriver, was in the early stages, a lot of raw earth and robots at the moment, superintended by a small azi technical crew and a supervisor, and soon to be occupied by the loneliest and craziest people on Cyteen, line‑runners on the automated precip stations.
“Fine,” he said. “And how are your studies going?”
“Oh, good enough.”
“So–” Archly. “–are we moving researchers in upriver?”
“We’re a few months from that.”
“I don’t think I’d like the climate.”
She didn’t like the implication of that, not at all. He’d sensed she was stalking him. He’d Got her. She was sure her face had reacted in some dismay. As of now, it had a frown, which she immediately purged.
“Oh? And what did you do” she asked, in her best Ari One mode, “in Novgorod?”
“You have to trust me.”
And nowwas he going to bring up those secret meetings? “Oh. I do, but I’d really like to know, and you know I’d like to know.”
“Well, I agreed with Corain on a compromise. Fargone’s hurting for jobs. His constituency atFargone is extremely important to him getting re‑elected if he’s challenged for the seat. So we put in a new lab wing. We get Centrist Party support on a rider tacked onto that bill, becauseit helps Corain’s constituency at Fargone, and, here’s the core of it: the Eversnow project gets underway.”
“Eversnow!” That hadn’t been part of the report.
“Eversnow.”
“It’s a dead project.”
“Not dead. We get a station at Eversnow, a full blown research station onEversnow, and a new lab at Fargone that’s very quietly aimed at terra‑forming, exactly as originally planned on Cyteen–the Centrists’ favorite dream–but out there, where it’s notgoing to cause us trouble.”
Her pulse rate was getting up. Her blink rate would be. And he’d read that in a second. “So we’re suddenly friends with the Centrists and we’re terraforming Eversnow, of all things. And producing alpha azi at Fargone.”
“A few.”
“We havea lab at Fargone. The Rubin Project was at Fargone.”
“Mostly terraforming research…a clearing house for what we learn on Eversnow. Ultimately–ultimately azi, yes.”
“Alpha production has never left the planet!”
“Our personnel, mind, no release of proprietary secrets. By the time we’re bringing any great number of azi into the Eversnow system, we’ll be on the planet. Azi production. Full scale by then. You’ll be putting together the sets for that population in your lifetime.”
The Eversnow deal had been dead as long as the first Ari. And Reseune had allowed a prerogative of exclusivity to lapse, enabling labs that high‑end, that capable, to run out at Fargone–with the possibility of somebody outside Reseune staff laying hands on the manuals? Bad enough they’d licensed out military thetas to BucherLabs and had thoseproblems to mop up for the next forty years of the first Ari’s career–they’d never done anything like this.
And terraforming? That was a dead issue.
“None of this is in the news,” she said calmly.
“None of it is going to be in the news. It’s under deep cover, disguised as that azi lab.”
“But, damn it, Yanni.” She kept her voice down, kept the whole situation under control, holding the lid on. “I assume you’ve got a very, very good reason. What happened to the remediation budget?”
“It’ll wait a year.”
“While we create a terraforming lab out at Fargone?”
“Yes,” Yanni said, head‑on, “It was the first Ari’s project. It got scrapped.”
“The first Ari isn’t alive now. I am. And I have an opinion. You didn’t ask me. Where are my budget items, Yanni?”
“Next year.”
“We have two labs full of scientists we’re going to have to fund till next year and I’m making a heavy hit on budget as it is!”
“I know that.”
“So you could have talked about this. Eversnow, for God’s sake! And an alpha lab! What else?”
“We manage the lab, top to bottom. Our personnel run it, no training of local techs to do anything: they’ll all be Reseune people, born here, trained here, retiring here, ultimately.”
Yanni’s voice was so quiet, so reasonable. He wasn’t that way with a lot of people. But he knew he’d sneaked this one past her, and he was presenting a case in which she was going to have the say. She’d be in charge when this thing came into full bloom, and Yanni–Yanni would be gone by then, at least gone from Admin, and back in the lab.
That thought settled her heart rate a tick or two. She didn’t want that, yet.
And she thought about what he was doing. He’d been meeting with Corain, of all people. Corain didn’t meet with Science.
“So.” she said, “and Citizens voted for it.”
“Jobs,” Yanni said. “A lot of jobs. Council knows what it’s for. We’re just not advertising it for the media yet.”
“They know, and they voted for this.”
“Everybody but Internal Affairs and State. Two nays. I’m sure you know.”
She knew. Corain had gone along. Jobs, Yanni said. Jobs at Far‑gone. Elder Ari had warned her about unrest in the population–the Citizens Bureau, which Corain represented. Ari had warned her about unhappiness–at Fargone, at Pan‑Paris, which wasn’t on the expansion routes; both flashpoints, fobs had been scarce, opportunities scant since the War. Fargone was supposed to be in for major expansion when the military had planned to go ahead with Eversnow; she knew that was the history of it at that star.