“Wait,” Florian said, “wait, sera, until we have Hicks’ people passed through Justin Warrick’s opinion, and installed, and tested. We’re not enough to secure your safety, as is.”
Sobering thought. Honest thought. People like Yanni had beenhonest, at least honest enough not to make an attempt on her life. On her freedom, however–she’d been advised into seclusion. By Yanni. By the agreement of her own security. Now Hicks offered her either spies–or real power, in the presence of some unnamed threat–or in the progress of something Yanni was up to.
Did Hicks himself have an opinion? A loyalty? Unlike with azi, they couldn’t find it in a manual.
“We can wait,” she said, “so long as we don’t alert anyone to our intentions. I don’t want anyone to be killed if we can help it. I want Justin safe. Can we do that?”
“Are you going to tell Sam and Amy?” Catlin asked. “And Maddy?”
The other members of the junior cabal. Her friends, her allies, the kids who’d grown up to take jobs in the real world. She was the only one who hadn’t. Who’d had real power, and laid it down for a time. She was still studying, still growing up. There was so, so much yet to grasp, so much to understand.
“I don’t know yet,” she said. “I may not tell anyone my opinion. Or I may tell them.” She looked at them, finding the blood moving away from her brain. She felt a little lightheaded, but collected, all the same. “I have a headache, still. I’ll be in my room. Go see about these things. Lay plans. Come back to me with a report before you implement anything. Let me know where we are and what we need to do.”
“Yes, sera,” Florian said. He and Catlin got up and opened the door. They left, and she got up, and walked out of her office and down the short hall to her bedroom, in her section, her own safe section of the safe apartment in the sacrosanctity of Wing One, where–theoretically–she controlled her own security. But ReseuneSec guarded the doors of Wing One. ReseuneSec was in the halls. The old lab was dead. Dead as the first Ari. Equipment mostly removed. The place had become a little shabby–she’d laid other plans, a grandiose plan, a notion of gathering what was hers where it was indisputably safe. That was what that construction was, between Wing One and the cliffs. She intended to live there. With people she loved. Yanni had been part of it.
She shut her bedroom door behind her. Locked it. She felt a Mad coming on, though she wasn’t sure yet at what. Maybe at Yanni: she couldn’t trust him enough. Maybe at the people outside Reseune, who didn’t have the sense to know enough to make themselves safe, and the stupid Paxers who were going to make bombs and kill people because they didn’t have any better plan.
She ought to have ReseuneSec track every one of the Paxer leadership before the news got out that she was taking over.
She could have them killed. Every one. She’d have the power to do that. The first Ari had had it. And hadn’t done it, when the first Ari had done so much that was just–things she didn’t want to think about.
She stood in the middle of her own room and looked around her at a place that was safe. She looked at herthings, that, if she owned the whole world, still mattered, her chair, her bed, her dresser, and what was in it, things she shouldn’t keep.
She walked over to the dresser, picked up Poo‑thing, poor, ignored Poo‑thing. She smoothed the fur around his button eyes, and rubbed his nose into shape. His sweater was all wrinkled. His fat tummy was still fat, and she straightened his feet a bit, and laid him back in the drawer, making room for him. He went on staring. Poo‑thing had no way to blink when she shut the drawer on him and cut out the light.
Shoved it hard the last couple of inches and sat down in her chair and cried. Sobbed, with her face in her hands, trying not to make any sound to bring Florian and Catlin back, or staff, or anybody.
I wanted a childhood,she said to herself over and over. I really wanted a childhood, just a little one, just a year, is that too much to ask? I only wanted a year, and it’s not fair, not fair, not fair! I didn’t ask to be born! I didn’t ask everybody to hate me! I didn’t ask to be anything–I don’t want to be, I want to ride Horse when I want, anywhere in town, and not have to worry about people shooting me or trying to run off with me, and I want to have my friends around me and I don’t want to lose them, I don’t want to get them killed, either, and I don’t want Florian and Catlin to have to kill anybody, ever again, but they will.
I want my Uncle Yanni back. I want Maman not to be dead and Ollie to write me he’s coming back, and Valery, and everybody, I want it back the way it was before I grew up…
But it’s not going to be, is it? It’s never going to be. Ollie, maybe. Maybe Valery. They might come, if I can get them all back, all of them.
But they can’t find a teary, stupid girl when they do, can they? I can’t be stupid, or I’ll be dead, and I’ll get other people killed.
She blotted her eyes, one after the other, with the back of her hand. Sniffed. Got up and examined a reddened, unlovely face in the mirror, and got a tissue from the bath, all with a raw, unhappy feeling inside.
She didn’t quite know the girl that looked back at her, red‑eyed, red‑nosed, just human. It was the first Ari’s girl‑face, but it wasn’t the face of the portraits.
Second try with the tissue. Her makeup was a mess. She blew her nose, blowing away the evil spirits, Maman had used to say that. Maman would take a cold washcloth and wash her face and tell her cold water and a clear head would made a good start on any problem.
She did that for herself, washed her face, fixed her makeup. Sharp pain had gone to leaden hurt, just a weight remaining where the pain had been. And that was stupid. Selfish. She’d had her childhood just now, all ten minutes of it; and maybe she should take a chance and have just a little freedom before the whole load came down on her, go do those relatively safe things she could get away with doing, just because she could, before it was forevermore too late.
BOOK
TWO
BOOK TWO Section 1 Chapter i
MAY 8, 2424
Giraud Nye and his companions were steadily putting on weight. At twelve weeks, having doubled in size in the last seven days, Giraud massed 28 grams, somewhat less than a generous shot of the whiskey he’d one day love.
He had gotten fists, and fingerprints, and his general body shape was a little more human. He’d been drinking in the tank’s biosynthetic amniotic fluid, and routinely pissed it out again–proving his kidneys were starting to work, a process that would never stop, in spite of his future abuses to his body, until he did.
His intestines were growing, and began to fill his abdomen. His nerve cells were proliferating, synapses getting organized enough to react to stimuli, but unaware at any higher level–the nerves had no myelin sheath as yet, and that limited their function considerably. Consciousness was nowhere in the picture. His cells all had other jobs to do, mostly that of dividing like mad, according to the map in their nuclei. If it said cooperate, they cooperated. If it said make skin, they made skin, in its varied layers and detail. If it said make nerves, they made more nerves. There was no higher authority.