There’d been her playmate, Valery. In her mind he was still a little, little boy with a mop of dark hair. He was out at Fargone, like Ollie. Early on she’d sent a letter, inviting them all back this summer, all the exiles, when Alpha Wing was finished. It took six months to get an answer, even; but she had started it, on the last day she’d held absolute control of Reseune, before she’d turned the directorship over to Yanni. She couldn’t get Maman back: but Maman’s companion Ollie was still alive. He’d had the CIT tape, and he’d become Director out there. She’d asked Ollie to come home, too, but she’d added, as she hadn’t in Valery’s letter– only if you want to. There’s a place for you here. But if you’re happy there, then stay. I remember you and Maman every day. But you do what you most feel you should do, for Maman’s sake.He was azi, or he had been; and nothingcould shake him from that loyalty and have him be happy, and she knew that.
There was Julia, and Gloria Strassen, who never had liked her when she was little, but she could patch that up. She’d been a baby when Denys had sent them away.
She could set some of Denys’ injustices right. And she could use the power she had to protect what her existence jeopardized.
It was scary to think how dead set the first Ari had been against trusting people.
The ones you trust most, the first Ari had said, watch most.
And the ones who’d had their lives torn apart because she was born? They were dangerous because they had a real reason to be mad at her.
But she could try to fix it.
And the first Ari hadn’t lived in a prison, not half so much as she did. The first Ari had been absolutely free to run around the halls and go where she wanted and do what she wanted. The first Ari hadn’t been afraid of anything. But everybody but Giraud had hated that Ari. She’d begun to realize that, and it was a hard truth to live with.
She was different than that Ari. Some people hated her. But a lot of people loved her. And a lot more people knew they needed her. They’d all protected her so much, so devotedly, they’d made her afraid of people. Most of all, afraid of people.
And that made her mad. And Mad always made her think.
And she wasn’t like Yanni’s beetle, a creature in a bottle, forever going in the same circle, forever the same Ari.
“So sober, Ari,” Sam said.
“Thinking,” she said, and then thought that she’d used too harsh a tone, too much out of the dark depths of her heart. She set a hand on his shoulder and walked back to safety, Florian and Catlin attending.
Sam led them all back to the scissor‑lift, the someday lift shaft, and sent it back down into what would be the central hallway of the whole complex–right where Sam’s river would run.
“So?” Sam asked.
“Perfect! It’s just perfect!”
He grinned, then. Sam was happy. That was all it took. And Sam’s pleasure lightened her heart. It always did.
“So,” he said, “do you want to pick out colors?”
“Blue,” she said. “A blue couch. Just so it’s comfortable.”
“Cooler white walls, then, for blue.”
“Violet and cool white walls. Maybe some quiet blue‑greens. Pastel stuff. I want color.”
“That should be pretty,” he said. “Should be real pretty. Are you moving any of her stuff in?”
She gave a little twitch of the shoulders, thoughtless flinch. There was what she lived with. There was some in storage. Historic. Some really nice pieces, imports from Earth. Human history.
But human history had started over again on Cyteen. In cities founded, like Novgorod, mostly by azi, and going on into generations of freedmen–what did old Earth mean to them? What could it mean? Human history this lot of humans hadn’t replicated, had largely forgotten.
She didn’t have as many blank walls in the new place. Not as much room for paintings and sculptures.
And ought she to take those old paintings off her walls and lend them to a museum, or to the University down in Novgorod, and let people study them for what they were and try to figure out what it meant to lay paint on canvas, instead of commands into a computer?
Maybe the old things were important things to know. Maybe somebody should learn how to do it again.
“You’re thinking again,” Sam said. “Is something the matter?”
“No,” she said, and laughed, and laid a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “No. I was just wondering whether we ought to teach azi to paint.”
“To paint.” Sam laughed.
“Pictures. To paint pictures, like the old paintings. I think it might be good for them. Maybe it’s good for people. I think maybe I ought to let some of those paintings out, and see what they think.”
“They are pretty,” Sam said. “I always admired them.”
“They’re pretty. They’re alien as they can be. I can’t imagine trees that thick. That’s just strange. I think people would be looking at that, the green color, and not at the paint.”
“I think you’re actually supposed to,” Sam said, then. “You’re supposed to believe in them, and not the paint.”
“That’s a point.”
“What did you say about my little river? ‘I want to be amazed?’ I think the paintings are like that.”
He never ceased to surprise her. “So what do you think? Should I get into storage? Bring them out?”
He nodded. “I’ve seen them. Some aren’t that pretty. Some are spooky. But you feel something when you look at them.”
“Maybe I shouldlook at more of them,” she said, and found she’d gathered her arms around herself as if she’d met a chill in the air. It wasn’t just paintings. It was the first Ari’s mind. It was the images the first Ari had seen, lived with, picked out to surround herself with, out of everything she could have had. What even the first Ari might have flinched at, and hidden away.
And instead of building, the first Ari had surrounded herself with things out of old Earth. Priceless things…spooky things. Things that weren’t Cyteen.
Trust Sam to have looked at them, when he was about to build this place. With a heart that had no guilt, no preconceptions, he’d looked at them, when probing that deep into the first Ari’s stored artwork was something she’d zealously avoided. She hadn’t wanted to meet them. Hadn’t wanted to be surrounded by the first Ari’s mind, swallowed up, drowned in the first Ari’s acquisitions. She wanted some of her own.
But you felt something, Sam said. And Sam was always in favor of feeling things.
“Hang them all,” she said suddenly. “Hang the ones you like wherever you think they ought to be, in my apartment, in the corridors where people walk.”
“Hey, I’m the builder, not the decorator.”
“You know them, though. You’ve seen them. Hang the really spooky ones in the guest apartments.”
He laughed. “Wicked, Ari.”
She laughed, too. Laughing took the haunt out of her predecessor’s furnishings and made her think–maybe I ought to use more of them. I’m saving Denys’ stuff, and Giraud’s, to bend their successors’ brains into the old mold.
Maybe–it was a sobering thought–maybe I should meet her…finally. She’s the voice of Base One. I’ve always trusted her voice…
So what’s to be afraid of, in seeing what she saw, what she troubled to bring here out of old Earth?
“About the furniture, Sam, herstuff. Don’t strip her old apartment, the one I’m in. We’ll just lock it up, leave it as it was, just like Giraud’s, just like Denys’. With all the pictures that hang there.” In case they didn’t replicate her, but the first Ari, but she didn’t say that to Sam. “But with what’s in storage, if you can use it, never mind my colors–do it.”