“No. Ask there and wait for it.”
At very least, she didn’t want a request on file before she had the GYX general manual in hand–there could well be more than one GYX in progress, and even Wes didn’t need to know which GYX she was interested in until she had that particular file in hand. It wouldn’t remove it from Library, and anyone interested could still get it, with the sort of clearance, for instance, that Hicks or Yanni had–but once she duped that manual in‑house, and began to write changes on that program–she would have her GYX’s particular record, and Yanni wouldn’t. He could find out what tape they’d run down in labs, but he couldn’t find out any oral Working she’d done, and he wasn’t good enough, she’d bet on it, to look at the tape list and immediately know what structure she was building or what her GYX was destined to be.
She had the individual manuals on Theo and Jory and the rest. Those came with them. And thoseindividuals would see changes very soon that weren’t on the lab records. She’d prepare tape of her own creation, and when she was through–they’d be hers, no one else’s, ever. That was the way the system worked.
Justin could pass on that, too, but she’d done more than population dynamics in recent weeks. She’d studied set‑alteration and deep inhibition as well as integrations. And she’d taken a look at some of the first Ari’s set designing, on the Gehenna project.
It wasn’t just history of that project she’d been after. She hoped she could spot a deepteach bug in the azi she’d taken in–that she could spot it, correct it, and have that azi absolutely trustable. It wasn’t brain surgery. In many cases it was plain language, like what the first Ari had instilled at Gehenna: this is your world. Your world–deeptaught in those azi minds–without any reference to the born‑men the military had sent out there deliberately to fail, mess up the planet, and die.
The military had thought they were simply giving Alliance a poison pill, knowing they’d take Gehenna and Union wasn’t in position to. But the poison pill the military hadn’t counted on, in their own planning, had been letting the first Ariane Emory know that herazi were destined to become an embedded, dying and miserably poor population on a planet the Alliance was going to claim. Ariane Emory didn’t dothat sort of thing to herazi, no. She gave them the planet and told them to survive and take care of it. And survive they did–becoming foreign and odd in the reckoning of what was human, but they lived. They succeeded.
The first Ari had, as best she’d ever been able to discover, given her Florian and Catlin, and Yanni had given her Wes and Marco, and she’d taken Callie and all the rest.
There were going to be, very soon, some deep‑sessions for certain staff, not for Florian and Catlin. They would be quiet, refreshing sessions, with some very specific instruction keyed to theirsets–instruction which could make them very devoted, or very dangerous, depending on her skill at intervention.
“You are my first staff,” she said, “and the core of my staff. What you say, I will always hear. And I rely on you for loyalty and intelligence.”
Heads dipped. Eyes fixed on her. Supervisor. They heard that as they’d hear tape, and they drank it in.
“You are special,” she said, “and your decisions matter. The secrets of this house stay in this house. This is for Marco and Wes: if you have to trust someone and you have to make a judgement outside this house, trust Justin Warrick.”
Again, solemn nods–just a little resisting flicker from Florian and Catlin, who’d been excluded from that last sentence. Wes and Marco were absorbing it all–deepstate, as azi could do without the deepteach drug, as almost now, she could do, her concentration could go that deep. And onlywith their Contracted supervisor would azi accept instruction at that level. She looked at Wes and Marco, saw their pupils dilated, a sign of deepstate, which said something on its own.
They were hers. About Florian and Catlin, she had no question at all, never had.
She’d doubted herself at times, which, she thought, was only healthy to do, but now that she’d begun to focus on real things, on taking over, she began to think–I have to. I have no choice, do I? It’s life or death. My staff has to be mine. Especially my security.
BOOK THREE Section 1 Chapter v
JUNE 6, 2424
2122H
She had someone to turn down her bed that night–spooky, at first sight. She wasn’t used to that, not since Nelly had left her. She assumed Joyesse had done it, or ordered it. She put on her nightgown–unaided–draped yesterday’s clothes over the chair and started to go to bed.
But the computer in her room suddenly showed a unique flasher on an otherwise dark screen, a flasher that lit the adjacent wall red, and her heart picked up its beats.
Not a mail notification that blipped quietly in a corner. Log On, it said, across the screen.
She sat down at the counter and did that, no question. And the screen blinked, and became text.
“So you’re making a move toward power,”Base One said in the first Ari’s voice. “And you wonder how I can guess that. Wonder instead who else can guess it, and act appropriately.”
It wasn’t really Base One doing the thinking. It was the first Ari, who’d set certain criteria, and when she met them, things turned up. This one had. And it sent a chill down her back. No good trying to talk to it. It had something to say, and it would say it come hell or high water.
“Correctly identify your allies and your enemies, young Ari. I don’t say friends, because that word is misleading and it can deliver you into a serious mistake. Some people you don’t like are allies and some people you do like are enemies once you choose a certain course of action, and by now you should understand that.”
She did. She had understood it. But Ari Senior put it into words in a particularly cold way that did nothing for the shivers. She wore a thin nightgown in a room cooled for nighttime, and she hugged her arms about herself, because Base One wouldn’t stop once it started, wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t pause, didn’t care about her weaknesses or her excuses.
“Rely on Florian and Catlin. No others.”
There was Justin. Marco. Wes. But, she thought, Elder Ari didn’t know them. But if elder Ari had intended to leave a loophole she would have left it.
“Particularly be cautious about trust. Trust stops reasoning. Look carefully at those you trust. Taking offense stops reasoning, too. You may find a certain person has betrayed you. Limit the offending person so his misdeed cannot possibly repeat itself. Waste no time in regret or sympathy.”
I’m about to do that. I’m ahead of you here, older Ari.
“Assume the worst case where it regards those possessing what you intend to take. Assume violent resistence or clever resistence. Assume sabotage. Once you move, move decisively and pitilessly to protect your own allies. If you have pity, bestow it appropriately, on those helping you. Reward compliance and you’ll be surrounded by the compliant.”
That’s not necessarily a good thing, older Ari.
“…which is not necessarily a good thing, young Ari.”
That was spooky. That was just downright scary.
“You’ll need complete control of ReseuneSec to protect yourself. For the rest, rely on Base One. At need, you can lock anyone out of communication. Your codeword is CannaeCannaeCannae. Input that and the Base you target will only respond to you. You will at that point be able to dispense other codewords, so have them ready, but hand a Base access only to those who are both friends and allies.”