And she wasn’t. God, she wasn’t. Her thoughts skipped all over the place. They tunneled, they ran riot through completely extraneous topics, they hopped from one point to another–pity the programmer that tried to solve her.
But a beta with a buried directive?
Damn if she couldn’t bring thatto the surface, by exactly such brute‑force mechanics as the first Ari said.
And she’d make the tape for the head of her new Security, beta azi he might be, but she could make the instructional tape herself, right to the deep sets, and be sure of him. She’d send Catlin down to barracks, to sit there and personally see he got it.
And when he woke up, he’d know definitely who was in charge and who could cure any angst he felt. Shecould help him. She would be his first recourse, in any case of doubt, because shewas the highest authority in Reseune, and Reseune was the highest authority on the planet, and an azi who had access to her had access to having his questions answered definitively and absolutely. An azi who obeyed herdirectives was always in the right–as any azi wanted with all his being to be correct. Any delivery of information to anyone other than her chain of command was utterly forbidden; any request from anyone outside her chain of command had to be cleared, and any lingering doubt was utterly overcome by the power she had within Reseune. She owned his Contract, and any azi under that authority could be assured, very assured, that he was psychologically safe following her orders.
She took notes. She took abundant notes on the officer’s set, which she had scanned before she sent it to Justin, and for good measure she looked up deepsets for four of the unrelated gamma genotypes with a related program list, for whom the same tape would be quite, quite sufficient. For three others, again program sets related to each other, she could do a minor modification in the directive, but it sufficed. For the newly arrived Theo and Jory–a little different approach, but much the same. Physically, they were easy to get at. Intervening with Hicks’ incoming security team was logistically a little harder, but Catlin could manage. Catlin would go armed, and if the subjects had a psychotic episode–meaning her rewiring had hit a major or a lethal block–Catlin would deal with it, get the individual sedated, and notify her, specifically, that someone had tried something.
Sorry, Justin, sorry you’ve had to sweat this, and I know you hate real‑time work worse than poison. You don’t need to send it to me: I see your notes, and they help me. They show me what I need to do, and it’s in the deep sets, not the things they’ve hung on it.
No wonder it’s driving you crazy. It’s like a birthday cake, icing all over, decorations here, decorations there, all sorts of programs and routines added on, none of it really showing you what’s underneath. We just need to slice right into it, and you’re far too kind for that.
I can’t afford to be. Maybe later, but not now, not in this.
BOOK THREE Section 1 Chapter vi
JUNE 7, 2424
0821H
Early to the office, early to work, mindful of the extra requests, and there was a note from Ari, time‑stamped yesterday at 1701: Justin: I’m really anxious to have your comments on the sets I gave you. Please hurry.
Hurry. Hell. He’d already hurried.
Then another one, time stamped this morning at 0131: It’s not that urgent. Relax.
Haste makes waste,he messaged back. But I’m hurrying. I should have something for you this evening. And when are you sleeping, anyway?
“Little sera wants miracles,” he said to Grant. “Lunch is going to be in, today.”
“No problem,” Grant said. “Shoot me what you have.”
He shot. Grant took it, and there was silence for an hour, until Grant ran out of coffee.
Grant filled his cup, fuel for the morning.
And into the afternoon.
Grant ordered sandwiches delivered. With cream pastry. Justin devoured his, reading and annotating the while. One set to go, a fairly simple one. He’d been over it twenty times. He’d done all the betas to try to understand the type. He didn’t find a handle on it, anywhere, and it wasn’t right. It wasn’t right, it wasn’tthe level of work that belonged on a Contract she was taking. At first he’d suspected subtlety. Then he’d suspected error. Now he had a different picture. Library censorship. Again.
He said to Grant: “You know what I think? I don’t think Library’s given us all the records yet. Florian thought he had that cleared up. But I don’t think he did.”
“It would answer your objection.”
“We’re two weeks overdue on this. But I’m afraid it’s the fact they’re security. Ari’s going to have to go back to Library one more time on her access. There’s something still we haven’t gotten.”
“It would answer the question,” Grant said. “You’re right, and after the last round, I wouldn’t want to be in the librarian’s shoes. You get to write the memo, born‑man.”
BOOK THREE Section 1 Chapter vii
JUNE 7, 2424
1542H
The azi in question, BR‑283, was a nice‑looking fellow, Catlin observed that on the monitor, while BR‑283, Rafael, was deep asleep–nice face, nice body, dark as Florian–taller than Florian.
But absolutely no attraction here, just an aesthetic note. Rafael BR wasn’t Florian, and wouldn’t be, being a beta–a situation which suited her. Betas took orders. Alphas didn’t need orders, just a goal. Sera had explained the situation to her, as much as, in sera’s judgement, she needed to know, and prime among sera’s instructions was the posited call, every fifteen minutes, while she was on this assignment. She was to beware any food or drink offered by lab staff. She was to disobey any command to leave or submit to detention, herself, but if held, she should not risk injury–just wait for sera to take action…within the next fifteen minutes.
That was advisement enough that sera considered these tapes important to give personally to four of the new security team. The situation itself hardly seemed dicey: walk into the labs with the tape–possibly containing the Contract itself–invoke sera’s name and sera’s order to gain access and order this group to lab, where she personally installed each tape, waving off the assistance of staff.
And it had run for a relatively tedious hour and forty‑two minutes, while Rafael BR and the other three of sera’s choosing slept with eyes occasionally open, and occasionally reacted, or smiled, or concentrated.
Contracting didn’t take long. So what else were the tapes? That wasn’t hard to guess. They were probably primary tapes, a slightly amended refresher on the most basic sets. Tapes like that were generally quite pleasant, an hour or so of confirmation, affirmation–a transcendental experience, when a Supervisor offered it to a troubled or stressed azi. In this case it was likely some patch to enable the four to work together under BR‑283’s direction.
And since sera had the accesses she did, and she’d signed for them and meant to deliver the Contract tape herself, she was perfectly within her rights to order it, and to order that her own staff carry out the request–for BR‑283, and for BG‑8, BJ‑190, and BB‑291, the same, even if the four were listed as ReseuneSec. A note might have gone to Hicks, but Hicks hadn’t intervened.
The other three were in the adjacent rooms, on the other three active monitors, affording a constant view, two of them on the same tape, one on a third, and all, presumably, experiencing primary tape, blissful and content.