She shrugged lightly. “I had a head start. I knowgreen barracks programming.” With a shift of her glance toward the hall where Catlin waited. “And you wouldn’t have that experience. Still, you had something spotted. That’s what warned me to look twice. You had your finger pretty well on it.”
“What did it do?”
“He conflicted like hell when I took the Contract. He had a nice little reservation built in and I blitzed it. Not as good as an axe code, what I did, but close.”
Grant made a face. Grant knew.
“Anyway,” she said, “you deserved to know.”
“Thanks,” Justin said.
“I have it set up with Yanni: Jordan will get to work; I’ll check. If he blows up, maybe he and I will eventually have to talk about it. But we’ll just see how it goes. Let him calm down first.”
“Thank you,” Justin said.
“You’re still bothered about the BR set.”
“It bothers me that I missed it.”
“It bothers you. That’s why you’re good. Besides being Special‑level smart.”
He laughed silently at that. Didn’t say a thing. But self‑doubt was major in him.
“I’m sorry I’ve missed lessons lately,” she said.
“I think you’re getting beyond them, aren’t you?”
“I don’t think you’re at all through teaching me. I learn all sorts of things. You were spotting that conflict from the microset side of things; I was looking at the large picture, and I fixed it by yanking at the deepsets. You’re kind, is what. Grant knows what I mean.”
“Sera is right,” Grant said quietly.
“It’s why you want to rehabilitate your father. You’re just soft‑hearted. I need somebody who teaches me what soft‑hearted is.”
“I don’t know that it’s so valuable a commodity these days.”
“Because Reseune isn’t safe?” she asked. “It isn’t. Neither is Planys. Neither is here, granted Jordan got that card the way he says he did. We could have a problem at Planys that we never spotted. We could, here. Something like a Rafael type. Nothing of his geneset is there. One is in Hicks’ office, probably with nobody to report to now that Giraud is dead, but I’m going to put a tag on him–I’ll know every contact he has.”
“Ari,” he said, and cast a look up, at the over head.
She smiled sadly. “It’s only Catlin listening. We know about this office. We have our own protections around it, and if it’s leaky, they’ve gotten past all my bodyguards and nothing is safe. Just figure: there are three hundred fifty‑one azi at Planys. And somebody killed Thieu. And somebody killed Patil. I’m betting they got a professional in to take out Patil, somehow, maybe azi, maybe not.”
“An azi didn’t originate the idea,” Grant said.
“I agree with you,” Ari said. “An azi didn’t. But I’d be interested to hear your thinking on motivation. You’re not green barracks.”
“I’m house,” Grant said. “And I hardly remember when I wasn’t. I absorbed my values from tape, from instruction, and from being part of the household.”
“That changed,” Ari said.
“Ari,” Justin said, a warn‑off.
“Grant, you don’t have to answer me. I’m not being a Supervisor, I’m just curious where your focus is.”
“Classified,” Justin said.
Grant shrugged. “Not hard to guess it’s you, born‑man. Ari doesn’t scare me.”
“I really don’t want to,” Ari said. “I’m sorry, Grant, but I don’t want to ask my own staff, and I want an azi viewpoint on this question. In your psychset, could anybody get you to kill?”
An easy shrug. “ Hecould.”
“Ari, leave it!”
“I’m not at all conflicted about it,” Grant said. “No more than Florian would be, under a hypothetical. I just ran your question through my deepsets and there’s no prohibition against it, no great emotional charge to compare with my attachment to your orders, Justin.”
“Well, then, shut up, for God’s sake! Quit answering her damned questions!”
“I have a strong attachment to questions, too,” Grant said with a little tilt of the head, with humor. “Can’t resist them, if they’re hypothetical. Or I’ll think about it all night.”
“Don’t, if you please.”
“Now I’m conflicted,” Grant said, “because it’s actually an interesting question. You’re saying some azi out at Planys murdered Thieu simply because some born‑man asked him to.”
“Might have. Abban probably murdered the first Ari.”
“That’s my prime candidate,” Justin said. “That’s what I believe.”
“I don’t think I’d botch it, however,” Grant said, “if I was asked to do a murder. I’d look up techniques and pick one I knew I could carry out.”
“Now I’m angry,” Justin said. “It’s not damned funny, Ari.”
“I know it’s not,” she said, “and I won’t run a calm‑down on Grant. That’s your job. He’s just the closest alpha I could ask who’s not Security; and a beta couldn’t. I’m sorry, Grant. Justin’s concerned about you, and I haven’t been entirely nice.”
“I’d leave the office,” Grant said, “if it weren’t an interesting question. And I’ve thought about it–what I would do. What I coulddo, if someone threatened him. I told myself I could, and would. I actually take a certain comfort in that.”
“Same,” Justin said, “on this side.”
She nodded. “It’s nice to have somebody that close,” she said. “I do. I’m glad you both do.” She took something from her coat pocket, which turned out to be two com units, and she laid them on the nearest table. “Those are exactly the same as Florian’s, as Catlin’s–a few limitations: they only call Base One, they can only get voice contact if someone calls you back, and if you hit the red button, they’re going to bring down the ceiling, so don’t use that unless you have to. Just carry them and don’t for God’s sake lose them. If you see anything suspicious around you, if you want someone to show up quietly and intervene, hit any button but the red one. If you hit the red one, figure you’re going to get an armed response. Understood?”
“Understood,” Justin said, looking a little mollified.
“I hope you’ll never need them,” she said, “but I’m carrying my own.” She touched the door. “And don’t put yourselves in situations. Please.”
“Like visiting my father?”
“You’ll protect Grant,” she said, “and he’ll protect you. You do what you want to do.”
She left, then.
She’d made Justin mad for a few minutes, and she hadn’t wanted to, but she felt better, knowing Grant wasn’t limited in Justin’s defense. She’d suspected the answer she’d get: but she’d not been entirely sure she’d believe it. Now she did.
And that was good.
BOOK THREE Section 3 Chapter i
JUNE 26, 2424
1528H
Giraud, at nineteen weeks, had bones instead of cartilage, and those bones shaped a face increasingly distinctive from, say, Abban, or Seely. For all of them it was the same story: arms and legs finally matched in proportion. They made urine: kidneys were working.
Giraud’s heart, which one day might betray him, functioned well enough now, on a steady beat. He was just starting to grow the sandy hair that would characterize him in life. His lungs weren’t at all developed, so nothing but the artificial womb could sustain him at this point. His lungs lacked their life‑giving minor passages, and breathing any substance as rarified as air was impossible for him; but he was already getting vocal cords. His brain wasn’t cognitively active, and had nothing like its destined size, but it was acquiring a little organization. Areas of his brain made the most rudimentary start at sensing a touch, tasting, and smelling, though stimuli were much the same right now, and until that organization happened he couldn’t differentiate between touch or smell or sound: it was all the same to him, just a stimulus that got on his nerves.
He’d be a little insomniac throughout his adult life–but he’d begun to have periods of quasi‑sleep, or at least quiet. That, again, was the brain, organizing. And his nerves, which had lacked a myelin sheath, had begun to acquire it, which would be a process not limited to his stay in the womb. As that coating formed, finer and finer organization would become possible. As yet, it was very basic.