It would feelopen. If it worked, they were going to do the same sky‑dome in the big hall of the general public residencies. She was going to fix Reseune. It was going to be a place people wanted to be, before she was done with it. It wouldn’t be the same old utilitarian box‑shape and domes, not after her.
It was all Sam again. Sam had taken her rough sketches of years and years ago and played with them in his own computer for years. Sam had lately run it all through the big computers and ended up with real measurements that were going to meet regulations and make design sense, and Sam said he was working with architects who were with him and excited about what he was doing. She’d pulled strings with Yanni to get Sam time on systems at night, and Sam had pulled shift and shift. Give him shapes and he could figure the real building down to the joins and conduits. Give him charge of the logistics, and he had a fine grasp of what had to be scheduled when, right down to dealing with the bot programmers and giving clear orders to the azi workers andthe CITs.
More, Reseune Construction wantedhim when he was done. They told him he was already official on staff, never mind the regs and his lack of a degree and his age–he’d done his time in tape‑study that hadn’t been recorded, but they wanted him. The head of architectural design in RC, the same architect she’d aimed at Strassenberg itself, she’d hired to do the job here, too, and asked him to mentor Sam; but within the first month, RC’s chief architect had just de facto turned Sam and two of his best people loose to handle everything on‑site here while he concentrated on the more esoteric technicalities of the precip towers at Strassenberg.
Fitz Fitzpatrick was the man’s name. Florian and Catlin had investigated him top to bottom, the only CIT besides Yanni to be trusted with the knowledge of what was going on here. He was actually an uncle of Amy’s; and the relationship between Fitz Fitzpatrick and Sam was absolutely the happiest of all the string‑pulling she’d ever done.
And here was the result of it. The planes of the walls evolved one into another as they all walked through. “That’s my fish wall!” she exclaimed, spotting the deep recess, delighted, and Sam beamed and blushed a bit.
“The glass is here. That was big. The build for the tank will be among the last. I’ll be looking to experts’ specs on that.”
“I’ve got the data you want,” she said. She was seeing a tank filled with water, where now there was only white. “I want to learn it myself, but I’m going to be Contracting a specialist in salt aquaculture to actually do the running long‑term. He’ll help you set it up. His name’s Chris BCN‑3. He was supposed to be on the Beta Station production tanks. He’s seventeen, still taking tape, but he’s getting info on Earth exotics and he’s through enough already to help you, this week if you need him: he’s going to be supering all the watery technicals–with a couple of assistants if he turns out to need them.”
“Wouldn’t hurt at all. I’m anxious to get the pumps arranged. Any of your other staff you’ll want to tour through, or consult during the build, you let me know. The kitchens might be an issue.”
“Florian and Catlin are on it. They’ll get you a list of people we might have come here to walk around at certain stages. Security. Operations. Kitchen, in particular. We’re getting staff. They aren’t cleared into the house yet.”
“A few here might be helpful,” Florian said, behind them. “Not many though. We won’t inundate you with advice.”
A laser must be running. A burned stench wafted through. Something metal fell, distant, and the impact of something the size of the runabout echoed off the walls.
Sam tapped his hardhat. “Must’ve dropped a wrench out there. This area’s safe. Down the main corridor, they’re doing some light work in the ceiling today.”
“The supers are all on our list,” Catlin said. It was a question, regarding the CITs onsite.
“Always,” Sam said, unruffled. “Security never lapses. They don’t even take an inside lunch break: the azi crew is deepset against discussing their work off‑duty, so damned enthusiastic I have to make them take breaks– theyall know what they’re doing is unique, and they’re excited. So are the rest of us, to tell the truth. Want to see the latest?” He walked them to a serpentine line marked on the floor, which ran to the edge of the living room. “I want to S‑curve a meter‑deep channel through the flooring. A water channel, clear top, lighted underneath, with rock.”
“I love it!” Ari exclaimed. “A river.”
“Well, a stream. It’ll share its water source with the waterfall, not the tank. Fresh water. Complete loop. There’s a submersible pig to clean it and zap the algae.”
“Pig.” She envisioned the ones that sniffed native life that got onto the grounds.
Sam’s eyes danced. They were brown, unpretentious as the rest of him. He so loved knowing something technical that she didn’t. “A machine‑pig. A cleaner bot. Same as they use for regular water‑systems, standard piece of equipment, actually. That’s what they call it. It ought to work.”
“Pig.” She liked that word. It conjured the working pigs that patrolled the grounds and kept them safe. “Do it, if you think it’ll work. I like your river, Sam. I love it!”
“It just came to me when I was walking through here. We can have a pump at the top of the loop, right where the waterfall is, keep the water really moving.”
“Oh, don’t tell me everything! I just want to be astonished when I see it!”
They toured the downstairs bathroom, a modern installation that played a little off the waterfall concept, with sealed stone, but the fixtures were all modern. And there was a second scissor‑lift to take them up to the second floor–a scary little step across vacant space, and onto solid foamcrete.
At one end of that hall, beside the as yet rail‑less balcony, was Florian and Catlin’s suite, which was going to have a gym, and a workshop, and a library of its own. Other staff quarters would be right below it.
“Much more convenient,” was Florian’s only comment. But their eyes were bright. They were happy and easy with Sam. They always had been.
And then her room, her huge bedroom, with a cozy nook for a bed, and a living‑sky ceiling, and a glassed‑in area for the divider from her office, where her terrarium would be, and her wardrobe, and herbath, which had an in‑floor tub, and a mister, and its own little salon, plus a little exercise room of her own…it was everything, all in one. It was all her imagination wrapped up in a design of white plaster at the moment, and she went out onto the unrailed balcony–Florian and Catlin were there in a heartbeat–but not too far toward the edge, just looking down at all of the living and dining area below.
She might have to take over Reseune early. She might not have the years she wanted.
But she was going to have all her friends, all the people she most wanted. Yanni, too, if she could answer the questions she had. She’d been pent in, feeling like a prisoner in the slow ruin of Wing One. When they finished this, they could start repairs, where the search for bugs had literally ripped walls out–repairs much, much beyond a fresh coat of plaster.
Maybe it was dangerous to think of directing Reseune and still hoping to be as happy as she wanted to be in this castle in the air; but this place was all light and optimism. It cost. But it was where she could keep safe what her existence threatened, make an iron‑hard core that wouldn’t be vulnerable to threat.
Maybe it was the stupidest, most dangerous thing in the world, to surround herself with the people she was fondest of. The first Ari would have warned her it was, that it was setting herself up to get them killed, or to get herself hurt.