Weak is dead. The first Ari had said that, too.
And the first Ari hadn’t hadanybody she was that fond of, except Florian, except Catlin. The first Ari had told her her own nightmares of guilt…the discovery she’d enjoyed inflicting pain, and yet did it, when she did it, purely for a reason. The first Ari had warned her, as best she rationally knew how, that the path she was on went further and further into solitude, and into the dark.
She’d had hormones shot into her deliberately to make her mad and had moan things done to make her miserable, all because she was supposed to live the first Ari’s life, the way Ari’s life, under her own mother, had been one long lab‑test, intimately recorded, and full of Ari’s mother’s orders.
It was just everything, everycruel thing justified for the Project, until Denys died and the Project stood on her own two feet.
Well, she wason her own two feet, with her own walls rising around her. And she’d always been smart. All it took for her to learn something was for her to get her head in the right mode, and she’d been quick enough to take in what they wanted–once they’d gotten her scattershot mind both mad and focused…because Mad was always part of it. She could still be the genius her geneset could make her, without her being as cold as the first Ari–couldn’t she? Controlling the Mad was the important thing.
It was what this place was for.
She could love people. Now that she knew the whole scheme, she could try to set things right. Yanni would be here. Most of what Yanni wanted was to get back to his work, his real work. He didn’t ever want to run Reseune. He didn’t really want to fight her for his big project out on the fringe of space. He’d understand, if she just got his hands off the controls and gave him back his labs.
Sam would live here in the wing, Sam, the one in their group who’d just been so reliable, so sensible, in their growing up, that if Sam hadn’t existed, they might have all gone at each other’s throats and nothing would ever have worked. Though, when he got through with her wing, Fitzpatrick wanted him up at Strassenberg, which was a big thing for Sam, the height of his childhood ambitions. It would be hard to have him gone that long, but Sam would be her eyes and ears on that site–Sam and the high‑level security team Florian and Catlin would pick out to keep him safe. So Sam’s apartment would be vacant for a while. Maybe a couple of years.
Maddy and Amy, at least, would be living in the wing with her, right from the start.
And when Sam got back from Strassenberg, all the old gang would be here, all of them. She was going to have Justin, too, though he was twice their age. She had a place for him and Grant, a beautiful apartment, where nobody would ever threaten him again.
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.”