Regenesis. Part 8

"I don't think I'd like the climate."

She didn't like the implication of that, not at all. He'd sensed she was stalking him. He'd Got her. She was sure her face had reacted in some dismay. As of now, it had a frown, which she immediately purged.

"Oh? And what did you do do" she asked, in her best Ari One mode, "in Novgorod?"

"You have to trust me."

And now now was he going to bring up those secret meetings? "Oh. I do, but I'd really like to know, and you know I'd like to know." was he going to bring up those secret meetings? "Oh. I do, but I'd really like to know, and you know I'd like to know."

"Well, I agreed with Corain on a compromise. Fargone's hurting for jobs. His const.i.tuency at at Fargone is extremely important to him getting re-elected if he's challenged for the seat. So we put in a new lab wing. We get Centrist Party support on a rider tacked onto that bill, Fargone is extremely important to him getting re-elected if he's challenged for the seat. So we put in a new lab wing. We get Centrist Party support on a rider tacked onto that bill, because because it helps Corain's const.i.tuency at Fargone, and, here's the core of it: the Eversnow project gets underway." it helps Corain's const.i.tuency at Fargone, and, here's the core of it: the Eversnow project gets underway."

"Eversnow!" That hadn't been part of the report.

"Eversnow."

"It's a dead project."

"Not dead. We get a station at Eversnow, a full blown research station on on Eversnow, and a new lab at Fargone that's very quietly aimed at terra-forming, exactly as originally planned on Cyteenthe Centrists' favorite dreambut out there, where it's Eversnow, and a new lab at Fargone that's very quietly aimed at terra-forming, exactly as originally planned on Cyteenthe Centrists' favorite dreambut out there, where it's not not going to cause us trouble." going to cause us trouble."

Her pulse rate was getting up. Her blink rate would be. And he'd read that in a second. "So we're suddenly friends with the Centrists and we're terraforming Eversnow, of all things. And producing alpha azi at Fargone."

"A few."

"We have a lab at Fargone. The Rubin Project was at Fargone."

"Mostly terraforming research ... a clearing house for what we learn on Eversnow. Ultimatelyultimately azi, yes."

"Alpha production has never left the planet!"

"Our personnel, mind, no release of proprietary secrets. by the time we're bringing any great number of azi into the Eversnow system, we'll be on the planet. Azi production. Full scale by then. You'll be putting together the sets for that population in your lifetime."

The Eversnow deal had been dead as long as the first Ari. And Reseune had allowed a prerogative of exclusivity to lapse, enabling labs that high-end, that capable, to run out at Fargonewith the possibility of somebody outside Reseune staff laying hands on the manuals? Bad enough they'd licensed out military thetas to BucherLabs and had those those problems to mop up for the next forty years of the first Ari's career they'd never done anything like problems to mop up for the next forty years of the first Ari's career they'd never done anything like this this.

And terraforming? That was a dead issue.

"None of this is in the news," she said calmly.

"None of it is going to be in the news. It's under deep cover, disguised as that azi lab."

"But, d.a.m.n it, Yanni." She kept her voice down, kept the whole situation under control, holding the lid on. "I a.s.sume you've got a very, very good reason. What happened to the remediation budget?"

"It'll wait a year."

"While we create a terraforming lab out at Fargone?"

"Yes," Yanni said, head-on, "It was the first Ari's project. It got sc.r.a.pped."

"The first Ari isn't alive now. I am. And I have an opinion. You didn't ask me. Where are my budget items, Yanni?"

"Next year."

"We have two labs full of scientists we're going to have to fund till next year and I'm making a heavy hit on budget as it is!"

"I know that."

"So you could have talked about this. Eversnow, for G.o.d's sake! And an alpha lab! What else?"

"We manage the lab, top to bottom. Our personnel run it, no training of local techs to do anything: they'll all be Reseune people, born here, trained here, retiring here, ultimately."

Yanni's voice was so quiet, so reasonable. He wasn't that way with a lot of people. But he knew he'd sneaked this one past her, and he was presenting a case in which she was going to have the say. She'd be in charge when this thing came into full bloom, and YanniYanni would be gone by then, at least gone from Admin, and back in the lab.

That thought settled her heart rate a tick or two. She didn't want that, yet.

And she thought about what he was doing. He'd been meeting with Corain, of all people. Corain didn't meet with Science. "So." she said, "and Citizens voted for it."

"Jobs," Yanni said. "A lot of jobs. Council knows what it's for. We're just not advertising it for the media yet."

"They know, and they voted for this."

"Everybody but Internal Affairs and State. Two nays. I'm sure you know."

She knew. Corain had gone along. Jobs, Yanni said. Jobs at Far-gone. Elder Ari had warned her about unrest in the populationthe Citizens Bureau, which Corain represented. Ari had warned her about unhappinessat Fargone, at Pan-Paris, which wasn't on the expansion routes; both flashpoints, fobs had been scarce, opportunities scant since the War. Fargone was supposed to be in for major expansion when the military had planned to go ahead with Eversnow; she knew that was the history of it at that star.

And then peace had happened, and the project had stalledpeople elsewhere hadn't thought terraforming anything was a good idea; and then the first Ari had died, and it had stayed a dead issue for twenty years.

But the Eversnow collapse had had had an effect, politically. Fargone Station's independence tilt, voting sometimes with the Expansionists, sometimes with the Centrists, and bargaining hard for its vote, had been a factor in the Defense election that had put Vladislaw Khalid inher least favorite Bureau head in her own lifetime. had an effect, politically. Fargone Station's independence tilt, voting sometimes with the Expansionists, sometimes with the Centrists, and bargaining hard for its vote, had been a factor in the Defense election that had put Vladislaw Khalid inher least favorite Bureau head in her own lifetime.

And that unrest, of people feeling trapped and dead-ended, was still out there at Fargone and Pan-Paris, in the electorate of Citizens, in Defense. It spread even through the Science Bureau, out there: the Expansionists had just squeaked through its traditional majority in the last election Science had had.

That was dangerous, even if it was just one star-station.

She had an inkling all of a sudden where Yanni was leading with this little surprise, and it wasn't stupid: it was an answer to the kind of problems Yanni had faced in his his tenure as Proxy Councillor for Science and head of the Expansionist Party. Give Fargone a major project, jobs, prosperityand mutate Fargone's maverick electorate into one more in line with Reseune, who'd be running the project. Setting a whole new population-burst of azi out there, who would, over time, migrate to freed-man status at Fargone and then, supposedly, at Eversnow Station, azi who'd teach their own CIT children their opinions tenure as Proxy Councillor for Science and head of the Expansionist Party. Give Fargone a major project, jobs, prosperityand mutate Fargone's maverick electorate into one more in line with Reseune, who'd be running the project. Setting a whole new population-burst of azi out there, who would, over time, migrate to freed-man status at Fargone and then, supposedly, at Eversnow Station, azi who'd teach their own CIT children their opinions And Corain was going along with it? She felt her week-long Mad cool off just a degree. Defense still had a strong interest in Eversnow. It was going to be a problem to pry their fingers off it, and Yanni was trying to work with them . . . had Yanni thought of that?

"We set up an alpha-capable lab at Fargone," Yanni was saying quietly, and she began to track it, "but the locals are naturally immediately thinking of CIT-use, ordinary CIT births, and that's what they know. Corain hasn't mentioned Eversnow in his own arguments, or at least it hadn't leaked by this morning. But Council has something to gain from this bill. Fargone's going to be the stepping-off point for Eversnow, which will become more and more economically important to Fargone voters and to the Citizens Bureau. But most of all, to us. Not just a new city. A new planet. For us, a whole new genetic resource. A whole new population to birth and set up. Corain's agreeing to cooperate with us on the Hinder Stars Defense Treaty, but we agreed to drop the remediation funding increase for this session, for this project. Seed money. Corain gains jobs and votes and he gets funding without a tax increase. But ultimately we gain everything."

The d.a.m.ned thing was an appalling daisy chain of favors exchanged. She suddenly had a much wider window into the content of the mysterious meetings, and here was Yannistolid, just-the-facts Yanni, non-activist through her whole lifeadvancing an outrageously ambitious Expansionist agenda the first Ari had contemplated and slowed down on, toward the end of her life, as too much, too far.

In Yanni's plan, they acquired not just Eversnow as a base, but the string of stars beyond it; that was the thing. The strand that had been, without Eversnow, unattainable. Defense wanted that: she could see it.

And the Centrists, particularly numerous in the Citizens Bureau, whose whole platform had always been to have Union's power to stay cl.u.s.tered tightly around Cyteen, were suddenly going along with Eversnow? The first Ari had started out supporting terraforming at Cyteen, her mother Olga's project, and then pulled the rug from under that once rejuv manufacture became a vital industry. The Centrists, wanting to expand population, not territory, had been outraged. They'd seen it as a ploy to keep Cyteen mostly desert, carved up into Administrative Territories, notably Reseune's protective reserves, where CITs couldn't get a foothold. They'd been furious and called Eversnow a pie-in-the-sky piece of politics that was going to give Reseune one more protectorate and never would benefit the average CIT.

And now the Centrists, who had been so fundamentally opposed to that project at the edge of s.p.a.ce, were suddenly willing to give up their campaign to terraform Cyteen and concentrate on Eversnow.

The universe had changed in a week.

And she didn't know enough. Eversnow had been a problem she'd planned to postpone for decades.

A world locked in a s...o...b..ll effect. A world without a spring for millions of yearswith, however, the strong likelihood that there was still life there, genetically unique, locked in rocks in the sub-bas.e.m.e.nt of a frozen ocean.

In the first Ari's day, with all of humankind busy blowing each other up in the War, the Expansionists and the military had both been hot to seed Eversnow for their own reasonstheir hedge on a bet, if the Alliance had hit Cyteen. But Centrists hadn't wanted to spend money there at all, and a few Centrist-leaning scientists had argued they needed to preserve and study that world for a few decades.

Too late, by then. An early Defense Bureau project had already broken the freeze, or begun to break it. artificially, with solar heat, and tipped the balance toward a melt. . . how that had ever turned out, she didn't know in any detail. Earth-origin phytoplankton reportedly bloomed in certain areas, thanks to Defense.

She would not have done that: she would have said a vehement no. It was a living world, and living worlds were precious in the cosmos. Even s...o...b..a.l.l.s. That was what she'd thought in her slight reading of the projectgood they gave it up.

But now came politics. And Yanni was getting friendly with Corain? Establishing a population burst out at Fargone and then at Eversnow, where the Centrists weren't paying attention That actually could be smart, she had to admit it. Centrists attracted the violent fringe elements, people like the Paxers and the Abolitionists, whose major agenda had gone from a unilateral peace in the Company Wars on the one hand, and an abolition of all azi production on the other. The Paxers and the Abolitionists had, as a curious side agenda, the terraforming of Cyteen, which they thought would break the power of Reseune, and that that was how those fringe groups had found an ideological home in the Centrist Party. was how those fringe groups had found an ideological home in the Centrist Party.

But let Corain of Citizen shift the political focus to "jobs for Fargone," and snuggle up to Science, and watch the fringe elements scramble to cope with that that.

The first Ari had created her, she'd said, to keep watch over her projectsamong which was Gehenna, and maybe, yes, she supposed, that could include Eversnow, even if it wasn't, like Gehenna, populated.

So, well, maybe Yanni didn't deserve s.p.a.cing.

A sudden expansion of Reseune interests out on the fringe of human s.p.a.cea whole new strand of stars. New frontiers. A commitment to expansionand to Expansionism, with all it stood for, and all the dangers in the deep unknown . . .

Was she she ready to open that door to the universe and deal with whatever lay out there? Was ready to open that door to the universe and deal with whatever lay out there? Was she she, for that matter, going to be as Expansionist in her own career as her predecessor had been? She didn't know. Decisions were coming down on her too early . . . and she was about to be stuck with this one: there were ways for her to undo everything except the dispersal of the Earth genome into an alien, living world.

But Defense, by all reports, had already done that part, even including higher lifeforms.

"I'm not sure, Yanni. I'm still not sure. Tell me why."

"A planet with only microbes to recommend it is interesting, but we have samples."

"All right. Keep going. Why now?"

Yanni took a sip of wine. "Here's the urgency in it. The War's over; that used to be our cohesive factor, as a nation: we had to stop the Earth Company So now Union's teetering somewhere between an amalgam of star-stations and a fully formed state, and there's power to be had, power Reseune holds virtually solo. Reseune keeps Union going in a specific direction, keeps a momentum, or G.o.d knows what it would do. The Council may govern, but Reseune still makes the rules that govern azi, and azi are still, and for a few centuries more, the source of the population base."

"That's supposed to end."

"Not yet. And this is the reason. As long as we expand into new frontiers, CIT births won't keep up with the need for population; azi go on being born, and Reseune goes on making the rules, the newest population goes on voting our way, and we'll always outvote the Centrists and keep them from cl.u.s.tering all our a.s.sets around one vulnerable planet. Plus we retain our police power, where azi are concerned, and we remain a clearing-house for information that most of the citizenry doesn't even want to know, but which could come back on their heads. We don't know what the future holds, but it's a sure bet the Centrists know less than we do. Earth is out of serious play in human politics for at least a century. It can't even get a consensus together to manage its trade relations, and right now they see us as an endless source of funds and invention, so they don't actually have to solve any of their problems. they sell us their antiquities, their artwork, their unique biologicals, and we make the worst of their politicians drunk with money and importance. The only thing they really badly want, we won't sell them."

That, of course, was rejuv. On a populous planet like Earth, it could be a disaster. And she saw Yanni's point: left with n.o.body n.o.body to make a decision not to trade in it. it would have happened, and Earth would have collapsed. to make a decision not to trade in it. it would have happened, and Earth would have collapsed.

"Earth won't move until it's uncomfortable," she murmured, quoting. The rest of what Ari One had said was: It won't make any decision until at least three of its factions combine. It won't make any decision until at least three of its factions combine. "So where do you see things going for us all? Another war?" "So where do you see things going for us all? Another war?"

"Alliance has its own problems, transitioning from a collection of merchant captains to a government making law for two worlds. It's set Pell off limits. It saw Gehenna as a potential resource, but now they know it's a time bomb. So they came out of the War owning two planets they don't want to touchpartly n.o.ble ethics. But this is the important part: partly it's the paralysis of not having having a ReseuneLabs to make informed decisions, and they refuse to ask us what to do with Gehenna or Pell. Their R&D was always driven by the likes of LucasCorp's operation, all profit, no long-range planningecological disaster in the making. Plus their two planets both have higher life to worry about. Our two worlds don't. Right now they can't do anything about what we do." a ReseuneLabs to make informed decisions, and they refuse to ask us what to do with Gehenna or Pell. Their R&D was always driven by the likes of LucasCorp's operation, all profit, no long-range planningecological disaster in the making. Plus their two planets both have higher life to worry about. Our two worlds don't. Right now they can't do anything about what we do."

"But," she said, "Cyteen's biosystem produces rejuv, and we can't jeopardize that by terraforming here. Go over strictly to lab production and it drives up the cost of something everybody has to have for most of their lifeso you create a cla.s.s who can live for a century and a half being young, and separate them from the people who can't afford it."

Staff brought the next course, grilled fish, with citrus. It took a moment. And she was annoyed with staff, who should have waited for a signal. Probably the fish would have seriously overcooked. But she needed a stern talk with staff about interrupting. A very stern talk.

"So," she said, after the obligatory compliments, and several bites further on.

"So," Yanni said, perfectly composed.

"So I'm following everything you're saying, and it makes sense. But why are you personally voting for terraforming Eversnow this fast? What if there's something as important as rejuv down there? Something we can't can't make in a lab?" make in a lab?"

"One reason: Reseune's continued existence, its power to make decisions, aboveboard or in secret, is the core of all Union stability. Without us, Union falls apart. That's not arrogance. That's fact. Right now, Union isn't populous enough to avoid fragmentation. Decisions are being taken. Some really stupid ideas are current in politics, and some d.a.m.ned selfish ones. Reseune is at a low ebb of power, during my interregnum, so it's perceivedbecause I'm not an Emory, a Carnath, or a Nyenot even a Warrick. I'm an unknown, and it's widely perceived I'm merely a footnote, filling time between Denys Nye's control of Reseuneand your taking the office, for which all the Centrists are busy bracing themselves. They perceive me as weak, someone they can get concessions out ofbefore you come in. But on this one matter, on this, I am pa.s.sionate. We need the expansion of human s.p.a.ce to go on holding the power to make decisions; we need labs to extend our reach to other places, labs, incidentally, out of immediate view of Centrist leadership here on Cyteen . . . but I'm not advertising that feature of the plan. We may still find biologicals we can develop at Eversnow; and the experience will be invaluable; but right now, and in the immediate future, we need the expansion of our loyal voting base, before some short-sighted, over-content business interests on Cyteen Station and in Novgorod break up Reseune and let us fall behind the Alliance. Fatally so. In which case I guarantee guarantee you there'll be another war. We need to hedge our bets by spreading outward. Concerns for microbes take second place. The way Earth is managing its affairs currently, we may be using your predecessor's genetic Arks to recover what they lose." you there'll be another war. We need to hedge our bets by spreading outward. Concerns for microbes take second place. The way Earth is managing its affairs currently, we may be using your predecessor's genetic Arks to recover what they lose."

"And what if we lose something like rejuv because we rushed in and messed up a place we don't wholly know?"

"We could lose something, yes. But we know what we gain. A power base. And whatever we mess up there, it won't be us. The Centrists envision a planet they can live on in billions, like Earth, the great fantasy. They see this project as a foot in the door of that science. We get the Centrists involved far outside the understanding of their comfortable power base on Cyteen, and we edge their children closer and closer to our point of view. The Long View ... in this case, from a standpoint of distance from the center of Union. We get their kids involved in this project. We turn the Centrists into our a.s.set. they go for the profit out there, being people with families they want to supportand we go on as we are, controlling colonization. There are other worlds beyond Eversnow. But we can't reach them without stepping stones. Trade drives drives expansion. Trade drives us. And the Treaty of Pell meant our trade pays a price, ft may have meant peace, but Alliance is getting fatter on a share of our trade. And some of those merchanters are using the profit to update armamentsthe way some of our warships nowadays run a little cargoof a medical and emergency nature. The Treaty may someday break down on that point. We have to get other options, we have to maintain our economic push that keeps us stronger than the Alliance, or see the consequences." expansion. Trade drives us. And the Treaty of Pell meant our trade pays a price, ft may have meant peace, but Alliance is getting fatter on a share of our trade. And some of those merchanters are using the profit to update armamentsthe way some of our warships nowadays run a little cargoof a medical and emergency nature. The Treaty may someday break down on that point. We have to get other options, we have to maintain our economic push that keeps us stronger than the Alliance, or see the consequences."

It wasn't a stupid idea. She could see that. And it was a vision. It might be stupid to think Expansionism could go on at the same pace forever, but there was something to it going on for a while: Earth was one planet, one star system, and fragile. Earth had antagonized all its colonies, who held the only safe direction for Earth to expandEarth now knew it wasn't going to grow without running into intelligence in the other directions, and they only hoped Earth didn't provoke something out in the deep. Alliance was already committed in the direction of Gehenna, but that planet was a problem.

Eversnow would lead Union development further out on another tangent, away from Earth and farther out than the Alliance, down a strand of stars that worked like a river in s.p.a.ce. Broaden Union's population base, widen their territory, make them secure, and yes, make sure there were jobs. That had been a poser, but Yanni's plan solved that at a stroke.

Going away from Alliance made them una.s.sailable, militarily: Defense would like that. Folly for Alliance or Earth to attack something that much bigger; and a strong Union, with other resources, wouldn't actually need need Earth, or even Alliance . . . while a strong Union was a big market, for Earth, and for Alliance. So it could possibly preserve the peace better than standing still. Earth, or even Alliance . . . while a strong Union was a big market, for Earth, and for Alliance. So it could possibly preserve the peace better than standing still.

So was it worth ruining a planet? A s...o...b..ll, the domain of microbes? It might be.

"So let me ask you one," Yanni said. "This new research post up-river. It seems your own plan's gotten beyond that. . . while I've been in Novgorod. Now we're talking about a major lab expansionfive hundred jobs on this budget request, my office tells me. Requests for extension on use of the excavators. There's nothing there to mine up in the hills. No industry' likely. But now you're requesting residences. A river port, with coffer dam and shields. Why Why do you need a river port for remediation research?" do you need a river port for remediation research?"

"To move supply."

"And? It's seeming a little beyond a bare-bones research post all of a sudden. I'm not complaining, understand. I just want to know what we're suddenly funding up there. What are you up to, young lady?"

She really hadn't been ready to talk about that. But maybe it was time. Secret for secret.

"Actuallya township."

"An adjunct to Reseune? Or a rival?"

"A real township. Like here. Shops. People. Manufacture, eventually. I'm thinking of calling it Stra.s.senberg."

"Stra.s.senberg," Yanni said, sitting back a little. That had been Maman's name, Stra.s.sen. "Well, now there's there's an ambitious design for an eighteen-year-old. You're building a new wing on Reseune and in the last three weeks your research lab has mutated into a town. And why, pray, do you think we an ambitious design for an eighteen-year-old. You're building a new wing on Reseune and in the last three weeks your research lab has mutated into a town. And why, pray, do you think we need need another township in the world?" another township in the world?"

That, like her question about Yanni's programs, was a deeper question. Fair question, considering the funds she'd counted on weren't going to be plentiful, if they now had to fund the remediation. "Two reasons: first the isolation, what I said at the start: a place to put the rest of my uncle's staff where I don't have to deal with them. But I want a lab for my decisions. The first Ari created me to carry on her work. I'm setting up a place where absolutely all the decisions are mine and all the mindsets are what I choose to be up there, CIT and azi. Give or take my uncle's people, that they'll have to encapsulate, they're my my research question. I research question. I said said it was a lab. And it actually is. It's my comparison to what the first Ari did in, say, Gehenna." it was a lab. And it actually is. It's my comparison to what the first Ari did in, say, Gehenna."

Eyebrows lifted. Clearly a city wasn't quite the answer Yanni had expected under the t.i.tle of a research lab. But it was the truth. There might be a timebomb in the Gehenna mindset, buta more closely-held secret, and one she wasn't sure the first Ari had ever directly discussed with Yannithere was possibly one in the Cyteen population itself, simply because the mindsets were what they were, exactly the same mix of psychsets Yanni had been talking about continuing at Eversnow. All but the CITs who'd come down from orbit were Reseune-designed mindsetsthe same as Yanni planned to go on using out at Eversnow. The station over their heads had its founding families, a certain aristocracy of CITs, people with citizen-numbers from the origin of the system: the Carnaths, the Nyes, the Emorys, and the Schwartzes, plus a couple of hundred other names that had proliferated through the stationand then a number had settled at Reseune and Novgorod, on the planetary surface, once they'd begun to colonize the planet.

But it had needed a succession of population bursts to build civilization and sustain an economy independent of Earth's economy, independent of the Merchanters Alliance, from which they they had seceded by force of arms. A planetary economy needed hands to work, minds to devise, and people to mine resources, consume products, and fill the vacant spots in the outback, dense enough population for viable commerce. In the early days Union had boosted its numbers by birthlabs, by cycling azi into freedmen at an extraordinary rate . . . azi who'd been given their ethics by tape that Reseune had created in the first Ari's mother's time. had seceded by force of arms. A planetary economy needed hands to work, minds to devise, and people to mine resources, consume products, and fill the vacant spots in the outback, dense enough population for viable commerce. In the early days Union had boosted its numbers by birthlabs, by cycling azi into freedmen at an extraordinary rate . . . azi who'd been given their ethics by tape that Reseune had created in the first Ari's mother's time.

And the first Ari had had a very heavy hand on that process, tweaking what her mother Olga Emory had done; and then those azi had become freedmen. and married and had CIT kids, and taught them their values. More, the first Ari had operated increasingly with deep sets, in a style that seared a lot of other psych designers, and they they didn't read what she'd been doing. didn't read what she'd been doing.

Teaching the kids' kids' generation to carry on, that was whatjust like Gehenna. A lab-made ethic was threaded all through the stations in Union's grasp just exactly what Yanni intended continuing with another surge in azi population in the deep Beyond. The same ethic the first Ari-generated population-burst had installed was buried in the psyches of all those people who took the subways to work and voted in the ma.s.sive Bureaus of Citizens and Technology. Educated votes counted multiple times, and there were devices in the way the vote happened to keep the decision-making within a Bureau constantly in the hands of people expert in the fields in question, but the fact was, in Union's system, the popular vote, moving in a unified direction, could swing a certain way no matter what the experts wanted.

Count on it: the azi-born were never going to turn on Reseune: the sons and daughters of the azi-born were never going to turn, no matter what the Centrists wanted, or the Expansionists wanted, or the Paxers wanted. Yanni's maneuvers to divide and diminish the Centrists were, she suspected, all unnecessary, if the first Ari was right. There was a worm working in the programs, something that moved and reprogrammed itself to suit the times, and it was d.a.m.ned scary how it worked, and changed, while azi-descended were now out-populating CITs.

But it was not something she was going to discuss in depth with Yanni. The terrible danger of that ethics implant was what the first Ari had died knowingshe'd died haunted by the fact one human couldn't live long enough to see what it was going to do. It was why an Ari Two had to exist to watch out for glitches in the mindsets she'd installed, at Gehenna, on Cyteen, inside Reseune itself. It was necessarily an untried theory, in those population surges mandated by the War, decommissioned soldiers, workers, colonists in the Gehenna outback: the first Ari had had to adjust them fast, and do it wide, or see it undone and unraveling. A collective azi-descended socio-set could mutate under unforeseen circ.u.mstances, creating not just new att.i.tudes, but a whole artificially-setted human population, an integration with a capital I.

The first Ari had not just tweaked the helm of the ship of colonial ambitions, but rewritten the navigational charts. Gehenna was only a part of it.

And her predecessor had kept that secret to herself, until she pa.s.sed it to her own image and set her onto a very specific course: to be sure the design didn't blow up in the second and third generation of newly-minted CITs . . . because to tell anyone was risking letting another another worm loose in the population, one of knowing one's fate and trying to second-guess it. worm loose in the population, one of knowing one's fate and trying to second-guess it.

And where was was the end? What was going to happen to humanity as a whole, when half the human population in the universe was on a different, human-devised program? Done was done. She had to steer it. the end? What was going to happen to humanity as a whole, when half the human population in the universe was on a different, human-devised program? Done was done. She had to steer it.

"All right," she said to this man, her own caretaker. Her protector. The man likely empowered by her predecessor to remove her if she ran amok. And she forgave him his sins of secrecy and surrendered a planet to him, because this man, whose use was his independent thinking, thought it was a necessary move. "All right, Yanni, so I'll study up on Eversnow. I should have done before now. The damage, you're right, is already done. The military saw to that. And I'm sure there are benefits I haven't looked at."