If I admitted that it’s entirely nurture, or the lack of it, that wakes up the genes, then everything and anything is justifiable.

But I’ve gone off my program, marginally, and I’m still pretty good.

And Giraud helped in that: the first Giraud did. He turned downright fatherly with me, warning me, trying to guide me toward survival, even while Denys was probably telling himself if I got too close to taking over too soon, he’d kill me without a qualm. I have to wonder if Giraud picked up on that, and tried to hit some middle ground between Denys killing me and my killing Denys. And instead, Giraud died.

It probably wasn’t all sweetness and fatherly feeling on Giraud’s part. He’d probably been worried about Denys doing something to foul up everything Reseune had worked for, for very selfish reasons. Denys could be selfish like that, if Giraud didn’t step in and fix things.

And if I create Denys, Denys could be like that again, if he turned out to be really Denys: utterly disagreeable, and utterly self‑centered, lost in his own world. It may be there’s something in Denys’s brain that made that happen, and it could be genetic, essential to what made him a genius.

Poor Giraud was just Giraud and I don’t think a little kindness will really hurt him. His end‑of‑life change of mind very likely was sincere–I figured that out, trying to plan for a maman for Giraud, and I just can’t come up with one. There was that critical a difference between the two brothers.

And Denys, if he had had one strong emotion in his head, wanted him reborn, wanted, himself reborn, so, so much–wanted himself with Giraud. Not because he loved Giraud, I’ve come to think, because so much about him was sociopathic, but because, to him, Giraud was part of himself, part of his all‑important existence. One of the things that drove Denys to try to kill me might have been a fear that, when I took over, I might abort Giraud, in one sense or the other–either physically or psychologically.

And, oh, Denys knew by then he hadn’t won any favors of me, and I suppose I should, have kept my feelings a little more secret. Denys had wanted. Giraud back so desperately.

But Giraud had never been just for Giraud. That was the difference a little love had made, and Giraud might have interpreted their mother’s hammering away at him as a kind of love–in his own way, he might have taken it for that. Giraud was, of the two, far more the wild card. Giraud would attach, sooner or later.

If I knew I had a sister who wasn’t reproduced, I’d feel deprived, wouldn’t I? And knowing it would fester, and turn toxic in the process…so maybe I’m wrong. I won’t know. I won’t know for a few years. I’ll see if Giraud asks the question.

A lot of things will change in Reseune. Or maybe I’m deluding myself…trying to change some things back to what they were twenty years ago.

My letter’s had time to get to Fargone. An answer could be coming back to me as I write this. Maybe even the people I invited have gotten on a ship and they’re coming here. I’ll know, before Giraud is born, what the answer is from all those people I wrote to.

We aren’t making any progress to speak of on the Patil investigation. They’ve hauled in some Paxer elements, the usual. The investigation at Planys is slow: there are two CITs from Big Blue, and before that, from Novgorod: they’d been in the University. Hadn’t everybody, when Centrists, Abolitionists, and Paxers were the radical chic? They passed a questioning under trank. Patil’s still dead, and likely to stay that way–but we have her geneset on file. So never bet on it.

There haven’t been any other cards turning up in people’s pockets.

We still assume the two events, the card with Patil’s name, and Patil being murdered, were connected.

And the rest of it just boils down to a lot of police work, sifting hundreds of records of people who were put into Planys during the War, because of radical connections or Defense‑connected projects–wasn’t that a brilliant mix? Everybody’s background has suspicious connections, because Defense used to shove anybody called “essential to the war effort” into Planys. And then Reseune, in Yanni’s time, moved in Jordan, who’s not the sort to be quiet or suffer fools.

The same with the University: Expansionist professors and Centrist professors, some that Defense moved down‑world for protection, and the ones they taught, and then those that couldn’t take the pressured environment and just got jobs out in the city. It’s an odd, odd network in the University, not like Reseune at all: most of the professors have contacts in the city, and they live all over, some in the University neighborhood and some clear over in the port area, and it’s very hard to track what their contacts are. There’s just no information in Novgorod that isn’t tangled.

We have too many suspects, not too few. Patil hadn’t socialized with the radicals, but they clustered around her.

And Thieu was connected to her and Jordan. And he worked for Defense.

I wish I knew who’d pushed that card on Jordan. It almost makes me think Jordan is innocent of involvement. He’s innocent of an unusual number of things he was almost involved in. I find that odd enough to constitute a watch‑it.

But I’m taking measures to protect everyone I can. And when I set up the new wing, I have to decide who’s in, and who’s out, the way it was when we were kids.

There’s Stef Dietrich. He’s been on the outs with us for a long time. He used to be one of us, but he’s a troublemaker when it comes to sex, and he can’t settle with anybody–people just don’t trust him. I don’t think I want to bring him in.

There’s Amy and Maddy and Sam, them first; Justin and Grant; Yvgenia Wojkowski’s in a relationship that won’t pass muster: if she asks, I’ll tell her that–it won’t make her happy, but at least she’ll know what her choice is. There’s Tommy and Mika Carnath; they’re definitely in; there’s Stasi Ramirez–she’s in; Will Morley: he’s all right, but his girl friend isn’t–another Yvgenia case. Pity Yvgenia’s boyfriend and Will’s girlfriend aren’t interested in each other. And there’s Dan Peterson–he’s got an azi companion, a beta, who’s all right: I checked. And there’ll be Valery, if he comes home, and there’s room for Gloria Strassen, who probably hates me; and Julia, who’s Maman’s real daughter; but she’ll probably tell me go to hell. That’s all right: I hope she does and she won’t be my responsibility.

I suppose I’m going to move in poor old Patrick Emory. He’s not that old, he’s just dull and a little odd, but then he’s my only living real relative but one, so for once in his life somebody’s going to be nice to him. And my aunt… God, my Aunt Victoria. She’s probably going to refuse to move, but there’s room if she wants to. I won’t leave her out. Nobody would dare do that. But I hope she’ll tell me go to hell, too. She’s still offended I exist, and she’d gladly pull the plug on Giraud, never mind Denys. And I think she’s immortal.

I hope Valery comes. I so much want to see him.

But there’ll be room, too, in that wing, for people that aren’t born yet.

You, maybe. I’ve no idea who’ll bring you up. Amy would be one of the best. But that’s, I hope, a long, long time from now.

BOOK THREE Section 3 Chapter iii

JULY 3, 2424

1405H

There wasn’t much to pack, and staff handled most of it. For herself, Ari just put together a bag that held her essential makeup, her current notebooks, her study tapes, anything security‑sensitive, and Poo‑thing–poor raggedy Poo‑thing couldn’tmake the transition to a new life in the bottom of some box.