She saw, down the hall, Yanni and Frank, in process of leaving.

She went that way. Yanni delayed for her at the front door, by the waterfall.

“I heard.” she said. “Yanni, can I help?”

“I’ll handle it,” Yanni said. “Just carry on. We’re not going to make a big thing of it. Natural gas explosion. That’s what we’ll say.”

“It wasn’t, though.”

“Whole damn truckful of explosives by the look of it. You carry on, you and your young people. This is going to take some sorting out.”

“Go,” she said, and by this time cousin Patrick had shown up, tucking a napkin full of something into his coat pocket, one more piece of Admin on his way.

“Ari,” Patrick said, with a little bow, and then he followed Yanni and Frank out, alone–they didn’t wait for him.

“Searches are in progress,” Florian said, “there and here. We’re under a mild alert, nothing that should bother the guests.”

You didn’t get into Reseune by water that easily these days. The bots zapped anything small; they reported anything big. The big machines that channeled the wild part of the river–they didn’t let things in easily, either. Somebodyhad gotten to Strassenberg a short distance overland, she’d bet on it. There was legitimate shipping that got close enough to it. You landed, and there were no barriers on the river shore yet, nothing like Reseune.

“Why?” she asked, the big why, but she wasn’t surprised when Florian and Catlin both shrugged an I‑don’t‑know.

“We’re hoping to find out, sera.”

“Understood,” she said, and thought, damn. She knew she had a worried, unhappy expression on her face, and tried to amend it as she walked out into the living room, but maybe Yanni and Patrick hadn’t been too discreet in their departure: heads turned. Conversation, already at a low ebb, died.

“We’ve got a problem,” she said. “Tower blown upriver at the new construction, definitely hostile action, but that stays under this roof. We don’t know why or what. We’re under a mild security alert here: if you’re going anywhere else this evening, use the storm tunnels.”

“Damn,” Amy said, just, “Damn.” And conversation stayed dead for a moment.

“Well,” Ari folded her arms and looked at the rest of her guests. “So we’re stuck here. Anybody want to follow this on the System?”

“Is somebody possibly on the grounds?” Maddy asked.

“Unknown, sera,” Catlin said. “But this wing is secure. Also secure: Admin, Ed, Labs A, B, C, and D. Search of Residencies A and B proceeding. Search of grounds proceeding, cascading alert. All AG notified.”

“Slow,” Ari muttered. She’d had time to hold converse, and they were just now closing up AG? “They can move faster than that.”

Storm sirens blew. Finally. They advised anyone out to get under cover, into the storm tunnels. Lethals might be patrolling the grounds: the little weedzappers, which already had a camera function, turned suddenly nasty and helping defenses target any response. It wouldn’t be a time to be walking around out there.

“Well,” Maddy said with a nervous little laugh. “I’ll stay in the Wing tonight. Champagne, anyone?”

There were takers, most of the party, and staff moved about seeing to it.

“It’s just become a dinner party,” Ari said. “In case any of you had planned on elsewhere after this: we’ll be serving something, and serving late, Joyesse, go tell Wyndham so.”

“Yes, sera,” Joyesse said.

“Catlin, tell Wes put the security screens up.”

“Yes,” Catlin said. Florian was in the hall, checking something, probably conversing with Wes and Marco, maybe communicating with Rafael and company.

The fish tank went opaque, dark blue. Then the other wall came alive with images, some with sunset darkening to night, showing the downed tower from a perspective below the cliffs, some with numbers, and one showing the view from a bot scurrying at turf level across Reseune grounds.

“Ari.” Justin came up at her elbow. “My father. I’d like permission to leave.”

Above all else she didn’t want Justin running around in the dark with the whole complex under alert. No was the reflexive answer.

But she couldn’t hold on to him. Or she’d lose him. She understood that.

“I’m going to be a spacecase until you get back. You’ve got Mark and Gerry with you. Get your father on the phone. Be sure he’s all right before you go anywhere. Security may have moved. Mark and Gerry can pull rank.”

“I–” he started to protest, but the security comment quieted any objection.

“Thank you,” Grant said, and the two of them went for the door, while she advised Marco to have Mark and Gerry meet them somewhere before the security desk.

Amy drifted over to her side, champagne glass in hand. “Something up with Jordan?”

“Not in play,” she said to one of her oldest co‑conspirators. “Whatever’s going on, if it’s Paxers, or if it’s not, Jordan’s a piece worth pinning down. Justin’s just going to tell him we care.”

Amy nodded, took a slow sip of champagne. Quentin was over with Florian and Catlin, getting information, watching the screens, which weren’t apt to change much this far into the emergency. Just the little robot skittering along in the dark, gone to night‑vision.

From Novgorod to Moreyville, even in Big Blue and faroff Planys, that scene was playing. The world was on alert.

Wonder if they knew, Ari asked herself. Wonder if this is specially for me. Another housewarming gift.

That implied a certain knowledge of the inner workings of Reseune–where the fact of so many relocations into Alpha Wing had, in fact, created quite a stir, and quite a lot of gossip.

The storm sirens still blew. Not a physical storm in the offing–but a storm, all the same.

BOOK THREE Section 3 Chapter vi

JULY 3, 2424

1934H

Two security were in the lower hall, black‑uniformed, rattling with full kit, including seldom‑worn helmets, and on an intercept. It didn’t make quiet company, but they were earnest types–Mark and Gerry, their names were. They hadn’t had time to introduce themselves formally–two lanky, tall azi, a lot alike: Mark, a serious fellow and Gerry a little less so: Justin actually recalled their files; but both were deadly serious at the moment.

“Ser,” they called him, and they said “ser,” to Grant, too, keeping their pace with no effort at all.

“We’re going to Ed,” Justin said. “My father lives there. I want to be sure he’s all right, considering what’s going on.” He had his ordinary pocket com. He punched the fast‑response buttons as they exited the lift toward the security station, and let it ring.

And ring.

“Brilliant,” he said to Grant. “He’s not home and he’s not answering.”

“Probably out at dinner,” Grant said.

“Ten thousand‑odd people are probably caught out at dinner.” They reached the desk and Justin showed his keycard. “Sera’s direct permission,” he said. “Out to Ed, personal.”

“Yes, ser,” the guard said. “Stay to the tunnels.”

“Absolutely.” They went out the door, into the familiar storm‑tunnel level of Wing One, and took an immediate left, Mark and Gerry rattling along behind. The sirens were intermittent now, as they were during a storm. The main corridor as they came out of Wing One and into the area of Admin was full of traffic, people generally in a fair hurry, one direction and the other, most trending the same direction they were going, which led, as the rim of a great box, through the Ed tunnels and over to the Residencies and the Labs. Anybody from the Township was going to have a long wait for buses or a long hike, via the Labs, to the second tier of storm tunnels and shelters…and there were people with children, one upset lost child–the father came and swept the lost boy up out of the bewildering traffic just as they came in range: the father and his partner had four others in their group, and tried to urge them to more speed.