Didn’t make him unhappy, in the sense that he’d always been just as content to be like Grant, who was fairly perfect, in his eyes, both motherless and fatherless. He’d always been content to be Jordan’s Parental Replicate. But it was a question, whether if there’d been another influence in Jordan’s growing up, if Jordan would have grown up with a little doubt that one truth covered everything in the universe.

Jordan got the flaw from his father; Jordan tried to replicate himself, that was the damned key. Jordan hadn’t started with the concept of a kid who’d have his own notions–Jordan had tried to trim off any bits that didn’t match him…had fixed him on Grant, the way he’d fixed on Paul, only in that household there’d been room for only one personality, and nobody could argue with it.

CIT. Designer. And thorough bitch‑up. No question. Ari could stand him off temper for temper. But she hadn’t been able to work with him.

She’d conned him, was what. She’d conned Jordan into the whole concept of a psychological replicate, then snatched the result and did a job on it.

He lay there, totally null for a moment, asking if it really hurt as much as it once had. Thinking that–if not for Ari–he’d have made Grant into Paul.

Which couldn’t happen, because Grant wasn’t Paul. And she’d gotten Jordan to accept Grant, because it was so damned hard to getan alpha companion, and the labs had had only one–that she’d created, knowing right then and there what should have been so, so clear to Jordan–that Grant wasn’t Paul. Grant wasn’t compliant. Grant was a fine, fine piece of work, who had taken his own path and already begun to drag a young born‑man sideways. Jordan might have laid down Grant’s early programs, but not his absolute earliest, preverbal ones; and beyond that–Grant had just–self‑directed. Psychologically, endocrine level and all, stable as they came, and an intellect that might well get beyond him.

Ari’s best. Ari’s near‑last project, right along with the design that would replicate herself. Thank God for Grant. Thank Ari.

He just had to think what to do about Jordan.

And maybe he had to be a damned fool, and do a bit of work on himself, try to unwire that clenched‑up anger, and figure out where to send the adrenaline rush Jordan provoked in him. Just thinking about it set him off. And set him to work.

Calm down, first. Take the energy out of it. Find a place to put it. Don’t shut it down. That makes the knot. Find a place to use it.

Create. Think. There’s energy in flux. There’s creative potential in things that don’t match.

Grant turned over. “Are you still awake?”

“Thinking,” he said.

“Thinking good things or bad things?”

“I’m working on that,” he said. “I’m not going to let Jordan bring himself down. How long has it been since Paul took tape, I wonder?”

“Probably not in a long while.” Grant set a hand on his shoulder. “Justin. Mess with Paul and you’re taking a very large chance. He’s not stable. And you’re not his Supervisor.”

He shook his head. “I’m not. And he won’t trust me. But Paul’s storing tension the way a battery stores power. Paul’s not right. So Jordan’s not right. Jordan’s Worked Paul. But the conditions Jordan imagines to exist, don’t, so the world he’s made Paul live in–doesn’t exist. And Paul sees it. I think Paul sees it, and doesn’t know how to fix it.”

Grant considered that a moment. “That could be.”

“You have a sense of him.”

“I have an azi’s sense of him, which I think is accurate. Storing tension, very much so. But the wrong Intervention could do damage. Might lead to shutdown.”

Grant had been there. Grant had been through that. It was Grant’s own watershed experience, more so even than the sojourn with the Abolitionists.

“It’s a plan, at least. Jordan’s wound tight, protecting Paul. But he’s only adding to the tension. There’s a hell of a lot wrong in that relationship. They’re wound up together. I don’t know where to take hold of it. I don’t know I should, until the chance happens, until I know what Paul’s mental state is.”

“I can’t read him well enough,” Grant said. “The other night, the first night they were in the black and white apartment, Paul was dipping in and out of shutdown, just skimming it. Creating his own calm‑down.”

He remembered it. He’d taken it for overload–max stress, even on an alpha. Listening. But Grant intimated Paul hadn’t been listening, hadn’t been processing, hadn’t been recording, at certain intervals.

“That’s information,” he said. “Watch him. Watch him. See what you can figure.”

“I will,” Grant said. “Just–be careful with him.”

“I will,” he said.

He didn’t know if he could do anything, that was the thing. Real‑time work froze him up. It was a problem that Jordan might have given him, right along with the genes. The stress of it might even be Jordan’s problem, which Paul had absorbed. It was a damn interlock.

But he had to try. And, God, if Jordan caught him at it–

Hell didn’t half describe it. He wasn’tas important to Jordan as Paul was. He’d accepted that fairly unemotionally, since, in point of fact, Jordan wasn’t as vital to him as Grant was, and he knew which he’d choose.

Maybe he ought to–choose, that was. Go to Ari, tell her it wasn’t working, couldn’t work. Put Jordan back in Planys, give him something to do there, let him and Paul live their lives.

But he couldn’t do it. That was the hell of it. He was like Jordan, stubborn on an issue, and he had to try.

BOOK THREE Section 4 Chapter iv

JULY 20, 2424

1722H

The item alert was blinking on the screen, and Ari clicked it.

Mail alert,it said…some sender she’d specifically tagged to trigger the alert flasher, and that was a very, very short list.

She clicked again.

And her breath quickened. Cyteen Station in the sender line, Fargone Station as home address, via the merchanter Candide, docking in the last two minutes–a ship’s black box had just dumped its contents to Cyteen Station in orbit over their heads, and a longed‑for letter, at least one letter, had flown down the datastream to Reseune. Via protocols established in Alpha Wing, a reply to herletter opened the gateway, straight to Base One.

Click. Threeletters. One from Oliver AOX Strassen. Ollie was still alive.

One from Valery Schwartz. Her heart danced.

One from Gloria Strassen. That wasn’t so welcome. But she’d had to write to Gloria and to Julia just to be fair.

Discipline. Ollie outranked everybody. She read his letter first.

Dearest Ari,it said. Nobody called her dearest, but Ollie could. I received your invitation and very sympathetically understand the frame of mind in which you sent it, I do think. I remember you as Jane’s daughter, and with the utmost affection. But I must decline your kindness on several accounts.

First and most of all, Fargone is home, now. It was Jane’s home and mine, my best memories are here, and I have responsibilities that fill my time very usefully–ultimately useful to you, I hope.

Second, if things are going well for you, your direction is no longer Jane Strassen’s, but Director Finery’s, and you will be more comfortable in that role if I am not close by to prompt you to be that little girl again. I know you will be as intelligent as the great Dr. Emory, I hope you will be at least as wise, and I hope you will be good, but the meeting cannot satisfy me, or you. If I were still azi, that statement of logic would cause me no pain; but since I have become CIT, it has to pain us both. Let us remember those days as happy as they were, and keep that happiness in our mutual past, unchanged.

I must add one other matter: I know you have invited the Schwartzes and the Strassens to Reseune. I hesitate to be so blunt, but use caution. Jane’s relatives have been outspokenly bitter about their forced residency on Fargone: Valery Schwartz has grown up in close association with the Strassens. His mother is deceased, eleven years ago: a drug overdose which is inexplicable as an accident. Young Schwartz may or may not elect to accept your invitation: he is known here in the art community and has a reputation in deeptape experientials–an art which I have only lightly sampled, given my own character and origins. I am advised there are psychological considerations to prolonged exposure to these arts. Please use caution. I enclose files, in hopes you are surrounded by competent security–you surely must be, and I hope I know by whom.