“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’tmake 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 damned selfish ones. Reseune is at a low ebb of power, during my interregnum, so it’s perceived–because I’m not an Emory, a Carnath, or a Nye–not 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 Reseune–and your taking the office, for which all the Centrists are busy bracing themselves. They perceive me as weak, someone they can get concessions out of–before you come in. But on this one matter, on this, I am passionate. We need the expansion of human space 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 guaranteeyou 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 faroutside 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 asset. They go for the profit out there, being people with families they want to support–and we go on as we are, controlling colonization. There are other worlds beyond Eversnow. But we can’t reach them without stepping stones. Trade drivesexpansion. Trade drives us. And the Treaty of Pell meant our trade pays a price, it 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 armaments–the way some of our warships nowadays run a little cargo–of 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 keepsus 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 expand–Earth 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 space. 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 unassailable, 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 needEarth, 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 snowball, 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 expansion–five hundred jobs on this budget request, my office tells me. Requests for extension on use of the excavators. There’s nothing there to mineup in the hills. No industry’ likely. But now you’re requesting residences. A river port, with coffer dam and shields. Whydo 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.

“Actually–a township.”

“An adjunct to Reseune? Or a rival?”

“A real township. Like here. Shops. People. Manufacture, eventually. I’m thinking of calling it Strassenberg.”

“Strassenberg,” Yanni said, sitting back a little. That had been Maman’s name, Strassen. “Well, now there’san 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 needanother 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 mydecisions. The first Ari created me to carry on herwork. 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 myresearch question. I saidit 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 title of a research lab. But it was the truth. There might be a timebomb in the Gehenna mindset, but–a more closely‑held secret, and one she wasn’t sure the first Ari had ever directly discussed with Yanni–there 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 mindsets–the 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 station–and then a number had settled at Reseune and Novgorod, on the planetary surface, once they’d begun to colonize the planet.