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 theyhad 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 scared a lot of other psych designers, and theydidn’t read what she’d been doing.

Teaching the kids’ kids’ generation to carry on, that was what–just 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 massive 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 damned 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 knowing–she’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 circumstances, creating not just new attitudes, 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 passed 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 anotherworm loose in the population, one of knowing one’s fate and trying to second‑guess it.

And where wasthe 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.”

“I have a paper for you on that matter,” he said. “Whalesong, on Earth.”

“Whalesong,” she said. The whim of a nostalgic preservationist: the oceans of Eversnow. “They sing.”

“I think you’ll find it interesting.”

A bite of fish.

“You give me my city, Yanni, and I’ll give you your planet.”

“Precocious child.”

“On a completely different topic–I’ve almost made up my mind this week. I’m pretty sure we’re going to clone Denys.”

“Are we? Now? Or some time in the next seven years?”

She frowned. That was a question. A big one: how close will we try to stick to program? “Giraud is the one we’re going to trust–a little. Without his brother Denys to protect–how do we make a Giraud? So we clone Denys, for him, so Giraud keeps on track. That’s my total reasoning in deciding. I was all set to tell you that this evening, when you dropped this Eversnow business in my lap. You said you were leaving the decision up to me. And I was thinking about it a lot while you were gone.”

“Denys has no essential value,” Yanni paraphrased her, “except to keep Giraud on track.”

“No. That’s what I changed my mind on. Denys helped create me. And if you have to create me again, you’d probably want a Denys to keep the new me in line, because Giraud is too soft.”

“You don’t think I could fill that position?”

“Uncle Yanni,” she said fondly, “you’re much too easy on me. You let me get away with everything.”

“Hell. Sounds as if you’re already making a lot of minor decisions, especially when I’m out of the house.”

“Except the Eversnow thing. I wouldn’t call that minor.”

“It’ll be your problem, young lady.”

“It’ll be your problem until it’s pretty well underway. You’re staying in office at least two more years. Maybe more.”

“Two more years in purgatory. God, I hate politics.”

“But pleasedon’t fall down the stairs, Uncle Yanni. You have to be Director. My alternative right now is Justin or Jordan.”

It was a joke. Yanni didn’t laugh. “Better to install Grant,” Yanni muttered.

Probably true. Justin Warrick would hate the job more than Yanni did.

Sacrifice was the situation Yanni was enduring. Never mind he was creating a planet–he wantedto be working with azi, which was what he really loved.

“Yanni. Could you do onething more for me?”

“What?” Yanni asked, and an eyebrow lifted. “When you take that tone, I’m on my guard.”

She thought: Ari wanted you to bring me up. She’d agree with me. But she wasn’t supposed to know that, so she said, “Giraud’s going to need a father in a few months. Would you?”

“Good God!”

“You’d be good at it.”

“Like hell. Giraud? Good loving God. He’d turn out a serial killer. I’m not good with kids. Especially that one.”

“You’re good at politics. People promise you things.”

“I’m not sure that compliments my intelligence.”

“So will you do it?”

A sigh. “I’m already loaded down with Council work and Admin. Where do I find the hours?”

“Who else am I going to get? Dr. Edwards? Giraud’s too devious for him.”

“You’re serious.”

“I’m completely serious.”

“Well, it’s myappointment to make,” Yanni said. “Unless you want to take over this week.”

“No.”

“So I’ll think about it.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“So tell me about the rest of the session,” she said. “I’m sure you were brilliant.”

“The rest.” he said, “was absolutely, deadly dull. Well, except the bomb scare. Paxers up to their old tricks. Nobody believed they could have gotten anything into the building, but I went back to the hotel and actually got my correspondence done.”