The other was the brute force method–when you wanted something and knew the basic architecture of the set, you could ignore most of the subsequent manual and go right after the primal sets, gut level. You could do that if you didn’t, ultimately, care about the result long‑term, or you could also do it if you were that good, that you couldwork at primary level in a subject, and if you had a clear vision how it could make everything subsequent settle into place.

I’m that good, she thought. She’d taken a chance with it. Was still taking a chance with it, in the sense that she now believed Rafael was clear–because she’d set his Contract very tightly, very exclusively on her, as the resolver of all conflicts, the source of all orders. She’d been brought up on the first Ari’s tapes. She’d been working with two alpha sets for years; and, being the born‑man equivalent of an alpha, what she read in the manuals resonated at gut level; and the differences between an alpha and a theta resonated that way, and, once she got into the manuals, beta level made sense–the same with gamma, zeta, and eta–each with their own constellation of needs and satisfactions. Even for a born‑man…it made sense.

Whywas the key. Whyindividuals did things, even when they had consistently negative outcomes… whypeople had to do things…she’d been asking thatquestion of the universe for years. And born‑men got the worst of it, all their lives.

Why did they have to take Maman away?

Why was Denys nice to me sometimes?

Why is Jordan what he is?

Why does Yanni bring me presents?

Who is Hicks working for?

Those were all, all important questions, and she’d fairly well gotten the answer to all but the last one–which might lie somewhere tangled with the cruel thing someone had done to Rafael.

She was very, very thankful Catlin hadn’t had to shoot Rafael, or that she herself hadn’t broken him down and not been able to fix it.

Typical of the really big problems in the azi world, the fix was actually simple, because the layers were so clean. Born‑men–born‑men were a muddled mess, as if someone had stirred a layered pudding with a knife. But when an azi was in primary conflict, his earliest, most basic self‑protective rule was, “Appeal to a Supervisor.” Second was, “The Contract is the ultimate right.” And when Rafael had been drugged‑down and wide open, she’d laid hands right on the conflict. She’d given him the Contract at the beginning, and that was all right: he’d taken it in, and immediately his reservations had attached, and he’d arranged his safe loophole. And then she’d hit him with the deep set changes, and a reiteration of the Contract, which had torn it all wide open, and set it up for healing.

He’d sleep once he’d carried out her orders to arrange the barracks. He’d work until he dropped, sleep like the dead, and wake up clear and sure of himself and with all his layers in good order.

The compulsion for a dual loyalty had to have been planted way back, from when he was a child; or it had to have been planted fairly near term by someone with the ability to plant it. Which again said Alpha Supervisor.

But say that the compulsion hadbeen there for his whole life.

Fingers flew. Base One slithered quietly across departmental lines and nabbed another azi record, this one from a very young trainee designated for ReseuneSec–another B‑28, BA‑289, to be precise, which meant there were as many as seven more B‑28’s already out there, somewhere.

It took a computer comparison to wade through that training record, proving it was identical to BR‑283’s, and a little research to determine that that particular azi, BA‑289, had been born and started on that path in 2412, before BR‑283 had proved out, so there were three others old enough to be in place somewhere, and, after 283, four more theoretically in the system, younger than 289. You didn’t start proliferating a new routine through a geneset like that until you’d proved it out…not if you were operating by the book.

Was BR‑283 the first of his kind?

Joyesse came in to ask if sera would want supper delayed.

“Ten minutes,” she said, because she was close, and she had an idea exactly what she was looking for.

And there they were. One B‑28 in ReseuneSpace, up on Beta Station. One in Novgorod, in the ReseuneSec Special Operations office. One, oh, delightful! was in ReseuneSpace on Fargone, in Ollie’s service. BR‑280, named Regis, an operations agent, had been born in 2373, and had been in service–in her predecessor’s service, no less–when she died. The first Ari’s security staff had been reassigned–scattered to the edge of space, evidently, when Giraud took over.

Oh, damned right they had scattered them. That staff, if questioned, knew things. And there was no damned reason her predecessor would have created an off‑the‑books routine in this Regis–who was in hersecurity group–unless she hadn’t trusted the security group itself. And that was too many layers to be sane, especially when the first Ari could have peeled any of that group like an onion it she had any suspicion.

No. Someone had actually infiltrated Ari’s staff. And Denys, putatively, had been the agency of her death–which Giraud had pinned on Jordan–and Yanni had shipped Jordan to Planys to avoid a trial. While the original Florian and Catlin had died, and the security detail had been shipped out, scattered to all points of Union space, not one of them left on Cyteen.

Chin on hand, she contemplated that scenario.

ReseuneSec. An azi that had served the first Ari, now with Ollie. Other azi, who had never served Ari, at Beta, in Novgorod. And now she got one, in Hicks’ goodwill gift to her.

If it were the first Ari’s programming, she’d surely have had the finesse to vet the geneset and the psychset of her spies–piece of cake for Ari One. Someone of lesser ability, on the either hand, might have stuck with the first success and built spies like production items…then managed to get his favorite number assigned hither and yon.

Maybe the same person had moved BR‑280 out, fast, with all the others, after the first Ari’s death. To have killed 280 withFlorian and Catlin might have drawn attention to him and his history, and all the others.

She drew in a slow breath.

Hicks could, if he worked at it, reprogram a beta. But Hicks hadn’t been in office, them.

God, this was archaeology. Everything was buried.

First logical query was to be sure the Regis base’ program was identical to Rafael’s, and that all the others were. Base One filched that manual from deep, deep storage–Reseune never erased a manual. Any version of it.

Beyond ten minutes. Joyesse came back, a little diffident.

“I apologize,” Ari said. “This isn’t finished yet. Tell cook I am so sorry. Another twenty minutes. Staff should have their supper.”

Joyesse left. And she let the computer sift through that mountain of material, which took only one of those minutes. It flagged no difference at all.

So BR‑280 was the same as 281. That meant the window for that special routine had always been there in that mindset. And possibly that same routine, which wasn’tin the manual–illegal as hell–had indeed existed in 280. She couldn’t lay hands on 280 to find out, not easily. But she’d bet 280 reported to Hicks…who hadn’t been in charge of ReseuneSec long enough to have set it up that way.

Giraud had been. It had been Giraud’s office.

Oh, lay bets on Giraud. Therewas the mind that might have done it. Hicks had only been number two to Giraud. Hicks might not even have known. But he’d very likely known the special use of the BR‑28 series. And he’d seen to it that one got into her unit.

If that was true, then the Nyes still had tentacles threaded through ReseuneSec, and, through ReseuneSec, into all sorts of places. The dead man’s hand was still on the controls. His programs persisted into the next regime, still on Giraud’s orders.