Petros leaned forward, jaw jutting. "Allowing the program to stagnate while the anomaly proliferates is your answer, is it?"

"Dr. Ivanov, allow me to make my point—"

"I knowyour damn point, we knowyour damn point, doctor. "

Giraud poured another glass of water.

"Enough on it, " he said. "Enough. We run the damn tests. We take the computer time. We get our answers. Let's have the query in tomorrow, can we do that?"

Mostly, he thought, the voice-stress was the best lead. All those lesson-sessions to scan.

The Project ate computer time at an enormous rate. And the variances kept proliferating.

So did the demands of the Council investigating committee, that wanted to get into documents containing more and more details of Science Bureau involvement in the Gehenna project, because Alliance was asking hard questions, wanting more and more information on the Gehenna colonists, and Unking it to the betterment of Alliance-Union relations.

The Centrists and the Abolitionists wanted the whole archives opened. Giraud's intelligence reported Mikhail Corain was gathering evidence, planning to call for a Council bill of Discovery to open the entire Emory archives, charging that there were other covert projects, other timebombs waiting, and that the national security took precedence over Reseune's sovereignty: that Reseune had no right to the notes and papers which Ariane Emory had accrued while serving as Councillor for Science, that those became Union property on her death, and that a bill of Discovery was necessary to find out what was Reseune's and what of Emory's papers belonged to Union archives.

There were timebombs, for certain. The essential one was aged eight, and exposing her to the vitriol and the hostility in Novgorod—making her the center of controversy—

Everything came down to that critical point. They had to go public.

Before they ended up with a Discovery bill opening all Ari's future secrets into public view, where a precocious eight-year-old could access them out of sequence.

v

In mornings it was always lessons, and Ari took hers with Dr. Edwards in his office or in the study lab, but it was not just mornings now, it was after lunch in the library and the tape-lab, so there was a lot of follow-up and Dr. Edwards asked her questions and gave her tests.

Catlin and Florian had lessons every day too, their own kind, down in the Town at a place they called Green Barracks; and one day a week they had to stay in Green Barracks overnight. That was when they did a Room or did special drill. But most times they were able to meet her at the library or the lab and walk her home.

They did this day, both of them very proper and solemn in their black uniforms, but more solemn than usual, when they walked down to the doors and out to the crosswalk.

"This is as safe as we can find to talk, " Catlin said.

"But you don't know, " Florian said. "There's equipment that can hear you this far if they want to. You can't say they won't, you can just keep changing places so if they're not really expecting you to say something they want right then they won't bother. Set-up is a lot of work if your Subject moves around a lot. "

"If they didn't hear us last night, I don't think they would be onto us, " Ari said. She knew how to be nice enough not to get in trouble without being too nice and making people think she was up to something. But she didn't say that. She walked with them along toward the fishpond. She had brought food in her pocket. "What were you going to tell me?"

"It's this, " said Catlin. "You should hit your Enemy first if you can. But you have to be sure, first thing, whoit is. Then how many, where are they, what have they got? That's the next thing you have to find out. "

"When your Enemy is an Older, " Florian said, "it's real hard to know that, because they know so much more. "

"If he's not expecting it, " Catlin said, "anybody can be Got. "

"But if we try and miss, " Florian said, "they willtry to Disappear us. So we re not sure, sera. I think we could Get them. For real. I could steal some stuff that would. They put it in Supply, and they're real careless. They ought to fix that. But I can get it. And we could kill the Enemy, just it's real dangerous. You get one chance with an Older. Usually just one. "

"But if you don't know where his partners are, " Catlin said, "they'll Get you. It depends on how much that's worth. "

That made a lot of things she was thinking fall into place. Click. She walked along with her hands in her pockets and said: "And if you don't know all those things, it's more than getting caught; it's not knowing what one to grab next. There's things that run all over Reseune, there's what his partners are going to do, there's who's friends and who's not, and who's going to take Hold of things, and we can't do that. "

"I don't know, " Florian said. "You'd have to know those things, sera, we wouldn't. I know we could Get one, maybe two, if we split up, or if we could get the targets together. That's the main ones. But it's not near all the ones that would be after us. "

They reached the fishpond. Ari knelt down at the edge of the water and took the bag of fish-food out of her pocket. Catlin and Florian squatted beside her. "Here, " she said, passing them the bag to get their own, and then tossed a bit into the water for the white one that came up, from under the lilies. White-and-red was almost as fast. She watched the rings go out from the food, and from the strike, and the lilies swaying. "He's not easy, " she said finally. We can't Get everything. There are too many hook-ups. Connections. He's important; he's got a lot of people, not just in Reseune, and what he's got— Security, for one thing. I don't know what else. So even if he was gone—" It was strange and upsetting to be talking about killing somebody. It didn't feel real. But it was. Florian and Catlin really could do it. She was not sure that made her feel safer, but it made her feel less like things were closing in on her. "—We'd still be in trouble.

"Also, " she said, "they could Get my maman and Ollie. For real. " They didn't understand that part, she thought, because they had never had a maman, but they looked at her like they took it very seriously. "I'm afraid they could have. They're at Fargone. I sent letters. They should have got there by now. Now I'm not sure—" Dammit, she was going to snivel. She saw Florian and Catlin look at her all distressed. "—I'm not sure, " she said in a rush, hard and mad, "they ever got sent. "

They didn't understand, for sure. She tried to think of what she had left out they had to know.

"If there is an Enemy, " she said, "I don't know what they want. Sometimes I thought maman left me here because it was too dangerous to go with her. Sometimes I thought she left me here because they made her. But I don't know why, and I don't know why she didn't tell me. "

The azi didn't say anything for a minute. Then Florian said: "I don't think I'd try to say. I don't think Catlin can. It's CIT. I don't understand CITs. "

"CITs have connections, " she said. It was like telling them how to Work someone. She felt uneasy telling them. She explained, making a hook out of two fingers to hook together. "To other CITs. Like you to Catlin and Catlin to you and both of you to me. Sometimes not real strong. Sometimes real, real strong. That's the first thing. CITs do things foreach other, sometimes because it feels good, sometimes because they're Working each other. And sometimes they do things to Get each other. A lot of times it's to protect themselves, sometimes their connections: connections are a lot more in danger, sometimes, if you don't let your Enemy be sure where yourconnections are, and whether some of them are to people he's connected to. Like building-sticks. "