"We're your friends," Amy said. The room was quiet. Real quiet.

And she felt a little cold inside, like something wasdifferent, and she wasolder, somehow, and was getting more and more that way, faster than Amy, faster than anybody she knew. Overrunning the course, she thought, remembering Florian going down that hallway too soon, too fast for the other team.

Who had had about a quarter of a second, maybe, to realize it had stopped being an Exercise and they were about to die for real.

I've got to be nice,she thought. I don't want anybody to panic. I don't want to scare them off.

So she talked with them like always, she bounced up to get them all soft drinks and show them the bar and the icemaker.

And all the stuff in the cabinet that opened up. The wine and everything.

"God," Maddy said, "I bet we could have a party with this."

"I bet we can't," Ari said flatly. Because that cabinet of wine was expensive stuff, and Maddy wasn't going to pay for it out of herallowance, that was sure; besides, she thought, a drunk Maddy Strassen squealing and clowning around Base One was a real scary thing to think about. Not mentioning the other kids, like the boys Maddy hung around.

Maddy thought that was a shame.

Amy said their mamas would smell it on them and they'd be in real trouble and so might Ari, for giving it to them.

Which was the difference between Maddy and Amy.

That night there was a message from uncle Denys on Base One. It said: "Of course I was checking up on you, Ari. You've done very well. I hoped you would."

"Message to Denys Nye," she answered it. "Of course I knew you were watching. I'm no fool. Thanks for sending my stuff over. Thanks for helping out. I won't be mad, maybe by next week. Maybe two weeks. Recording me was a lousy trick."

That would Work him fine. Let him worry.

iii

The Tester's name was Will, a Gamma type, a warehousing supervisor what time he was not involved in test-taking, plain as midday and matter-of-fact about internal processes Gamma azi were not usually aware of.

Phlegmatic of disposition, if he were a CIT: older, experienced. And stubborn.

"I want to see you in my office," the message from Yanni had said, and Justin had gathered his nerve and gone in with his notes and his Scriber to sit listening while Will GW 79 told him and Yanni what he had told the Testing Super.

It was good news. Goodnews, no matter how he turned it over and looked at all sides of it.

"He said," Justin reported to Grant when he got back to the office, Grant listening as anxiously as he had: "Will said he got along with it fine. Why Yanni called me in—it seems Will's told his super he wants to take it all the way. He likesit. His medical report is absolutely clean. No hyper reactions, no flutters. His blood pressure is still reading like he was on R&R. He wants to Carry the program. Committee's going to consider it."

Grant got up from where he was sitting and put his arms around him for a moment. Then, at arm's length: "Told you so."

"Not saying the Committee's going to approve." He tried desperately hard to keep his mental balance and not go too far in believing it was working. Discipline: equilibrium. Things didn't work so well when the ashes settled out. There were always disasters, things not planned for; and Administration's whims. He found the damnedest tendency in his hands to shake and his gut to go null-G, every time he thought about believing it was going to work. He wanted it too badly. And that was dangerous. "Damn, now I'mscared of it."

"I told you. I told you Iwasn't scared of it. You ought to believe me, CIT. What did Yanni say?"

"He said he'd be happier if the Tester was a little less positive. He said addictions feel fine too ... up to a point."

"Oh, damnhim!" Grant threw up his hands and stalked the three clear paces across the cluttered office. "What's the matter with him?"

"Yanni's just being Yanni. And he's serious. It is a point he has to—"

Grant turned around and leaned on his chair back. "I'mserious. You know that frustrates hell out of me. They aren't going to know anything a Tester can't tell them; they've had their run in Sociology, let them believe what the man's saying."

"Well, it frustrates me, too. But it doesn't mean Yanni's going to go down against it. And it's had a clear run. It's had that."

Grant looked at him with agitation plain on his face. But Grant took a deep breath and swallowed it, and cleared the expression away in a transition of emotions possible only in an actor or an azi. "It's had that, yes. They'll clear it. They have to use sense sooner or later."

"They don't have to do anything," he admitted, feeling the pall of Grant's sudden communications shutdown. "They've proved that. I just have some hope—"

"Faith in my creators," Grant repeated quietly. "Damn, it deserves celebrating." The last with cheerfulness, a bright grin. "I can't say I'm surprised. I knew before you ran it. I told you. Didn't I?"

"You told me."

"So be happy. You've earned it."

One tried. There was a mountain of work to do and the office was not the place to discuss subtleties. But walking the quadrangle toward dark, an edge-of-safety shortcut with weather-warnings out and a cloud-bank beyond the cliffs and Wing Two: "You started to say something this afternoon," Justin said. He had picked the route. And the solitude. "About Yanni."

"Nothing about Yanni."

"Hell if there wasn't. Has he been onto you for something?"

"Yanni's conservatism. That's all. He knows better than that. Dammit, he knows it's going through. He just has to find something negative."

"Don't blank on me. You were going to say something. Secrets make me nervous, Grant, you know that."

"I don't know what about. There's no secret."

"Come on. You went 180 on me. What didn't you say?"

A few paces in silence. Then: "I'm trying to remember. Honestly."

Lie.

"You said you were frustrated about something."

"That?" A small, short laugh. "Frustrated they have to be so damn short-sighted."

"You're doing it again," Justin said quietly. "All right. I'll worry in private. No matter. Don't mind. I don't pry."

"The hell."

"The hell. Yes. What's going on with you? You mind telling me?"

More paces in silence. "Is that an order?"

"What the hell is this 'order'? I asked you a question. Is there something the matter with a question?" Justin stopped on the walk where it crossed the sidewalk from Wing Two, in the evening chill with the flash of lightning in the distance. "Something about Yanni? Wasit Yanni? Or did Isay something?"

"Hey, I'm glad it worked, I amglad. There's nothing at all wrong with me. Or you. Or Will."

"Addictions. Was that the keyword?"

"Let's talk about it later."

"Talk where, then? At home? Is it that safe?"

Grant gave a long sigh, and faced the muttering of thunder and the flickering of lightnings on Wing Two's horizon. It was a dangerous time. Fools lingered out of doors, in the path of the wind that would sweep down—very soon.

"It's frustration," he said. "That they won't take Will's word on it. That they know so damn much because they're CITs."