"What are you talking about? What do you mean, the resemblance—"
The sound-shielding hurt her teeth.
"Don't shout," Denys said. "You'll deafen us. I mean just what I've always told you. You areAri. Let me tell you something else. Ari didn't die of natural causes. She was murdered."
She took in a breath. "By who?"
"Whom, dear."
"Dammit, uncle Denys—"
"Watchyour language. You'd better clean it up. Ari was killed by someone no longer at Reseune."
"She died here?"
"That's all I'm going to tell you. The rest is your problem."
ARCHIVES: RUBIN PROJECT: CLASSIFIED CLASS AA
DO NOT COPY
CONTENT: Computer Transcript File #8001 Seq. #1
Personal Archive
Emory I/Emory II
2420: 10/3: 2348
AE2: Minder, this is Ari Emory. I'm alone. Give me references on psychogenesis.
B/1: Stand by. Retrieving.
Ari, this is Ari senior. Stand by.
The program finds you are 14 chronological years, with accesses for 16 years. This program finds you an average of 10 points below my scores overall.
Your psych scores are 5 points off my scores.
Your Rezner score has not been updated since age 10.
You are 5 points off qualification for access.
AE2: Base One: can my accesses reach data on Bok: keyword, clone?
B/1: Stand by. Retrieving.
Accesses inadequate.
AE2: Try endocrinology: keyword, psychogenesis. Gehenna: keyword, project. Worm: keyword, psych.
B/1: Accesses inadequate.
2420: 11/1: 1876:02
AE2: Minder, this is Ari Emory. I'm alone. Reference: psychogenesis. B/1: Stand by. Retrieving. Ari, this is Ari senior. Stand by.
The program finds you are 14 chronological years, with accesses for 16 years. This program finds you an average of 7 points below my scores overall.
Your psych scores are I point above my scores.
Your Rezner score has not been updated since age 10.
You are qualified to access files. Stand by.
Ari, this is Ari senior. These files can be read only from Base One Main Terminal. All relevant and resultant files are being stored in your personal archive under voice-lock.
You have used a keyword. You now have access to my working notes. I apologize in advance for their sketchy quality. They're quite fine when I was younger, but disregard a lot of the things dated pre-2312: they're useful if you want to see the evolution of thought: psychogenesis was something I was working on as early as 2304, but I didn't have the key studies in endocrinology until I had studied a good deal more; you can benefit from my study notes in those years, but I wasn't on the right track until 2312, and I didn't get the funds I needed until 2331. I benefited a great deal by Poley's work in that same decade: we disagreed, but it was an academic, not a personal difference. We exchanged considerable correspondence, also in the archives. By the year 2354, at the close of the Company Wars, my notes are much less coherent and a great deal more meaningful.
That you have accessed these notes means something has worked.
You have matched my ability. I hope to hell you have a sense of morality.
Your Base can now access all working notes. Good luck.
AE2: Base One: can my accesses reach data on Bok: keyword, cloning?
B/1: Stand by. Retrieving.
AE2: Try endocrinology: keyword, psychogenesis. Gehenna: keyword, project. Worm: keyword, psych.
B/1: Stand by. Retrieving.
B/1: The Bok clone failed because it was assumed genetics and training would create a genius. It was more than a scientific failure; it was a human tragedy. The project files are now available to your Base . . .
B/1: Endocrinology is a multitude of files. They are now available to your Base.
B/1: Gehenna is the name of a G5 star. Newport colony at Gehenna was a project I handled for Defense. This program is searching House Archives for outcome.
There is presently human life on the planet.
They have survived there for 65 years.
This indicates *some* chance it is a viable colony.
This was a Defense Bureau operation which I elected to undertake for reasons my notes will make clear to you. It was also, unknown to Defense, but within the parameters of their mission requirements, an experiment.
I designed a very simple program. The operational sentence was: You were sent from space to build a new world: discover its rules, live as long as you can, and teach your children all the things that seem important.
No further tape was sent. This was by design.
Integrating any individual of this population into mainstream cultures poses extreme risks. Examine the environment as well as the program. That was the aspect I could not adequately examine. Consult all files and understand what I have done before attempting any intervention.
Quarantine should be extended until results can be projected through 30 generations.
All relevant files are now available to your Base.
B/1: A worm is a deep-set-linked program which has the capacity to manifest itself in subsequent generations of a population without changing its character.
CHAPTER 11
i
The lenses crowded close on each other, a solid phalanx of cameras bristling with directional mikes like ancient spears. Behind that, the army of reporters with their Scribers and their individual and zealously securitied com-links.
Behind her, Florian and Catlin, and a miscellaneous assortment of what might be uncle Giraud's aides and staff; but eight of them were Reseune Security, and armed, under the expensive tailoring.
She had chosen a blue suit, recollecting the public image of the little girl with the cast, the little girl who had lost her mother and caught the sympathy of people the length and breadth of Union. She had thought about sweeping her hair up into Ari senior's trademark chignon; but she only parted it in the middle, the way it wanted to fall anyway, and swept it up on the sides and let it fall behind, with combs sprigged with tiny white quartz flowers to hold it. A minimum of makeup . . . just enough for the cameras: her face had lengthened, acquired cheekbones; acquired a maturity that she had consciously to lighten with a little smile at favorite reporters, a little deliberate flicker of recognition as her eyes found them—an intimation of special fondness.
So they might hold back some of the worst questions. People liked to have special importance, and those she favored were the ones who favored her; and old Yevi Hart, who had a hard-nosed reputation and who, in the year after she lost her mother, had turned halfway nice. She had been Working on him for years, a little special look, a little disappointment when he would ask the rough questions. This time she looked at him with a secret between-them glance, knowing he had the first question. All right, Yevi, go, we both know you re just doing a job: you're still an old dear.
He looked at her and seemed to lose the thread of his question a split second. His dour face looked worried. He took another breath, wadded up his question-slip and shoved his hand in his coat pocket. "Young sera — "