"Ah, human inconstancy." Grant laid his briefcase on the accustomed table, shed his coat into the closet, and walked over to the sideboard and the liquor cabinet while Justin hung his up. He mixed two drinks and brought them back. "Double for you. Shoes off, feet up, sit. You can use it."

He sat down, kicked the shoes off, leaned back in the cushions and drank. Whiskey and water, a taste that promised present relief for frayed nerves. He saw Grant with the little plastic slate they used—writing things they dared not say aloud; and Grant wrote:

Do we believe them about dropping the bugging?

Justin shook his head. Set the glass down on the stone rim of the cushioned pit-group and reached for the tablet. We feed them a little disinformation and see if we can catch them.

Back to Grant; a nod. Idea?

To him. Not yet. Thinking.

Grant: I suppose I have to wait till fishfeed to find out what happened.

Himself: Complicated. Dangerous. Petros is going to do interviews with me.

Grant: a disturbed look. Unspoken question.

Himself: They suspect about the flashes.

Grant: underline of word interviews.Question mark.

Himself: Denys said. No probe.Then he added: They've realized I have a problem with tape. I'm scared. I'm afraid they were doing a voice-stress. If so, I flunked. Will flunk Petros' test worse. Long time—I tried to think the flashes were trauma. Now I think maybe a botched-up block: deliberate. Maybe they want me like this.

Grant read it with a frown growing on his face. He wrote with some deliberation. Cleared the slate and tried again. And again. Finally a brief: I think not deliberate block. I think too many probes.

Himself: Then why in hell are we writing notes in our own living room?Triple underlined.

Grant reacted with a little lift of the brows. And wrote: Because anything is possible. But I don't think deliberate block. Damage. Giraud came in asking questions on top of an intervention Ari was running and hadn't finished. If that isn't enough, what is? Whatever Ari did would have been extensive and subtle. She could run an intervention with a single sentence. We know that. Giraud came breaking in and messed something up.

Justin read that and felt the cold go a little deeper. He chewed the stylus a moment and wrote: Giraud had seen the tapes. Giraud knew what she did. Giraud may work more with military psychsets, and that doesn't reassure me either. They got him that damn Special rating. Politics. Not talent. God knows what he did to me. Or what Petros did.

Grant read and a frown came onto his face. He wrote: I can't believe it of Petros. Giraud, yes. But Petros is independent.

Himself: I don't trust him. And I've got to face those interviews. They can take me off job. Call me unstable, suspend Alpha license. Transfer you. Whole damn thing over again.

Grant grabbed the slate and wrote, frowning: You're Jordan's replicate. If you show talent matching his without psychogenics program at same time they're running Rubin Project you could call their results into question. Also me. Remember Ari created me from a Special. You and I: possible controls on Project. Is that why Ari wanted us? Is that why Giraud doesn't?

The thought upset his stomach. I don't know,he wrote.

Grant: Giraud and Denys run the Project without controls except Rubin himself, and there's no knowing how honest those results will be. We are inconvenient. Ari wouldn't ever have worked the way they're working. Ari used controls, far as you can with human psych. I think she wanted us both.

Himself: Denys swears the Project is valid. But it's compromised every step of the way.

Grant: It's valid if it works. Like you've always said: They don't plan to release data if it does work. Reseune never releases data. Reseune makes money off its discoveries. If Reseune gets Ari back, an Ari to direct further research, will they release notes to general publication? No. Reseune will get big Defense contracts. Lot of power, power of secrecy, lot of money, but Reseune will run whole deal and get more and more power. Reseune will never release the findings. Reseune will work on contract for Defense, and get anything Reseune wants as long as Defense gets promises of recovering individuals—which even Reseune won't be able to do without the kind of documentation under that mountain out there. That takes years. Takes lifetimes. In the meantime, Reseune does some things for Defense, lot of things for itself. Do I read born-men right?

He read and nodded, with a worse and worse feeling in his gut.

Grant: You're very strange, you CITs. Perhaps it goes with devising your own psychsets—and having your logic on top. We know our bottom strata are sound. Who am I to judge my makers?

xi

Jane sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled her hair out of the way as Ollie sat down by her and brushed his lips across her nape.

The Child, thank God, was asleep, and Nelly had won the battle of wills for the night.

Ari was hyper— hadbeen hyper, all day, wanting to go back to Valery's place and play.

Time for thatto change. Valery had become a problem, as she had predicted. Time for Ari to have another playmate. There had never been only one.

Damn. Hell of a thing to do to the kid.

Ollie's arms came around her, hugged her against him. "Is something the matter?" Ollie asked.

"Do something distracting, Ollie dear. I don't want to think tonight."

Damn. I'm even beginning totalk like Olga.

Ollie slid a hand lower and kissed her shoulder.

"Come on, Ollie, dammit, let's get rough. I'm in a mood to kill something."

Ollie understood then. Ollie pushed her down on the bed and made himself a major distraction, holding her hands because Ollie had no particular desire to end up with scratch marks.

Ollie was damned good. Like most azi who took the training, he was very, very good, and trying to keep him at bay was a game he won only slowly and with deliberation, a game precisely timed to what would work with her.

Work, it did. Jane sighed, and gave herself up after a while to Ollie's gentler tactics. Nice thing about an azi lover—he was always in the mood. Always more worried about her than about himself. She had had a dozen CIT lovers. But funny thing ... she cared more about Ollie. And he would never expect that.

"I love you," she said into his ear, when he was almost asleep, his head on her shoulder. She ran her fingers through his sweat-damp hair and he looked at her with a puzzled, pleased expression. "I really do, Ollie."

"Sera," he said. And stayed very still, as if she had lost her mind after all these years. He was exhausted. She was still insomniac. But he was going to stay awake if his eyes crossed, if she wanted to talk, she knew that. She had his attention.

"That's all," she said. "I just decided to tell you that."

"Thank you," he said, not moving. Looking as if he still thought there was more to this.

"Nothing else." She rubbed his shoulder. "You ever wanted to be a CIT? Take the final tape? Go out of here?"

"No," he said. Sleep seemed to leave him. His breathing quickened. "I really don't. I don't want to. I couldn't leave you."

"You could. The tape would fix that."

"I don't want it. I truly don't want it. It couldn't make me not want to be here. Nothing could do that. Don't tell me to take it."

"I won't. No one will. I only wondered, Ollie. So you don't want to leave here. But what if I have to?"