Which meant it was beyond ordinary distress. It was not a theoretical problem.

He made two calls, one to Grant. "I need an opinion."

One to Yanni. "Tell me someone else is working on this. Yanni, this is a probable wipe, for God's sake, give it to someone who knows what he's doing."

"You claim you do," Yanni said, and hung up on him.

"Damn you!" he yelled at Yanni after the fact.

And when Grant got there, they threw out everything they were both working on and got on it.

For three damnable sleep-deprived weeks before they comped a deep-set intersect in a skills tape. In all three.

"Dammit," he yelled at Yanni when he turned it in, "this is a mess, Yanni! You could have found this thing in a week. These are human beings, for God's sake, one of them's running with a botch-up on top of the other damage—"

"Well, you manage, don't you? I thought you'd empathize. Go do a fix."

"What do you mean, 'do a fix'? Run me a check!"

"This one's all yours. Do me a fix. You don't need a check."

He drew a long, a desperate breath. And stared at Yanni with the thought of breaking his neck. "Isthis a real-time problem? Or is this some damn trick? Some damn exercise you've cooked up?"

"Yes, it's real-time. And while you're standing here arguing, they're still waiting. So get on it. You did that fairly fast. Let's see what else you can do."

"I know what you're doing to me, dammit! Don't take it out on the azi!"

"Don't you," Yanni said. And walked off into his inner office and shut the door.

He stood there. He looked desperately at Marge, Yanni's aide.

Marge gave him a sympathetic look and shook her head.

So he went back and broke the news to Grant.

And turned in the fix in three days.

"Fine," Yanni said. "I hope it works. I've got another case for you."

x

"This is part of my work," maman said, and Ari, walking with her hand in maman's, not because she was a baby, but because the machinery was huge and things moved and everything was dangerous, looked around at the shiny steel things they called womb-tanks, each one as big as a bus, and asked, loudly:

"Where are the babies?"

"Inside the tanks," maman said. An azi came up and maman said: "This is my daughter Ari. She's going to take a look at a few of the screens."

"Yes, Dr. Strassen," the azi said. Everyone talked loud. "Hello, Ari."

"Hello," she yelled up at the azi, who was a woman. And held on to maman's hand, because maman was following the azi down the long row.

It was only another desk, after all, and a monitor screen. But maman said: "What's the earliest here?"

"Number ten's a week down."

"Ari, can you count ten tanks down? That's nearly to the wall."

Ari looked. And counted. She nodded.

"All right," maman said. "Mary, let's have a look. —Ari, Mary here is going to show you the baby inside number ten, right here on the screen."

"Can't we look inside?"

"The light would bother the baby," maman said. "They're like birthday presents. You can't open them till it's the baby's birthday. All right?"

That was funny. Ari laughed and plumped herself down on the seat. And what came on the screen was a red little something.

"That's the baby," maman said, and pointed. "Right there."

"Ugh." It clicked with something she had seen somewhere. Which was probably tape. It was a kind of a baby.

"Oh, yes. Ugh. All babies look that way when they're a week old. It takes them how many weeks to be born?"

"Forty and some," Ari said. She remembered that from down deep too.

"Are they all like this?"

"What's closest to eight weeks, Mary?"

"Four and five are nine," Mary said.

"That's tanks four and five, Ari. Look where they are, and we'll show you—which one, Mary?"

"Number four, sera. Here we are."

"It's still ugly," Ari said. "Can we see a pretty one?"

"Well, let's just keep hunting."

The next was better. The next was better still. Finally the babies got so big they were too big to see all of. And they moved around. Ari was excited, really excited, because maman said they were going to birth one.

There were a lot of techs when they got around to that. Maman took firm hold of Ari's shoulders and made her stand right in front of her so she would be able to see; and told her where to look, right there, right in that tank.

"Won't it drown?" Ari asked.

"No, no, babies live in liquid, don't they? Now, right now, the inside of the tank is doing just what the inside of a person does when birth happens. It's going to push the baby right out. Like muscles, only this is all pumps. It's really going to bleed, because there's a lot of blood going in and out of the pumps and it's going to break some of the vessels in the bioplasm when it pushes like that."

"Does the baby have a cord and everything?"

"Oh, yes, babies have to have. It's a real one. Everything is real right up to the bioplasm: that's the most complicated thing—it can really grow a blood system. Watch out now, see the light blink. That means the techs should get ready. Here it comes. There's its head. That's the direction babies are supposed to face."

"Sploosh!" Ari cried, and clapped her hands when it hit the tank. And stood still as it started swimming and the nasty stuff went through the water. "Ugh."

But the azi techs got it out of there, and got the cord, and it did go on moving. Ari stood up on her toes trying to see as they took it over to the counter, but Mary the azi made them stop to show her the baby making faces. It was a boy baby.

Then they washed it and powdered it and wrapped it up, and Mary held it and rocked it.

"This is GY-7688," maman said. "His name is August. He's going to be one of our security guards when he grows up. But he'll be a baby for a long time yet. When you're twelve, he'll be as old as you are now."

Ari was fascinated. They let her wash her hands and touch the baby. It waved a fist at her and kicked and she laughed out loud, it was so funny.

"Say goodbye," maman said then. "Thank Mary."

"Thank you," Ari said, and meant it. It was fun. She hoped they could come back again.

"Did you like the lab?" maman asked.

"I liked it when the baby was born."

"Ollie was born like that. He was born right in this lab."

She could not imagine Ollie tiny and funny like that. She did not want to think of Ollie like that. She wrinkled her nose and made Ollie all right in her mind again.

Grown up and handsome in his black uniform.

"Sometimes CITs are born out of the tanks," maman said. "If for some reason their mamans can't carry them. The tanks can do that. Do you know the difference between an azi and a CIT, when they're born the same way?"

That was a hard question. There were a lot of differences. Some were rules and some were the way azi were.

"What's that?" she asked maman.

"How old were you when you had tape the first time?"

"I'm six."

"That's right. And you had your first tape the day after your birthday. Didn't scare you, did it?"

"No," she said; and shook her head so her hair flew. Because she liked to do that. Maman was slow with her questions and she got bored in between.