Cherryh, C J - Alliance-Union 08 (82 page)

"How can you?" Maddy asked.

"My computer. The Base I've got. My clearance is higher than yours—maybe not higher than somebody who could put a flag on and keep me from finding out stuff, but I've got my Base fixed so if there's information I'm not accessing it tells me it's going on."

"How?" Maddy asked.

"Because I'm in the House system. Because I've got a real high Base and a lot of clearances a kid isn't supposed to have. They come with this place. Lots of things. You don't have to worry. I've got an eye on you. If anything goes into the system about you, it calls me right then."

"Anything?"

"Not private stuff. Security stuff. And I'll tell you something else." Another deep breath. She shoved her hands into her belt and thought very carefully what she was saying and how much she was giving away; but Amy and Maddy were the highest-up in the gang. "You tell this and I'll skin you. But you two don't have to worry anymore. None of my friends do. I know why the Disappearances happened, and I don't think it's going to happen anymore. Except if I asked it to. If there was somebody I really, really wanted not to see again. Which isn't any of you, as long as you're my friends."

"Why
did they?" Amy asked.

"Because—"
Because things had to happen to me. Like Ari senior. That's too much, a whole lot too much about my business.
She shrugged. "Because I wasn't supposed to know things, because my uncles figured they'd tell."

They were quiet a long time. Then Amy said, very carefully: "Even your maman?"

A second shrug. "Maman. Valery. Julia Strassen." She wanted off the subject. "I know why they did it. That's all."
My maman agreed to go, but I'm not telling
anybody
that. They'd think she didn't like me. And that wouldn't be so.
"I know a lot of things. Now they have to watch out, because I know they can't do anything to me, because anything they do from now on, they know I'll hold a grudge. And I will, if they Get any of my friends . . . because I know who they are, and they know how far they can go with me."

"Then who are they?" Amy asked.

"My uncles. Dr. Ivanov. Lots of people. Because of me being a PR of Ariane Emory. That's what. This was her place. Now it's mine, because I'm a PR. Everything she had is mine. The way there used to be a Florian and a Catlin, too, and they died; and they replicated them for me."

That took some thinking on their part. They knew about the replicate bit. They knew about a lot of things—like Florian and Catlin. But they never knew how it fit.

"I'll tell you," she said while she Had them, "why they won't do anything that makes me mad. Reseune needs me, because if I'm a PR I have title to a whole lot of things they want real bad; and because if I'm a minor it's going to be a while before the first Ari's enemies can do anything against me, because of the courts, because if my uncles do any more to me than they've already done they're in a lot of trouble, because they know I'm onto them. I don't forget about maman. I don't forget a lot of things. So they're not going to bother my friends. You can figure on that."

They looked at her without saying anything. They were not stupid. Maddy might be silly and she had no sense, but she was not at all stupid when it came to putting things together, and Amy was the smartest of all her friends, no question about it. Amy always had been.

"You're serious," Amy said.

"Damn right I'm serious."

Amy grunted and sat down on the big couch with her hands between her knees. And Maddy sat down. "This isn't any game," Amy said, looking up at her. "It's not pretend anymore, is it?"

"Nothing is pretend anymore."

"I don't know," Amy said. "I don't know. God, Ari, you could park trucks in this place. —Isn't there anybody here at night, or anything? Aren't you scared?"

"Why? There's nothing I can't order from Housekeeping, same as being at uncle Denys's. There's Security watching us all the time. We cook our food, we clean up, we do all that stuff. We can take care of ourselves. The Minder would wake us up if there was any trouble."

"I'll bet somebody comes in at night," Maddy said.

"Nobody. The Minder isn't easy to get by; not even Housekeeping gets in here without one of us watching them every minute. That's how the security is here. Because my Enemies are real too. It's not pretend. If somebody sneaks in here, they're dead, for-real dead." She sat down, at the other side of the corner. "So this is mine. All of it. And they can't bug it. Florian and Catlin have been over it from end to end. We can have our meetings up here often as we like and we don't have to worry about Security. We can do a lot of stuff up here, with no Olders to get onto us."

"Our mothers will know," Amy said. "Security's going to tell them.

"It's safe," Ari said.

"They still might not like it," Amy said.

"Well, they wouldn't like the tunnels either, would they? That didn't scare you any."

"This is different. They'll
know
we're here. They
know
people can get in trouble, Ari, my mama is worried about me getting in too much with you, she's real worried, and she didn't want me to take on the guppy business, remember?"

"She said it was all right, then."

"She still worries. I think somebody talked to her.

"So she'll let you. She won't mind." .

"Ari, this is—real different. She's going to think you can get in trouble up here without any Olders. And then we could be. They could say it was us. And we'd all be at Fargone. Bang. That fast."

So she got an idea of the shape of what was wrong with Amy and Maddy, then, even if she couldn't see all of it.

"We're not going to get in any trouble," she said. "We'd get in a lot more if they caught us in the tunnels. I'm telling you I can
tell
if something's going on in Security. And Florian and Catlin
are
Security. They find out a lot of things, like stuff that doesn't go in the system."

"Not really Security," Maddy said. "They're kids.

"Ever since those kids got killed, they're Security, that's where they take their lessons. That's what their keycards say. And they work office operations a lot of the hours they're there. Real operations. They can come in and out of there and they find out a lot of things."

Like about taping in my apartment.
But she wasn't about to tell them that

"Our mothers don't know about the tunnels," Amy said, "but they're going to know about us coming here."

"Not if you don't tell them right off. Security's not going to run to them the first day, are they? Then you can say you've
been
doing it, it's all right. How else do you get away with stuff? Don't be stupid, Amy."

They still looked worried.

"Are you my friends?" she asked them, face on. "Or aren't you?

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

And she felt a little cold inside, like something
was
different, and she
was
older, 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
her
allowance, 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.

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.
Good
news, 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
likes
it. 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'm
scared of it."

"I told you. I told you
I
wasn'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,
damn
him!" 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'm
serious. 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?
Was
it Yanni? Or did
I
say something?"

"Hey, I'm glad it worked, I
am
glad. 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.