Regenesis Read online

  But it had needed a succession of population bursts to build civilization and sustain an economy independent of Earth’s economy, independent of the Merchanters Alliance, from which they had seceded by force of arms. A planetary economy needed hands to work, minds to devise, and people to mine resources, consume products, and fill the vacant spots in the outback, dense enough population for viable commerce. In the early days Union had boosted its numbers by birthlabs, by cycling azi into freedmen at an extraordinary rate…azi who’d been given their ethics by tape that Reseune had created in the first Ari’s mother’s time.

  And the first Ari had had a very heavy hand on that process, tweaking what her mother Olga Emory had done; and then those azi had become freedmen, and married and had CIT kids, and taught them their values. More, the first Ari had operated increasingly with deep sets, in a style that scared a lot of other psych designers, and they didn’t read what she’d been doing.

  Teaching the kids’ kids’ generation to carry on, that was what—just like Gehenna. A lab-made ethic was threaded all through the stations in Union’s grasp—just exactly what Yanni intended continuing with another surge in azi population in the deep Beyond. The same ethic the first Ari-generated population-burst had installed was buried in the psyches of all those people who took the subways to work and voted in the massive Bureaus of Citizens and Technology. Educated votes counted multiple times, and there were devices in the way the vote happened to keep the decision-making within a Bureau constantly in the hands of people expert in the fields in question, but the fact was, in Union’s system, the popular vote, moving in a unified direction, could swing a certain way no matter what the experts wanted.

  Count on it: the azi-born were never going to turn on Reseune: the sons and daughters of the azi-born were never going to turn, no matter what the Centrists wanted, or the Expansionists wanted, or the Paxers wanted. Yanni’s maneuvers to divide and diminish the Centrists were, she suspected, all unnecessary, if the first Ari was right. There was a worm working in the programs, something that moved and reprogrammed itself to suit the times, and it was damned scary how it worked, and changed, while azi-descended were now out-populating CITs.

  But it was not something she was going to discuss in depth with Yanni. The terrible danger of that ethics implant was what the first Ari had died knowing—she’d died haunted by the fact one human couldn’t live long enough to see what it was going to do. It was why an Ari Two had to exist—to watch out for glitches in the mindsets she’d installed, at Gehenna, on Cyteen, inside Reseune itself. It was necessarily an untried theory, in those population surges mandated by the War, decommissioned soldiers, workers, colonists in the Gehenna outback: the first Ari had had to adjust them fast, and do it wide, or see it undone and unraveling. A collective azi-descended socio-set could mutate under unforeseen circumstances, creating not just new attitudes, but a whole artificially-setted human population, an integration with a capital I.

  The first Ari had not just tweaked the helm of the ship of colonial ambitions, but rewritten the navigational charts. Gehenna was only a part of it.

  And her predecessor had kept that secret to herself, until she passed it to her own image and set her onto a very specific course: to be sure the design didn’t blow up in the second and third generation of newly-minted CITs…because to tell anyone was risking letting another worm loose in the population, one of knowing one’s fate and trying to second-guess it.

  And where was the end? What was going to happen to humanity as a whole, when half the human population in the universe was on a different, human-devised program? Done was done. She had to steer it.

  “All right,” she said to this man, her own caretaker. Her protector. The man likely empowered by her predecessor to remove her if she ran amok. And she forgave him his sins of secrecy and surrendered a planet to him, because this man, whose use was his independent thinking, thought it was a necessary move. “All right, Yanni, so I’ll study up on Eversnow. I should have done before now. The damage, you’re right, is already done. The military saw to that. And I’m sure there are benefits I haven’t looked at.”

  “I have a paper for you on that matter,” he said. “Whalesong, on Earth.”

  “Whalesong,” she said. The whim of a nostalgic preservationist: the oceans of Eversnow. “They sing.”

  “I think you’ll find it interesting.”

  A bite of fish.

  “You give me my city, Yanni, and I’ll give you your planet.”

  “Precocious child.”

  “On a completely different topic—I’ve almost made up my mind this week. I’m pretty sure we’re going to clone Denys.”

  “Are we? Now? Or some time in the next seven years?”

  She frowned. That was a question. A big one: how close will we try to stick to program? “Giraud is the one we’re going to trust—a little. Without his brother Denys to protect—how do we make a Giraud? So we clone Denys, for him, so Giraud keeps on track. That’s my total reasoning in deciding. I was all set to tell you that this evening, when you dropped this Eversnow business in my lap. You said you were leaving the decision up to me. And I was thinking about it a lot while you were gone.”

  “Denys has no essential value,” Yanni paraphrased her, “except to keep Giraud on track.”

  “No. That’s what I changed my mind on. Denys helped create me. And if you have to create me again, you’d probably want a Denys to keep the new me in line, because Giraud is too soft.”

  “You don’t think I could fill that position?”

  “Uncle Yanni,” she said fondly, “you’re much too easy on me. You let me get away with everything.”

  “Hell. Sounds as if you’re already making a lot of minor decisions, especially when I’m out of the house.”

  “Except the Eversnow thing. I wouldn’t call that minor.”

  “It’ll be your problem, young lady.”

  “It’ll be your problem until it’s pretty well underway. You’re staying in office at least two more years. Maybe more.”

  “Two more years in purgatory. God, I hate politics.”

  “But please don’t fall down the stairs, Uncle Yanni. You have to be Director. My alternative right now is Justin or Jordan.”

  It was a joke. Yanni didn’t laugh. “Better to install Grant,” Yanni muttered.

  Probably true. Justin Warrick would hate the job more than Yanni did.

  Sacrifice was the situation Yanni was enduring. Never mind he was creating a planet—he wanted to be working with azi, which was what he really loved.

  “Yanni. Could you do one thing more for me?”

  “What?” Yanni asked, and an eyebrow lifted. “When you take that tone, I’m on my guard.”

  She thought: Ari wanted you to bring me up. She’d agree with me. But she wasn’t supposed to know that, so she said, “Giraud’s going to need a father in a few months. Would you?”

  “Good God!”

  “You’d be good at it.”

  “Like hell. Giraud? Good loving God. He’d turn out a serial killer. I’m not good with kids. Especially that one.”

  “You’re good at politics. People promise you things.”

  “I’m not sure that compliments my intelligence.”

  “So will you do it?”

  A sigh. “I’m already loaded down with Council work and Admin. Where do I find the hours?”

  “Who else am I going to get? Dr. Edwards? Giraud’s too devious for him.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “I’m completely serious.”

  “Well, it’s my appointment to make,” Yanni said. “Unless you want to take over this week.”

  “No.”

  “So I’ll think about it.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “So tell me about the rest of the session,” she said. “I’m sure you were brilliant.”

  “The rest.” he said, “was absolutely, deadly dull. Well, except the bomb scare. Paxe
rs up to their old tricks. Nobody believed they could have gotten anything into the building, but I went back to the hotel and actually got my correspondence done.”

  Dinner wended happily on to dessert, a chocolate mousse, just a little of it, with a lot less tension. She found herself happy—so happy from relief that her hands shook a little; and she was fluxed. She’d just lost a planet, for God’s sake, and she found herself being grateful it wasn’t anything that personally threatened her. As for Yanni, he didn’t look at all guilty of double-dealing: he looked very tired by then, trying to be sharp, but considering the trip home, the wine, and the rich dessert, he was probably thinking of bed and really hoping she wouldn’t try any Working at the moment.

  She didn’t. She had all of her dessert and said she was tired herself, and yawned. That was no pretense and no Working. “You’re the one who’s had the long trip,” she said, “and look. I’m the one yawning.”

  “I’m done,” he said. “I’ve got a detailed report for you. I wrote down all the details. Session vids. Dull stuff.” He fished in his pocket and laid a capsule down. “All there.”

  “You’re so good,” she said warmly. And meant it, this time in gratitude. Even if she was relatively sure the secret meetings wouldn’t be in there. She pushed back from the table and Yanni got up and moved her chair for her, gentlemanlike. “Uncle Yanni.”

  “Don’t call me uncle.”

  “Grump.” She’d found that word in a book recently. It fit Yanni. She put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him on the cheek. “Good night. Go get some rest.”

  He returned the kiss, casual, but it made a warm feeling. There was no other CIT who had done that, not since Maman had gone away. Uncle Denys certainly hadn’t.

  And she had lately to think—did he dare try to manipulate her, sweeten his Eversnow maneuver, which he had come here knowing wouldn’t be totally to her liking?

  But she didn’t want to think that. And he had brought her a written report, and the session tapes. She just filed the feeling away…let it go for a while. There’d be changes. There’d be her administration, after his, but it didn’t have to be, yet. He was doing all right: she didn’t like the Eversnow thing, didn’t like the new labs, either, but he was being careful about it.

  She saw him to the door, his companion Frank joining him there, and Catlin showed up, too.

  Yanni left. The door closed. Systems went up again.

  “I think he’s all right,” she announced to Catlin when that door shut.

  There was no surprise there, just a nod of agreement. Her security had likely monitored the whole conversation. On the whole, the business with Yanni had gone amazingly well.

  Tonight—maybe it was the sheer relief of getting Yanni back, even if she had to bargain a bit of her soul for him—she finally felt as if she could get some sleep.

  BOOK ONE Section 1 Chapter x

  APRIL 25, 2424

  1901H

  Fancy restaurant. Columns of light and coherent fog with a rhythmic sea sound in the background, and a holographic beach shimmering in mirrors that reflected, by some optical trick, the diners but not the columns.

  It was a place called Jamaica, Justin hadn’t been here before. And whatever stipend his father was on, it didn’t, he was relatively sure, provide for a place like this. Jordan had called up, after a silence of several days—had asked him and Grant to dinner in the apartment; he’d balked, not wanting a renewal of the argument.

  He’d suggested a quiet dinner out. Jordan had said he’d call back. And did, with a reservation.

  Here.

  Jamaica lay on the main level of Admin—that should have warned Jordan about the cost. It lay a short walk from both Education and Wing One, an outdoor walk across the quadrangle or a protected one through the tunnels. Probably his father had seen the convenience—hadn’t likely seen the menu.

  And the late hour? Because, Jordan had said, it was booked to the hilt at prime hours, which must mean the food was good.

  It meant other things, too: that it was one of those Admin watering holes and Jordan was two decades out of touch with the changes in Admin. It had gotten pricier, to say the least. Jordan likely had no idea what he’d booked them into.

  “Nice place,” Grant observed. “Are you sure he said Jamaica?”

  “He’s not going to pay for this,” Justin said. “Make sure the bill comes to us, will you? I’ll keep on the lookout.”

  Grant immediately took charge and inquired with the maitre d’ near the desk. There was quiet conversation, a nod, a credit chit passed, a little bow. The maitre d’ moved a little closer to where Justin stood and offered them immediate seating—Jordan hadn’t arrived yet—or a seat at the bar if they wanted to wait for their party; but in that same moment Jordan showed up with Paul, and claimed both them and the reservation.

  Jordan looked quite professorial tonight in a tweed coat, quiet brown, a little academic for the milieu. Justin wore green, mild sheen, fashionable among the youngish set—which did fit in here. The maitre d’ escorted them to their table, saw them seated, and promised them a waiter named Edward.

  “Well, and how are you?” Jordan asked, as they settled in at their table, two and two, serving assistants deftly maneuvering china, filling water glasses.

  “Oh, fine,” Justin said, and the drink waiter showed up extraordinarily quickly for a place like this, crammed as it was with diners. It might be that someone had recognized Grant, whose red hair and vid star looks made him easy to ID. In Grant’s company, people he had never met knew him, in every corridor in Reseune.

  But it was Jordan Warrick’s name on the reservation. So it was very possible it wasn’t Grant that had gotten the fast attention. Very possibly it was Reseune Security that had picked their table for them, and bugged it. That might get the maitre d’s quick attention, too, not to have a foul-up with security reach the ears of the other patrons.

  Menus were set in their hands, bound in leather, quite the extravagance, while they eyed each other intermittently’ like fencers and didn’t quite succeed at small talk. There were no prices on the menu. Not one. And Jordan by now knew what they were into, but he hadn’t said a thing.

  “Did you come across the quadrangle?” Paul asked.

  Grant nodded. “Nice evening.”

  “So did we.”

  Jordan played the host, scanned the menu, inquired about appetizers, signaling they were going to go the whole route—they settled on the pâté—and didn’t say a thing about his line of credit. He was animated, pleasant, cheerful, Jordan’s public face, the face Justin had wanted to engage for this first phase of peacemaking. Jordan’s card was going to bounce if the maitre d’ failed them. And that wouldn’t help the peace. Justin could foresee the moment, the embarrassment. God, the bill had better come to him. Quietly. Tactfully.

  He and Jordan could patch things up. They’d not fought, since he’d grown. They didn’t know each other, that was the sad truth. Twenty years of separation from Jordan was a significant time, even in rejuved lives. Jordan had dealt with him in the interim, corresponded with him—not lived in reach of him, that was the problem, and they had to learn about each other all over again. They’d been through the tentative, polite period. A few days ago they’d finally gotten down to honest opinions and somehow, expert as he was in psych, it had just slid inexorably downward.

  Which it wouldn’t do here. Jordan knew how to play to a crowd. He wasn’t going to embarrass himself, even if he was likely to try another tag-you’re-it attack. It would be subtle, if it came, reserved…unless something really, really jolted him; and they weren’t going to mention the name Ari tonight—if Jordan did, he’d stop it cold. He’d stayed away from the past with Jordan these last weeks. He’d broken the rule, pulled the scab off old wounds in their last alcohol-fueled debate, and maybe he had to go on avoiding the topic until Jordan did get his license and his security clearance back and had a few months of behaving himself.

  Or maybe t
hey never would be able to discuss that particular subject—Ari, and the night that had changed him. Terrible as the experience had been, long before the argument with Jordan, he’d come to wonder if the first Ari’s action hadn’t been a rescue. Jordan’s path wasn’t really what he wanted. He’d been set on being Jordan until that night. That night he’d become somebody else. He wasn’t sure who. But he’d become different.

  Thank God. Or he’d have agreed with Jordan four nights ago and they’d all lose their licenses. This way—

  “Ever eaten here?” Jordan asked him, over the menu.

  “No,” Justin said. “Never have.” And the real question: “You haven’t?”

  “Random choice. A yen for something different.” And still, typical Jordan, not a mention of the absent prices. He’d heard the night’s specials and not asked. He maintained a pleasant expression on his face—also pure Jordan. “Planys was a lot of the same thing.”

  Play along: change the subject: keep it light. “Not many choices there, I’ll imagine.”

  “Five. It got boring in the first month. There were actually six choices when I got there. Two of the restaurants consolidated. One changed the menu, oh, about five years on. The other one never did. One Greek, one Italian, one French, one Colonial, and one you couldn’t depend on. That was the excitement. That was our suspense, that fifth restaurant.”

  It might be humor. Every piece of humor he’d heard from Jordan lately-had had a bitter edge. But he dutifully laughed, trying to take it lighter. “Remember Illusions? It’s been through most of those choices. Now it’s New Era.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve missed that delight, so far.”

  “A lot of expensive spices. The real thing, I understand, imported. Some of them are pretty good. Some of them I’m not so sure about. But the steaks are consistently good.”

  “We’ll have to try it. Anything new.”

  “We can do that.” Justin meanwhile looked through the menu. “Angry Shrimp and Pell Bordeaux,” he said. Pell Bordeaux wasn’t going to be cheap. “Sounds interesting. I think I’ll do that.”

  “Adventurous.” Jordan said, and added, darkly. “You must be rich.”