"I'm at the point where I have to surrender a good many things to young hands. I thought that, frankly, I could rid you of a very unpleasant decision. You've appropriated it to yourself by your maneuvers to forestall me and to prevent me from discrediting Jordan Warrick. I neither beg nor plead with you at this point. I'm accustomed to being the villain in the Family. I have no objection to bowing out in that role. If you would care to turn your back in the affair of Jordan Warrick, I could foresee that you could turn proof of his activities to your considerable personal advantage in dealing with Justin Warrick. I'm sure you understand me. If you decide on that course you have only to call on me.
"You assuredly know now why I have taken extreme precautions to prevent this tape from seeing Archives. It's potentially deadly. Never mind my reputation. Your own safety is in question, and if you use that famous wit of yours, you will look to that to the exclusion of all else.
"Above all, keep power out of the hands of people you would want to protect. Out of a hundred thirty-three years of living, love, that's the highest wisdom I can come to.
"I'll keep you posted. Abban may make many of these flights. I don't trust regular communications. Don't you.
"Above all, take this for a storm-warning. I'm taking excellent care of myself. I've given up my few vices for your sake, to buy you time. Remember my offer.
Position yourself carefully, and don't be careless with your associates. Justice, guilt and innocence are irrelevant. Motivation and opportunity are the things you have to watch. Nothing else has any validity."
"Endit."
She sat still a long while.
"Log-off," she said finally.
And got up and went back to the bedroom.
Florian waked when she came in. Or had never been asleep.
She got in beneath the covers. And stared into the dark.
"Is there trouble, sera?"
"Just Giraud," she said, and rolled over and put her arm around him, burrowed down against his shoulder, smothering the anger, fighting it with all she had. "God. Florian. Do something, will you?"
ARCHIVES: RUBIN PROJECT: CLASSIFIED CLASS AA
DO NOT COPY
CONTENT: Computer Transcript File #1655646
Seq. #5
Personal Archive
Emory I/Emory II 2424:2/3:2223
B/1: Ari senior has a message.
Stand by.
Ari, this is Ari senior.
You've asked about power.
That's a magic word, sweet. Are you alone?
AE2: Yes.
B/1: You are 18 years old. You are legally adult. You have authority of: Wing Supervisor; Alpha Supervisor.
You have flagged for systems surveillance: Denys Nye; Giraud Nye; Petros Ivanov; Yanni Schwartz; Wendell Peterson; John Edwards; Justin Warrick; Jordan Warrick; Gustav Morley; Julia Carnath; Amy Carnath; Maddy Strassen; Victoria Strassen; Sam Whitely; Stef Dietrich; Yvgenia Wojkowski; Anastasia Ramirez; Eva Whitely; Julia Strassen; Gloria Strassen; Oliver AOX Strassen; and all their associations.
Additionally you have flagged for exterior surveillance and news-service monitoring: priority one: Mikhail Corain; Vladislaw Khalid; Simon Jacques; Giraud Nye; Leonid Gorodin; James Lynch; Thomas Spurlin; Ludmilla deFranco; Catherine Lao; Nasir Harad; Andrew McCabe; and all their households.
Do you wish to add or subtract?
AE2: Continue.
B/1: Ari, this is Ari senior.
You are monitoring inside and outside Reseune. You hold economic and administrative power inside Reseune with a rating of: excellent performance.
I advise against any move against Administration on the grounds of: chronological age.
NewsScan profile indicates No security anomaly within Reseune's internal surveillance. Do you disagree?
AE2: No.
B/1: You've asked about power. There are three parts to that. Taking it. Holding it. Using it. Taking it and holding it are very closely related: if you pay less attention to the second than to the first you are in trouble, because the same dynamics that put you in power will operate as well for someone else against you.
Let me tell you: physical force will only work on lower levels. Don't discount it. But the most effective way to power is through persuasion. This means psych, personally applied, and massively applied. If you have followed my work this far, you understand when I say that the press is one of the most valuable tools you will have to work with.
There are at least three possible situations with the press. A, Completely free; B, Free in some areas, controlled in others; C, Completely controlled. In the first instance, the press is vulnerable to direct manipulation; in the second, vulnerable to direct manipulation in some areas, but vulnerable to tactics which increase public distrust of official information; in the third state, rumor is potentially more powerful than the press, and with an efficient organization you can equally well turn that situation to your advantage. Which of the three do you estimate is the case?
AE2: The second.
B/1: Analysis indicates a period of unrest.
Intersection of data indicates reason for concern.
Your NewsScan profile is: low activity; predominantly favorable. Consider carefully the effects of a change in this profile at this time.
Always respect the power of public opinion. Need I say that to a Reseune-trained operator?
Remember that change in social macrosystems operates rarely like earthquake, more frequently like subsoil ice, deforming the terrain in general ways, by gravity and topological constraints. The potential for cataclysmic events is comparatively easy to figure: figuring the precise moment or trigger of fracture is not; while the temporal component in slow change is relatively easy to figure, the total direction of change is complex, involving more individual action. Politicians frequently ride the earthquakes; while Reseune has always operated best in the subsoil, slowly, with frequent small adjustments.
I distrust such models. But I trust I am giving them to an adult who understands me.
I urge you consider the changes in Novgorod and in Cyteen in your own lifetime, and in mine, and in Olga's. I predict they will be extreme, and I urge you watch several areas.
a) An early problem will be the pressure of CIT population increase, particularly in Novgorod, particularly on stations such as Esperance and Pan-Paris, which do not lie on the routes of proposed expansion: eventually CITs will find that jobs are not as easy to come by, and that will lead to increased power for the Abolitionists who call for the cessation of azi production.
b) Interstellar government having its capital resident in a world-based city is increasingly fraught with problems, however much the situation has been advantageous to Reseune. It may in your lifetime produce difficulties and threaten Union: placing the capital specifically at Novgorod instead of Cyteen Station exposed Union politics to Cyteen influence and to Cyteen economics in ways which I do not think healthy. Be alert for that sentiment. It will come, though perhaps not in your lifetime.