But they had gone for it the moment they were off live-feed: to what extent was she actually in Administration, what were the projects, how were the decisions being made inside Reseune and was she in fact involved in that level?
Dangerous questions. Exceedingly dangerous. She had flashed then on bleeding bodies, on subway wreckage, on news-service stills of a child's toy in the debris.
Seri, she had said then, direct, not demure: with Ari senior's straight stare and deliberate pause in answering: any wing administrator is in the process.
Read me, seri: I'm not a fool. I won't declare myself over my uncle's ashes.
But don't discount me in future.
I came here, she had reminded them in that context, as a delegated spokesman for the family. That's my immediate concern. I have to go, seri. I have to be up the hill for the services in thirty minutes. Please excuse me. . . .
It was the first funeral she had attended where there was actually burial, a small canister of ash to place in the ground, and two strong gardeners to raise the basalt cenotaph up from the ground and settle it with a final thump over the grave.
She flinched at that sound, inside. So damned little a canister, for tall uncle Giraud.
And burial in earth instead of being shot for the sun. She knew which she would pick for herselfsame as her predecessor, same as maman. But it was right for Giraud, maybe.
Emil Carnath called for speeches from associates and colleagues.
"I have a word," Victoria Strassen said right off.
O God, Ari thought.
And braced herself.
"Giraud threw me out of my sister's funeral," Victoria began in a voice sharper and stronger than one ever looked for from that thin body. "I never forgave him for it."
Maddy cast Ari an anguished look across the front of the gathering. Sorry for this.
Not your fault, Ari thought.
"What about you, Ariane Emory PR? Are you going to have me thrown out for saying what the truth is?"
"I'll speak after you, aunt Victoria. Maman taught me manners."
That hit. Victoria's lips made a thin line and she took a double-handed grip on her black cane.
"My sister was not your maman," Victoria said. "That's the trouble in the House. Dead is dead, that's all. The way it works best. The way it's worked in all of human society. Old growth makes way for new. It doesn't batten off the damn corpse. I've no quarrel with you, young sera, no quarrel with you. You didn't choose to be born. Where's Denys? Eh?" She looked around her, with a sweeping gesture of the cane. "Where's Denys?" There was an uncomfortable shifting in the crowd. "Sera," Florian whispered at Ari's shoulder, seeking instruction.
"I'll tell you where Denys is," Victoria snapped. "Denys is in the lab making another brother, the way he made another Ariane. Denys has taken the greatest scientific and economic power in human history and damned near run it into bankruptcy in his administration, never mind poor Giraud, who took the orders, we all know thatdamned near bankrupted us all for his eetee notion of personal immortality. You tell me, young sera, do you remember what Ariane remembered? Do you remember her life at all?"
God. It was certainly not something she wanted asked, here, now, in an argumentative challenge, in any metaphysical context. "We'll talk about that someday," she said back, loudly enough to carry. "Over a drink, aunt Victoria. I take it that's a scientific question, and you're not asking me about reincarnation."
"I wonder what Denys calls it," Victoria said. "Call your security if you like. I've been through enough craziness in my life, people blowing up stations in the War, people blowing up kids in subways, people who aren't content to let nature throw the dice anymore, people who don't want kids, they want little personal faxes they can live their fantasies through, never mind what the poor kid wants. Now do we give up on funerals altogether? Is that what everyone in the damn house is thinking, I don't have to die, I can impose my own ideas on a poor sod of a replicate who's got no say in it so I can have my ideas walking around in the world after I'm dead?"
"You're here to talk about Giraud," Yanni Schwartz yelled. "Do it and shut up, Vickie."
"I've done it. Goodbye to a human being. Welcome back, Gerry PR. God help the human race."
The rest of the speeches, thank God, were decorousa few lines, a: We differed, but he had principles, from Petros Ivanov; a: He kept Reseune going, from Wendell Peterson.
It ascended to personal family then, always last to speak. To refute the rest, Ari decided, for good or ill.
"I'll tell you," she said in her own turn, in what was conspicuously her turn, last, as next-of-kin, Denys being exactly where Victoria had said he was, doing what Victoria had said, "there was a time I hated my uncle. I think he knew that. But in the last few years I learned a lot about him. He collected holograms and miniatures; he loved microcosms and tame, quiet things, I think because in his real work there never was any sense of conclusion, just an ongoing flux and decisions nobody else wanted to make. It's not true that he only took orders. He consulted with Denys on policy; he implemented Bureau decisions; but he knew the difference between a good idea and a bad one and he never hesitated to support his own ideas. He was quiet about it, that's all. He got the gist of a problem and he went for solutions that would work.
"He served Union in the war effort. He did major work on human personality and on memory which is still the standard reference work in his field. He took over the Council seat in the middle of a national crisis, and he represented the interests of the Bureau for two very critical decadesinto my generation, the first generation of Union that's not directly in touch with either the Founding or the War.
"He talked to me a lot in this last year: Abban made a lot of trips back and forth" She looked to catch Abban's eye, but Abban was staring straight forward, in that nowhere way of an azi in pain. "couriering messages between us. He knew quite well he was dying, of course; and as far as having a replicate, he didn't really care that much. We did talk about it, the way we talked about a lot of things, some personal, some public. He was very calm about it all. He was concerned about his brother. The thing that impressed me most, was how he laid everything out, how he made clear arrangements for everything"
Never mind the mess Denys made of those arrangements.
"He operated during the last half year with a slate so clearly in order that those of us he was briefing could have walked into his office, picked up that agenda and known exactly where all the files were and exactly what had to be priority. He confessed he was afraid of dying. He certainly would have been glad to stay around another fifty years. He never expressed remorse for anything he'd done; he never asked my forgiveness; he only handed me the keys and the files and seemed touched that I did forgive him. That was the Giraud I knew."
She left it at that.
I have the files. That was deliberate, too. The way she had done with the press.
Not to undermine Lynch, damned sure. Denys refused the seat and someone had to hold it; Reseune was in profound shock. Certain people were urging Yanni to declare for the seat, challenge Lynch.
No, Denys had said, focused enough to foresee that possibility. No challenge to Lynch from anyone. He's harmless. Leave him.
What Yanni thought about it she was not sure. She did not think Yanni wanted that honor.
But Denys' refusal had jerked a chance at Reseune Administration out of Yanni's reach. And that, she thought, however much any of them in Reseune had suspected Denys would refuse the seat, that had to be a disappointment.