"I'm backwards."
"Whatever."
"God. An Emoryite. You test that way because the cataphorics engrave the pathways they establish so damn deep they're the course of least resistance and they're so damn structured they trigger the endo-endo-crine system in Pavlovian patterns that experience alone wouldn't. For every test that supports Emory there's another one that supports Hauptmann-Poley."
"Hauptmann was a social theorist who wanted his results to support his politics."
"Well, what in hell was Emory?"
Grant blinked and took a breath. "Emory asked us. Hauptmann socialized his subjects till they'd figured out what he wanted them to say. And how he wanted them to test. And an azi always wants to please his Supervisor."
"Oh, shit, Grant. So would Emory's."
"But Emory was right. Hauptmann was wrong. That's the difference."
"Tape affects how your endo-crine system responds. Period. You give me enough tape and I'll jump every time you tell me to. And my pulse will do exactly what yours does."
"I'm one hell of a tape designer. When I'm old as Strassen I'll be damn good. I'll have all this endocrine learning. That's why some old azi get more like born-men. And some of us get to be real eetees. That's why old azi have more problems. Wing Two's going to be damndamn busy with a yardful of armies on rejuv."
Justin was shocked. They were words staff meticulously avoided using. Born-men. Annies. The Yard. It was always CITs; azi; the Town. Grant was pronouncedly drunk.
"We'll see whether it makes any difference," Justin said, "whether Ari Emory had whitefish or ham for breakfast on her twelfth birthday."
"I didn't say I thought the Project would work. I say I think Emory's right about what azi are. They didn't start out to invent us. They just needed people. Fast. So start with tape in the cradle. Perfectly benign accident. Now we're eco-economic."
Back in the pre-Union days.
"Hell."
"I didn't say I minded, ser. We already outnumber you. Soon we'll establish farms where people can grow up like weeds and commune with their glands. There's bound to be a use for them."
"Hell with you!"
Grant laughed. He did. Half of it was an argument they had had a dozen times in different guises; half of it was Grant trying to psych him. But the day fell into perspective finally. It was only a memory tick-over. A jolt backward. Done was done. There was no way to get those damned blackmail tapes out of Archive, since they were Ari's and Ari was sacred. But he had learned to live with the prospect of all of it turning up someday on the evening news.
Or finding that no bargains held forever.
Jordan had killed a dying woman for reasons the Project was going to immortalize in the records anywayif
If it worked to any degree, and the Project went public, there was the chance Jordan could seek a re-hearing and release maybe to Fargoneafter twenty years or so of the Project itself; which would mean all the people who had conspired to cover what Ari had done and all the Centrists who had been embarrassed by potential connections the case had had to the radical undergroundwere going to resist it. Reputations were going to be threatened all over again. Merino and the Abolitionists. Corain. Giraud Nye. Reseune. The Defense Bureau, with all its secrets. There might be justice in the courts, but there was none among the power brokers that had put Jordan where he was. The walls of secrecy would close absolutely, to keep silent a man they could no longer control. And his sonwho had set everything in motion by a kid's mistake, a kid's bad judgment.
If the Project failed it would be a failure like the Bok clone, which had done nothing but add a tragic and sordid little footnote to a great woman's lifea very expensive failure, one Reseune would never publicize, the way to this day the outside world had heard a totally different story about the murder, heard a different story about the changes at Reseune, and knew nothing about the Project: administrative reorganization, the news-services said, in the wake of Ariane Emory's death.
And went on with some drivel about Ari's will having laid out far-reaching plans and the lab being beneficiary of her considerable investments.
If it failedit had political consequences, particularly between Reseune Administration and the Defense department, which was inside the wall of secrecy. Then there was no predicting what Giraud Nye would do to protect himself: Giraud had to carry this off to prove himself, and in the meanwhile dangling the Project in front of Defense let Giraud grab power in some ways greater than Ari had had. Power to silence. Power to use the covert agencies. If Giraud was halfway clever, and if the Project did not fail conspicuously and definitively, he was going to be older than Jane Strassen before he had to admit the Project was not working. He could even re-start, and run the whole scam again, at which point Giraud was certainly going to be looking at the end of his need for any kind of power. After Giraud, the Deluge. What should Giraud care?
Justin only hoped it failed. Which meant a poor kid who only happened to have Ari's geneset ended up a psych case, mindwiped or worse. Maybe an endless succession of babies. A power as big and a man as smart as Giraud would not fail all at once. No. There would be studies of the study of the study. Unless there was a way to make sure it failed in public.
Sometimes he had thoughts that scared him, like finding some article of Ari's lying on his bed. He would never in his life be able to know if certain thoughts were his, just the natural consequence of a deep-seated anger, of himself growing older and harder and more aware how business was done in the world; or whether it was Ari still in control of him.
Worm was an old joke between him and Grant.
He had to go on making nothing of it. Because that was all that kept it isolated.
iv
"Get down from there!" Jane snapped, startled into a snarl, and her gut tightened as the two-year-old trying for the kitchen countertop leaned and stretched, reckless of her light weight, the tile floor and the metal-capped chair legs. Ari reacted, the chair slipped a fraction, she snatched the box of crackers and turned; the chair tipped and Jane Strassen grabbed her on the way down.
Ari yelled with outrage. Or startlement.
"If you want the crackers you ask!" Jane said, tempted to give her a shake. "You want to ouch your chin again?"
Hurt-Ari was the only logic that made a dent in Ari-wants. And a universally famous genetic scientist was reduced to baby-babble and a helpless longing to smack a small hand. But Olga had never believed in corporal punishment.
And if Olga had been human Ari had picked up rage and frustration and resentment in the ambience with her the same as a genetic scientist who wanted to take her out to the river and drown her.
"Nelly!" Jane yelled at the nurse. And remembered not to shout. In her own apartment. She left the chair on the floor. No. Nit-picking Olga could never have left a chair on the floor. She stood there with her arms full of struggling two-year-old waiting on Nelly, who had damn well better have heard her. Ari struggled to get down. She set Ari down and held on to her hand when Ari wanted to sit down and throw a tantrum. "Stand up!" Holding a small hand hard. Giving an Olga-like jerk. "Stand up! What kind of behavior is that?"