In black. Azi. She watched him. She said hello when somebody said hello to her, but she was not interested in that. She had always thought her hair was pretty. Prettier than anybody's. But his was pretty. He was. It was not fair. If there was hair like that she wanted it. She was suddenly dissatisfied with her own.
He looked at her. He was not azi. No. Yes. His face went all straight and he turned his chin, so, and pretended he did not see her looking at him. He was with a dark-haired man. That man looked at her, but the azi did not want him to.
He looked at her anyway. He was handsome like Ollie. He looked at her different than grown-ups and she thought he was not supposed to do that, but she did not want to look anywhere else, because he was different than everyone. The azi with red hair was by him, but he was not the important one. The man was. The man was looking at her, and she had never even seen him. He had never come to visit. He had never brought presents.
She went closer. The azi didn't want her to be close to his friend. He had his hand on the man's shoulder. Like she was going to get him. But the man watched her like she was maman. Like he had done something bad and she was maman.
He was being her. And she was being maman. And the azi was being Ollie, when maman was yelling.
Then the azi saw something dangerous behind her. She looked.
Maman was coming. But maman stopped when she looked.
Everyone was stopped. Everyone was watching. They had stopped talking. There was just the music. Everyone was afraid.
She started toward maman.
Everyone twitched.
She stopped. And everyone twitched again. Even maman.
She had done that.
She looked back at maman. Twitch.
She looked back at the man.
Twitch. Everybody.
She didn't know she could do that.
Maman was going to be mad, later. Ollie was.
If maman was going to shout she might as well do something first.
The azi and the man looked at her when she walked up to them. The man looked like she was going to get him. The azi thought so too.
The man had pretty hands like Ollie. He was a lot like Ollie. People all thought he was dangerous. That was wrong. She knew it was. She could scare them good.
She came up and took his hand. Everyone was doing what she wanted. Even he was. She had maman good. The way she could do Nelly.
She liked that.
"My name's Ari," Ari said.
"Mine's Justin," Justin said quietly. In all that quiet.
"I'm going to a party," she said. "At Valery's."
Jane Strassen came to collect the child. Firmly. Grant got between them, and put his hand on Justin's shoulder, and turned him away.
They left. That was all there was to do.
"Damn," Grant said, when they were back in the apartment, "if no one had moved it would have been nothing. Nothing at all. She picked up on it. She picked up on it like it was broadcast."
"I had to see her," Justin said.
He could not say why. Except they said she was Ari. And he had not believed it until then.
vii
"Night, sweet," maman said; and kissed her. Ari put her arms up and hugged maman and kissed her too. Smack.
Maman went out and it was dark then. Ari snuggled down in bed with Poo-thing. She was full of cake and punch. She shut her eyes and all the people were glittery. Ollie got her cake. And all the people looked at her. Valery's party was nice. They played music-chairs and had favors. Hers was a glittery star. Valery's was a ball. They were real sorry about sera Schwartz's lamp.
New year was fun.
"Is she all right?" Ollie asked in the bedroom. And Jane nodded, while he unhooked her blouse. "Sera, I am sorry"
"Don't talk about it. Don't fret about it. It's all right." He finished; she slid the silver blouse down her arms and threw it on the chair back. Ollie was still shaken.
So, in fact, was she. Not mentioning it was Denys' and Giraud's damn idea.
Olga had had the kid up in front of visitors, hauled her around like a little mannequinsubjected her to the high-pressure social circuit in which Ari's sensitive nerves must have been raw.
They could not take the curtain of secrecy off. There was only one part of that high-tension atmosphere they could access, that inside Reseune itself.
The Family. In all its multifarious, nefarious glory.
Enough sugar in her often-tested metabolism, enough no-don't and behave-Ari and promised rewards to be sure a four-year-old was going to be hyper as hell.
She felt, somehow, sick at her stomach.
viii
Justin hugged his coat about him as he and Grant took the outside walk between Residency and the office, and jammed his hands into his pockets. Not a fast walk, despite the morning chill, on a New Year's morning where everyone was slow getting started.
He stopped at the fishpond, bent and fed the fish. The koi knew him. They expected him and came swimming up under the brown-edged lotus. They ruled their little pool between the buildings, they entertained the children of the House and begat their generations completely oblivious to the fact that they were not on the world of their origin.
Here was here. The white old fellow with the orange patches had been taking food from his hand since he was a young boy, and daily, now, since Jordan had gone and he and Grant had sought the outside whenever they could. Every morning.
Spy-dishes could pick up their voices from the House, could pick them up anywhere. But surely, surely, Security just did the easy thing, and caught the temperature of things from time to time by flipping a monitor switch on the apartment, not wasting overmuch time on a quiet pair of tape-designers who had not made the House trouble in years. Security could bring them in for psychprobe anytime it wanted. That they had notmeant Security was not interested. Yet.
Still, they were careful.
"He's hungry," Justin said of the white koi. "Whiter; and children don't remember."
"One of the differences," Grant said, sitting on the rock near him. "Azi children would."
Justin laughed in spite of the distress that hovered over them. "You're so damn superior."
Grant shrugged cheerfully. "Born-men are so blind to other norms. We aren't." Another piece of wafer hit the water, and a koi took it, sending out ripples that disturbed the lotus. "I tell you, all the trouble with alien contacts is preconceptions. They should send us."
"This is the man who says Novgorod would be too foreign."
"Us. You and me. I wouldn't worry then."
A long pause. Justin held the napkin of wafers still in his hands. "I wish to hell there was a place."
"Don't worry about it." It was not Novgorod Grant meant. Of a sudden the shadow was back. The cold was back in the wind. "Don't. It's all right."
Justin nodded, mute. They were so close. He had had letters from Jordan. They looked like lace, with sentences physically cut from the paper. But they said, in one salutation: Hello, son. I hear you and Grant are well. I read and re-read all your letters. The old ones are wearing out. Please send more.
His sense of humor is intact, he had commented to Grant. And he and Grant had read and re-read that letter too, for all the little cues it had given him about Jordan's state of mind. Read and re-read the others that got through. Page after page of how the weather was. Talk about Paulconstantly, Paul and I. That had reassured him too.
Things are moving, Denys had said, when he brought up the subject of sending voice tapes. Or making phone calls, carefully monitored.
And they had been so close to getting that permission.