Regenesis

by C. J. Cherryh

  That was a major slip; but sera’s orders had been unexpected, and speed had mattered. Not even ReseuneSec at Planys Airport had known why Jordan was being put on a plane, but people were about to die in Reseune, and had already died in Novgorod: it had been just a confused few hours.

  The agents at Reseune Airport had naturally confiscated and copied his notes when he landed, but let blank paper pass without, likely, paging through a personal-use handful of blank sheets. Florian made a mental note of his own, that airport security needed more attention to detail, once sera took Reseune.

  And it still boiled down to one question: how had Jordan known about the Patil appointment in Novgorod, in security so tight Base One hadn’t penetrated it? That took the old fashioned sneaker-net approach. Someone had hand-carried either the card or actual information about the Patil appointment. Either would do.

  So. They could certainly politely ask Jordan about the card and see if he’d cooperate, but they weren’t to that point yet, and clearly there was no use asking a Special any question to which they didn’t already know the answer.

  So Patil’s condo had found a buyer, in Yanni’s office, with a possession date on July 20…whether or not Patil knew that was how it had sold. She was currently saying goodbye to the University in a round of parties attended mostly by academics—one such was scheduled this evening. She had sold most of her furnishings, given other items away to friends and charity; was actively arranging storage for all her non-data possessions that she planned to keep, perhaps to ship later. She had no known sexual attachments, no children, no relatives.

  She was a scholarly woman with a lot of electronic files, preparing to make a long, state-sponsored and fairly high-mass move to a new life, accompanied by those data files and a fair number of household goods—plus being a CIT, likely a few items of emotional attachment.

  “She’s teaching two classes currently,” Catlin reported, “besides lab courses, and she is maintaining her schedule. I checked other professors. They have more classes. Patil spends a lot of time writing and some time doing correspondence with the military labs out at Beta, which we can’t penetrate. No change of pattern there. She does guest lectures, attends bioethics conferences…”

  “The people she’s contacting on Cyteen,” Florian murmured, scanning that list, and the commentary ReseuneSec provided, “old acquaintances, former students, but not many.”

  “The majority may be on Beta, in Beta Labs. Security block, there.”

  “I’m not going to try to crack that,” Florian said. “Not worth it to go after those—yet.” He kept reading. “Mmm. Here’s a few names on her home system, people ReseuneSec notes for further investigation.” He ran a who-is on the few, at ReseuneSec level. “Well. Well. Well. How long have we been at this?”

  “Two and a half hours.”

  “Well, nothing totally new in this. We have some footnotes here from ReseuneSec. But no mischief attaches directly to Patil, except her lectures attract radicals. —Coffee,” Florian said, and got up and poured a cup from the dispenser. A glance at Catlin drew a nod, and he poured another, then looked at the clock himself. Close to time for shift-change. “I’m going to message Marco and Wes to lie in for another couple of hours. I think we should look through Science Bureau records. Base One can probably get into those.”

  “Suits me.” Catlin said. “Try it. Shall I have Gianni send us sandwiches?”

  “I could use one,” Florian said, and settled back at his console, pulled out the under-counter return that kept coffee off the main desk, and set his cup there. Catlin did whatever she was doing. He worked delicately, probed this, probed that, scanned text without storing it, and didn’t get a Base One warning of any unadvertised connections on Yanni’s access, no strings attached.

  The files had some background of interest. Defense had apparently had a lot to do with Patil’s career. Black budget funding had been behind the terraforming labs when they were on Cyteen, specifically at a lab just a little outside Novgorod, a lab later razed in favor of a food production facility. Behind closed Council doors, there’d been an intense battle over removal of the nanistics lab out to Beta during the War. Centrists campaigned to keep it at least as close as Cyteen Station, not relegated to the outer system inside a Defense installation. The first Ari had supported the nanistics move to Beta, however, in agreement with Defense, and Centrists had opposed her and Defense, at that time, in a rare configuration of political alliances.

  Patil, at a hundred and five years of age, had gone out to Beta when Thieu moved down to Cyteen, had subsequently distinguished herself in ways deeply classified, and then Patil herself had been moved back to Central System and onto Cyteen as a safety measure during the darkest days of the War. Patil, Thieu, and a researcher named Ibsen, Pauline Ibsen, since deceased, age one hundred thirty-six, had all been sent down to Cyteen, three people who had been working on the blackest of black projects—most likely the production of terraforming nanistics, but theoretically only: any lab work was done out at Beta, as a potential and never-used weapon of war.

  After the War, Patil hadn’t gotten promoted back out to Beta. “Articulate, sharp, and gregarious,” so the report said, she had “fallen into the social milieu of the University,” had found herself a comfortable post and a prosperous side income as a favorite speaker at Centrist and pro-terraforming conferences and meetings.

  Clearly her imminent departure into Reseune’s employment had stirred up the Centrist community. Some comments had hit the general web, the one that any CIT could access. Some Centrists were pleased at the acceptance of what they called a moderating influence into a Reseune post: others were more concerned about losing Dr. Patil’s moderate and respectable voice in Novgorod politics, once she shipped to Fargone, and wondered if it was a means of silencing her voice. None of the reports apparently knew about her relationship to the Eversnow project.

  “ ‘Moderate and reasonable,’ they call her,” Florian said, having condensed the flow for Catlin. “ ‘A peacekeeper.’ Which might argue that Yanni’s move to send Patil to Fargone really isn’t the best idea, losing her local influence. The Paxers come to her lectures. She doesn’t appear to support their activities.”

  “Moderation might have been what recommended her to Yanni, however,” Catlin said, and they read a while longer.

  Then Catlin said, “Read the post under Gulag.”

  Interesting word. They were down to CIT political gossip on the Novgorod city net. Florian looked that word up, before investigating the site Catlin had tossed him.

  The Gulag writer was passionately angry, convinced Patil’s transfer was a ticket to a Reseune-run oblivion and possible assassination. Well, there might be a grain of truth, not likely in the second.

  And there seemed, according to the ReseuneSec note, another conspiracy theory circulating, quoting a Bureau of Defense argument in committee, that it was a move by Reseune to gut the Beta Station lab: one supporter of that viewpoint maintained Patil was still doing Defense work, and could not legally be transferred from a public university into a Reseune-run lab.

  “It’s not actually the law that she can’t be transferred,” Catlin commented. “they just make it sound illegal. She’s a scientist. Science posts come from Science, even if her post is classified by Defense. She just has a job offer from Science. And if she accepts it, Defense can’t claim there’s a war reason, because the War Powers Act has lapsed.”

  Catlin was very much better on law than he was.

  But law wasn’t the name of the game. “Politics. Politics is all. Both sides are likely pressuring her for loyalty. But she votes in Science, because that’s what she is, doesn’t she? Check what profession she actually votes in.”

  A few key-taps, Science Bureau records. “Her voter registration is definitely Science. So she’s not registered military any more, not since 2406. Defense still runs the lab at Beta, and if she went back out there, she’d properly be voting in Defense again. But if she goes t
o Fargone and works in the new Reseune set-up, then Defense hasn’t got any complaint. They can’t claim she knows military secrets, none current, at least. No more than Thieu. So the Gulag writer is wrong in his suppositions.”

  “And she wants to go to Fargone. Otherwise she could easily get legal help from Defense and get transferred to them.”

  “Which she’s not doing. So she does accept going to Fargone. And so do Defense’s upper echelons, because they agreed with Yanni. And that will be this Eversnow project, when it starts, and it’s likely to be very soon.”

  “Why did she accept Yanni’s offer?” Florian asked. “Why is she agreeing to jump ship to Reseune?” Why was one of his favorite questions, best when asked when things seemed neat and wrapped up. And it seemed to fit, here. Understandable if someone didn’t want to be returned to Beta, which was remote and secretive and full of regulations. Fargone was a comfortable station—not the comforts of Cyteen Station, to be sure, but very much better than Beta. There was that. Eversnow, on the other hand, was a frontier. As barren as Big Blue. A bare steel and prefab station. No luxuries. “Novgorod’s the height of comfort. She’s respected. She has an important job. She doesn’t work hard. She’s very well paid. She has very many associates who respect her. Why choose to leave?”

  Catlin frowned. It was close on CIT territory, asking the unanswerable: the emotionally founded question posing as born-man logic, with far too little knowledge of the individual. “Either going to something or from something.”

  “To Reseune’s new lab. Or from Novgorod. Could there be something in Fargone she wants? Or could there be something in Novgorod she’d like to be away from?”

  “The work at Eversnow might attract her.”

  “Or Novgorod might not be as good for her as it seems. She has the Paxers here. They won’t be there. Some of these people at her lectures are politically intense fringe elements. I’ve got the background summation on people attending. Long, long list.” He flashed it over to her. “Some of these people have third-degree contacts under intense watch, indirect links to persons undergoing mindwipe in the hotel bombing that tried to kill us.”

  “Politics,” Catlin said.

  “Politics,” Florian said, and tagged the whole area for re-reading and absorption. “I’m going to tape this bit—considering how it connects to Yanni, and considering sera’s plans—which don’t wholly agree with Yanni. It still doesn’t answer the timing of the card.”

  “Give me the tape,” Catlin said. “That’s a good find. Not the opinion, the names.”

  For deepstudy, that is: things they needed to absorb completely, names they needed to know and deep-associate with Paxer activity. And with Sandi Patil. So they never forgot them.

  It was a luxury he and Catlin had never enjoyed before, to sit atop a pyramid of data, with skilled people doing exactly what they were Contracted to do, people tapped into all of ReseuneSec and going over reports from all that organization did on Cyteen and elsewhere. The ReseuneSec access didn’t lead them to new things, but it organized things in a way different from Base One—and that gave them a window into ReseuneSec thinking.

  First it seemed to lead them further and further afield from the item they’d started chasing: Jordan Warrick and the infamous card…and then it seemed to lead back again…to Yanni’s office; and Jordan Warrick. And Patil.

  “We need to filter this other, too,” Florian said. “The net opinions. Not good to deepstudy it.” Deepstudy diminished critical thinking. This was opinion. A lot of opinion, from untrustworthy people. They just needed the names from the Novgorod CIT net, and the suspicions attached to them.

  “I don’t know where we’re going to get the time to do this,” Catlin said. “Sera wants to begin prep for moving.”

  It wasn’t convenient, the timing of their complete relocation. Their new staff was delayed. But there was worry on the other side, too, that sera would be less safe if they delayed getting her into a more fortified residence.

  “No good complaining,” Florian said. “We just have to do this.” Patil’s data was still flying under his fingers. “We need to understand it. All our lives, we’ll need to. These are the Enemy. This is where it starts. The people that may be against sera now are the people that will be against sera all her life. And for now—for now we just watch Base Two very carefully.”

  BOOK

  THREE

  BOOK THREE Section 1 Chapter i

  JUNE 1, 2424

  1528H

  Growth proceeded at the same breakneck pace, for Giraud, for Abban, for Seek, at fifteen weeks. They were all without significant defect, and on the path to being male. They took in amniotic fluid, practice and pressure alike expanding the rudimentary structures of their lungs, and Abban was now tallest of the three, a bit heavier—in grams, which was the scale on which they existed.

  Giraud’s face was broader—hard to see, but it was.

  They had human proportions, more or less—their legs were longer than their arms were. Their rudimentary eyes, as yet without an opening in the lids, and not quite on the front of the faces, were growing sensitive to more and less light—a probing beam, into a tank, would get a definite reactive flinch: they didn’t know they didn’t like it, but change in what-was drew response, an instinct to preserve the status quo. It wasn’t fight-flight yet, just the beginnings of it.

  Details had emerged, tastebuds, which would matter a great deal to Giraud, less so to Abban and Seely Those appeared, and simultaneously, the ability to sweat—though sweat was not that useful, in the fluid environment, in the rocking safety of artificial wombs. They continued, enveloped by the soft, variable thump of a human heartbeat, steel mother-sound, helping set the rhythm of their bodies. Individuality had asserted itself. Their fingerprints differed, as surely as their DNA. And they were not like each other, not at all.

  BOOK THREE Section 1 Chapter ii

  JUNE 1, 2424

  1528H

  There’s a reason, I think, that the first Ari wasn’t kind: not many people were kind to her—they just gave her a lot of privileges, or let her get away with what she wanted to do because they didn’t pay attention, and that’s not the same. So I don’t think Ari quite understood about kindness. But I don’t think having had kindness in my life means that I’m less driven to succeed than she was. My brain is as good as hers. I might have just a few different motives—she fought for power and her own protection. I fight to protect the people I love. But she fought, and I fight. That much is the same.

  The new wing, Alpha Wing, well—new, in my time, though for you it’s not. It’s where you live now, unless somebody decides otherwise, or unless you decide otherwise, for security reasons, or just because you don’t like my decor any more than I like Denys’. I don’t know how long Reseune can add new wings for every one of us that’s ever born. But there you are. Or there you will be—I hope somewhat safe and comfortable in your day.

  And today I’ve given the order that will mean my Uncle Denys gets born in due course, seven years from now, or whenever if I’m sure I can compress the schedule a bit: that’s a decision Yanni has left to me, but Til probably stick to the seven years. If I do, it’s mostly for Giraud’s sake. And I’m going to apologize to you right now about creating Denys, because you’ll probably hate him and you’ll probably have really good reason. But I’m afraid Giraud is going to be too easygoing, without him. And this time Denys will be the young and ignorant kid, not me. I’m afraid by the time you come along, you’ll get the old Denys, the way I did, and I’m sorry for that.

  I don’t want to change Denys’s essential nature—it’s his program—but I’ll have to think about that, maybe for quite a few years before I actually order his geneset into the womb. I have plenty of time to get ahead of him. Once you start changing foundational things in our patterns, as you’ll be learning, everything after that has to flex, and that’s rapidly a field-too-large problem. A very, very big problem. The variables are terrible.

&nb
sp; And I don’t know how well my upcoming move to a new wing will work. Wing One is historic, and it’s important, and if architecture can embody a psychological structure, a lot of what made Reseune is in its walls and its rooms. But I’m trying, at least, to set new patterns, and the new wing is where I’m making my start.

  Among first jobs, I want to patch all the things up that my Denys deliberately broke. He sent a lot of people away, people I’d attached to…my playmate Valery, and his whole family, even if they were Yanni’s relatives. I missed him terribly. And they sent Maman and Ollie out to Fargone, and I couldn’t do anything about it. Maybe you’ve had people vanish from your life, too. I hope not. But if they have, pay attention to what I’m doing note. These people I’m calling home to me may be important to you in your own life, if they all live that long, and if I could, substitute Valery for Denys, for your sake, oh, I would do that, so fast. Valery was so kind, so nice, he made me happy as long as I had him for a friend, and they sent him and his mother away precisely because I liked, him. And we were only babies, ourselves, well, nearly so. But I never forgot him. That’s one piece of justice I’m going to do, first and foremost. I don’t know how he’s turned out. That’s one.

  And Ollie. He was an alpha azi when I knew him. He was Maman’s companion. Right now he’s Director of the labs out at Fargone…he’s very good at what he does. He’s legally a CIT now, and of course he’s old, far, far past a hundred, and a long time on rejuv, and he’ll do what he wants to. I’d so love to see Ollie again. I’d love to make everything right for him—he’d have grieved so much when Maman died and nobody treated him with any consideration at all, here at Reseune, or out there, at the time. But I won’t order him to come, as old as he is, and knowing the trip itself might be hard on him. Fargone was where she died, and for all I know he may be attached to that place, and it’s certain he has his work out there, that’s very important to Reseune. No matter what I want, I wouldn’t want to tear him away from his place there if he doesn’t want to come back. And between you and me, I really don’t think he will.