Cyteen

Shake the kid up, play games with his mind, go on till he cracked. You wanted Grant free, boy, you can substitute, can't you? —leave the apartment, report to the office, smile at familiar people and hear the business go on about him that had gone on yesterday, that went on every day in Wing One—Jane Strassen cursing her aides and creating a furor because of some glitch-up in equipment repair; Ya

He was careful. There were things the AI checker might not catch. There were higher-level designers between his efforts and an azitest-subject, and there were trap-programs designed to catch accidental linkages in a particular psychset but it was no generic teaching-tape: it was deep-tape, specifically one that a psychsurgeon might use to fit certain of the KU-89 subsets for limited managerial functions.

A mistake that got by the master-designers could be expensive—could cause grief for the KU-89s and the azi they might manage; could cause terminations, if it went truly awry—it was every designer's nightmare, installing a glitch that would run quietly amok in a living intellect for weeks and years, till it synthesized a crazier and crazier logic-set and surfaced on some completely illogical trigger.

There was a book making the rounds, a science fiction thriller called Error Message,that had Giraud Nye upset: a not too well disguised Reseune marketed an entertainment tape with a worm in it, and civilization came apart. There was a copy in library, on CIT-only check-out, with a long waiting list; and he and Grant had both read it—of course. Like most every House azi except Nye's, it was a good bet.

And he and Grant had tried designing a worm, just to see where it would go. —"Hey," Grant had said, sitting on the floor at his feet, starting to draw logic-flows, "we've got an Alpha-set we can use, hell with the Rho-sets."

It had scared him. It had gone unfu

Grant had laughed, with that wicked, under the brows grin he had when he had tagged his CIT good.

"I don't think we ought to do this," Justin had said, and grabbed the notebook. "I don't think we ought to mess around with it."

"Hey, there isn't any such thing."

"I don't want to find out." It was hard to be the Authority for the moment, to pull CIT-rank on Grant and treat him like that. It hurt. It made him feel like hell. Suddenly and glumly sober, Grant had crumpled up his design-start, and the disappointment in Grant's eyes had gone right to his gut.

Till Grant had come into his room that night and waked him out of a sound sleep, saying he had thought of a worm, and it worked—whereupon Grant had laughed like a lunatic, pounced on him in the dark and scared hell out of him.

"Lights!" he had yelled at the Minder, and Grant had fallen on the floor laughing.

Which was the way Grant was, too damned resilient to let anything come between them. And damned well knowing what he deserved for his pretensions to godhood.

He sat motionless at the keyboard, staring at nothing, with a dull ache inside that was purely selfish. Grant was all right. Absolutely all right.

The intercom blipped. He summoned up the fortitude to deal with it and punched the console button. "Yes," he said, expecting Ari or Ari's office.

"Justin." It was his father's voice. "I want to talk to you. My office. Now."

He did not dare ask a question. "I'm coming," he said, shut down and went, immediately.

He was back an hour later, in the same chair, staring at a lifeless screen for a long while before he finally summoned the self-control to key the project-restore.

The comp brought the program up and found his place. He was a thousand miles away, halfway numb, the way he had made himself when Jordan told him he had gotten a call through to Merild and Merild had given a puzzled negative to a coded query.

Merild had gotten no message. Merild had gotten nothing at all that he would have recognized as the subject of Jordan's inquiry. Total zero.

Maybe it was too soon. Maybe there was some reason Krugers had held Grant there and not called Merild yet. Maybe they were afraid of Reseune. Or the police.

Maybe Grant had never gotten there.

He had been in shock as Jordan had sat down on the arm of the office chair and put his arm about him and told him not to give up yet. But there was nothing they could do. Neither of them and no one they knew could start a search, and Jordan could not involve Merild by giving him the details over the House phone. He had called Krugers and flatly asked if a shipment got through. Krugers avowed it had gone out on schedule. Someone was lying.

"I thought we could trust Merild," was all he had been able to say.

"I don't know what's going on," Jordan had said. "I didn't want to tell you. But if Ari knows something about this she's going to spring it on you. I figured I'd better let you know."

He had not broken down at all—until he had gotten up, had said he had to get back to his office, and Jordan hugged him and held him. Then he had fallen apart. But it was only what a boy would do, who had just been told his brother might be dead.

Or in Ari's hands.

He had gotten his eyes dry, his face composed. He had walked back through the security checkpoint and into Ari's wing, back past the continuing upset in Jane Strassen's staff, people trying to get a shipment out on the plane that was going after supplies, because Jane was so damned tight she refused to move with anything but a full load.

He sat now staring at the problem in front of him, sick at his stomach and hating Ari, hatingher, more than he had ever conceived of hating anyone, even while he did not know where Grant was, or whether he himself had killed him, sending him out in that boat.

And he could not tell Jordan the full extent of what was going on. He could not tell Jordan a damned thing, without triggering all the traps set for him.

He killed the power again, walked out and down the hall to Ari's office, ignoring the to-do in the hall. He walked in and faced Florian, who had the reception desk. "I've got to talk to her," he said. "Now."

Florian lifted a brow, looked doubtful, and then called through.

"How are we?" Ari asked him; and he was shaking so badly, standing in front of Ari's desk, that he could hardly talk.

"Where's Grant?"

Ari blinked. One fast, perhaps-honest reaction. "Where's Grant? —Sit down. Let's go through this in order."

He sat down in the leather chair at the corner of her desk and clenched his hands on its arms. "Grant's gone missing. Where is he?"

Ari took in a long slow breath. Either she had prepared her act or she was not troubling to mask at all. "He got as far as Krugers. A plane came in this morning and he might have left on it. Two barges left this morning and he could have been on those."

"Where is he, dammit? Where have you got him?"

"Boy, I do appreciate your distress, but get a grip on it. You won't get a thing out of me by shouting, and I'd really be surprised if the hysteria is an act. So let's talk about this quietly, shall we?"

"Please."