Regenesis

That was the first thing that was odd about Abban AB. Another was that, just like Seely AS, this Abban reused a sequence number: 688.

And that, all other conventions aside, should never happen.

On the other side of that doorway, Giraud Nye, conceived within minutes of the others, would be born a CIT, Citizen class, for no other reason than that he had a CIT number and came with no manual, no set course to take him through his first years. He would learn in chaos, being a born‑man; and after he reached adulthood he would become responsible for himself. In his sixth week, just like Abban AB and Seely AS, he had just the start of a bloodstream. Last week he’d been nothing but a tube, the begi

That was the blueprint of the last Giraud Nye, and this one was destined for the old Giraud Nye’s power, someday, unless someone threw the switch and stopped him.

Ari Emory visited him today, out of curiosity, and with mixed emotions. She came with her two bodyguards, Florian and Catlin, and she created a stir in the labs. Even at eighteen, she hadpower, and she could throw that switch.

She could also create Giraud’s brother Denys, completing the set, on any given day. She still had seven years’ leeway in which to do that, that span of time having been the gap between the brothers. In her own untested opinion, any day would do. But doing it at all was, personally, a very hard decision.

For one thing, psychogenesis wasn’t going to be a sure thing in the Nyes’ case. ReseuneLabs didn’t have the data on the Nyes that they’d had on her, whose predecessor’s every living day had been documented down to the hormones, the chemistry, the actions and the reactions, for at least her formative years. The first Ariane Emory had been her own mother Olga Emory’s living lab, and all her predecessor’s data was out there in a vault under a grassy hill, just beyond the sprawling city‑sized complex that was Reseune, with ReseuneLabs and its adjacent town.

ThisAriane Emory was the second of her own geneset. And all her data was being saved under another such hill, so she was already pretty sure there’d someday be a third of her set. Like an azi, she supposed she could view continuance of her geneset as a vote of confidence by those who made such decisions. But whether they’d clone the original, or her, well–that was still to determine, wasn’t it?

Successful cloning was a given for ReseuneLabs, an easy job. Cloning human beings or rare animals, with gene‑manipulation tossed in for variety, or, more to the point, for good health–that was what Reseune and other labs did every day of the month, for the whole star‑spa

You wanted a child of your own genotype, or just a roll of the dice, the old‑fashioned way? If you passed the psych exams, male or female, you could have a child, two children, as many as you liked–or as many as your local law allowed. You wanted a genetic problem fixed? Reseune could do that. Embryos shipped constantly, shuttled up to station, dispersed as far as Union reached…even, though rarely, to Earth. It was a huge industry. Reseune had the largest of the CIT birthlabs…but it had competition.

Psychogenesis, however, replicating a mind–that was a whole new twist on an old process…and only Reseune had done that.

It was the year 2424, and this Ariane Emory was the first success of thatkind.

She could create Denys, if she wanted to.

She’d killed Denys–at least her bodyguard had.

Giraud and Denys had created her, right after they had, perhaps, killed the first Ari Emory.

Turn about, fair play.

BOOK ONE Section 1 Chapter ii

APRIL 21, 2424

1509H

“If you do exist, third Ariane, and if you’re hearing my record, with or without the first Ariane’s, be warned that I intend to shape the world that you will inhabit, but be warned too–I can never utterly guarantee the outcome of what I do, or the outcome of what I am. Fixing anything that’s wrong will be your job, the same way the first Ari created me to fix her mistakes.

“So I give you this advice: you have my geneset, and you may be shaped by many of my experiences, as I was shaped by the first Ariane’s. But remember you’re no more me than I am you. You’re no more me, than you–or I–can ever be the first Ariane Emory, no matter how carefully they pattern us. Why? Because we don’t live in her time. We can’t live her life exactly as she lived it, and we shouldn’t try, because then we wouldn’t fit into the world we live in. You don’t live in my time, and should never try to.

“This I do have in common with her: mine is not a peaceful time. Not all the decisions she made were the best ones, and she knew that long before she died. In many cases we both did as we could, too late for good sense.

“But I am certainly more the first Ariane than you can be, since the times in which I exist are directly linked to her time. The times I’ll shape, with whatever power I can get into my hands, will link me to your time. I don’t know how I’ll feel decades from now, but it’s my opinion that you’ll ultimately need to hear from both of us–because the first Ari invented herself and I’m the bridge between.

“Do the math. The first Ari died twenty years ago. I’m eighteen, I’ve been living on my own since I was twelve, because they preferred me to any other alternatives they had, most of which were bad. And, never mind that your records may insist I was fourteen when I set out on my own, I was twelve. The program just wasn’t ready for me, so it said I was fourteen and I had to scramble to catch up.

“I owe my current situation to Dr. Ya