Regenesis

There’d be a nice little snack shop and breakfast place, which would turn into a nice evening restaurant. It would cater, too, with special attention to security. That was all pla

There’d be a men’s shop, for Ya

They could use one of those conference rooms for displays–for art, she thought suddenly.

“We can have a museum in Alpha Wing,” she decided. “We can have our own museum. A little one, for some of the paintings. We can have another over in the Admin Wing, where they’ll be safe. I think that’s a good thing. Sam, you can do it–”

“A museum?”

“The first Ari knew people who’d seen the world built. They’re all dead, now. We’re the first generation that doesn’t know anything about Cyteen before there were people here. And all their things, if they aren’t in archive, are just going away, thrown in the cycler. A virtual museum’s a good thing. You can look that up any time you want, but you have to ask for the displays–and you have to know to ask. You need to know what you’re looking for in the first place to look something up, and that necessarily slants it, doesn’t it?”

“Slants it, too,” Sam said, “if somebody picks out what you’ll see.”

“Someone’s always picking for us. But the people who painted those paintings did their own picking about what to paint. You can see the virtuals. You can get any repro you want, if you want to put your hands on it, but if you want to get surprises, that you didn’t askto be face to face with, maybe that’s the idea. You’re right. Maybe I should look at what I don’t expect. It’s why I decided I want the first Ari’s stuff. Maybe it ought to be like that for other people. They need to be surprised. And we need to haul some of the stuff out of the warehouses before it goes into the cyclers and just have it for people to look at. We’re the generation that doesn’t remember the begi

Sam stopped still and looked at her a long moment. “Sometimes you don’t make thorough sense, but you always seem like you do.”

She laughed. Not many people would tell her she babbled. She knew she did. She saw things in her head, saw things she didn’t have vocabulary for. The first Ari, people said, had been very spare with words. The first Ari had had ideas in her head, too, which didn’t have words. The first Ari didn’t habitually let those things out. She, on the other hand, tried to talk to the people she thought would understand. And she babbled thorough nonsense, and amused Sam.

“You see through me,” she said to Sam.

“I try to see into your head,” Sam said. “You’re awake all the time, you know that. You’re the most incredibly awake person I know. You want a museum in Admin, sure, you get Ya

“I’m not about museums,” she said, “I’m not supposed to be, at any rate. It’s just a side thought. I have to do so many other things. God, Sam. I’m studying. I’m studying all day long. I’m learning the things I’m supposed to, psych, and design, and genetics, and I spend so long at deepstudy I’m starting to go into deepstate without the damn pills, sometimes so I don’t even know I’m doing it. But when I have thoughts that aren’t on‑topic I have to shed them, I just have to turn them loose and shed them or go crazy, because I haven’t got time to do them, and my museum is a thought like that. I had it. I want to get rid of it but I don’t want to lose it, and I’m going to be busy, so you do it, Sam.”

“Ari.” He reached out and gripped her shoulders–a contact Florian and Catlin would allow very few people–and kissed her on the forehead. “Take a break, Ari. Take a day off and take a break.”

She sighed, rested her hands on his arms, looked him closely in the eyes. “You’re a genius, you know it. You really are.”

“That’s a laugh.” He dropped the contact. “That’s the last thing I am.”

“I know it when I see it. You are. Always were. Sam, Take care of yourself. I mean that.”

“Is there any special reason you should say that?”

“Selfishness. I need you. I’ll always need you. I’ll think of you when I’m studying that wretched population equation till my eyes cross.”

Second kiss, this one on the cheek. Like a brother, if she’d been born with one. She’d never had sex with Sam. Never would. That wasn’t the way they were with each other. “You just take care of yourself, Ari, hear me? You’re going too hard, again. But what’s new about that?”

She was so tired, she felt tears start in her eyes, but she wouldn’t shed them. She laughed, instead. “I’m paying for this place,” she said, “or I will. I’m starting real work. High time I earn my keep, I say. You’ll see.”

“Good for you,” Sam said and let her go. And he probably did see the dampness of her eyes and had the common sense not to fuss over it.

It was a rare morning. The bash and clatter of hollow forms and the whine of cutters was hundreds of workers and bots busy keeping Sam’s promises. She made her own promises as they walked back to the exit, and the runabout: that by summer and move‑in, she was going to be in a position to take care of Sam.

Pay for it, indeed. Her whole life paid for it.

Just watch, she said to Ya

And that’s not empty bragging. That’s the truth.

BOOK TWO Section 1 Chapter iii

MAY 10, 2424

1328H

Information, encouragingly abundant, in Florian’s opinion, had begun flowing along new cha

And there’d been a problem. Justin was waiting on getting general manuals from Library indefinitely postponed, as they found out, because Justin’sinquiry had triggered security alerts, and Justin hadn’t been aware that lower ReseuneSec levels were investigating his request and stalling it purposefully until the probe had gotten high enough in the ReseuneSec system–namely Hicks’ office–to contact sera’s office–as the ones with their finger on Justin.

That was a mistake on their own part, as Florian saw it: they should have foreseen that Justin’s inquiry might have raised a flag–considering his co

Catlin had requested a few more rounds of tape‑study on protocols for the security group, to keep them busy until Justin could do his work. The new domestic staff, meanwhile, had finished their preparation and passed sera’s final scrutiny, and they might be brought in once their manuals cleared–much simpler than the ReseuneSec lot, so, given Justin’s prior problems with clearance, Florian called up Hicks’ office and made his own personal request, firmly–which got other manuals liberated, to him, at least, who couldn’t read them–and who had no permission on file to have them. He took them personally to Justin’s office, solving one more bottleneck, and stacking more work on Justin and Grant, who were working extra hours and taking computer time ru