Cherryh, C J - Alliance-Union 08 (69 page)

"I haven't got any animosity toward a nine-year-old kid, for God's sake, I've proved that, I've answered it under probe—"

"Calm down. That's not what I'm saying. We've got a kid out at Fargone who's the psychological replicate of a suicide. We've got decisions to make—one possibility is handing him to Stella Rubin, in the theory she's the ultimate surrogate for the clone. But Stella Rubin has problems, problems of the first order. Leave him with Morley. But where's the glitch-up that led to this? With Jenna? Or earlier, with the basic mindset of a mother-smothered baby with a health problem? We need some answers. There's time. It's not even
your
problem. It's Gustav Morley's and Ally's. There's just—content—in your work that interests Denys, frankly, and interests me. I think you see how."

"Motivational psych."

"Relating to Emory's work. There's a reason she wanted you, I'm prepared to believe that. Jordan's being handed the Rubin data too. When you say you've got some clear thought on it—I'm sending you out to Planys for a week or so."

"Grant—"

"You. Grant will be all right here, my word on it. Absolutely no one is going to lay a hand on him. We just don't need complications. Defense is going to be damned nervous about Reseune. We've got some careful navigation to do. I'm telling you, son, Administration is watching you very, very closely. You've been immaculate. If you—and Jordan—can get through the next few years—there's some chance of getting a much, much better situation. But if this situation blows up, if anything—if
anything
goes wrong with Ari—I don't make any bets. For any of us."

"Dammit, doesn't anybody care about the
kid
?"

"We care. You can answer this one for yourself. Right now, Reseune is in a major financial mess and Defense is keeping us alive. What happens to her—if Defense moves in on this, if this project ends up—under that Bureau instead of Science? What happens to any of us? What happens to the direction all of
Union
will take after that? Changes, that much is certain. Imbalance—in the whole system of priorities we've run on. I'm no politician. I hate politics. But, damn, son, I can see the pit ahead of us."

"I see it quite clearly. But it's not ahead of us, Yanni. I live in it. So does Jordan."

Yanni said nothing for a moment. Then: "Stay alive, son. You, and Grant, —be damn careful."

"Are you telling me something? Make it plain."

"I'm just saying we've lost something we couldn't afford to lose. We. Everybody, dammit. So much is so damn fragile. I feel like I've lost a kid."

Yanni's chin shook. For a moment everything was wide open and Justin felt it all the way to his gut. Then:

"Get," Yanni said, in his ordinary voice. "I've got work to do."

Ari walked with uncle Denys out of the lift in the big hall next to Wing One, upstairs, and it was not the kind of hall she had expected. It was polished floors, it was a Residency kind of door, halfway down, and no other doors at all, until a security door cut the hallway off.

"I want to show you something," uncle Denys had said.

"Is it a surprise?" she had asked, because uncle Denys had never shown her what he had said he would show her; and uncle Denys had been busy in his office with an emergency day till dark, till she was
glad
Nelly was still with them: Seely was gone too.

"Sort of a surprise," uncle Denys had said.

She had not known there
were
any apartments up here.

She walked to the door with uncle Denys and expected him to ring the Minder; but:

"Where's your keycard?" he said to her, the way the kids used to tease each other and make somebody look fast to see if it had come off somewhere. But he was not joking. He was asking her to take it and use it.

So she took it off and stuck it in the key-slot.

The door opened, the lights came on, and the Minder said:
"There have been twenty-seven entries since last use of this card. Shall I print?"

"Tell it save," uncle Denys said.

She was looking into a beautiful apartment, with a pale stone floor, with big furniture and
room,
more room than maman's apartment, more room than uncle Denys', it was huge; and all of a sudden she put together
last use of this card
and
twenty-seven
and the fact it was
her
card.

Hers. Ari Emory's.

"This was your predecessor's apartment," uncle Denys said, and walked her inside as the Minder started to repeat. "Tell it save."

"Minder, save."

"Voice pattern out of parameters."

"Minder, save," uncle Denys said.

"Insert card at console."

He did, his card. And it saved. The red light went off. "You have to be very careful with some of the systems in here," uncle Denys said. "Ari took precautions against intruders. It took Security some doing to get the Minder reset." He walked farther in. "This is yours. This whole apartment. Everything in it. You won't live here on your own until you're grown. But we are going to get the Minder to recognize your voice." He walked on, down the steps, across the rug and up again, and Ari followed, skipping up the steps on the far side to keep close to him.

It was spooky. It was like a fairy-tale out of Grimm. A palace. She kept up with uncle Denys as he went down the hall and opened up another big room, with a sunken center, and a couch with brass trim, and woolwood walls—pretty and dangerous, except the woolwood was coated in thick clear plastic, like the specimens in class. There were paintings on the walls, along a walkway above the sunken center. Lots of paintings.

Up more steps then, past the bar, where there were still glasses on the shelves. And down a hall, to another hall, and into an office, a
big
office, with a huge black desk with built-ins like uncle Denys' desk.

"This was Ari's office." Uncle Denys pushed a button, and a terminal came up on the desk. "You always have a 'base' terminal. It's how the House computer system works. And this one is quite—protective. It isn't a particularly good idea to go changing these base accesses around, particularly on my base terminal... or yours. Sit down, Ari. Log on with your CIT-number."

She was nervous. The House Computer was a whole different system than her little machine in her room. You didn't log-on until you were grown, or you got in a lot of trouble with Security. Florian said some of the systems were dangerous.

She gave uncle Denys a second nervous look, then sat down and looked for the switch on the keyboard.

"Where's the
on
?"

"There's a keycard slot on the desk. At your right. It'll ask for a handprint."

She turned in the chair and gave him a third look. "Is it going to do something?"

"It's going to do a security routine. It won't gas the apartment or anything. Just do it."

She did. The handprint screen lit up. She put her hand on it.

"Name,"
the Minder said.

"Ariane Emory," she told it.

The red light on the terminal went on and stayed on.

The monitor didn't come up from the console.

"What's it doing?"

"Checking the date," he said. "Checking all the House records. It's finding out you've been born and how old you are, since it's found similarities in that handprint and probably in your voiceprint, but it knows it's not the original owner. It's checking Archives for all the Ari handprints and voiceprints it has. It's going to take a minute."

It
wasn't
like the ordinary turn-on. She had seen uncle Denys do that, just talking to his computer through the Minder. She looked at this one working, the red light still going, and looked at Denys again. "Who wrote this?"

"Good question. Ari would have asked that. The fact is, Ari did. She knew you'd exist someday. She keyed a lot of things to you, things that are very, very important. When the prompt comes up, Ari, I want you to do something for me."

"What?"

"Tell it COP D/TR comma Bl comma E/IN."

Take program: Default to write-files.
"What's Bl? What's IN?"

"Base One. This is Base One. Echo to Instore. That means screen and Minder output into the readable files. If I thought we could get away with it I'd ask it IN/P, and see if we could snag the program out, but you don't take chances with this Base. There!"

The screen unfolded from the desktop and lit up.

Hello, Ari.

Spooky again. She typed:
COP D/TR, B1, E/IN

Confirmed. Hello, Ari.

"It wants
hello,"
uncle Denys said. "You can talk to it. It'll learn your voiceprint."

"Hello, Base One."

How old are you?

"I'm nine."

Hello, Denys.

She took in a breath and looked back at Denys.

"Hello, Ari," Denys said, and smiled in a strange way, looking nowhere at all, not talking to her, talking to
it.

It typed out:
Don't panic, Ari. This is only a machine. I've been dead for 11.2 years now. The machine is assembling a program based on whose records are still active in the House computers, and it's filling in blanks from that information. Fortunately it can't be shocked and it's all out of my hands. You're living with Denys Nye. Do you have a House link there?

"Yes," uncle Denys said, and when she turned around to object, laid a finger on his lips and nodded.

"Uncle Denys says yes."

The Minder could handle things like that. It just took it a little longer.

Name me the rivers and the continents and any other name you think of, Ari. I don't care what order. I want a voiceprint. Go till I say stop.

"There's the Novaya Volga and the Amity Rivers, there's Novgorod and Reseune. Planys, the Antipodes, Swigert Bay, Gagaringrad and High Brasil, there's Castile and the Don and Svetlansk. ..."

Stop. That's enough. After this, you can just use your keycard in the Minder slot anywhere you happen to be before you log-on next, and state your name for the Minder. This Base is activated. I'm creating transcript continually. You can access it by asking the Minder to print to screen or print to file. If Denys is doing his job you know what that means. Do you know without being told?

"Yes."

Good. Log-on anytime you like. If you want to exit the House system just say log-off. Storing and recall is automatic. It will always find your place but it won't activate until you say hello. Denys can explain the details. Goodbye. Don't forget to log-off.

She looked at uncle Denys. Whispered: "Do I?" He nodded and she said: "Log-off."

The screen went dark and folded down again.

2415: 1/24: 2332

B/1: Hello, Ari.

AE2: Hello.

B/1: Are you alone?

AE2: Florian and Catlin are with me.

B/1: Anyone else?

AE2: No.

B/1: You're using House input 311. What room are you in?

AE2: My bedroom. In uncle Denys' apartment.

B/1: This is how this program works, Ari, and excuse me if I use small words: I wrote this without knowing how old you'd be when you logged-on or what year it would be. It's 2415. The program just pulled that number out of the House computer clock. Your guardian is Denys Nye. The program just accessed your records in the House data bank and found that out, and it can tell you that Denys ordered pasta for lunch today, because it just accessed Denys' records and found out the answer to that specific question. It knows you're 9 years old and therefore it's set a limit on your keycard accesses, so you can't order Security to arrest anybody or sell 9000 Alpha genesets to Cyteen Station. Remembering what I was like at 9, that seems like a reasonable precaution.

The program has Archived all the routines it had if you were younger or older than 9. It can get them back when your House records match those numbers, and it can continually update its Master according to the current date, by adding numbers. This goes on continually.

Every time you ask a question it gets into all the records your age and your current clearance make available to you, all over the House system, including the library. Those numbers will get larger. When you convince the program you have sufficient understanding, the accesses will get wider. When you convince the program you have reached certain levels of responsibility your access will also get into Security levels and issue orders to other people.

There's a tape to teach you all the accesses you need right now. Have you had it?

AE2: Yes. I had it today.

B/1: Good. If you'd answered no, it would have cut off and said: log-off and go take that tape before you log-on again. If you make a mistake with your codes, it'll do that too. A lot of things will work that way. You have to be right: the machine you're using is linked to the House system, and it will cut you off if you make mistakes. If you make certain mistakes it'll call Security and that's not a good thing.

Don't play jokes with this system, either. And don't ever lie to it or enter false information. It can get you in a lot of trouble.

Now I will tell you briefly there is a way to lie to the system without causing problems, but you have to put the real information in a file with a sufficiently high Security level. The machine will always read that file when it needs to, but it will also read your lie, and it will give the lie to anyone with a lower Security clearance than you have. That means only a few people, mostly Security and Administration, can find out what you hid. This is so you can have some things private or secret.

Eventually you can use this to cover your Inquiry activity. Or your Finances. Or your whereabouts. That file can't be erased, but it can be added to or updated. When your access time in the House system increases and the number of mistakes you make per entry decreases to a figure this program wants, you'll get an instruction how to use the Private files. Until then, don't lie to the program, or you'll lose points and it'll take you a long time to get beyond this level.