Cherryh, C J - Alliance-Union 08 (79 page)

"I want all my stuff up at my apartment."

"That's fine. Tell Housekeeping. They can do that first thing in the morning. You'd better pack at least the basics—for the apartment where you're going. Or buy it.
Necessaries
is open round the clock. If you need anything—like advice on how to fill out the paperwork, whatever, —call me. I certainly don't mind helping you."

Trust Denys to get to the mundane, the depressing workaday details of anything.

"I'll manage."

"I know you will, dear. I'm still here. If I can help you I want to. Florian, Catlin, don't let her hurt herself. Please. And take some pajamas."

"Dammit, uncle Denys, —"

"Dear,
somebody
has to take care of things. It's usually me. Do you want to go to your apartment, —or do you want to come back and live here for a little while, till you've figured out what it takes to
run
an apartment on your own?"

"No. No, I don't. I'll manage."

"I'll send Housekeeping
for
you. They can't go in up there. But I'll have a package waiting at your door, and send your things on tomorrow. Practical things, Ari. I'll fill out your supply forms for you, and your budget report, you have to have that, or you foul up accounting. I'll give you copies so you know how to set it up in your Base."

"Thank you."

"Thank you, Ari. Thank you for being reasonable about this. This is different from Ari senior, understand. She was fourteen when she moved out of this apartment. But you're overrunning your course too, by a little. Please. Take care of yourself. Can you give me a kiss?"

She stood there, frozen.
Out of this apartment.
She swallowed a lump of nausea. And shook her head. "Not right now. Not right now, uncle Denys."

He nodded. "Sometime, then."

She clenched her jaw and motioned to Florian and Catlin that they were leaving.

AE2: Minder, this is Ari Emory. Florian and Catlin are with me. Print out all entries since I was here last.

Ell: There are two messages.

Welcome to your own home. If you get scared and you want to call me or Security, please don't hesitate. But you're as safe there as here. Trust Florian and Catlin. Take their advice when it comes to your safety.

Drop by the office tomorrow if you feel like it. There's so much you need to know. I let you go because you're not a child, and I wouldn't bring your Security and mine into conflict: my bet would still be on Seely, but I truly don't want to put that to the test.

Attached to your Housekeeping list will be Security's standard recommendations and Seely's for basic Security set-up. Give it to Catlin and Florian. They'll understand. They probably don't need it, but a checklist never hurts even with experienced personnel.

Don't let Housekeeping in unless Florian or Catlin is watching, Seely always did that for us, in case you never noticed.

Refrigerate the eggs and use the ham immediately: it'll have thawed. I wasn't going to send perishables, but you haven't got any breakfast otherwise. I put in a box of cocoa.

You're responsible for everything now. But if it gets too much for you, please, call or come by the office.

You'll have to have an office now, in Wing One. You won't need it, but now that this apartment is active, you'll use at least one secretary and one clerk, which you can request from the Wing One administrator, Yanni Schwartz. Do that, or you'll be diverting valuable time from your studies filling out silly forms, which, I'm sorry, are necessary. I've assigned you an office in 1-244, and you'll need to set that up with Wing One Security. Again, let Florian read Security's recommendations on that.

I'm upping your personal allowance to 10,000 cr. per month. That may sound like a fortune, but you have to pay 1200 per month for the office and 5000 for the clerk and secretary. The rest will go fast, believe me, so you're going to have to keep track of that. Of course I'll help you if you need something special: but you should learn good habits.

Your secretary can manage the credit account, but should not have certain accesses. Again, let Florian and Catlin talk to Seely.

The first Ari's system of protections is still in Base One: for God's sake don't dismantle it until you've devised a better one. Florian will advise you there is a security problem with that: it's been in place when other people, mainly myself, could access some of the keyword functions from the top. But it's better than nothing at the bottom, where your secretaries will work.

Read the building safety recommendations relative to fire exits and storm drill. Your area has special protections, but there are special things to learn.

Never mind: just read everything I send you and pass it to Florian and Catlin if it involves security or safety of any kind.

I still love you. It's much more complicated than that, but I am glad you were here and would be more than glad to have you back. There were a lot of times I came to odds with Ari senior. But we were friends. As I am and will always be yours.

Everything in the apartment is exactly the way your predecessor left it the day she died. You will want to dispose of a great deal of the clothing. Styles change. Pack what you don't want and notify Housekeeping to remove it.

Your key will also work at my apartment until you're fourteen. That's only two more years. It seems impossible.

Meanwhile be good. Please keep your doctor appointments: it
is
necessary for your health, and you'll recall your maman saw you kept them, so it's not just me. You still have obligations, as everyone does who lives in Reseune, and your independent status doesn't excuse you, it only adds more of them, including obeying adult rules; and if medical says a Supervisor comes in for a check, they come in or they can lose their license. I'll add the obligation to keep your school schedule. I've indicated to Base One that you are extremely mature and responsible. Please don't make me a liar.

So many people have loved you. Jane loved you most of all. She never wrote to you because she felt that was best for you—she knew there was a time she had to cut the cord and let you go, for your own sake. So do I know that. So I wish you well, out I will still, because you are only twelve and because that apartment is very large and Reseune is much larger, be extremely concerned that you are well and taking care of yourself adequately. I know that you are much older than your chronological age, and that you have Base One to draw on, which is no small thing; you have handled Housekeeping and lab requisitions and finance; you have dealt with reports and lab scheduling; you have lived with the security systems and the regulations of the House all your years; and you have two equally adept companions. I would trust the three of you to handle yourselves in a Security crisis; I am not, on the other hand, sure that you will not leave the oven on in the kitchen or have the watering system overflowing the garden. Ari, however much you disdain trivia and accuse me of obsession with it, I remind you again that clean laundry only happens when you remember to send it to Housekeeping.

If this were Novgorod I could never countenance this move; but Housekeeping, like Security, is capable of coping with crises: and I am sure your mistakes will reach my desk. Reseune itself is my House, and you have elected to move to another of its Rooms.

Let me explain something further to you. I have encouraged you to this departure: I did so when I brought you here and told you that this would be yours.

You and I know the limits of your frustration, but Florian and Catlin do not, and neither, for that matter, does Seely. I believe you are emotionally mature enough to understand that the threats to your safety are real, and that indeed you are capable of giving an order which your companions will obey, which they must, I stress, obey—and they will kill, at your order, whether or not that order comes from a mature judgment.

I showed you this apartment because I felt that one day you would need this place to go to, a safety valve in a situation increasingly volatile and unpredictable. You are operating with a world-knowledge and maturity greater than many functioning adults, within a system of surveillance, interventions and monitoring which would stress an azi, with the internal emotional experience and stability of a pubescent child. I feared the explosion that has happened. I was glad to see it turn the direction it did. It is not unprecedented. I set you up for it. As you will see.

In 2295, when the first Ari was your age, I wasn't born yet. Giraud was four. Neither of us remembers that year, but Giraud does recall, when he was five, that the first Ari and her guardian Geoffrey Carnath had a spectacularly public argument at a New Year's party. Giraud doesn't himself remember what was said; Jane Strassen said it regarded
Ari's
showing up in makeup, but that was hardly an excuse for a screaming argument. Archives does say that Security had to mediate a severe problem between Ari and Geoffrey New Year's Day, when he ordered Florian and Catlin into detention for three days and Ari required unexplained medical treatment that may have included sedation.

There was, you will find, no taping on Geoffrey or the first Ari. We don't precisely know what happened. The public record of the problem involved
Art's
demand to have a key to her own room. Years later, to me, she said Geoffrey had taken indecent liberties with Florian. Look that up, if you don't understand what I mean. Certainly Ari made certain things up. But while her early relationship with Geoffrey was friendly, it came to increasing stress and repeated altercations that finally resulted in a family council and
Ari's
being granted her own residency, independent of her legal guardian.

It's come true, hasn't it? Certainly not because of any such thing between myself and your staff, but because you're growing and you need more room. Perhaps that's the way it ought to be. Like your maman, I've done what I knew to do, the best I knew. And that includes letting you go. We have offended against your dignity as far as you are justly willing to tolerate it; and hope that if Geoffrey could be forgiven, so can we, in time.

Ari, incidentally, moved to a much more modest apartment: the present splendor, like much of Reseune, was her own creation. But you don't inherit her beginnings. You inherit what she held at the height of her power and intellect. In all things. You will think about that statement later.

Be good. Be reasonable.

End message. Store to file or dump?

AE2: Store to file. Put that on the couch, Florian, is it clean?

F12: Yes, sera.

AE2: There's print coming you both need to read.

F12: Yes, sera. Are you upset, sera?

AE2: Nothing. Go on. Stop worrying about me. You've got work to do. Base One, continue.

B/1: Second message.

Ari, this is Ari senior.

Welcome.

You're 2 years early.

This program is adjusting itself.

There's a Householding tape in the cabinet in the den. You need that.

You are 12 years old. This program does not provide for that contingency. It will treat you as if you were 14.

A list of accesses and authorizations will print.

Recommended tapes will print.

Base One access has been removed from your guardian's apartment. Security monitoring has been redirected to Base One.

Lethal security measures have been disabled for your protection. When you are 16 you will have the option to reactivate them.

You may run a security check on any individual from Base One. Ask for Security 10. The activity will not leave a mark on any file of lower security clearance than your own.

I hope you are happy here. Your taste and mine may not coincide, but most everything in this apartment is both real and handmade, from the tables to the vases to the paintings on the walls. The paintings in particular are originals and they don't truly belong to me or to you. They belong to the people of Union, someday, when there are museums where they can be protected: they come from Earth, and from the first starships, and from the beginnings of Cyteen as a human world. Guard them in particular, whatever you feel or whatever you understand about me right now: if you would harm any of these things you are a barbarian, and my geneset has gone wrong in you; there are conditions of responsibility involved with your permissions and accesses, and they will either expand or terminate. This program can protect Reseune and itself against misuse.

You don't know me yet, as you don't know yet the good and the bad that you are capable of reaching.

I came to live on my own to escape an intolerable situation with my guardian, and because I was at that time a Special, I was given certain rights of majority. I maintained a speaking relationship with my guardian. We were never close, but once the situation was relieved, I saw that he was only a man, with human faults, some of which were considerable, and some virtues, once I was not living within his reach. The faults did not manifest until late. They were sexual in nature, and I need not go into them: your database now reaches to the year 2297. That will tell you as much as you need to know, perhaps more than you want to know, and I certainly hope your own experiences have been happier.

Whatever has happened, whether your parting from your guardian was amicable or otherwise, you are still a minor even at 14, and it would be foolish of you to do other than cooperate with Administration until you have the experience to outmaneuver it. I could not win against my situation except by protesting to Security and establishing an independent residency. If House Security has become corrupt you have a serious problem. Do you feel this is the case?