Part 29 (2/2)

”I'm saying it's solved here. I'm saying I've got it. You You critique my designs, then. You want to tell me I'm crazy, critique my designs, then. You want to tell me I'm crazy, show show me where I'm wrong.” me where I'm wrong.”

”Dammit, I won't help you wallow in the very thing that's the matter with you!” I won't help you wallow in the very thing that's the matter with you!”

”I'm Jordan's son. I was good enough-”

”Was, was, was, was, dammit! Stop looking at the past! Six years ago wasn't worth s.h.i.+t, son!” dammit! Stop looking at the past! Six years ago wasn't worth s.h.i.+t, son!”

”Prove it to me. Prove Prove it, Yanni, or admit you can't.” it, Yanni, or admit you can't.”

”Go to Peterson!”

”Peterson can't prove anything to me. I'm better than he is. I started that way.”

”You arrogant little b.a.s.t.a.r.d! You're not not better than Peterson. Peterson pays his way around here. If you weren't Jordan's son, you'd be living in a one-bedroom efficiency with an allotment your work ent.i.tles you to, which won't pay for your fancy tastes, son. Grant and you together don't earn that place you're living in.” better than Peterson. Peterson pays his way around here. If you weren't Jordan's son, you'd be living in a one-bedroom efficiency with an allotment your work ent.i.tles you to, which won't pay for your fancy tastes, son. Grant and you together don't earn that place you're living in.”

”What does my father's work pay for, and what does he get? Send my designs to him. He'd find the time.”

Yanni took in a breath. Let it out again. ”d.a.m.n. What do I do with you?”

”Whatever you want. Everyone else does. Fire me. You're going to get these designs about once a week. And if you don't answer me I'll ask. Once a week. I want my education, Yanni. I'm due that. And you're the instructor I want. Do whatever you like. Say whatever you like. I won't give up.”

”Dammit-”

He stared at Yanni, not even putting it beyond Yanni to get up, come around the desk and hit him. ”I'd ask Stra.s.sen,” he said, ”but I don't think they want me near her. And I don't think she's got the time. So that leaves you, Yanni. You can fire me or you can prove I'm wrong and teach me why. But do it with logic. Psyching me doesn't do it.”

”I haven't got the time!”

”No one does. So make it. It doesn't take much, if you can see so clearly where I'm wrong. Two sentences are all I need. Tell me where it'll impact the next generation.”

”Get the h.e.l.l out of here.”

”Am I fired?”

”No,” Yanni snarled. Which was the friendliest thing staff had said to him in years.

So he did two tapes. One for Yanni. One the one he wished they would let him use. Because it taught him things. Because it let him see the whole set. Because, as Grant said, a skill was d.a.m.ned important to an azi. And he still could not work out the ethics of it-whether it was right to make a Theta get real pleasure out of the work instead of the approval. There was something moral involved. And there were basic structural problems in linking that way into an azi psychset, that was the trouble with it, and Yanni was right. An artificial psychset needed simple foundations, not complicated ones, or it got into very dangerous complexities. Deep-set linkages could become neuroses and obsessive behavior that could destroy an azi and be far more cruel than any simple boredom.

But he kept turning in the study designs for Yanni to see, when Yanni was in a mellow mood; and Yanni had been, now and again.

”You're a fool,” was the best he got. And sometimes a paragraph on paper, outlining repercussions. Suggesting a study-tape out of Sociology.

He cherished those notes. He got the tapes. He ran them. He found mistakes. He built around them.

”You're still a fool,” Yanni said. ”What you're doing, son, is making your damage slower and probably deeper. But keep working. If you've got all this spare time I can suggest some useful things to do with it. We've got a glitch-up in a Beta set. We've got everything we can handle. The set is ten years old and it's glitching off one of three manual skills tapes. We think. The instructor thinks. You've got the case histories in this fiche. Apply your talents to that and see if you and Grant can come up with some answers.” He went away with the fiche and the folder, with a trouble-shoot to run, which was h.e.l.l and away more real work than Yanni had yet trusted him with. Which was, when he got it on the screen, a real b.i.t.c.h. The three azi had had enough tape run on them over the years to fill a page, and each one had been in a different application. But the glitch was a bad one. The azi were all under patch-tape, a generic calm-down-it's-not-your-fault, meaning three azi were waiting real-time in some anguish for some designer to come up with something to take their nameless distress and deal with it in a sensible way. G.o.d, it was months old. They were not on Cyteen. Local Master Supervisors had all had a hand in the a.n.a.lysis, run two fixes on one, and they had gone badly sour.

Which meant it was beyond ordinary distress. It was not a theoretical problem.

He made two calls, one to Grant. ”I need an opinion.”

One to Yanni. ”Tell me someone else is working on this. Yanni, this is a probable wipe, for G.o.d's sake, give it to someone who knows what he's doing.”

”You claim you do,” Yanni said, and hung up on him.

”d.a.m.n you!” he yelled at Yanni after the fact.

And when Grant got there, they threw out everything they were both working on and got on it.

For three d.a.m.nable sleep-deprived weeks before they comped a deep-set intersect in a skills tape. In all three.

”Dammit,” he yelled at Yanni when he turned it in, ”this is a mess, Yanni! You could have found this thing in a week. These are human beings, for G.o.d's sake, one of them's running with a botch-up on top of the other damage-”

”Well, you manage, don't you? I thought you'd empathize. Go do a fix.”

”What do you mean, 'do a fix'? Run me a check!”

”This one's all yours. Do me a fix. You don't need a check.”

He drew a long, a desperate breath. And stared at Yanni with the thought of breaking his neck. ”Is ”Is this a real-time problem? Or is this some d.a.m.n trick? Some d.a.m.n exercise you've cooked up?” this a real-time problem? Or is this some d.a.m.n trick? Some d.a.m.n exercise you've cooked up?”

”Yes, it's real-time. And while you're standing here arguing, they're still waiting. So get on it. You did that fairly fast. Let's see what else you can do.”

”I know what you're doing to me, dammit! Don't take it out on the azi!”

”Don't you,” Yanni said. And walked off into his inner office and shut the door.

He stood there. He looked desperately at Marge, Yanni's aide.

Marge gave him a sympathetic look and shook her head.

So he went back and broke the news to Grant.

And turned in the fix in three days.

”Fine,” Yanni said. ”I hope it works. I've got another case for you.”

x ”This is part of my work,” maman said, and Ari, walking with her hand in maman's, not because she was a baby, but because the machinery was huge and things moved and everything was dangerous, looked around at the s.h.i.+ny steel things they called womb-tanks, each one as big as a bus, and asked, loudly: ”Where are the babies?”

”Inside the tanks,” maman said. An azi came up and maman said: ”This is my daughter Ari. She's going to take a look at a few of the screens.”

”Yes, Dr. Stra.s.sen,” the azi said. Everyone talked loud. ”h.e.l.lo, Ari.”

”h.e.l.lo,” she yelled up at the azi, who was a woman. And held on to maman's hand, because maman was following the azi down the long row.

It was only another desk, after all, and a monitor screen. But maman said: ”What's the earliest here?”

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