"What if I make somebody pregnant?" he had asked.

"You won't," Jordan had said, which he had not asked about then, but he knew later he should have. "You just can't mess around with anyone in the House. They aren't licensed."

He had been outraged. And thought there was a kind of irony in it. "You mean because I'm an Alpha? You mean whoever I go to bed with—"

"Has to be licensed. You don't get a license at your age. Which lets out all the girls your age. And I don't want you sleeping with old aunt Mari, all right?"

That had been halfway funny. At the time. Mari Warrick was decrepit, on the end of her rejuv.

It had gotten less funny later. It was hard to stay cool while a Carnath girl put her hands where they did not belong and giggled in his ear; and to be supposed to say: "I'm sorry, sera, I can't."

While Justin, poor Justin, got girlish giggles and evasions, because hewas Family; and Justin's azi was fair game—or would have been, if he had only been Beta.

"Lend him, can't you?" Julia Carnath had asked Justin outright, in Grant's presence, when Grant knew damned well that Justin was courting Julia for himself. Grant had wanted to sink through the floor. As it was, he had gone blank-faced and proper, and kept very quiet later when Justin sulked and said that Julia had turned him down.

"You're better-looking," Justin had complained. "Ari made you perfect, dammit. What chance have I got?"

"I'd rather be you," he had answered faintly, realizing for the first time that was the truth. And he had cried, for the second time in his life that he remembered, just cried for no reason that he could figure out, except that Justin had hit a nerve. Or a tape-structure.

Because he was made of both.

He had never been sure after that, until Jordan had let him see the structures of his own tapes when he was sixteen and starting into advanced design studies. He had figured out enough of his tape-structures on his own that Jordan had opened the book for him and let him see what he was made of; and so far he had not traced any lines that could lead to fear of sex.

But Alphas mutated their own conditioning, constantly. It was a constant balancing act, over an abyss of chaos. Nothing could dominate. Balance in everything.

Or the world became chaos.

Dysfunction.

An azi who had become his own counselor was begging for trouble. An azi was so terribly fragile. And so very likely to get into a situation he could not handle, in a larger game than anyone had bothered to tell him about.

Dammit, Justin!

He wiped his eyes with his left hand and steered with the right, trying to watch where he was going. He was, he told himself, acting the fool.

Like a born-man. Like Iwas like them.

I'm supposed to be smarter. I'msupposed to be a damn genius. Except the tapes don't work that way and I'm not what they wanted me to be.

Maybe I just don't use what I've got.

So why didn't I speak up louder? Why didn'tI grab Justin and haul him off to his father if I had to hit him to do it?

Because I'm a damn azi,that's why. Because I go to jelly inside when someone acts like they know what they're doing and I stop using my head, that's why. Oh, damn, damn,damn! I should have stopped him, I should have dragged him aboard with me, I should havetaken him to the Krugers and gotten him safe, and then he could have protected both of us; and Jordan would be free to do something. What was he thinking of?

Something I couldn't?

Dammit, that's thetrouble with me, I haven't got any confidence, I'm always looking to be sure before I do anything, and I don't do a damn thing, I just take orders—

—because the damn tapes have got their claws into me. They never told me to hesitate, they just make me do it, because the tapes are sure, they're so damned fuckingsure, and nothing in the real world everis—

That's why we never make our own minds up. We've known something that has no doubt, and born-men never have.That's what's the matter with us—

The boat hit something that jolted the deck, and Grant threw the wheel over and corrected furiously, sweating.

Fool, indeed. He suddenly arrived at the meaning of it all and damned near holed his boat, which was the kind of thing that happened to born-men, Justin would say, just the same as anybody else; which was how things worked—a second cosmic truth, in sixty seconds. His mind was working straight or he was scared into hyperdrive, because he suddenly had a sense what it was to be a born-man, and to be a fool right on top of understanding everything: one had to swallow down the doubts and just go, how often had Jordan told him that. The doubts aren't tape. They're life, son. The universe won't break if you fuck up. It won't even break if you break your neck. Just your private universe will. You understand that?

I think so, he had said. But that had been a lie. Till now, that it jumped into clear focus. I'm free,he thought. Out here, between here and the Krugers, I'm free, on my own, the first time in my life.And then he thought: I'm not sure I like it.

Fool. Wake up. Pay attention. O my God, is that the plane coming back?

As a light showed suddenly behind him.

A boat. O God, O God, it's a boat back there.

He shoved the throttle wide. The boat lifted its bow and roared along the Kennicutt. He turned the lights on. They shone on black water, on water that swirled with currents, on banks closer than the Volga's, banks overgrown with the gangling shapes of weeping willies—trees that tended to break as they aged and rot worked on them, trees which shed huge gnarled knots of dead wood into the Volga, navigation hazards far worse than rocks, because they floated and moved continually.

The lights were less risk now, he figured, than running blind.

But there would be guns back there, maybe. Maybe a boat that could overpower the runabout. He would be surprised if Moreyville had had something that could outrun him; damned surprised, he thought, with a cold knot of fear at his gut, watching the light wink out around a turning of the river; and then reappear in his rearview mirror.

A boat out of the precip station, maybe; maybe that end of Reseune had boats. He had no idea.

He applied his attention forward after that brief glance; center of the channel, Justin had warned him. Justin at least had taken the boat back and forth to Moreyville and down to precip ten; and he had talked to people at Moreyville who had gone all the way to Novgorod on the river.

Justin had done the talking; and Grant had paid attention mostly to the Novgorod part, because that had been what he was curious about. He and Justin—talking together about taking a boat that far someday, just heading down the river.

He steered wildly around a snag floating with one branch high.

A whole damned tree,that one. He saw the root-mass following like a wall of tangled brush in the boat's spot; and swerved wider, desperately.

God, if one of those came floating sideways—if the bow caught it—

He kept going.

And the light stayed behind him until he saw the lights Justin had promised him shining on the right, out of the dark— Ambush, he thought in the second heartbeat after he had seen them, because everything had become a trap, everything was an enemy.

But they were too high, they were too many: lights that twinkled behind the screen of weeping willies and paperbarks, lights that were far too high for the river, lights blinking red atop the hills, warning aircraft of the obstacles of precip towers.