"You've got a clean Security clearance, cleanest of all my friends. You're good at business. You'd be a good Super, you'd be good at most anything you wanted to take on, that's your trouble. You get small-focused into doing it instead of learning it; and I want you learning for a while. Remember when I snagged you into the tunnels and we started off the whole gang? That's why I asked you out here before I talked to anybody. You were always first."

"What are you talking about?" Amy suddenly looked scared. "First at what?"

"That this time it's for real. That this time I'm not talking about kid pranks, this time I'm talking about getting a position in the House. Things are shifting, they're shifting real fast. So I'm starting with you, the same way I did back then. Will you work for me, Amy?"

"Doing what?"

"Genetics. Whatever project you want to come up with for a cover. A real one. A put-together till you can make up your mind. I don't care. You go on salary, you get your share of your own profits—all that." Amy's eyes were very large.

"I want you and Maddy in two different divisions," Ari said, "because I'm not going to put you two one over the other. That'd never work. But between you and me, you're smarter than she is, you're steadier, and you're the one I'd trust with the bad stuff. And there could be. Giraud is on the end of his rejuv. That's secret. A very few people know, but probably more and more will guess. Whenhe dies, that's an election in Science. That's also about the time the Paxers and the rest of the people who want me dead—for real, Amy."

"I know it's real."

"You know why they made me and how they taught me, and you know what I am. And you know my predecessor had enemies who wanted her dead, and one who killed her. The closer I get to what she was, the more scared people get—because I'm kind of spooky, Amy, I'm real spooky to a lot of people who weren't half as afraid of my predecessor— Are you scared of me? Tell me the truth, Amy."

"Not— scaredof you. Not really. Spookyis a good word for it. Because you're not—not the age you are; and you are,with us. Maddy and I have talked about it, sometimes. How we—sometimes just want to do something stupid, just for relief sometimes. Like sometimes—" Amy rode in silence a moment, patting Bayard's shoulder. "My mama gets so mad at me because I do spooky things, like she thinks I'm a kid and she worries about me, and she treats me like a kid. One time she yelled at me: Amy, I don't care what Ari Emory does or what Ari Emory says, you're my daughter—don't you look at me like that and don't you tell me how to bring you up. And she slapped me in the face. And I just stood there. I—didn't know what to do. I couldn't hit her. I couldn't run away crying or throw things. I just—stood there. So she cried. And then I cried, but not because she hit me, —just because I knew I wasn't what she wanted me to be." Amy looked up at the sky. There was a glitter of tears in the sunlight. "So, well, mama's got the notion I'm going to leave when I can, and she's sorry. We had a talk about it, finally. She's the one who's scared of you. She doesn't understand me and she thinks you're all to blame for me not having a childhood. That's what she says. You never got a chance to be a child. I don't know, I thought I had a childhood. We had a hell of a good time. Stuff mama doesn't know. But I don't like it anymore. I'm tired of littlegames, Ari, you know what I mean. I'm tired of Stef Dietrich, I'm tired of fighting with mama, I'm tired of going to classes and playing guessing-games with Windy Peterson on his damn trick questions and eetee rules and catch-you's. I think Maddy's about the same."

"Can you work with Sam?"

"Hell, he's got that airbrain of his—that's not nice to say, is it? I can't see what he sees in her."

"Don'tmess him up, Amy."

"I won't. I'm through with all of it. You know what I want? I want exactly what you've got with Florian. No fuss. No petty spats. No jealousy. Moment I can afford it—"

"You want to take me up on the offer, I'll reckon you'd be a lot more efficient with an assistant. Myfeeling is you'd be frustrated as hell with anything but an Alpha and there's probably only a handful of those still unContracted. I'll give you a printout of all the numbers there are. Green Barracks is the most likely source. Which means somebody more like Catlin, but still, —you could fix that."

Amy just stared. And blushed a little.

"Someday," Ari said, "you'll be a wing Super yourself. That's what I intend. Someday I'll run Reseune, and we're not playing just-suppose now, we're dealing with long-term. I want you to have the kind of support you're going to need; I want you to have somebody capable of protecting you andof handling jobs you're too busy to do, and in your case, male and smart are two real necessities. Another female—you'd kill. Do I psych you right?"

Amy laughed suddenly, and colored a little. "I don't know. —I need time to think about this."

"Sure. You've got five minutes."

"No fair, Ari."

"Same thing as under the stairs. Same thing as then. I need my friends now, I need you first. And there's a real danger—-if I'm a target, you could be too."

Amy bit her lip. "I don't mind that. I really don't. I mind the row it's going to make with mama. You know what I think? She wants to hang onto me. She sees you as more of an influence than she is, and she always planned me to go into Ed psych, never mind I'm better at other things."

"Hell, look at me. You think a PR doesn't have to figure out who's who?"

"I know that. But your—predecessor—isn't around to give you looks across the breakfast table."

"Whose life are you going to live? Yours or hers?"

Amy nodded finally. "Or mine or yours? I'm mine,Ari. I don't want you supporting me. If it's a real job, if it's my money,I'm fine."

"Deal."

"Deal," Amy said.

"So now we go get Maddy. And then we go for Sam. And Tommy."

" 'Stasi's all right," Amy said. " Idon't mind her. But Stef Dietrich can go walk, for what I think."

"Stef's not in my crew," Ari said. "No hard feelings, but he's a troublemaker, and I don't need him." She stretched in the stirrups and settled again and said: "We get Maddy. Sam and Tommy. 'Stasi, I've got no objection to. But everybody comes in in just the same order they always did. Seniority. Something like that. I'll tell you: I've got one major problem, one major vulnerability, and one major help—and they're all Justin Warrick. He'll help us. But there's a lot coming at him. And he and Grant are the only ones withus who aren't us,you know what I mean."

"He's smart enough to be trouble," Amy said. "I've thought about that. My uncles don't want him near me. The Warrick influence, they call it. They say he's poison. I know other things. I can tell you stuff, Amy, if you're in with me."

"I am."

"Denys is interested in Ari's notes—Ari's notesand the psychogenesis project—but I've held back on him. I put all the stuff in three blocs: one, I don't talk about. And the general notes—that's the published stuff, and the stuff that's going to be published. The Rubin project stuff: that's mostly secret, but that whole security wall is a farce—I'm public, and anybody who understands endocrine theory can figure a lot of what happened to me— You know one of the things they really want to keep secret? Justin Warrick.Because he's not Jordan, but he's sure not a Bok clone either, and he could become a voice inside Reseune—if they ever let him have a forum; because he's smart, he understands what I am, and he's a Special in everything but title, one of Ari's students—that's something they don't publicize either—another Special, PR of a Special, a lot more important than Rubin, no matter what they've sold the Defense department. Ari worked him like everything—but they don't tell Defense that either, because they're scared as hell of him and his influence. I think Denys is sure Ari worked with him. Denys is the one who's kept him from getting treatment—for things that really bother him, things Ari did with him—and her murder really messed him up, terribly, not just that his father did it, but that he needed her—so much."