Ultimately only the wisdom is important, not the event which produced it. But one must know accurately what those things are.

One must pass the right things on. Experience is a brutal and an imprecise teacher at best.

And the time at which all humanity will be within reach, accessible to us—is so very brief.

You will see more than I could, young Ari. You may well be the only mind of your day able to grapple with the problem: I hope that events have handed you my power undiminished; but no matter, if I have fitted you to hold on to it I have also fitted you to acquire it. Most of all, govern your own self. If you survive to reach the power I have had, you will walk a narrow boundary between megalomania and divinity. Or you will let that anger reach humankind; or you will abdicate in cowardice.

If I have failed with you, I have failed in everything, and I may have created nothing worse than presently exists; or I may have doomed at least half of humanity to wars or to stifling tyranny.

If I have succeeded, there is still work to be done, to keep the hand on the helm. Situations change.

If I had done nothing at all, I foresaw a war that the human species might not survive: too much of it resides only on two planets and depends on too few production centers. We are too young in space; our support systems are still too fragile, and our value systems still contain elements of the stone ax and the spear.

That conviction is the only moral assurance I will ever have.

Study the Company Wars. Study the history of Earth. Learn what we are capable of.

Study Gehenna. This program has ascertained re-contact has been made. People have survived there. Its generations are shorter than ours. Gehenna is the alarm system.

Your Security clearance is now active in the Science Bureau with rank of: Department head, Reseune Administrative Territory.

Further explanation is filed in Reseune Security: access via Security 10, keyword: clearance.

vi

"No, ser," Ari said, hands folded on the table. The microphones picked up her voice and carried it, making it huge, a caricature of a young girl's voice. She sat by herself at a table facing the Nine. Uncle Giraud sat in the Science seat; there were Nasir Harad, and Nguyen Tien; Ludmilla deFranco; Jenner Harogo; Mikhail Corain; Mahmud Chavez; and Vladislaw Khalid—whose looks toward her were absolute hostility. Corain had asked the question.

"No, ser, I won't give you a transcript. I've said why. It wouldn't be all of it. And that's worse than nothing. I'm tellingyou the important things. Adm. Azov sent the colony even when Ari told him not; she didn't want it because it was top dangerous. And he went ahead.

"This is the important thing—let me say this—" she said, when Corain interrupted her. "Please."

"I doubt you would forget," Corain said dryly.

Harad's gavel came down. "Go on, young sera."

"This is important," Ari said. "This is the most important part. Adm. Azov came to my predecessor wanting a colony planted on that world because it was an Earthlike planet and it was right next to Pell. Defense wanted to make sure if Alliance got there in fifty years or a hundred they were going to find a planet full of Union people, or an ecological disaster that could contaminate the planet with human-compatible diseases ..."

It disturbed the Council. Heads leaned together and the gavel banged down again.

"Let the girl finish."

"That was in the notes. They wanted Reseune to build those too. They wanted Ari to design tape so the azi they sent would always be Union, no matter what, and they would cause trouble and work from inside Alliance once Alliance picked them up off the world. Ari tried to tell them they were crazy. But they wouldn't listen.

"So Ari listened to everything they wanted, and she ordered some immunological stuff, I don't know what, but my uncle is going to talk about those. What they essentially did was use viruses to transfer material, and that was all done pretty much like we use for genetic treatment—and they picked some things they hoped would just help the colonists' immune systems; but there was another contractor Ari didn't trust and she didn't know what they might dump onto Gehenna that Reseune didn't know about."

"Do you know the name of that contractor?" Corain asked.

"It was Fletcher Labs. It was May of 2352. That's all she knew."

That made the Councillors nervous. An aide came up and talked to Khalid. Several others took the chance.

"But she was in charge of actually organizing the colony," Corain said then, when things settled down. "Describe what she did."

"She was in charge of picking the azi and training them; and she did the main instructional tape. They wanted her to do all this stuff you can'tdo. Like all these buried instructions. What she did, she made the primary instruction deep-tape; and she axed the azi's contracts in a way that meant if there weren't any CITs they were contracted to the world itself."

"She disregarded the Defense Bureau's instructions. That's what you're saying."

"If she'd done what the military wanted the whole colony would likely have died out; or if they lived past the diseases the third or fourth generation would be really dangerous—psychsets interact with environment. They didn't want to hear that."

"Time," Chairman Harad said. "Councillor Chavez of Finance."

"You consider you're qualified to pronounce on that," Chavez said, following up.

"Ser, that's a real basic."

"I don't care if it's a basic," Chavez said, "you're consistently reading in motives or you're attributing them to people only one of whom you know anything about, and you're not making it clear where you're quoting and where you're interpreting. I'm talking about your predecessor, young sera, who is the one whose notes you're supposed to be testifying to. Not your own interpretations of those notes."

"Yes, ser." Ari drew a long breath, and restrained her temper behind a very bland look. "I won't explain, then."

"I suggest you respect this body, young sera. You attained your majority last week; it means, young sera, that you are obliged to act as an adult."

She looked at Councillor Chavez, folded her hands again and sat there.

"Go on, young sera," Harad said.

"Thank you, ser Chairman. I'm sorry; I'll explain only if you ask. Ari wasn't technical about it: she said: quote: Defense insisted. I explained the hazards of environmental interactions in considerable detail. Their own psychologists tried to make them understand what I was saying; unfortunately the admirals had already made up their minds: the system of advancements in the military makes it damn near impossible for a Defense Bureau bureaucrat to back off a position. Even if—"

"Young sera," Chavez said. "The Council has limited time. Could we omit the late Councillor's profane observations?"

"Yes, ser."

"Go on."

"That was the answer."

"You didn't answer. Let me pose the question again. What, specifically, was Emory's argument to Defense?"

"I can't answer without explaining."

"What did Emory say?"

"She said they shouldn't do it because the environment would affect the psychsets and the tape couldn't be re-adjusted for the situation. And Defense couldn't tell her enough about the environment. That was the first reason she said they were crazy."