God, life got complicated. Amyhad a fix on Stef Dietrich; and that was hopeless. Sam had one—well, on herself, Ari reckoned; and that was the trouble, that Amy got seconds on a lot of things in life. And Amy was interested in a lot of things Sam wasn't. And vice versa. She wished to hell Sam would find somebody. Anybody.

But he didn't. And Sam was the main reason why she didn't go off to the bedroom with Tommy or Stef or anyone who came to the apartment; but he wasn't the only reason. The main one was what it had always been, the same reason that she was best friends with Amy and Sam and Maddy and kept everyone else at arm's length—because Sam was always in the way to get hurt, there was no way to shut him out, nor was it fair, and yet—

And yet—

Of all the boys he was the only one who really liked just her,herself, from before he ever knew she was anybody.

And that made her sad sometimes, because all the others would be thinking about themselves and what it meant to them, and how she was a Special and she was rich and she was going to be Administrator someday, and making her happy was very, very important—

Which was a lot different than Sam, who loved her, she thought, who really truly loved her. And she loved him—what time she was not frustrated that he existed, frustrated that he had to love her thatway, frustrated that he was the focus of all her other frustrations and never, ever, deserved them—

Because she would not sleep with Stef Dietrich if there never had been a Sam. That was still true.

For one thing it would kill Amy. Amy could stand to be beaten by Yvgenia, but not by her—in this. No matter that Amy was still gawky and awkward, and never workedat her appearance . . . until she took after Stef, and then it was almost pathetic. Amy, with eyeshadow. Amy, fussing with her hair, which was loose now, not in braids. After Stef, who was so damned handsome and so sure of it.

While Sam was a little at loose ends, not quite betrayed, but a lot at a loss. And if Stef had antennae for anything, he knew damned well he had better walk a narrow line between Yvgenia and Amy.

And it left her, herself, to watch the tapes and afterward, after Florian and Catlin had showed everyone out, to lie on the couch and stare at the ceiling in a melancholy not even they could relieve.

"Come to bed, sera," Florian said.

Worried about her.

Worried and absolutely devoted.

The ceiling hazed in her sight. If she blinked the tears would run and they would see them.

But the tears spilled anyway, just ran from the outside edge of her eye, so she blinked, it made no difference.

"Sera?" There was profound upset in Florian's voice. He wiped her cheek, the merest feather-touch. And was certainly in pain.

Dammit. Damn him. Damn him for that reaction.

I'm smarter than Ari senior. At least I haven't fouled up things with Sam and Amy. They've fouled it up with each other.

I don't understand CITs. I really truly don't understand CITs.

Azi are so much kinder.

Andthey can't help it.

"Sera." Florian patted her cheek, laid a hand on her shoulder. "Who hurt you?"

Shall we kill him?she imagined the next question. For some reason that struck her hysterically funny. She started laughing, laughing till she had to pull her legs up to save her stomach from aching, and the tears ran; and Florian held her hands and Catlin slid over the back of the couch to kneel by her and hold on to her.

Which only struck her funnier.

"I'm—I'm sorry," she gasped finally, when she could get a breath. Her stomach hurt. And they were so terribly confused. "Oh. I'm sorry." She reached and patted Florian's shoulder, Catlin's leg. "I'm sorry. I'm just tired, that's all. That damn report—"

"The report,sera?" Florian asked.

She caught her breath, flattened out with a little shift around Catlin and let go a long sigh. "I've been working so hard. You have to forgive me. CITs do this kind of thing. Oh, God, the Minder. I hope to God you didn't re-arm the system—"

"No, sera, not yet."

"That's good. Damn. Oh, damn, my sides hurt. That thing—calling the Bureau—would just about cap the whole week, wouldn't it? Blow an assignment, miss the whole damn point. Amy's making a fool of herself and Sam's walking wounded—CIT's are a bitch, you know it? They're a real pain."

"Sam seemed happy," Catlin said.

"I'm glad." For some reason the pain came back behind her heart. And she sighed again and wiped her eyes. "God, I bet that got my makeup. I bet I look a sight."

"You're always beautiful, sera." Florian wiped beneath her left eye with a fingertip, and wiped his hand on his sleeve and wiped the other one. "There."

She smiled then, and laughed silently, without the pain, seeing two worried faces, two human beings who would, in fact, take on anyone she named—never mind their own safety.

"We should get to bed," she said. "I've got to do that paper tomorrow. I've got to do it. I really shouldn't have done this. And I don't even want to get up from here."

"We can carry you."

"God," she said, feeling Florian slip his hands under. "You'll drop me— Florian!"

He stopped.

"I'll walk," she said. And got up, and did, with her arms around both of them, not that she needed the balance.

Just that she needed someone, about then.

Ari bit her lip, perfectly quiet while Justin was reading her report. She sat with her arms on her knees and her hands clenched while he flipped through the printout.

"What is this?" he asked finally, looking up, very serious. "Ari, where did you get this?"

"It's a world I made up. Like Gehenna. You start with those sets. And you tell them, you have to defend this base and you teach your children to defend it. And you give them these tapes. And you get this kind of parameter between A and Y in the matrix; and you get this set between B and Y, and so on; and there's a direct relationship between the change in A and the rest of the shifts—so I did a strict mechanics model, like it was a fluxing structure, but with all these levels—"

"I can see that." Justin's brow furrowed, and he asked apprehensively:

"This isn'tGehenna, is it?"

She shook her head. "No. That's classified. That's my problem. I built this thing with a problem in it, but that's all right, that's to keep it inside a few generations. It's whether all the sets change at the same rate, that's what I'm asking."

"You mean you're inputting the whole colony at once. Nooutsiders."

"They can get there in the fourth generation. Gehenna's did. Page 330."

He flipped through and looked.

"I just want to talk about it," she said. "I just got to thinking about whether some of the problems in the sociology models, you know, aren't because you're trying to do ones that work. So I'm setting up a system with deliberate problems, to see how the problems work. I changed everything. You don't need to worry I'm telling you anything you don't want to know. I just got to thinking about Gehenna and closed systems, and so I made you a model. It's in the appendix. There's a sort of a worm in it. I won't tell you what, but I think you can see it—or I'm not right about it." She bit her lip. "Page 330. One of those paragraphs is Ari's. About values and flux. You tell me a lot of things. I looked through Ari's notes for things that could help you. That's hers. So's the bit on the group sets. It's real stuff. It's stuff out of Archive. I thought you could use it. Fair trade."