Cherryh, C J - Alliance-Union 08 (75 page)

Brains and sex fight each other to control your life, and thank God brains get a head start before sex comes along. Sex is when you're the most vulnerable you'll ever be. Brains is when you're least. Brains have to win out, that's all, so they can make a safe time for sex to happen. Remember that.

Now, don't mistake: it's not bad to be vulnerable sometimes, but it's stupid to walk around that way: there are too many people just waiting for that chance. It's stupid to miss sex altogether for fear someone will take advantage of you—use the brain, sweet, and find somebody and some place and some time safe. Brains are nature's way of making sure you live long enough to spawn—if you were a frog. But you're better than a frog. So plan to live longer.

And for God's sake, don't ever use sex to get your own way where brains won't work. That's the dumbest thing in the world to do, because then you're operating without brains at all, aren't you? That's as plain as I can make it.

I want you to come back to this more than once, till you've understood what I'm saying.

If I could have learned this one thing early enough, I'd have been happier.

Good luck, Ari. I hope to hell you learn this part.

She thought about that a long time into the night, into a very lonely night, because Nelly was gone and Florian and Catlin were away; and she felt awful the next morning.

Then she found out why she felt awful and why her gut hurt, and mostly she just wanted to kill something. But she found the stuff in the bathroom, all right, read the instructions and got it all figured out: Dr. Wojkowski had given her a booklet with the package, which was very plain and echoed a lot of things the tape had said.

It was more biology than she wanted in one week, dammit. And she was embarrassed and mad when the Minder said uncle Denys was waiting breakfast.

"I'll get there when I can," she yelled at it.

And took her pill and got herself in order and went out to breakfast.

"Are you all right?" Denys asked.

She glared at him, figuring he damn well knew, everybody else did. "I'm just fine," she said, and ate without another word while he read his morning reports.

Florian and Catlin came home late, sore and tired and with bandages on Catlin's hand; and full of stories, what the Exercise had been, how Catlin had gotten her hand cut getting a piece of metal fixed for a trap, but it had worked, and they had survived all the way through the course. Which youngers didn't do.

She wished she had something better than losing Nelly to tell them. And she wasn't about to tell them why she was sulking in her bedroom and feeling rotten.

Certainly not Florian, anyhow. But she got Catlin apart from Florian and told Catlin what the trouble was. Catlin listened and made a face and said well, it happened: if you were on an Operation you could take stuff so it came early or later.

Never take azi-pills, maman had said, but it sure sounded attractive.

It was worth asking Dr. Wojkowski about. Damned if she was going to ask Dr. Ivanov.

It was also a damned nasty come-down from all the
interesting
stuff about sex. Not fair, she thought. Not fair.

Just when her friends were getting home.

And one of them was a boy, and azi, and she was his Super, which meant she had to be responsible.

Dammit.

Maman had had Ollie. She thought about Ollie a lot, when she thought about boys. Ollie was administrator of RESEUNESPACE, doing maman's job. But Ollie never wrote. And she figured he would if he wanted to. Or maman had never gotten the letters. Or never wanted them.

That hurt too much to think about. She knew what she thought: maman had never gotten them. Giraud had stopped them. And Giraud would stop any letters from getting to Ollie.

So she tried not to think about that part. Just Ollie, how nice he had been, how he had always been so patient and understood maman; and how maman could be down, and Ollie would come up and put his hand on her shoulder, and maman felt better, that was all.

There was Sam. Sam was going to be big and strong as Ollie. But Sam was one of those people Ari senior was talking about that liked you without you liking them that way.

She felt good about having figured that out before she ever heard it from Ari senior, like it proved her predecessor was giving her good advice.

She felt about the same about Tommy: Tommy was all right to work with, but he was stubborn, he was all right being Amy's cousin, and number two behind Amy; and that meant doing anything with Tommy was going to mess up things with Amy. That part of the first Ari's advice made that make sense, too: complications.

There were older boys—Mika Carnath-Edwards, Will Morley, Stef Dietrich, who were worth thinking about. But Mika was a lot older, that was no good; Will was just dull; and Stef was Yvgenia Wojkowski's, who was his age.

She sighed, and kept circling back to the same thought, and watching Florian when Florian wasn't watching her.

Florian was smarter and more fun than any of them. Even Sam.

Florian was so damned nice-looking, not baby-faced like Tommy: not clumsy like Sam. She found herself just watching him move, just staring at the way his jaw was, or his arms or—

Whatever.

He had a figure the others didn't, that was what, because he worked so hard. He could move the way they couldn't, because he had muscle Tommy didn't and he was Limber like Sam wasn't. And he had long lashes and dark eyes and a nice mouth and a jawline with nothing of baby about it.

He was also Catlin's partner. He was part of two, and they had been together forever, and they depended on each other in ways that had to do with things that could get you killed, if that partnership got messed up.

That was more serious than any hurt feelings. And they trusted her and depended on her in ways nobody else ever would, as long as she lived.

So she played Ari senior's advice over and over when she was alone in her room, silent, because of the Security monitoring, and told herself there had to be somebody safe, somewhere, somebody she couldn't hurt or who wouldn't mess things up.

Sex wasn't fun, she decided, it was a damned complicated mess, it gave you cramps and it tangled things up and made grown-ups not trust each other. And if you really fouled up you got pregnant or you got your best friends mad at each other.

No fair at all.

Spring happened. The eleventh. And the filly was getting restless in her tank, a knot of legs and body, for a long time now too big for the lens to see all of. Florian loved her, loved her the moment she began to look like a horse and sera had brought him to the lab and let him look into the tank. And when it came to birthing her, which sera said felt like
she
had been pregnant all these months, she had to work so hard for her, and do all that paperwork—Florian knew who was the best person down in AG to help out with that, and who was strong enough to handle the filly and keep her from hurting herself, and who knew what to do.

He told sera, and sera told the staff in the AG lab, taking his advice right off. So up came Andy, a very pleased Andy, who shyly shook sera's hand and said in his quiet way, thank you, sera; because Andy loved Horse and all Horse's kind, and sera loved them in spite of the fact Horse had broken sera's arm . . . which was probably the worst moment of Andy's whole life.

So it was a very, very happy Andy who came up to the AG lab, and knew it was true what Florian had come down to the barns to tell him, that sera wasn't put out with Horse, sera loved him too, and sera wanted more of his kind, sera was working to birth another female, and was going to ride her, and show everybody what Horse and his kind could do.

"Sera," Andy said, bowing low.

"Florian says you're the best there is," sera said, and Andy knew then, Florian was sure, that his m'sera was the finest, the best, the wisest m'sera in all Reseune. And maybe farther.

"I don't know," Andy said, "sera. But I'll sure take care of her the best I can."

So the labor started in the evening, and they just watched, watched while the foal slid down the chute into the bed of fiber; and watched while the AG techs got the cord; and Andy took sponges and towels and dried the filly all over and got her up on her wobbly legs.

Sera got to touch her then, for the first time. Sera patted her and helped dry her, and Florian helped, until Andy said that was enough and picked the filly up—Andy was very strong, and he said there was no way any truck was going to take the filly down to the barn, he could carry her.

"I want to see her," sera said.

"We can walk down," Florian said, and looked at Catlin, who stood by all this, taking it in—he knew how Catlin thought—but a great deal bewildered by all the fuss, by babies, and by sera's worry over the filly—

It was healthy, it was all right: he could read Catlin's mind that well; so why was sera worried? Babies happened. They were supposed to be studying. They had an Exercise coming up.

"I'll go," he said to Catlin. "Sera and I will be back in about an hour."

"All right," Catlin said. Because Catlin had a lot of study to do. Because if he did that, Catlin was the one who was going to save them, he knew he was going to foul up, unless Catlin could brief him fast and accurately.

But for sera, for the filly, too, who was not at fault—no animal could choose its time to be born—he had not the least hesitation: training was training, and sera was—everything.

So Andy carried the filly down the hill to the horse barn, and Florian walked with sera, happy the way she was,
because
she was, and because now there were three horses in the world, instead of two.

Andy set the little filly down in a warm stall, and got the formula they had ready and warm, and let sera give it to the baby, which stood on shaky legs and butted with her nose as if that could get more milk faster. Sera laughed and backed up, and the filly wobbled after. "Stand still, sera," Andy called out. "Just hold it."

Sera laughed, and held on.

Down the way, in her stall, the Mare called out, leaning over the rail.

"I think she smells the baby," sera said. "That could be trouble. Or she might take up with her. I don't know."

"I don't either," Andy said.

"There being just three," sera said, "everything's like that, isn't it? The books don't say about a horse who never saw but one other horse in the world."

"And she's pregnant," Andy said in his quiet way, shy around a CIT, "and she's got milk already. And animals are like CITs, sera, they have their own ways, it's not all one psychset, and there isn't any tape for
them."

Sera looked at him, not mad, just like she was a little surprised at all that out of Andy. But it was true, Florian knew it. One pig was trouble and its birthsisters weren't. It just depended on a lot of things, and when babies happened the way they did with pigs, with a boar and a sow, you were dealing with scrambled genesets and didn't know what you had—like CITs, too.

At least, with the filly, it was likely to be a lot like its genesister the Mare, which meant she was going to be easy to handle.

Bang! on the rails from down the row. The Mare called out, loud. And the azi who were standing in the barn to watch the new baby went running to get the Mare.

"This is all complicated," sera said, worried.

"Animals are like that," Andy said. "She's all right. It would be good if she would accept the baby. Animals know a lot. Some things they seem to be born knowing."

"Instinct," sera said.
"You
should cut a tape. I bet you know more than some of the damn books."

Andy grinned and laughed, embarrassed. "I'm a Gamma, sera, not like Florian. I'm just a Gamma." As one of the other AG-techs came running down to say the Mare was fine, they were going to move her to the little barn and get her out of here.

"No, do that, but pass her by here," Andy said. "But hold on to her. Let's see what she does. Sera, if she makes trouble, you better be ready to climb up over those rails to the side there and get into the other stall. Florian and I can hold the baby, and the boys can hold the Mare, but we sure don't want you to break another arm."

"I can help hold her."

"Please, sera. We don't know what will happen. Just be ready to move."

"He's the best," Florian said. "Andy's always out here; the Supers are always in the offices. Andy's birthed most everything there is. You should do what he says, sera."

"I'll move," sera said, which was something, from sera. But she
liked
Andy, and she realized right off that Andy had good sense, that was the way sera was. So she stood there watching anxiously as the techs led the Mare past, two of them, each with a lead on her.

The Mare pulled and they let her stop and put her head over the stall door. She snuffed the air and made a strange, interested sound.

The baby pricked up her ears, and stood there with her nose working hard too.

"Put the Mare in the next stall," Andy told the techs holding the Mare. "Let's just watch this awhile."

That was the way Andy worked. Sometimes he didn't know. Sometimes no one knew because no one in the world had ever tried it. But Andy didn't let his animals get hurt and he had a way of figuring what they were going to do even if Andy had never read a book in his life.

"She's
talking
to her," sera said, "that's what she's doing."

"They sure teach something," Andy said. "Animals sort of do tape on each other."

"They're a herd animal," sera said. "It's got to be
everything
to do with how they act. They want to be together, I think."

"Well, the little girl will fix on people," Andy said. "They're that way, when they're born from the tank. But the Mare could help this little horse. She's getting milk, already. And milk from a healthy animal is a lot healthier than formula. I'm just worried about how she'll act when hers comes."

"Politics," sera said. "It's always politics, isn't it?" Sera was amused, and watched as the Mare put her head over the rail of the next stall. "Look at her. Oh, she wants over here."