C. Cherryh - Cyteen

He put the helm over, still blind except for the fleeting glimpse the searchlight had shown him of the wooded ground on the far side. He could run aground. He dared not turn the lights on.

Then he saw the shadow of the banks, tall trees black against the night sky on either side of an open space of starlit water.

He drove for it; and the boat shuddered and jolted to impact along the keel, scrape of sand and a shock that threw him violently as the boat slewed out of control.

He caught himself against the dash then, saw a black wall in front of him and swerved with everything the boat had.

Something banged against the bow and scraped portside. Snag. Sandbar and snag. He heard it pass aft, saw the clear water ahead of him and hoped to God it was the Kennicutt he was in after that sort-out and not the Volga. He could not tell. It looked the same as the other, just black water, glancing with starlight.

He risked the chart-light for a second to sneak a look at the compass. Bearing northeast. The Volga could bend that much, but he thought it had to be the Kennicutt. The plane had not come back. It was even possible that the maneuver had confused it, and he was not, God knew, running with the Locator beacon on. Ari's power was enough to get Cyteen Station in on the hunt, and that plane's beacon could guide the geosynchronous surveillance satellites to a good fix, but so far as he knew there was no strike capacity on the Locators, and he could still, he hoped, outrun any intercept from Moreyville or further down the Volga.

First lights after that, Justin had said. Two, maybe three hours further on, up a river that had no further development on its banks. Krugers' Station was a mining outpost, largely automated, virtually all related to each other: what azi they brought in all got their CIT papers within the year, and a share of Kruger Mines on top of it—a dream of an assignment, the kind of place azi whispered among themselves did exist, if one were very, very good—

And if one's Contract was affordable.

Nothing like that existed for a seventeen-year-old azi with an X on his number, and all the political sense a boy could gain, living in Reseune and in the House, advised him that Justin had done something for his sake desperate beyond all reason—

Advised him that the Krugers might well have welcomed a Warrick with an azi he had a valid Contract for, but that there were good reasons they might not welcome that azi by himself.

God knew.

He was, the more he had time to think about it, a liability on all accounts, except for what he knew about Reseune, Ari, and Warrick business, which people might insist he give up; and he had had no instructions on that. He was Alpha, but he was young and he was azi, and all that he had learned only told him that his responses were conditioned, his knowledge limited, his reasoning potentially flawed– (Never worry about your tapes, Jordan had told him gently. If you ever think you're in trouble, come to me and tell me what you think and what you feel and I'll find the answer for you: remember I've got your charts. Everything's all right—)

He had been seven then. He had cried in Jordan's arms, which had embarrassed him, but Jordan had patted him on the back and hugged him the way he hugged Justin, called him his other son and assured him even born-men made mistakes and felt confused.

Which had made him feel better and worse, to know that born-men had evolved out of old Earth by trial and error, and that when Ari had decided he should exist, she had done something of the same thing. Trial and error. Which was all the X on his number meant to a seven-year-old.

He had not understood then that it meant Jordan could not deliver what he promised, or that his life was Reseune's and not Jordan's. He had clutched that 'my other son' to him like daylight and breath, a whole new horizon of being.

Then he had grown enough, when he and Justin were twelve and Justin discovered girls, to know that sex made things very different.

"Why?" he had asked Jordan; and Jordan had walked him into the kitchen, his arm about his shoulders while he explained that an Alpha was always mutating the instructions the tapes gave him, that he was very bright, and that his body was developing and that he really should go to the azi who specialized in that.

"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 he was 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 I was like them.

I'm supposed to be smarter. I'm supposed 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't I 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 have taken 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?