“You’ll manage.” She rose, walked about the office, to Itavvy’s extreme nervousness, the while she looked at the manuals on the counter by the comp unit. She looked up a number, memorised it, turned and smiled faintly. “I’ll take the others as fast as you can train them. Those tangled contracts . . . if you’ll check tomorrow, you’ll find the matter cleared and the contracts saleable. I trust you can quietly transfer azi from there to here as spaces become available.”
“Sera—”
“The children, ser Itavvy. However do you substitute for—human contact? Do tapes supply it all?”
Itavvy wiped at his lips. “At every minute stage of development . . . deepstudy tapes, yes, sera. The number of individuals, the economics . . . it would be virtually impossible for a private individual to have the time, the access to thousands of programs developed over centuries to accomplish this—”
“Eighteen years to maturity. No way to speed that process, is there?”
“For some purposes—they leave before eighteen.”
“Majat azi.”
“Yes.”
“And moving them out without programming—as they are—”
“Chaos. Severe personality derangements.”
She said nothing to that, only looked at him, at Jim, back again. “And more than the two thousand forty-eight . . . how long does it take for training? On what scale can it be done?”
“Minimally . . a few days.” Itavvy shuffled the papers spread across his desk, an action which gave him excuse to look elsewhere. “All channels could be turned to the same tapestudy—easier than doing it otherwise. But the legalities—the questions that would be raised on this world—they’d have to be moved, shipped, and ISPAK—”
“You know, ser Itavvy, that your loyalty is to ITAK. But ITAK is a Kontrin creation. You are aware then of a—higher morality. If I were to give you a certain—favour, if I were to ask your-silence in return for that, and certain further co-operations, you would realise that this was not disloyalty to ITAK, but loyalty to the source of ITAK’s very license to function.”
The beta wiped at his face and nodded, the papers forgotten, his eyes fever-bright. He looked at her now. There was no possibility of divided attention.
“I’m creating an establishment,” she said very softly, “a permanent Kontrin presence, do you see? And such an establishment needs personnel. When this process is complete, when the training is accomplished as I wish, then I shall still need reliable personnel at other levels.”
“Yes, sera,” he breathed.
“The great estates, you see, these powers with their massed forces of azi—this thing which you so earnestly insist has no organisation—could be handled without bloodshed, by superior force. Peace would come to Istra. You see what a cause you serve. A solution, a solution, ser, which would well serve ITAK. You realise that I have power to license, being in fact the total Kontrin presence: I can authorise export on the levels you need. I’m prepared to do so, to rescue this whole operation, if I receive the necessary co-operation from certain key individuals.”
The man was trembling, visibly. He could not control his hands. “I am not, then, to contact my superiors.”
She shook her head slowly. “Not if you plan to enjoy your life, ser. I am extremely cautious about security.”
“You have my utmost co-operation.”
She smiled bleakly, having found again the measure of betas. “Indeed, ser, thank you. Now, there’s an old farm on B-branch, just outside the city, registered to a new owner, one ser Isan Tel. You’ll manage to find some azi of managerial function, the best: its housecomp has instructions for them. Can you find such azi?”
Itavvy nodded.
“Excellent. All you can spare of them, and all of the guard-azi but two hundred males that I want transferred to my own estate . . . go to the establishment of Isan Tel. Provisioned and equipped. Can you do it?”
“We—can, yes.”
She shook her hears. “No plural. You. You will tend every detail personally. The rumour, if it escapes, will tell me precisely who let it escape; and if there is fault in the training-I need not say how I would react to that, ser. You would be quite, quite dead. On the other hand, you can become a very wealthy man . . . wealthy and secure. In addition to the other contracts, I want half a dozen domestics to my address; and ser Tel’s estate will need a good thirty to care for the guard-azi. Possible?”