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Cyteen: The Betrayal

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CYTEEN is C.J. Cherryh's best novel. It is touching, thoughtful, thought-provoking, challenging, and engaginly complex. Although it is set in the same universe as many of her other novels, general readers who have no prior experience with Cherryh will still find it accessible and enjoyable.

CYTEEN is set in Cherryh's Alliance-Union universe, where humanity has split into three mutually hostile camps -- Earth and its neighboring space stations; Union, based primarily on the planet Cyteen, but with several stations of its own; and Alliance, the newest grouping of the three, comprised almost entirely of space-based merchant ships and a few stations, most importantly at Pell's world (see DOWNBELOW STATION). Humans are not alone in this universe; they have had contact with the alien species forming the Compact (PRIDE OF CHANUR) and others. In this universe, habitable planets are scarce prizes that engender conflict and competition (40,000 in GEHENNA).

One of the most powerful actors in Union is is Reseune, a company that grows people in its labs and indoctrinates them from birth. The "azi" produced by Reseune are graded just like the people in Aldous Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD, from alpha to gamma and beyond, in descending levels of intelligence and creative potential. Reseune also produces "CITs" (citizens) when parents can't be bothered with live births or when "parental replicates" (clones) are desired. Azi are effectively slave laborers, who are psychologically fragile and totally dependent on CIT Supervisors. The justification for producing azi is twofold: First, to survive, Union must increase its population quickly, but natural increase is too slow, immigration from Earth is expensive and virtually impossible (for political reasons), and if there are as yet too few people to bear children, there are also too few people to raise artificially-produced children the old-fashioned way. Second, the initial migration to Union was very selective, resulting in a small and therefor vulnerable gene-pool; azi are mostly produced from a much-larger gene pool obtained from Earth.

Ariane Emory is a brilliant, iron-willed, and manipulative woman and the de facto ruler of Reseune. Far from perfect, Emory has a sadistic streak, is known for abusing her power over young men, and doesn't feel bound by the ethical standards others are held to. Still, she is a woman on a mission, and that mission is to save humanity from itself. Knowing that this is a multi-generational project, she arranges for a "parental replicate" to be produced; a clone who will be raised by others within Reseune in a manner that she hopes will result in a new Ari who thinks and behaves like the old Ari and, most importantly, shares her sense of mission. When the original Ari is murdered, the plan to create a new Ari is set into motion.

Roughly the first half of CYTEEN: THE BETRAYAL follows the original Ari in the last days of her life. The remainder follows Ari II from inception through the first seven years of her life (making the title of the second volume, CYTEEN: THE REBIRTH, a bit odd). The focus of this volume is on psychogenesis -- the making of personal psychology/personality. The stumbling (and often cruel) steps taken by Ari's family in trying to recreate the original are contrasted against the well-defined, regimented steps used to recreate azi Florian and Catlin, Ari's once and future bodyguards and companions. Most readers will, I think, appreciate Cherryh's care in drawing out the difference between becoming oneself through experience and accident vs. indoctrination ("tape") and planned exercises. The joy that Catlin and Florian have in sharing with Ari their specialized knowledge about the world, and the shrewdness with which Ari puts this knowledge to use are highlights of the book.

As always with Cherryh, the narrative is fundamentally about social power and social conflict, about the responsibility of the powerful to those over whom they have power, and about a never-ending struggle between those who put their short-term personal or sectional needs first vs. those whose first value is the long-term common good.

Note that while CYTEEN's primary protagonist is a child, the novel involves a number of adult themes including sexual exploitation of young people. It is definitely not recommended for pre-teens and only provisionally for older children.

This book was especially gripping because the Union and Resune had appeared as a shadowy inhuman enemy in the Earth/Alliance/Union books where the merchanters alliance formed as a defense to being ground between the two powers of Earth and Union. Coming out of a vacumn that was only slightly touched by 'Forty Thousand in Gehenna' the Cyteen books suddenly brought to life an all too human Union, that has found a different way to survival in the stars.

In the betrayal, Ariane Emory's planned clone is brought to life after the assasination of the brilliant but somewhat twisted scientist that had a major part in the eugenics that keeps Union alive. The small Ari is but a minor character in this book, featuring Justin Warrick and his 'brother' the clone Grant. More interestingly, Justin Warrick suffered at the hands of Ariane Emory and you see his own struggle not to let the past poison his life, the child, or the suspicions of others destroy his own too fragile family.

It is a fast change from 'Union the Evil Ghost' to a fast dip into the world of Cyteen and a feeling of kinship with the beleagured people that struggle for survival there. A world not of evil, but like others, a mixture of people trying to survive. Better, this book was rapidly sequaled by parts 2 and 3, the rebirth, and the vindication.