Maria struggled to imagine it: No communications. Cut off from reality, indefinitely. A few "Solipsist Nation" Copies might relish the prospect -- but most of them had too little money to be the targets of an elaborate scam. And even if Durham's richest, most paranoid clients seriously believed that the world was on the verge of turning against them . . . what if things went so badly wrong, outside, that links were never restored? The humans guarding the sanctuary could die out -- or just walk away. How could any but the most radically separatist of Copies face the risk of being stranded inside a hidden computer, buried in the middle of a desert somewhere, with no means of discovering for themselves when civilization was worth rejoining -- and no means of initiating contact in any case?

Radioisotope power sources could run for thousands of years; multiply redundant hardware of the highest standard could last almost as long, in theory. All these Copies would have, to remember reality by, would be the information they'd brought in with them at the start. If it turned into a one-way trip, they'd be like interstellar colonists, carrying a snapshot of Earth culture off into the void.

Except that interstellar colonists would merely face a growing radio time lag, not absolute silence. And whatever they were leaving behind, at least they'd have something to look forward to: a new world to explore.

A new world -- and the possibility of new life.

So what better cure could there be for claustrophobia than the promise of dragging an entire planet into the refuge, seeded with the potential for developing its own exotic life?

Maria didn't know whether to be outraged or impressed. If she was right, she had to admire Durham's sheer audacity. When he had asked for a package of results which would persuade "the skeptics" about the prospects for an Autoverse biosphere, he hadn't been thinking of academics in the artificial life scene. He'd wanted to convince his clients that, even in total isolation, they'd have everything reality could ever offer the human race -- including a kind of "space exploration," complete with the chance of alien contact. And these would be genuine aliens; not the stylish designer creatures from VR games, constructs of nothing but the human psyche; not the slick, unconvincing biomorphs of the high-level phenotype-selection models, the Darwinian equivalent of Platonic ideals. Life which had come the whole tortuous way, molecule by molecule, just like the real thing. Or, almost the whole way; with a biogenesis still poorly understood, Durham had had enough sense to start with "hand-made" microbes -- otherwise his clients might never have believed that the planet would bear life at all.

Maria explained the idea, tentatively. "He'd have to have convinced these Copies that running the Autoverse is much faster than modeling real biochemistry -- which it is -- without being too specific about the actual figures. And I still think it's a crazy risk to take; anyone could easily find out the truth."

Hayden thought it over. "Would it matter if they did? If the point of this world is mainly psychological -- a place to "escape to" if the worst happens, and reality becomes permanently inaccessible -- then it wouldn't matter how slowly it ran. Once they'd given up hope of reestablishing contact, slowdown would become irrelevant."

"Yes, but there's slow -- and there's physically impossible. Sure, they could take in a crude sketch of the planet -- which is what Durham's asked me to provide -- but they wouldn't have a fraction of the memory needed to bring it to life. And even if they found a way around that, it could take a billion years of Autoverse time before the seed organism turned into anything more exciting than blue-green algae. Multiply that by a slow-down of a trillion . . . I think you get the picture."

"Flat batteries?"

"Flat universe."

Hayden said, "Still . . . if they don't want to think too seriously about the prospect of ending up permanently trapped, they might not want to look too closely at any of this. Thanks to you, Durham will have a thick pile of impressive technical details that he can wave in their faces, convincing enough to take the edge off their fear of cabin fever. Maybe that's all they want. The only part that matters, if everything goes smoothly, is the conventional VR -- good enough to keep them amused for a couple of real-time centuries -- and that checks out perfectly."

Maria thought this sounded too glib by far, but she let it pass. "What about the hardware? How does that check out?"

"It doesn't. There'll never be any hardware. Durham will vanish long before he has to produce it."

"Vanish with what? Money handed over with no questions asked -- no safeguards, no guarantees?"

Hayden smiled knowingly. "Money handed over, mostly, for legitimate purposes. He's commissioned a VR city. He's commissioned an Autoverse planet. He's entitled to take a percentage of the fees -- there's no crime in that, so long as it's disclosed. For the first few months, everything he does will be scrupulously honest. Then at some point, he'll ask his backers to pay for a consultants' report -- say, a study of suitably robust hardware configurations. Tenders will be called for. Some of them will be genuine -- but the most attractive ones will be forged. Later, Durham will claim to have received the report, the "consultants" will be paid . . . and he'll never be seen again."

Maria said, "You're guessing. You have no idea what his plans are."

"We don't know the specifics -- but it will be something along those lines."

Maria slumped back in her chair. "So, what now? What do I do? Call Durham and tell him the whole thing's off?"

"Absolutely not! Keep working as if nothing had happened -- but try to make contact with him more often. Find excuses to talk to him. See if you can gain his trust. See if you can get him to talk about his work. His clients. The refuge."

Maria was indignant. "I don't remember volunteering to be your informant."

Hayden said coolly, "It's up to you, but if you're not willing to cooperate, that makes our job very difficult . . ."

"There's a difference between cooperation and playing unpaid spy!"

Hayden almost smiled. "If you're worried about money, you'll have a far better chance of being paid if you help us to convict Durham."

"Why? What am I meant to do -- try suing him after he's already gone bankrupt repaying the people he's cheated?"

"You won't have to sue him. The court is almost certain to award you compensation as one of the victims -- especially if you've helped bring the case to trial. There's a fund, revenue from fines. It doesn't matter whether Durham can pay you himself."

Maria digested that. The truth was, it still stank. What she wanted to do was cut her losses and walk away from the whole mess. Pretend it had never happened.

And then what? Go crawling back to Aden for money? There were still no jobs around; she couldn't afford to write off three months' work. A few thousand dollars wouldn't get Francesca scanned -- but the lack of it could force her to sell the house sooner than she wanted to.

She said, "What if I make him suspicious? If I suddenly start asking all these questions . . ."

"Just keep it natural. Anyone in your position would be curious; it's a strange job he's given you -- he must expect questions. And I know you went along with what he told you at the start, but that doesn't mean you can't have given it more thought and decided that there are a few things that still puzzle you."

Maria said, "All right, I'll do it." Had she ever had a choice? "But don't expect him to tell me the truth. He's already lied to me; he's not going to change his story now."