“I … thought about that. Aeneas wasn’t only worried about my father, you know. He also had a growing obsession about … Beta.” Ritu spat the word in distaste. “Aeneas spent a fortune on insurance and security, trying to plug Beta’s access to UK technologies and material. I guess somehow along the way he must have finally discovered the truth about my other half.” She jerked her head toward the nearby guard-golem.

“It would have galled Aeneas to realize that Beta knew everything that I know about the company. He couldn’t even prosecute or take revenge without hurting me … the same Ritu Maharal he always treated like a daughter. Nor could he talk to me about the problem. That would only warn Beta, so I was kept out of the loop.”

“Even worse,” I added, “Kaolin would worry about the possibility that Beta and Yosil Maharal had forged an alliance.”

Ritu’s head jerked. “The very idea would drive Aeneas crazy.”

“Then his golem shot us on the highway because he thought you were Beta,” I concluded. “You were wearing that ditto-disguise. And all this time I thought he had it in for me! But then, who shot a missile at my house and—”

A far-traveling bullet came zinging by, interrupting as it ricocheted off the ceiling. Ritu winced. For the fourth or fifth time, she tried crouching closer to me. Amid this fracas, the most natural thing would be for us to hold each other. But I edged back, keeping distant, since I might be carrying some foul virus.

The alternative was to keep talking. I tilted my head to fix contact with her eyes.

“What about your father?” I demanded. “What was he doing down here that frightened Kaolin? Why steal golems and arms from the government. And germ warfare agents, for God’s sake!

“Ritu, what is still going on here, days after he died?”

My intensity made her draw back. Ritu clamped both hands against her head. Her voice cracked.

“I don’t know about any of that!”

Someone else joined in at that point.

“Leave her alone, Morris. You’re badgering the wrong me.”

It was the wounded battle-golem assigned to guard us, so stolid till now that we had been sheltering behind it like a stone. The square-jawed face looked down, regarding me with barely any expression. Still, I sensed the familiar contempt of my longtime foe. Even knowing, at last, that it was born of neurotic overcompensation didn’t help much. I still hated the guy.

Beta spoke in a deep-gravelly voice, but with the same snide tone.

“As you suspect, we did have an arrangement, Yosil and I. He slipped me a limitless supply of specialty golem blanks, straight from Research, with all sorts of great features like pixelated skin that can change color patterns on command.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. Yosil helped ship them directly into Ritu’s supply fridge while I worked from inside, to ensure she never examined her blanks closely. Together, we made it seem that a number of her dittos were doing exactly what she wanted them to do, minimizing her worries and suspicions. It was a big help in my operations and worked well … till just a short time ago.”

“And what did Maharal get in return?”

“I taught him the fine art of evasion! How to dodge and weave and evade the World Eye. My underworld contacts were a big help. It became sort of a father-and-son pastime.” The ditto winked at Ritu, who shuddered and turned away, so Beta turned the knowing smile toward me.

“I suspect Dad always wanted a boy,” he said.

Sibling cruelty can be disgusting. So is destructive self-hatred. This lay somewhere viciously in between.

“I have to admit,” Beta went on, “that she put up quite a fight the last few weeks. Ever since learning about me, she stopped imprinting and killed every Beta that approached her for inloading. I was running out of delay-release versions!”

“The decaying ditto that I found in a Dumpster behind the house—”

“Bang.” Beta used a finger to mime a pistol firing. “Ritu terminated it. Then she grabbed Dad’s makeup kit in the house and disguised herself to look just like that gray, hoping the pretense would let her come south with you and …” Beta shook his head. “Well, I have to admit her forcefulness surprised me. I was only able to interfere a little, from inside. Good for you, Alpha!”

“How touching,” I answered for Ritu, who looked too angry for speech. “So Father liked you best. Is that why you’re fighting your way into good old Dad’s sanctuary right now?”

Before Beta could answer, something clicked in my thoughts.

“The lab isn’t dormant, guarded by leftover robot sentries. Somebody’s inside, right now, planning to use stolen germ weapons in some grisly scheme. Is it Yosil’s murderer? Are you breaking in to avenge your father?”

Beta paused, then acknowledged, “In a manner of speaking, Morris. But as long as buried truths are coming out, you might as well know” — he nodded toward Ritu — “that we have more in common with our father than you’d ever imagine.”

Ritu blinked, looking directly at the golem for the first time. “You mean—”

“I mean that a genius like his could never be contained within a single personality, or confined to one human brain. In Yosil, the divisions were less explicit. Still—”

I let out a grunt of realization, recalling some bad movied plots Ritu and I’d discussed during our desert trek. How many focused on the same old nightmare, couched in contemporary terms — the fear of being conquered by your own creation, by your own darker half? In Ritu, technology brought an inner nightmare to life, amplifying an irksome personality trait into a fully reified arch criminal.

How much further might the same syndrome go, if unleashed by a virtuoso?

“Then Maharal—”

Before I could finish, a shrill whistle echoed down the corridor. Beta grunted with satisfaction. “It’s about time!” The big war-ditto stood up awkwardly, favoring a gravely wounded left side, motioning for Ritu and me to follow. “The way is clear ahead.”

When Ritu shivered, the golem soothed.

“Picture it as a family reunion. Let’s go see what Father has become.”

There weren’t any glowbulbs in the crude staircase and I had no way to judge the time spent dragging up one rough step then another, hauled along by a single good arm and a half-functional leg, leaving bits of me crumbling along the way. The ascent seemed measureless except for rhythmic throbs each time my battered form heaved upward. I counted one hundred and forty of these pulses. A hundred and forty opportunities to relax into darkness forever — till the utter blackness around me started to give way.

Attenuated light slid down the stairs, tentatively liquid in quality, actually cheering me a bit. It’s hard to feel completely hopeless during that special moment when you first catch sight of dawn.

It was daybreak, I soon verified, pouring through a rough cut in the far wall of a modest room that was nearly filled by a bulky machine. Crawling nearer, I saw a funnel-track slanting toward the narrow window. A rugged frame held more than a dozen slender tubes bearing dorsal and pectoral fins, as if to maneuver with agility through water or air.

My good eye glimpsed ominous cutlass-shaped symbols marking the sleek forward tips; still realization came slowly.

Missiles, I thought, fighting expiration fatigue. Stacked in an automatic launching system.

And … I further noted when a row of electronic displays came alight …

And the machinery just turned on.