Com,he thought, and spun the chair about flipping switches, opening a channel, hoping it went somewhere. “Hello,” he said to it, to whatever was listening. “Hello—hello.”

“Aaaiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeee!”

“Damn.”he yelled back at it, reaction; and trembled after he had cut it off.

He went on, shaking, trying not to think at all, putting himself through insane routine of instrument checkout, as if he were still on Lindy’s bridge and not managing her pieces in this madness.

Com was connected to something—what, he had no wish to know. Vid gave him starfield, but he had no referent. The computer still worked, at least in areas the board had not lost. The lights still worked; one of the fans did, insanely; their tapes were still there, but the music would break his heart.

He slumped over finally and hid the sight of it from his eyes, suspecting worse ahead. It played games with him. He already knew that they were cruel.

IV

There was the dark, forever the void, and Rafe moved in it, calling sometimes—“Jillan, Paul—” but no one answered.

He should have been cold, he thought; but he had no more sense of the air about him than he had of the floor underfoot.

He turned in different directions, in which he found himself making slower and slower progress, as if he walked against a wind and then found himself facing (he thought) entirely a different direction than before.

“Aaaiiiiiiiiii!”something howled at him, went rushing past with a glow and a wail like nothing he had ever heard, and he scrambled back, braced for an attack.

It went away, just sped off insanely howling into the dark, and he sank down and crouched there in his nakedness, protecting himself in the only way he had, which was simply to hug his knees close and sit and tremble, totally blind except for the view of his own limbs.

“Jillan,” he whispered to the void, terrified of making any noise, any sound that would bring the howler back. His own gold-glowing flesh seemed all too conspicuous, beacon to any predator.

Android.He reminded himself what he was, that he could not be harmed; but his memories insisted he was Rafe Murray. It was all he knew how to be. And he knew now that they were not alone in this dark place.

At last he got himself to his feet and moved again, no longer sure in what direction he had been going, no longer sure but what the darkness concealed traps ahead, or that he was not being stalked behind.

“Jillan,” he called aloud. “Paul.”

Had that been one of the aliens—that passing, mindless wail, or some other victim fleeing God-knew-what ahead?

What is this place?

They were androids. That was what they were, what he had been when he had met his living body—met Rafe. Something had projected him into that green-noded corridor.

But then, he reasoned, Rafe ought to have been a projection sent in turn to him, and he had not been. Viewpoint troubled him, how he had seen through hologrammatic eyes. How that Rafe had thrust his hand into the heart of him and cursed him— Evaporate, why don’t you?

Why not?a small voice said. If I’m an android they can make me what they like. Can’t they?

Maybe they have.

Fake,that other Rafe had said, screaming at him his outrage at self-robbery.

That Rafe Murray had the scars, the bruises, the pain that proved his title to flesh and life.

Where are we? Where are Jillan and Paul? What will they do to us? What have they done already and what am I?

“Jillan,” he screamed with all his force. “Paul! Answer me! Answer me...” with the terror that he would never find them, that they had been taken away to some final disposition, and that it would take him soon, questions all unanswered.

Why did they make us?

He feared truths, that whoever had made him could throw some switch and bring him somewhere else, back where they had made him, back to that place with the machinery and the blood; perhaps would unmake him then. He feared death—that it was still possible for him.

“Aaaaaaaaaaauuuuu!”Another thing passed him, roaring like some machine out of control, and he stopped, stood trembling until it had faded into the distance.

“Stop playing games with me,” he said quietly, trusting of a sudden that something heard him better than it would hear that other, living Rafe. “Do you hear me? I’m not impressed.”

Could it speak any human tongue? Had it learned, was it learning now?

“Damn you,” he said conversationally, shrugged and kept walking, pretending indifference inside and out. But the cold that was not truly in the air had lodged beneath the heart. God,he appealed to the invisible—he was Catholic, at least the Murrays had always been; but God—God was for something that had the attributes of life.

Rafe One had God; he had Them. It. Whatever had made him. It might flip a switch, speak a word, reach into him and turn him inside out for a joke. That was power enough.

“Jillan!” he yelled, angry—He could still feel rage, proving—proving what? he wondered. The contradictions multiplied into howling panic. “Jillan!”

“Rafe?”

He turned, no more anywhere than before, in the all-encompassing dark. He saw a light coming to him, that wafted as if a wind blew it. It was Paul, and Jillan came running in his wake.

“Rafe,” Jillan cried, and met him and hugged him, warm, naked flesh that reminded him flesh existed here— synthetic?he remembered. Paul hugged him too; and his mind went hurtling back to that howling thing in the dark, remembering that here it would be palpable and true, He shivered in their arms.

“There are thingsin here,” Jillan said.

“I know, I know. I heard them,” he said, holding her, being held, until the shivers went away.

“Don’t go off from us again,” Paul said. “Dammit, Rafe, we could get lost in here.”

He broke into laughter, sobbed instead. He touched Jillan’s earnest, offended face and saw her fear. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Dark, “Jillan said. “Just dark. No way out.”

“I met someone,” he said to them, and let the words sink in, watching their faces as the sense of it got through. “I metsomeone.”

“Who?” Jillan asked, carefully, ever so carefully, as if she feared his mind had gone.

“Myself. The body that we saw. There in the corridor. He wants to talk to you.”

“You mean you went back,” said Paul.

“I talked to him.”

“Him?”

“Myself. He’s alive, you understand that? I met him—face to face. Jillan—” he said, for she began to turn to Paul. “Jillan—we’re not—not the real ones. They’ve made us. The memories, our bodies—We’re not real.”

There was devastated silence.

“If we could get back,” said Paul.

“It’s not a question of getting back,” Rafe said, catching at Paul’s arm. “Paul, we’re constructs.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

Rafe laughed, a sickly, sorrowful mirth. “Yes,” he said. “Out of his. The way you came out of Paul’s; and Jillan’s out of her. Constructs, hear? Androids. Robots. Our senses—aren’t reliable. We got only what the ones who made us want. God knows where we really are.”

“Stop, it!” Jillan cried, shaking at his arms. “Rafe, stop it, you hear me?”

He seized her and hugged her close, felt her trembling—Could an android grieve? But it was Jillan’s grief, Jillan’s terror. His sister’s. Paul’s. It was unbearable, this pain; and like the other it did not look to stop.

“Rafe,” Paul said, and pulling him away into his arms, pressed his head against his shoulder and tried to soothe him as if he had gone stark mad. There was the smell of their flesh, cool and human in this sterility; the touch of their hands; the texture of their hair—Real, his senses told him. Someone was playing with their minds; that was the answer. That’s why Rafe’s solid to me and I’m not that way to him.